William Arnold

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.

Terrible in a terrible way: It's pretentious, incomprehensible and just numbingly dull.

It has its charms, but fails to strike a similar emotional chord.

I found it a surprisingly elegant entertainment: fast-paced, cogently written (by noted English author Arnold Bennett), well-cast (including a bit by a young Charles Laughton) and stylishly photographed on a gallery of stunning deco sets.

Very surprisingly, Meryl Streep is not wonderful as Schreiber's scheming, incestuously possessive mother. She gobbles up all the scenery but, for whatever reason, she's just not half as chilling a portrait of demented mother love as the original's Angela Lansbury.

The movie is a fascinating, if often confusing, mix of dramatized scenes from the novel, re-created and actual interviews with Desclos.

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.

His film has a kind of lyrical and poetic beauty at the same time it's remarkably free of sentimentality and didacticism, and it tells its tale with the minimalist effectiveness of a first-rate short story. [3 July 1998]

As good as it is in places, Without Limits fails to be a totally satisfying biography or a riveting competition drama. It never communicates a clear vision of its hero's existential mind-set or makes a clear case for his unique contribution to his sport. It's hard to even know, from the evidence in the film, whether its title is ironic. [09 Oct 1998]

In the latest of what is getting to be a booming genre of Iraq war documentaries, director Deborah Scranton gives digital video cameras to five members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard so they can intimately record their year of service in the Middle East.

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

It's occasionally quite witty, it's able to tell us a great deal about its characters and their back stories in an economic fashion and its plot swings are surprising and compelling.

Even though the supporting cast is likable and the film hits all the beats of its formula, it's weak, as if everyone has been to the well one too many times.

Piñero never comes close to convincing us that this guy is worth a movie at all.

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

Tautou seems tired, mean-spirited and utterly devoid of that Audrey Hepburn-like charm that made her the international movie find of 2001.

A respectful, accomplished, non-exploitative piece of historical filmmaking and -- for audiences -- a gripping white-knuckle ride all the way.

Writer/director Raoul Peck never gives us enough intimate moments to let us feel we know the man on a personal level, and he doesn't have the narrative skill to economize the necessary exposition or steer a clear storyline.

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.

Contains much abuse and brutality, an annoying celebratory air of pimp-chic and enough explicit gay sex scenes to qualify as (very tepid) soft-core porn.

Unfortunately, there's no great performance here. Pitt (who looks like Leonardo Di Caprio) delivers nothing close to Brando's tour de force, and all three stars may have been chosen less for their acting ability than their willingness to disrobe for the camera.

It's been turned into a stupid kung fu movie.

Murphy is remarkably convincing -- even endearing -- as each of the characters.

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.

The Ring, is going to be this year's version of the "Blair Witch" and "Sixth Sense" phenomenon.

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

Both intellectually absorbing and emotionally gripping.

The script is fatally stupid, most of the gags fall flat, the secondary characters add little, Hudson fails to make anything interesting out of the exasperated heroine, and the endless references to McConaughey's sexual prowess finally become revolting.