Walter Addiego

This isn’t the first film to try to deal with the horrors of the Holocaust from a child’s perspective, but it’s tricky material, and this one succeeds because it is direct and forthright.

The Eye of the Storm is performed with zest by a fine cast and offers some nicely biting moments but, in the end, falls short of its large ambitions.

Rao avoids high drama, and while there is humor, the film's tone is one of melancholy.

The jokes run hot, cold and tepid.

Richly inventive.

Nostalgia for the groves of academe weighs heavily on Liberal Arts, which both exploits and undermines romanticized memories of campus life.

Some delightful surprises, but the sort of heavy-metal, high-definition sci-fi look that dominates the proceedings, plus the relentless pace and endless morphing, are somewhat tiring.

City of Angels will probably work better for some people than it did for a crusty fellow like me. I feel guilty that I don't like this movie more. I think the devil got the better of me.

Congratulations to director Mick Jackson and writers Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray for liberating themselves from the tedious demands of believability.

Has an impressive cast and captures some of that era's fuzzy rebelliousness and humanism, but taken on its own the picture is finally thin stuff.

Requires us to repress any thoughts about stale material and keep Caine's heartfelt performance front and center.

By casting model-turned-actress (and his now-estranged wife) Milla Jovovich as the Maid of Orleans, Besson gives us an over-amped spectacle with an annoying, sometimes ridiculous cipher at its heart.

The characters are mostly likable, and despite some comic sallies the film takes a compassionate stance toward them. But it feels like a glossy, overly neat take on what should be an explosive topic.

The author calls the movie "perfect" - reassurance that the director hasn't tried to pull any fast ones.

The movie is probably best appreciated by devotees of the cult director, who has made some good films and some interesting ones (and some that are both): "King of New York," "Bad Lieutenant," "The Addiction." "4:44" isn't quite in that company.

This is highly skilled filmmaking, but the movie is not for everybody — the relationship involves dominance and submission, sexual games played at a high pitch. This material falls short of pornographic, but still packs plenty of erotic punch.

The standard noir trappings are here: the femme fatale, double-crossing, fatalism, broken dreams, innocence betrayed and the rest of it. But Stone pushes it all so far and so relentlessly that it becomes absurdist comedy.

Don’t expect profundities on the ethics of cloning. And don’t expect Oscar-worthy acting. Senese’s accomplishment — and it’s done with a certain restraint — is to replicate the look and feel of ’70s horror films, which had become more assaultive on audience sensibilities than their predecessors, breaking taboos and borrowing techniques from exploitation films.

Lane, with his extensive stage experience, is acerbic, profoundly cynical and endlessly disgruntled. As the foil, Evans strike the right comic nice-guy note; he has fun with the character's sweetness and refuses to degrade him.

At some point, the movie itself crosses the line, from a modestly thoughtful attempt to extrapolate a drama from real and urgent events to a generic action piece with predictable good and bad guys and pat, civics-book morals.

Earnest and kid-friendly -- also simplistic and dramatically creaky.

As an indulgence in creative verbal abuse, the film offers some nasty fun.

The film has its flaws, but after watching its catalog of shifty hedge fund types, Kardashians, plastic surgery addicts, bling-laden rappers and children of Hollywood royalty, you can’t help but agree.

Cher is an inspired bit of casting, while the talented Dench is underused. Smith seems to be going through the motions as the fatuous and deluded aristocrat, while Tomlin has a ball as Georgie. But what really stays with you is the work by Plowright - she is a beacon of good sense (both as actor and character) and plucky as you please.

The Phantom is a spiritless affair likely to vanish quickly from first-run screens.

There’s plenty here to tickle the kids, and that’s what counts.

Tonal inconsistency is the iceberg that sinks The Pretty One. The film is a mashup of wacky comedy, romance and sorrowful elements that would tax a more seasoned filmmaker than first-time writer-director Jenée LaMarque.

Too raw for kids and too simplistic for adults.