William Arnold

The repulsive turn of events erased all my good memories of the first half, and makes the movie hard to recommend to a normal human being.

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.

Its overall effect is distinctly underwhelming.

This moody, progressively enthralling little French psychodrama is very much it's own thing: a boldly conceived, impeccably crafted and wonderfully enigmatic two-character study that turns out to be a most powerful showcase for its two stars.

Is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.

It's very slick and small children will enjoy it, but it has little of its model's special magic.

It has some wonderful moments and a handful of delicious Maughamian characters.

To the movie's credit, the cast is better than average.

Apparently no one bothered to tell Stone the movie was a joke. She plays it without a hint of the tongue-in-cheek required, and totally against her strong star persona, so that she serves mostly as the unnecessary straight woman to all the giddy male comedy. [10 Feb 1995, p.3]

Several times, Hotel Rwanda teeters on the edge of making a unique, visionary statement about our times, but can't quite do it. Too bad. If it could have pulled itself together in one brilliant scene, this may have been a great movie, instead of just a very good one.

A pleasant, old-fashioned kind of a love triangle.

To be truthful, the movie is not much, even by the limited standards of the genre. It's played almost too broadly for its own good. [07 Nov 1992]

The truth is this is an amateurish student film, marred by poor sound recording, stereotyped characters, heavy-handed direction, a mild racism (the two white characters - a shallow yuppie and an insensitive Jewish teacher - are harsh caricatures), and an unconvincing, tag-on happy end. [16 Apr 1993]

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

The most noteworthy thing about the Iraq war home-front drama, Grace Is Gone, is that Clint Eastwood composed its musical score and title song, which have both been garnering all sorts of accolades, including dual Golden Globe nominations.

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.

It really does communicate an optimistic sense that race is irrelevant and we can all live happily ever after together.

So witless, sit-com shallow and bad in every way that it's just not worthy of much discussion.

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.

The holiday movie season's only epic fantasy adventure, certainly gets no points for originality. It's such a clone of "The Lord of the Rings," it probably could lose a plagiarism suit. There's also a heavy dash of "Harry Potter." All bases are covered.

As directed and produced by Steve Miner, the film is gory (eyes gouged out, a tongue bitten out, children murdered), but it also features better than usual actors (including Richard E. Grant as a 17th-century warlock-hunter who also jumps into the future) and has such a giddy sense of humor that it's hard to ever get too indignant about its splatter violence. [12 Jan 1991]

It's not "The Wizard of Oz," and its cotton-candy fantasy of a story line is definitely aimed at very young children. But it's well made, and adults likely will find themselves yielding to its gentle, whimsical charm.

Stars are particularly strong. Snipes' fatalism is totally appealing, and Rhames makes a curiously compelling antihero.

Overly familiar, poorly cast and often annoyingly crude New York comedy that never finds its groove.

A paragon of subtlety. Yet this message is exactly what we carry out of the theater, and it lingers on with a powerful resonance.

A familiar but rewarding little parable.

The film's real feat may be in its production design, in the sumptuousness and veracity with which it re-creates central Saigon and the Vietnamese countryside of the '50s: an exotic lost world of brothels and opium dens, trishaws and ao-dai dresses, Ming-deco interiors and water buffalos in rice paddies.