William Arnold

There's much to admire in this ambitious indie: top-notch production values, a gallery of evocative period detail (with location work on Scotland's famed St. Andrews' course) and solid performances from a cast .

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

Plays like a series of well-done but disconnected acting-class sketches, filled with a huge cast of first-rate actors whose careers have all gone into decline.

It's a very slight and forgettable affair, and a formula job all the way. But it's easy to watch, the dance sequences are sporadically enjoyable (if hardly innovative) and Antonio Banderas is wonderfully magnetic and charming in the lead.

If, like me, you haven't read this book, the movie makes little sense, and has zero inspirational kick. It's just a depressing parable about a fellow who sinks lower and lower in life until he figures out a nebulous new way to sell God to the masses.

Rock, who seems to have studied every nuance of Beatty's Oscar-nominated comic performance -- is surprisingly appealing in what is often a straight role.

Its power and bite come from the contrast Seinfeld makes with Orny Adams, a younger comedian on the verge of success who is everything Seinfeld is not: hungry, vain, petty, mean-spirited, desperate for recognition.

It's not the most viscerally exhilarating racing saga or squishy animal movie ever made, but it's a terrific period piece. It's also a well-acted, engrossing and satisfying character drama that stands out like a diamond in this summer of sequels and comic-book violence.

Love it or hate it, X-III packs more action and razzle-dazzle visuals into its 104-minute running time than "Mission: Impossible III," "Poseidon" and "The Da Vinci Code" combined.

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

Exotic Ninth Gate breaks down into clichés.

It's essentially a propaganda film, but Eisenstein's stirring (and, for the history of cinema, truly revolutionary) montages of men in action still are uniquely powerful. [04 Jun 1999]

Absolutely riveting.

Ppaque and not hugely satisfying.

A highly original and unusually powerful drama that deserves comparison to the great Scandinavian films of the past.

An absorbing but somber drama.

Visnjic is charismatic, sympathetic and believable in the role, and the first part of the film -- in which he's being drawn into the case against his will and then use his hypnotic skills to get inside the mind of the little girl -- is quite riveting.

Doesn't completely work on its own terms, mainly because its romantic casting just doesn't spark: It doesn't make us fall in love with its lovers.

Does have one saving grace, however. As Nick's long-suffering wife, Blanchett gives the movie some badly needed charisma, and its one point of sympathy -- even nobility.

Still, Kitano creates his own scary and compelling world in the film, and there's no denying his charisma as a star. Like Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood (two action icons to whom he's often compared), the 51-year-old actor holds the screen with seemingly no effort. He's as watchable as a tired old rattlesnake. [11 Sep 1998]

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

No movie that stars Sean Connery can be completely worthless but Medicine Man comes about as close to it as anything the actor has done in a long time - probably since Meteor in 1979. [07 Feb 1992]

You may enjoy this complex, psychologically daring and visually stylish noir, which has been put together by director Bruce Evans ("Kuffs") with few dull moments and virtually none of the black humor you might expect from the premise.

First there was "Lionheart," with Jean-Claude Van Damme as a young innocent who gets caught up in the nefarious business; then "The Big Man," an Irish film with Liam Neeson in the same predicament, and now "Gladiator." This latest clone is probably the best of the trio in terms of acting and production values, but if you've seen one you've seen them all. And they're all essentially one long sequence of people pounding each other to hamburger, interspersed with cliches. [6 March 1992]

As well made, entertaining and seductive a showcase for Hanks as it is, the movie doesn't have a magical impact and doesn't stay with you. And while you're watching it, there's always some slight annoyance, inconsistency or motivational-lapse to slap your face in almost every scene.

For 12-year-old boys, period.

In its best moments, resembles a bad high school production of "Grease," without benefit of song.

As powerful as the movie remains and as much as I enjoyed this new cut, I have to say that the additional footage -- material that Coppola felt he had to excise 20 years ago to reach a commercial length -- has turned out to be something of a mixed blessing.

Its violence is right out of a "Road Runner" cartoon and, despite the R-rating, relatively benign; its special effects and camera movements are often quite imaginative; and, at less than 90 minutes, it's mercifully short. [19 Feb 1993]

It's a nicely crafted little ensemble piece, but -- like so many films that have become the rage in France in recent years -- it's surprisingly light and forgettable.

A fascinating ride through morally ambiguous territory to a place you've never been before.

Despite its obvious good intentions, several strong scenes, and the skill with which it creates its milieu - post-colonial Africa - the film never quite clicks. [09 Sep 1994]

It's far from his (Allen) career best, but it's funny and he comes off well.

The movie is so surreal it's just not very involving. As an action extravaganza, it's busy but dull.

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.

Pierson is a high-powered egotist with appalling tastes and a great-white-father complex, and his whiny family is about as much fun as fingernails on a blackboard.

A nifty little neo-film noir that's a lot more intriguing and watchable than half the films that make it to the multiplexes.

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.

First-time director Steve Beck hurls a dozen ghosts and probably a million dollars' worth of prosthetic makeup at us for a full 90 minutes, but it's old hat and not a bit scary.

It's pure fluff, but as irresistible as cotton candy.

When its big plot switcheroo comes, it proves to be not such a great idea after all: It actually weakens, rather than strengthens, the premise, and dissipates, rather than intensifies, the drama.

As a grueling "trip" movie and cautionary tale of the nuclear age, K-19 fits the bill. The harsh depiction of everyday life in the Soviet navy and numerous scenes of seamen exposing themselves to lethal doses of radiation are profoundly disturbing.

Visually impressive but exceedingly unpleasant little nail-biter.

There are certain rare movies that speak to us solely through the power and initiative of their visuals. This is one of them, and if you're receptive to this kind of movie, and know Vermeer's work, it's an unusually satisfying, even enriching experience.

Despite some moments, the movie stubbornly fails to be the kind of sparkling ensemble piece one would expect from its credits -- and the fault seems to lie squarely with Fry's unfocused script, lackadaisical direction and conceptual sleight of hand.

For all its improbable characters, wretched dialogue and stock situations, the movie has an earnest dumbness that sneaks up on you to be surprisingly entertaining.

Above all, Kranks lacks that basic kernel of credibility that even a goofy farce needs to work.

Despite laughs, the movie only sporadically works. Its satire is too broad and silly to have much sting.

An Americanized remake of the 1983 Japanese movie, "Antarctica," which told the true story of a pack of huskies that somehow managed to survive a brutal winter by themselves at Japan's East Antarctica station in 1957.

Has one knockout sequence: the deaf maestro conducting his Ninth Symphony as Anna coaches from the wings. It goes on for what seems a whole reel, but it's so sublime it seems too short and, by itself, could stand as one of the greatest classic music videos ever.

Hocus Pocus also offers a slightly different kind of movie role for the Divine Miss M, which she carries off fearlessly. In fact, with her campy makeup and wildly extravagant gestures, she is probably closer here to her cabaret roots than she has been on film before - and her oldest, purest fans are sure to love her for it. [16 July 1993]

The movie is not exciting, original or instructive enough to justify the unpleasant experience.

It's bound to be the love-it-or-hate-it movie of 2003.

Antonioni's moviemaking panache and distinctive narrative rhythm rarely have seemed so enticing and satisfying.

Despite Sheen's earnestness - and despite the movie's obvious good intentions - the script is confused and unfocused, and clumsily borrows elements of movies like From Here to Eternity and Bridge Over the River Kwai without any of those classics' higher meaning. [18 Jan 1991]

A rather likable and very sweet-spirited story.

The cast tries hard and a sprinkling of laughs results, but the project is defeated by a concept that is not very novel, a script that is not especially witty, direction that is neither sharp nor insightful and one-note characters that are simply not very interesting.

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.

A perfectly dreadful affair that makes no sense, has almost no good laughs and finally just sinks like a rock in a Beverly Hills swimming pool.

There's no mistaking the fact that this hybrid misses the impact of the Disney classic, and even that of the excellent 1934 MGM version. Both of these films are surprisingly hard-edged and every bit as thrilling -- and scary -- as Stevenson's 1883 novel.

Mary Reilly has the distinction of being the most pretentious, the most ponderous, the most utterly suspenseless. [23 Feb 1996]

Far from his best work ("Le Placard," "Le Jaguar"), but even off-form Veber has its moments of inspiration and the movie is definitely worth seeing.

If you're not a die-hard "Bean" fan, this is probably no place for you. But it's mercifully short (87 minutes), the French scenery is pleasant, a handful of the routines are hilarious and -- with its G rating -- you can definitely bring the kids.

Beneath its whimsy and sexual politics, there is a core of humanity in this movie that is deeply satisfying, and powerful enough to disarm even the most vehement homophobia. [06 Aug 1993]

The movie is sporadically funny in an anarchistic way. But Cho and Penn don't have the needed personality or comic identity to sustain a franchise and their non-drug humor is so crude and scatological that -- to say the least -- it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

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

The cast is engaging, the overall visual effects are tremendous and I found myself fairly swept away for most of the fast-moving, three-hour running time.

Somehow the movie works like a clock. Its scenes and sensibility are all more than familiar, but it exudes a kind of nostalgic spy-movie charm and, at the same time, is so fresh and free of the usual thriller nonsense that it all seems to be happening for the first time.

Despite some engaging performances and good scenes, it's by far the least original, and least accomplished, of the six Redford-directed films.

Enormously cute, but it doesn't allow us to ever completely suspend our disbelief.

It makes an unsettling case that America is fast becoming the thing it professes to hate.

For some reason, the emotional payoff of the film -- the healing of a dysfunctional family -- doesn't quite come off. Possibly this is because Franco doesn't generate the necessary sympathy or father-son chemistry with De Niro, possibly because it's just not in the script.

Treu's sweet-spirited vision of life, and the winning performances of his ensemble of kid actors, gradually broke down most of my resistance.

It marks an impressive debut for first-time writer-director Mark Romanek, especially considering his background is in music video. His script is uncluttered and potent, and his direction manipulates a devastating climax that ties the photo/voyeuristic theme together very effectively.

The movie works -- at least marginally.

Most of its characters come off as being one-dimensional and stereotypical, and the film's sensibility leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

Despite its title, the movie could hardly be less erotic. Indeed, promiscuity has never looked more totally unappealing, and its final scenes of Wilmot's advanced venereal disease are enough to make you take a vow of celibacy. A great date movie, this is not.

Goes down like a cool glass of lemonade on a hot day.

While there are good things about it, Stop-Loss is nothing spectacular.

Even though she's (Khouri) determined to give us feel-good entertainment, she's not at all afraid to let the darker moments be very dark indeed.

An extraordinarily taunt and suspenseful psychological thriller.

The formula has rarely been done as well as it is in this goofy, audacious, visually stylized omnibus of what-ifs that operates on its own peculiar logic, and powers along with the force of a truck on the Autobahn.

After a rough orientation, it kicks in to be a visually enthralling, viscerally rousing, politically fascinating epic of the old school that evokes the pleasures of the great spectaculars of the Hollywood past.

As riveting as it may be, his film is a total shaggy-dog story.

The movie year's most expensive and ambitious sci-fi spectacular, I Am Legend, is three movies in one: a futuristic effects-o-rama, a zombie thriller and a survivalist parable. Each is better than average, and the experience is fairly gripping.

As a goofy little fantasy, however, this film has loads of charm.

In spirit and nuance, this is an amazingly faithful remake.

It's an emotionally gripping, daringly genre-twisting, consummately crafted piece of filmmaking.

Step Up never quite does fly: its dance routines are low-voltage, the star chemistry is weak, the characters are clichés and the movie is practically an instant remake of Dewan's other '06 dance musical, "Take the Lead," which told the story better.

Rivets our interest for its entire lengthy running time. And it does this without any of the usual war movie clichés, false heroics, barracks-humor nonsense or grandstanding absurdities.

No doubt about it, the movie is morbidly fascinating. Moreover, Cusack gives a delicate and agreeably world-weary performance.

Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat is so charismatic in his second Hollywood outing, The Corruptor, that he almost makes us forget that the movie itself is one of the more pretentious, muddled and incompetent action films to come along in some time. [12 Mar 1999]

Very much a '70s-style paranoid thriller, with a mood, tone and cascade of plot twists that are highly reminiscent of his 1975 classic, "Three Days of the Condor."

The story is so sure-fire that it surmounts these obstacles to be passable entertainment, getting frequent infusions of excitement from the performances of Charlie Sheen, who is likably ironic and deadpan as Aramis; Kiefer Sutherland, who is splendidly charismatic and appealing as the world-weary Athos; and Oliver Platt, who confidently steals the movie as the comic Porthos. [12 Nov 1993]

The film probably should have been a comedy. It would be a lot more cathartic - and a lot more entertaining - to laugh at the grim modern world of Falling Down than it is to have a heavy-handed filmmaker rub our faces in the hopelessness of it all. [26 Feb 1993, p.14]

Cage is more endearing than usual in his usual philosophical slob routine and Jackson is likeably long-suffering as the Spike Lee of the Theater. They click as a cinematic odd couple. [05 Mar 1993]

The movie also has a supernatural element: the leader of the renegades (Eric Schweig) turns out to be a sorcerer with occult powers. It's very clumsy, and speaks to the pandering streak in Howard that has always prevented him from being a truly first-rate film artist.

Bale is totally convincing, if not especially endearing.

Quickly assumes the characteristics of a bad slasher movie.

The bad news in this kinder, gentler, more subtle performance is that, by playing the woman (Streep) as less of a devil, the dynamic that propels the story loses much of its drive and energy, and what's left is a kind of high-class "Gidget" movie.

A screaming, silly cliche -- and somehow not a bit scary.

Griffin & Co. manage to be spectacularly outrageous, several of the gag sequences are hilariously imaginative and there's something almost deliciously liberating in the film's determination to make good-natured fun of what previously has been a very sacred movie cow.

An often trying and not wholly successful but highly ambitious and ultimately rewarding mental-institution movie that strongly echoes the 1966 classic of the genre, "King of Hearts."

Flat-out one of the more exciting and original gut-busters that Hollywood has produced in many a month. It's virtually all action, but the action is never mindless and it is full of marvelous surprises every step of the way.

The new black-and-white print is gorgeous, the film plays well in this broader key and it sets the historical record straight.

At 160 minutes, it's a bit long and uneventful for anyone who is not at least a moderate fan of the musicals.

There are a handful of funny moments, and the top end of the cast comes off rather well. Duchovny has some of that same easygoing likability that made Glenn Ford one of the biggest stars of the '50s.

It's still primarily a showcase and offbeat star vehicle for Moore. It's a bravura role and she brings it off with a chilling malevolence and a strange, disjointed vulnerability that almost, but not quite, makes her sympathetic.

The results are being billed as a reunion of the "Titanic" star team, but anyone expecting a similarly gushy romantic idyll is in for a shock: it is an uncompromisingly dreary view of two self-deluded people incapable and unwilling to understand one another.

A forgettable, patched-together clone of other ghostly romances.

Far-fetched but deliciously exciting aerial nail-biter.

The sum of the movie is devastating. One takes out of it a sense that the human cost of our endless adventure in Iraq is going to be incalculable, perhaps catastrophic -- a psychological time bomb that will be exploding for decades to come.

Often distastefully juvenile.

It's a well-made little inspirational drama featuring both a familiar older star (James Garner) and a new one (Abigail Breslin).

It captures the excitement of a breaking star, it generates a raw and unsettling emotional power and it honors the aesthetic of hip-hop in way that's never quite been done on film before.

It's often surprisingly clever, dripping with respect for its model, and done with considerable wit and style.

An entertaining slice-of-life documentary that gets ever more fascinating as it moves along.

The movie is so well-cast, sympathetically acted and delicately directed -- and so genuinely touching and funny -- that it leaps right out of the narrow confines of the family bonding formula.

The surprise is that it's one of the most exciting and enjoyable disaster epics to come out of Hollywood in some time.

When a filmmaker heavy-handedly imposes his contemporary values on a classic of popular art, it's devilishly hard not to destroy or invalidate the very thing that made it a classic.

Belongs to that distinctly '90s genre of sadistic crime comedy whose time has clearly come and gone.

John C. Reilly, with his homely face and mop of curly hair, has been the movies' second banana of choice since his debut in 1989's "Casualties o War." In the comedy, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," he finally gets a starring role and he rises to the challenge.

The sharpest journalism thriller I've seen in years: an absolutely riveting drama that doesn't glorify its subject in the slightest and shrewdly says a lot of very sad things about the state of modern journalism.

Producer Barker (who is only credited with the story idea for the original), director Bill Condon (filling in for the original's Bernard Rose) and his writers have crammed this movie so full of killings and razzle-dazzle MTV imagery that it has very little of what made the first Candyman so effective: genuine suspense. [17 Mar 1995]

Not only does it steadfastly refuse to condescend to its young viewers (it may actually be too scary for very young children), Carlei carries us along with his strong story sense, and pulls an unusually satisfying plot twist in his final act that elevates the movie, and cleverly turns it into an unexpected moral lesson. [02 Jun 1995]

The movie works best as spectacle: as a piece of old-style, non-CGI, on-location epic filmmaking.

That rare thing at the movies these days: a new experience. It awes us with its technological feat, it sweeps us up in its mystical spell and, with its final scene -- it takes us to an emotional climax of almost unbearable poignancy.

People who have seen it seem to be crazy about it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's enjoyable but not hugely special Kindergarten Cop - has a whole roomful of the little tykes making genital jokes and constantly having to go to the bathroom. [21 Dec 1990, p.7]

Directed with a Scorsese-ish flair by actor John Shea (who also plays a small part), the film is loaded with gritty atmosphere and touches of authenticity. [12 Jun 1998]

Not only is it an enormously entertaining study of a curiously American institution, it also manages to be a nail-biting competition film, an engrossing group character study and a wonderfully graceful comedy of manners.

All of Scorsese's movies deliver a mixed message, but this one is downright schizophrenic.

The film never kicks in as a character study or a star vehicle.

None of it is truly inspired, but Murray's deadpan presence holds it all together.

Based on a best-selling book by Fortune magazine writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, the film approaches Enron through the Horatio Alger saga of its founder, Kenneth Lay, the son of a dirt-poor Missouri Baptist minister.

The humor is sweet-spirited, the dialogue (all improvised by the cast) is acerbic and witty, the celebration of unbridled tackiness is often hilarious.

A documentary that is half confessional memoir.

Stiller is enjoyably long-suffering, and De Niro convinces us that Attila the Hun would make a preferable father-in-law.

As the most diabolically focused and politically incorrect cop this side of Popeye Doyle, Liotta is a hot prospect for this year's supporting-actor Oscar.

Its overall impact is soothing and reassuring without being overtly manipulative, propagandistic or flag-waving.

It offers a handful of funny and touching moments and maintains a level of cuteness. But it's far from original, and its star chemistry doesn't exactly light up the screen.

I can't think of another movie that more fluently communicates the special agony and ecstasy of the game of chess.

It's a surprisingly happy film, almost completely devoid of bitterness or cynicism.

One lousy little movie -- utterly devoid of any real originality or charm.

The bogus Seattle setting creates an additional problem for local moviegoers. Because we know Seattle doesn't have a subway, giant FBI building or newspapers called Telegraph or Tribune, we're jarred out of the story so regularly that it leaves us slightly punch-drunk.

Elegant and enjoyably disorienting.

In what was indisputably his finest moment as a filmmaker, Forman summoned the absolute best work of his craftsmen -- costumes, makeup, camerawork, production design -- and merged them with his own storytelling sense and his special way with actors to create what has to stand as cinema's most successful musical epic.

For all its unevenness, Bobby is a powerful, poignant movie and its ending -- played over a long excerpt of one of RFK's most compassionate speeches, voiced with none of the cliches of political rhetoric -- was, for me, the movie year's single most devastating sequence.

Whether or not all its subtleties come through or not, the movie is enjoyable solely on the level of its performances. There is not a weak link in the chain. [28 Aug 1992]

Donovan makes us totally believe the character and his predicament, co-star Mary-Louise Parker is especially witty and winning as the film's screenwriter.

Grant's timing is flawless, his delivery is perfection, and he once again demonstrates himself to be the movies' unrivaled master of sophisticated verbal comedy.

It's a complete by-the-numbers daddy-day-care movie that doesn't have a genuinely enchanting moment or shred of inspiration in its overlong running time.

Though it's unflinching in its depiction of homosexual affection, the marvel of the movie is the dexterity with which it transcends the specificity of its characters and gay theme to be a universal human statement and profound political epic.

With very few natural gifts, Bingenheimer managed to spend his life doing something he loved among people he worshipped. At the end of the game, very few people can make such a claim.

The sum of all this is moderately rousing and deliciously irreverent in the Moore style, but not earthshaking as journalism, and devoid of anything that the average person doesn't already know from reading the newspaper.

Insipid, overcooked and dull.

The casting clicks; the visuals have leaped right out of Dave Gibbons' original panels; the action is brutal, stylish and well-staged, and -- with most of the major characters, themes and symbolism are retained in an abbreviated form -- the 2 1/2-hour film makes an enjoyably esoteric Cliff's Notes version of the book.

Has an unforced, pleasingly New Age feel to it; an unexpected but satisfying ending (a la "Shrek"); and a script that -- despite its overdone, body-switching premise -- comes together to nicely convey a cogent, environmentally conscious moral lesson.

It's no earthshaker, but the indie film is refreshingly different from the current movie norm, it's won more than 15 awards on the festival circuit, and war-movie aficionados will find it well worth the journey.

Truth or Dare (the title comes from a game she plays in the final scenes) is actually most revealing when it is not trying to be. It gives us a good sense of the pressured life of a big concert tour, as well as how demanding and unbalancing it must be to have a star of Madonna's magnitude in the family. [17 May 1991]

One of the year's few sci-fi films that actually takes itself seriously, and a movie that goes a long way on the strength of its unique premise, steady performances and impressive visual style.

How can a critic feel good about a movie that sets out to numb us with sheer gruesomeness; that embraces nihilism and sadism so enthusiastically; that offers no moral point of view or redemption in its characters, all while feebly aspiring to be a portrait of its generation? [09 Sep 1994]

Secretary is one of the best of a growing strain of daring films -- "Bliss," "The Lifestyle," "Satin Rouge" -- that argue that any sexual relationship that doesn't hurt anyone and works for its participants is a relationship that is worthy of our respect.

It doesn't really come off, but it's an admirably ambitious, and mostly very engaging, coming-of-age adventure that apes the spirit of Joseph Conrad.

There are no fresh revelations and the film can't touch Paul Schrader's 1988 drama, "Patty Hearst," as an inside account.

Works mostly off Quaid's performance.

The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Joel Schumacher, and reflects the worst of their shallow styles: wildly overproduced, inadequately motivated every step of the way and demographically targeted to please every one (and no one).

The sad truth is that it's dreadful, despite a top cast and strong production values. [02 Dec 1994]

The result bears so little resemblance to the original that you have to wonder what happened. It seems more a remake of "How the West Was Won" than 3:10 to Yuma.

It tries to be a sappy love story, an incredibly vile gross-out comedy and an envelope-pushing soft-core porno movie all at once. It ends up being an unappealing abomination.

It's harmless fun, and it makes for an often impressive display of the latest generation of computer-wizardry. But the enterprise is utterly void of substance: instantly forgettable and about as enriching as a rerun of "Johnny Quest."

Diane Lane overplays many scenes, she tries way too hard to be ingratiating and, in many other ways, it's one of the least of her performances.

Despite several touching scenes, the script comes perilously close to being maudlin and, while competent, Polley doesn't have the flair to make anything special out of her big role.

The best thing about The Power of One is that it works as a history lesson. Avildsen and his writer, Robert Mark Kamen, have managed to simplify and sort out the players and their points of view in a way no other film about South Africa has done. It makes painfully clear just how deep the problems run, and how their solution will invariably require an almost evolutionary change in everyone. [27 March 1992]

The casting is hit-and-miss. OutKast's Benjamin and "Troy's" Hedlund are weak, but Gibson is very appealing and the movie powers along on a strong lead performance by Wahlberg, who has never seemed more confident, commanding or scruffily charismatic.

Surreal, vaguely amusing, European-made drama.

Has the distinction of being the very worst of all the many film versions of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel, "The Three Musketeers." Nothing else in Musketeer movie history comes even remotely close to its staggering wretchedness.

Much of this movie is very funny, it has some genuinely endearing moments.

In a disarmingly entertaining fashion, this multiaward-winning German bittersweet comedy seems to encapsulate all the emotion and drama of that profound geopolitical event.

The film is a melancholy but poetic meditation on the fragility of the gift of life.

Fascinating.

If you find her (Ryan) distinctive persona to be too irritatingly cute to bear, this mannered movie is likely to play like fingernails on a blackboard .

Smith has badly overextended his modest filmmaking gifts.

An excruciatingly awful thriller.

Hawn mows down everything in her path with a giggle. It's great fun to watch her just eat up this movie.

The movie smacks of old-fashioned Hollywood phoniness. [22 Jan 1999]

For all its excesses, it's an absorbing, disturbing, savagely beautiful "trip" movie, and an extraordinary -- perhaps even outrageous -- personal vision of the one A-list filmmaker who truly deserves the adjective "maverick."

Charlize Theron, playing the one woman member of the team, handily steals the movie from the guys with her no-nonsense display of verve and vulnerability.

It's a daring failure that should delight many devotees of Classic Hollywood.

Condon's direction is steady and fearless, Neeson and Linney are individually excellent and together they create an inspiring chemistry for a truly adventurous marriage.

The film is a hugely compelling tribute to the French Resistance movement in World War II, staged with a genuine epic flair but in the icy, downbeat, film-noir style of the director's celebrated policiers.

Jacob's Ladder is also undeniably spooky. It creates and maintains a mood of paranoia, its special visual effects are original and nightmarish, and it has at least three sequences as haunting as anything I've seen in some time. [2 Nov 1990, p.9]

For what it's worth, the film also goes out of its way to be a lavish visual re-creation of the 1880s.

A series of Grand Guignol skits played for mean-spirited laughs.

Potter 3 is, in its heart of hearts, a teenage angst movie...Cuaron has done a masterful job of bringing off this shift in the Potter paradigm without disrupting any disruption in the established style of the series and without any pandering concessions to the teen-movie genre.

To its credit or detriment (depending on your point of view), the film doesn't have an agenda, or make any kind of systematic argument as to how quantum physics likely will impact the 21st century. It just looks at the wondrous evidence and asks us to imagine the possibilities.

After a somewhat shaky start, the film gradually settles in to become another extraordinarily powerful and explosively acted drama that deftly probes the moral responsibility of an artist in a totalitarian society.

Predictable but entertaining kid movie.

But the movie goes absolutely nowhere. It allows us to be a fly on the wall to a whirlwind of gossip, confessions and intimate moments. But when the ending comes, it's an epic letdown. It's just so much Oprah-esque eye candy, without a point of view, or a plot.

The Reader is significant because -- like another film opening today, "Valkyrie" -- it asks us to see not just the Jews but the whole German people as victims of the Holocaust, and to view Nazism as more a product of explicable ignorance than inexplicable evil.

An exceedingly dull retro-weepie.

It's a mixed blessing.

The second-class status of women in Korean society is a reminder of Confucianism's dark side. For all its pretty cinematic images and well-meaning bows to a vanishing literary tradition, this movie is a celebration of that dark side.

Has a delightfully nasty villain and pumped-up action, albeit along familiar lines.

McNamara finally gets to tell his side of the story -- and is somewhat humanized in the process -- but still comes off looking like a tragic character living in a state of denial.

If they gave an Oscar for the most unnecessary movie of the year, the award for 1993 would have to go to "Point of No Return," the latest product of Hollywood's current mania for remaking successful recent foreign films. It's not that this movie is such an awful rehashing of "La Femme Nikita," Luc Besson's stylish French thriller that was the biggest foreign-language hit of 1990 in the United States. It's that the first movie had such high visibility and is still so fresh in our minds, and this Americanized version is so totally the same film (except for the ending, it's virtually scene for scene the same) that it seems like a criminal waste of $30 million. [19 March 1993]

Stylistically, Religulous is very much like a Michael Moore documentary, in that most of the scenes have a comic structure, end with a punch line and are designed to make Maher-the-interviewer look sane and rational while his subject comes off as a complete fool.

It's hard to imagine how anyone could sit through this thing except squirming critics and violence addicts in need of a particularly gruesome fix.

Sylvester Stallone is filming a new episode of his "Rambo" action series, but Mark Wahlberg has beaten him to the punch with Shooter, a preposterous gut buster that follows the formula so closely it would probably lose a plagiarism suit.

Caro Diario is an alternately charming and unsettling mood piece that communicates well the offbeat world view of a self-confessed '60s-style rebel. [21 Oct 1994]

The movie as a whole seems pointlessly ugly. And with a gang rape that includes more than 50 participants and a homophobic bashing that results in a crucifixion, complete with heavy-handed Christ symbolism, it also opens itself up to a charge of being a tad overblown. [11 May 1990]

The French are very much the villains of the saga and, naturally, have always hated the movie (it was banned in Paris until 1971); and it remains controversial in other quarters as well because it seems to embrace, even celebrate, terrorism as a political tool.

States straight off that the man's legacy has been tarnished in most of the liberal world's eyes by his being the spoiler of the 2000 presidential election. "It will be engraved on his tombstone," says his friend Phil Donahue.

Like most Price movies, it's challenging, engaging and free of the usual thriller cliches.

Unknown seems fairly stale and unoriginal, mainly because it's yet another movie with the short-term memory loss premise ("Memento," "Fifty First Dates," etc.), and it comes so late in the cycle that it feels like a dying gasp.

A highly original, often hilarious, what-if farce about Watergate.

The film's European locations, sets (in Rome's Cinecitta studios) and photography are unusually striking; Rachel Portman contributes an elegant score; and Holm (who played the emperor once before in 1981's "Time Bandits") embodies the character with an effortlessly regal charisma.

Washington brings it off with an unforced and well-earned emotional wallop, and whose strong hand, keen eye, sweet spirit and good taste are reflected in almost every scene.

All told, this thing has to be one of the dullest caper movies ever made.

An absorbing slice of a lost world that's actually very reminiscent of Kurosawa's underappreciated 1957 film, "The Lower Depths."

It would be easy to categorize the Lebanese women's picture Caramel as a Levantine combination of "Sex in the City" and "Beauty Shop," but it's actually a lot smarter, sharper and deeper than that.

An imaginative self-profile of producer Robert Evans, could well be the most totally irresistible movie of the summer.

Has the power to transport us to a different place. The spark of special anime magic here is unmistakable and hard to resist.

The film -- Lelouch's 49th in 41 years -- stars Fanny Ardant as a glamorous, beautiful and phenomenally popular Parisian novelist who we first see in a flash-forward as she's being hauled into the Sureté, interrogated and formally charged with murder.

Effective piece of election-year propaganda.

Progressively sabotaged by poor technical quality, terrible plotting, a glaring lack of directorial skill and finesse, scenes that have no credibility and/or motivation and an astounding sloppiness to its historical detail.

It's a brilliant little microcosm of the '60s experience that, in a most gentle way, shows us how the counterculture probably was doomed from its inception.

DeVito definitely has a gift for absurd black humor that kicks in here and there, but Adam Resnick's script is slavishly mean-spirited.

The film is so explicit (endless swinging parties and porno scenes, more bouncing breasts than a Russ Meyer movie) that it finally becomes the thing it fears.

The most totally appealing and seemingly heartfelt performance of (DeVito's) career.

The only difference between the two films is that this one chronicles Capote's New York environment in more detail (and with humorous interludes), and it's a tad lighter in tone and perhaps a bit less high-horse condemning of its subject's literary ethics.

Unlike "Crying Game" (which, despite the gender confusion, definitely works as a love story for a general audience), the only emotion this movie evokes for its star-crossed lovers is an unpleasant sense of incredulity. [08 Oct 1993]

The ordeal undeniably strikes an emotional chord, and much of this is due to Holmes, who wonderfully communicates both the character's streak of rebellion and her desire to atone. The movie is a solid star vehicle for her.

As a movie, it's respectably well-acted by everyone, directed with Reiner's usual panache and intelligence, but fits so snugly into the Grisham-movie formula that it's hard not to be a bit suspicious. [20 Dec 1996]

Not surprisingly, the best thing on the screen is Mirren.

Somehow the screwball concoction does not jell. The stars are pleasant but unexciting, the goofy ensemble has a few moments of hilarity but never catches fire, the laughs are very scattered and the film's title is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The movie is just grindingly by-the-numbers: an uninspired brew of all the clichés of the kidnap-thriller genre, liberally seasoned with brutality, stirred at adrenaline-rush speed by a director with a heavy hand and very little imagination.

The film has a gorgeous, Grant Wood-ish visual style - it was photographed by Freddie Francis and designed by the late, great multi-Oscar winner Gene Callahan (to whom the film is dedicated) - and there are a smattering of effective scenes and ingratiating performances to go with it. [04 Oct 1991]

The artist's life and times were turbulent and tragic, but the effect of the movie is the opposite: it's somehow a very calming, almost Zenlike experience, and it left me with a peaceful glow that I managed to carry around for the rest of the day.

While the movie may border on teen exploitation in many scenes, its heart and values are mostly in the right place, and it qualifies its thrill of victory with a very sober message: few high school athletes become NBA millionaires, many are cheated out of an education.

Has a good cast, a nicely sustained mood of paranoia and several genuinely creepy moments, but ultimately ends up being one more highly formulaic teen screamer.

Indeed, it has to be one of the most eerie, morbidly absorbing and psychologically compelling movies ever made about a writer in the agonizing process of creating an important piece of literature.

It offers no special insights into its subject, it doesn't connect on any higher level, and it left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied and let down.

So magnificent in so many ways that, for the first time, it seems to raise the docudrama to high art.

It's a handsome production, nicely shot by Elliot Davis on Italian and Moroccan locations, with a performance by Castle-Hughes ("Whale Rider") as the Virgin that's so pleasing and minimalist it could have been lifted from a fresco by Giotto.

The truly bizarre Ben Stiller farce, Night at the Museum, is no laugh riot, and misfires all over the screen, but it develops its own unique charm and leaves a pleasant afterglow. A family audience could do worse for a comedy this holiday season.

The experience is fun enough that it's sure to be the summer's first blockbuster.

Haskell comes off as a jerk -- but Mark somehow looks even worse: not just insincere but weak, vain and vindictive.

Numbingly predictable and repetitive non-stop action.

Her (Ardant's) diva-in-decline is funny, lightly campy and dead-on in the way it encapsulates the sadness at the end of a selfish life lived only for art.

All or Nothing has some appealing performances, several scenes of absolutely shattering domestic drama and an uncanny aura of gut-wrenching, documentarylike authenticity.

This is the most impressive directing debut by a "name" British actor in a long, long time.

An innocuous waste-of-time.

It never quite adds up to anything. It's engaging enough while it's going on, but has little visceral impact or resonance.

It's never hugely engaging and it's instantly forgettable, but it has a certain goofy charm.

So bloated, self-righteous and exploitative, it's hard to imagine anyone staying to the end, much less demanding a sequel.

Much of it is imaginatively directed (by Leonard Kastle, a one-time director who took over after Martin Scorsese was fired) and the film has the same distinctive, rather charming low-budget noir look of Night of the Living Dead, Hideous Sun Demon and other super-low-budget cult films of the '60s. [04 Dec 1992]

Annoyingly shallow, filled with one-note characters, and not half as daring as it seems to think it is.

But the movie soars as docudrama. Niccol's model seems to have been Scorsese's "GoodFellas" and, like that film, the blitzkrieg of images and rapid-fire narration takes us on a breathtaking inside tour of a scary world. It's an extraordinary expose.

The film manages to be an intriguing, grimly entertaining, strangely haunting little slice of heartland noir very much in the experimental tradition of such previous Soderbergh oddities as "Schizopolis" and "Full Frontal."

It's hard to imagine how the movie year could possibly produce a more annoyingly stupid movie. It's so witless, broadly played and insulting to anyone's intelligence that it's almost as offensive, in its own way, as "Jackass: The Movie."

The granddaddy of all caper/heist movies. The work that defined the genre for the subsequent four decades of filmmakers, none of whom was able to surpass it for style or suspense.