William Arnold

Wilde (Fry, in a wonderful performance) comes off less as a sexual martyr than a man who foolishly lets his obsession for an unworthy young lover (Jude Law) lead him into big trouble that he might well have avoided. The only totally sympathetic character in the movie is Wilde's wife (Jennifer Ehle). [05 Jun 1998]

Best of all, the second Potter movie reunites its adult cast: Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, John Cleese, Alan Rickman, Julie Walters and others -- a veritable Who's Who of British actors that single-handedly elevates the proceedings out of the kid's movie genre into something special.

Not quite a masterpiece perhaps, but a visually stunning mountain drama, and an absorbing look at a dying culture.

All told, Knocked Up works more in spite of its low humor than because of it.

It's boldly acted, absorbing and satisfying as a history lesson and chock-full of extravagantly brutal battle sequences.

It also boosts the punch of the movie that so many of its action scenes evoke the Iraqi War news footage of the past month, and the "X-Men" premise -- people persecuted because their difference makes them seem threatening -- carries even more relevancy and weight than it did three years ago.

A spellbinding action-drama, skillfully built upon a scary corporate conspiracy, chock-full of enjoyable downbeat performances.

A riveting piece of movie storytelling, mounted with a genuinely epic flair, shot and edited in a no-nonsense, classic style.

Has a slight bite.

The film is a strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness.

The movie never falls into gushy moments of inspiration and Schnabel never tries to manipulate any particular response from the audience. We're left to make of it what we will.

Avoid the hype, just go enjoy the movie

Dazzles us with computer-generated animation that has never looked quite so boldly exotic or shimmeringly beautiful.

Throughout, it's clouded -- for me at least -- by a nagging sense that it's straining too hard to build the media clash into more of an historic event than it was.

Comes together with a wry sense of humor, a total lack of gratuitous movie nonsense and a graceful dignity that allows the humanity of his characters to shine through in a very special way.

Has the sensibility of a Hollywood "woman's picture" of the '40s -- the weepie saga of a married woman trapped in an untenable situation.

An endearing comedy that could well end up being one of the year's big hits.

Zwick's narrative skills keep us hooked on the story, and the first-rate production values and imaginative use of locations (it was shot in Mozambique) give the film an enthralling scope and epic sweep.

This great Elizabethean masterpiece comes alive in a rich cinematic version that proves the past 400 years have done nothing to dim its uncanny power to mirror the human condition. [18 jan 1991]

The film below it is such an entertaining and poignantly bittersweet take-down of a good man's midlife crisis that the translation still works like a charm.

Not quite up to the exalted level of the two predecessors ("Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2"), be assured it's still the most eye-popping and thoroughly entertaining animated film to come down the pike so far this year.

It's a partisan campaign film, of course, but a subtle one.

Blanchett is, warts-and-all, letter perfect.

Many will find the subject matter disturbing, but it's clearly one of the holiday season's richest and most daring movie entries.

Forster carries the movie with an effortless grace and professionalism, creating a character of surprising nobility who is the very opposite of the Willy Loman caricature that's been the de rigueur salesman stereotype in movies of the past 50 years.

Mostly very good. It's exactly the big fix of Saturday-matinee adventure, blazing special effects, inside humor and sly self-references for which its fans have been lusting.

Ireland says he was after the kind of "elegant simplicity" of the great Hollywood romantic dramas of the '50s, and, for the most part, this is exactly what he pulls off.

She's foul-mouthed, trashy, a legal pit bull ... and she's wonderful.