William Arnold

It's bleak, credulity straining and often stomach-turning, but it definitely works as a heart-tugging character study, and Rourke's performance as the has-been title character is golden.

It is Ferrell's best movie and the summer's funniest comedy so far.

Its concept is gutsy, its script is literate and intelligent, its visuals and cinematic craftsmanship are mouth-dropping, and its vision of the insanity of various religions vying to dominate the real estate of the Holy Land comes through with great power.

A perceptive, fascinating and relatively evenhanded look at the most radical arm of the American student rebellion of the Vietnam era.

A dazzling movie, gorgeous to look at, involving on both emotional and intellectual levels, and often thrilling.

Douglas brings a hilarious kind of Gordon Gekko assurance to his character, and Brooks' long-suffering, naggy persona -- which hasn't had a showcase this strong since "Lost in America" -- sparks off it like Hope with Crosby.

Like Kubrick, Field doesn't make any moral judgments about his characters, and his film remains stubbornly enigmatic. It can be read as a high-class revenge thriller, an ode to the futility of vengeance or almost anything in between.

Like Spielberg, even if the content is questionable or the performance is missing, his scenes always manage to be visually thrilling.

Wise, entertaining and often very funny.

Philip Messina's claustrophobic sets and Cliff Martinez's elegantly creepy score add to the film's distinction and work off Clooney's performance and Soderbergh's staging to create an hypnotic spell and suggest a cosmos full of spiritual possibility.

A gracefully subtle, sweet-spirited French parable of the brotherhood of man that was nominated for a Golden Globe, won Omar Sharif a César Award for best actor and has been a surprise hit in Europe.

A powerful experience, filled with dazzlingly executed action sequences that generally avoid the rock music and drugged-out conventions of "Apocalypse Now," and even exude a certain core of humanity.

It's funny, touching and crammed to the rafters with clever dialogue, splashy production numbers and stiff-upper-lip charm.

An unusually engrossing World War II epic.

The film is an across-the-board charmer that should appeal to children as well as their parents, aficionados of animation and old-movie buffs who will be challenged to sort out the blur of seemingly hundreds of classic film references.

With so much going for it, it's sad that Red Eye goes into such a third-act tailspin and cliched slasher-flick finale.

But it also works as a compelling thriller and whodunit; as a powerful political metaphor (the reservation is a kind of microcosm of the Third World and America's relationship to it); and as a piece of environmental mysticism, celebrating - like so many recent films - the psychic purity and spiritual superiority of its aboriginal characters. [3 Apr 1992]

Dillane gives such a layered, detailed, utterly convincing performance as a man struggling with an inescapable and suffocating burden of guilt that he quickly makes us forget that he's too old for the part.

Above all, the film is just wonderfully ... well, Fellini-esque. It looks like nothing the cinema has seen since then.

Hayek throws herself into this dream Hispanic role with a teeth-clenching gusto. She strikes a potent chemistry with Molina and she gradually makes us believe she is Kahlo.

A suspenseful, fascinating movie that milks the premise for all it's worth.

It's an ingratiating star vehicle and elegant entertainment.

I loved it...Without trying very hard, Farnsworth commands a unique and immensely appealing screen presence that could be called "a compilation of all the great western heroes of the movie past."

An absorbing, exciting costume drama that works as a historical romance, a family tragedy and a showcase for its young stars.

Despite a few weak points, the most heavily dramatic Sandler vehicle to date is a striking, genuinely touching, meticulously well-acted friendship parable, and a big audience pleaser.

Moves like a bullet and, even if they're overblown, the action sequences are still mostly exhilarating and hypnotic. Moreover, the film's human dimension and character development is richer and more rewarding than the genre requires, and its philosophical underpinning more intellectually audacious and seductive: The film is more of a mind-trip than I expected.

Culturally, the film is a fascinating document because it's so obviously a conscious amalgam of Hollywood gangster movie conventions, reflecting the retro sensibility of writer-director Melville, an incorrigible fan of American culture. [25 Apr 1997]

First-time director Ali Selim does an exceptional job throughout, his movie has the balance, uncluttered leanness and emotional impact of a Willa Cather short story, and it's no surprise that it has been nominated for Best First Feature in the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards.

The casting also works. As the Khan, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano ("Zatoichi") is all effortless charisma, and Chinese actor Honglei Sun (as his best friend-turned-enemy) and Mongolian actress Khulan Chuluun (as his faithful wife, Borte) are just as effective.

It's a tough, tight, no-nonsense action melodrama filled with irresistibly hard-boiled dialogue and a large cast of engagingly hard-boiled characters. All and all, it's one of the better of the many recent Hollywood remakes of classic film noir. [21 Apr 1995]

Movie is so hip-swingingly infectious and leaves us with such a high that it's hard not to suspect that -- handled right -- it could well become the fall version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

While careful not to denounce the religion, the film fires a powerful broadside at fundamentalist Islam in general and revolutionary Iran in particular. [11 Jan 1991]

Too bad they didn't skip the gags and one-liners, along with the songs, and go the distance in making this an authentic dinosaur world.

Another harrowingly cynical dirty-cop movie in the recent tradition of "Training Day" and "Narc." Yet it's so much more complex, engrossing and satisfying than those films that the comparison is not entirely fair.

A gripping, terrifying, profoundly touching human drama that's definitely worth seeing.

It has a terrific retro style, it's well-directed and it makes an engrossing showcase for its trio of stars.

Mesmerizing and curiously satisfying idyll that gradually, slyly maneuvers us into a whole new way of looking at the delicate relationship between man, art and Mother Nature.

Jewison handles this rich tapestry of non-linear scenes with the skill of the old pro he is, and carefully modulates the drama to create the maximum emotional impact.

This one transcends the subgenre to be a respectful and very funny horror spoof. [11 Feb 1999]

Both intellectually absorbing and emotionally gripping.

This free-flowing film certainly hits the high points as it flips around its talking-head celebrity sound bites at warp speed.

The lack of stellar performances gradually becomes a virtue of the movie as we forget we're watching actors in roles, and Stone builds a documentarylike veracity that gives the saga of the trapped cops and their loved ones a riveting immediacy.

It lets down in the last act and is probably too mired in serial-murderer-movie formulaics to garner Oscar attention. But it's his tightest, best film since "Unforgiven."

The movie is an extraordinary personal adventure that views everything through the eyes of its hero as it carries him from one apocalyptic situation to another.

At its core, it's an exploration of the demands and obligations of brotherly love, staged with honesty, originality and a surprising spark of intelligence.

All told, this first Bond of the new millennium may be far from the best of the series, but it's assured, wonderfully respectful of its past and thrilling enough to make it abundantly clear that this movie phenomenon has once again reinvented itself for a new generation, and is very likely to outlive us all.

The film tells the story of Jimmy Hoffa in a refreshingly honest way. [25 Dec 1992]

Like all of Hallstrom's American films, "Something to Talk About" has a distinct European "feel," and is less interested in being a star vehicle for Roberts than a freewheeling ensemble piece that balances her in every scene with strong supporting work from Quaid, Duvall, Rowlands and especially Sedgwick.

A moody adventure story set in Alaska that resonates with envrionmental overtones and is filled with delicate character studies, but ends up being a terrific little genre thriller. [04 Jun 1999]

It packs surprising punch as a biopic.

A witty, literate, wryly sophisticated parable of American politics: just the kind of movie that Hollywood, in its search for the global audience, supposedly doesn't make anymore.

Assuming the bulk of what we see is factual, it comes off as a gripping docudrama.

Positioned to be the environmental documentary of the year.

Most of the magic of this unusual movie comes from the freshness, imagination and sweet spirit of its animation, which is blissfully its own thing and does not show the influence of any of the reigning forces in the art form.

An unapologetic B-movie.

A thoroughly enjoyably and wistfully charming ensemble drama carried off with an irresistible Gallic flair.

Anthony Hopkins is a great actor and he gives a resourceful, inventive, compelling performance that holds our attention over three hours. It never convinces us that he is Nixon: he doesn't look much like him, and he misses entirely that incredible shiftiness in his public manner. But it somehow works. [20 Dec 1995, p.C1]

The movie is entertaining, reasonably true to the facts of its subject's life and full of music.

A movie that plays better if you know nothing about it going in.

The best of several films about the Roosevelts, this adaptation of Dore Schary's Tony-winning Broadway play - which deals mostly with FDR's battle with polio and the difficult years that formed his presidential character - earned Greer Garson a best-actress nomination as Eleanor. [16 Nov 1995]

Marks a surprising maturity, restraint and confidence to Carrey's acting. Even more than "The Truman Show," he plays it perfectly straight here, and his natural charisma carries the movie with just the right dose of Jimmy Stewart charm.

In the end, we feel just what Branagh wants us to feel - a sense that, behind all its frustrations, there is a joy in this unavoidable battle-between-the-sexes that makes life worth living. So his film has it both ways: It is true to Shakespeare and his poetry, and it makes an almost perfect '90s date comedy. [21 May 1993]

Covers this exact same territory, but does it with such refreshing, clearheaded honesty and skill it seems like a revelation.