William Arnold

In some ways, De Niro does a competent job in his second directorial effort but his characterizations are clumsy, and his members of the Power Elite always seem less real people than stick figures in a propaganda movie.

The characters are uniformly repulsive, the cliche-ridden script builds no real tension or psychological interest, and the bottom line is that Lee's innovative but ultimately tedious and even ludicrous MTV-style visuals add absolutely nothing to the story dynamics.

It never generates much interest in its story or affection for its characters, and it's simply not half as funny as it needs to be.

The cruel simplicity of the atrocity is made needlessly chaotic by artless camerawork that swishes rapidly back and forth across the action, to the accompaniment of a syrupy soundtrack.

It's a movie brimming with good intentions, solid production values and searing performances. However, it never quite clicks into place with any real satisfaction.

It's in English, but the actors speak it with tortuous accents that are a constant struggle to understand and make them seem like foreigners in their own land. Spanish with English subtitles would have served this story much, much better.

Lacks the driving unity that gave "Gettysburg" its focus, dramatic arc, climax and catharsis.

When the film suddenly turns into "Rocky" -- as all boxing films of the past two decades invariably do -- it invalidates its theme.

There's also a terrific performance from Collette, who, in only a handful of scenes, wonderfully communicates the unusual resourcefulness of a demented woman who has spent her life assuming a succession of physical handicaps as a survival technique.

Sadly, it's a disappointment. Nicole Kidman could hardly be more enchanting in the lead, but the script is one of writer-director Nora Ephron's weakest.

Without the saving grace of comedy, Martin's natural abrasiveness is off-putting, and he just doesn't have the stuff of a romantic lead.

To be fair, Aronofsky has a knack for stylistic overkill, and his hammering onslaught is undeniably riveting, at first anyway.

Somehow the elements do not add up to by anything especially memorable.

Unfortunately, the goofiness never quite finds its groove. The romantic chemistry is tepid, the comedy misses as often as it hits, the picaresque plot keeps dogging down and even actors as skilled as Platt, Irons and Lena Olin fail to register strongly in their roles.

A rather dull movie.

In fact, when not kicking butt, (Li)'s kind of a blank spot in the center of the screen.

The script's labored efforts to push the proceedings into a thought-provoking military drama -- and draw some clear moral issue -- are, at best, flimsy.

Its animation is simply glorious, but its story and characters are trite.

It's overblown and greedy and feels like more of a merchandizing scheme than a movie.

Clearly not Zhang's forte, his directorial touch is neither light nor magical enough to bring off this kind of whimsy, his characters often seem contrived and unbelievable, and his movie comes off as slightly forced and naggingly unsatisfying.

It's a violent, R-rated action piece, but well directed, rather lavishly produced, filled with imaginative stunts, and it doesn't have a dull moment in it. [17 May 1991]

Adults will quickly tire of the dragon antics; kids will be bored by all the moralizing and faux metaphysics. [31 May 1996]

It's just never as gripping as it needs to be.

The movie depends on one of those big surprise endings for its effectiveness, but the script gives itself away in the first act.

It all comes together to be a remarkably dull movie.

Never quite rises above its one-joke situation.

Next to "Bad Santa" or "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat," it's a paragon of sophistication.

It's hard to recall another time when the cross-purposes of two collaborating filmmakers of a major film has been quite so evident, or when the theme of the movie itself has been so totally schizophrenic -- half populist outrage, half Nazi.