William Arnold

Thornton has made so many bad movies and become so notorious as a talk-show eccentric that it's easy to forget what a good film actor he can be.

The movie itself cannot begin to match its delicious high concept. It's offensively funny in places but it can't sustain itself for a feature length running time and it's not nearly as clever or as fun as it should be.

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.

Obree's psychology is fascinating and, even though the competitive scenes mostly involve him racing against himself in a spectator-free indoor track, the movie manages to give its audience a suitable adrenaline rush here and there.

The period detail, the makeup effects, the computer-generated transformations, and Jerry Goldsmith's brassy score are all excellent. The Shadow also manages to make fun of itself without ever letting the self-parody get out of hand, or disintegrate into camp. For what is essentially a summer slugfest, The Shadow also has unusually rich character performances. [01 Jul 1994]

As much as I enjoyed the movie -- and I laughed all the way through it -- the truth is that the big screen adds nothing special to the "Simpsons" experience.

The movie undeniably comes alive and brings down the house every time it goes into one of its many outlandish, Mad Magazine-style spoofs of television commercials. [11 Apr 1990]

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

Did it move me? And the answer is no. I thought it has a certain ghoulish, voyeuristic fascination, but I found it strangely remote and uninvolving on both emotional and spiritual levels.

Control Room is even more effective in showing the dilemma of the people who make up Al-Jazeera. In a sense, these are "our" Arabs, in that they're Western-educated, conduct their business in English and seem to believe in the basic American principles.

Mercifully short -- a mere 80 minutes, plus the end-titles. That means I had to slap myself in the face fewer times than usual to stay awake in a movie this grindingly mediocre.

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

A first-class snoozer.

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.

A fairly predictable musical-comedy vehicle for the rap duo Kid 'N Play that saws off much of the hard edge of the comic style they displayed in their lower-budget first outing, House Party. [05 Jun 1992]

And the mostly stage-trained Sinise - who draws double duty here as director and co-star - distinguishes himself with an especially sympathetic performance and a lean, sensitive, almost delicate directorial debut that mark him as an industry force to be reckoned with.

Plenty of visuals but little of the rhythm, flow or characterizations that made the earlier film an instant children's classic.

As a caper movie, it's a travesty that's impossible to understand or follow, but it's quite funny and clicks along nicely as a giddy, self-deprecating showcase for its gaggle of stars.

It may be emblematic of new-millennium Hollywood that this movie has turned out to be one more emotionless, brainless, overproduced action film.

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.

It's impossible to praise too highly the verve, skill and authenticity with which Spielberg brings off his alien invasion.

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.

The film's story - about a gringo loser (Warren Oates) who digs up and decapitates a body to claim a reward - seems much less gratuitously shocking today, and its dated brand of macho pessimism has a nostalgic appeal. [14 Jun 2002]

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

Moves along its course and overflows at its climax with that indefinable but unmistakable assurance of a master filmmaker who knows just what he wants to say, is in total command of his medium and is in no mood to make any compromises.

A first-rate student film, but not much more.

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

It's by far the most uncompromising and unapologetic gay-themed drama ever made for a wide release by a major Hollywood studio with name stars.