Because it's by the Coens, The Big Lebowski is studded with visual and verbal jokes and flourishes, but ultimately they amount to pearls without a string. The Coens have thrown their considerable talents into making the world's smartest dumb movie, a dubious distinction that for their admirers will have to suffice, at least for now.

The cognoscenti will no doubt follow the plot permutations a little bit more easily than those of us on the outside. But even we of the uninitiated will appreciate the cleverly escalating tension. [18 Nov. 1994, p.12]

Too much fun to ignore.

The action is thrilling enough.

Could have been a contender, but it lacks the courage of its own ambivalence.

A plot that seems stretched for the big screen.

At its best, The Mystic Masseur is like a tall tale that grows more beguiling and credible the taller it gets.

Spielberg's inchoate attempts at cultural observation stretch the movie out and dilute the giddiness instead of adding a pleasurable spike. When the movie doesn't feel inflated, it feels soggy.

Maya Rudolph's subtle, lyrical portrait of a patient wife and expectant mother enlivens and elevates Away We Go, an erratic couple-on-a-quest film.

The good news is that Schwarzenegger is more entertaining than ever as the Terminator T-101 cyborg.

Lighthearted fluff, not piercing drama. Still, a little shot of reality -- or at least an acknowledgement of same -- could have done this film wonders.

The most appealing aspect of the movie is that the guys and gal at the center of it don't just love the Star Wars saga for its own sake. They love the way they feel about each other when they're escaping into its universe and sharing all the wonder and the trivia.

Although some clever touches are clearly directed at adults -- much of the film's humor is quite likely to go under your head. [20 Nov 1998]

Spirit lacks that essential emotional resonance, and suffers because of it.

Wilde is a worthy movie that, although helped considerably by Stephen Fry's bravura performance, never breaks out of its static, episodic structure. [05 Jun 1998]

It's hardly great, but it's completely mesmerizing. [02 Feb 1996]

More of a sales pitch than a movie.

The backgrounds, it must be said, are the most impressive features in the picture: Vibrant with color and often deeply evocative, they make you wish something a bit more lively was happening in front of them. [18 Nov 1994]

Goes to such great lengths to show the greatness of its Navy diver hero that it neglects to add much depth to his character - or the story.

Humorous but much too predictable send-up of reality TV and the sheer banality of it all.

A bland also-ran in a post-"Sopranos" universe.

For all its pretensions, Changing Lanes, ultimately, is about nothing more profound than one foul day.

Many inspirational sports movies provide only junk food for thought; this one contains some authentic reflections of sport in the civil rights era.

Great book, great cast, average film: Les Miserables is all pedigree, no passion.

As a movie, Heist is merely an amiable time-killer. But it presents a terrific argument for federalizing airport security.

The fault isn't Clooney's alone. The Coen brothers contrive a few spectacularly funny bits and pieces but rarely get into a flow. Too often they mistake facetiousness for slapstick invention or wit, and they don't follow through on their best ideas.

We'll never know what might have been, as eye candy and food for thought replace real thrills in the cool but cold Minority Report.

Drags on and on and could frighten little kids. But Kenneth Branaugh is one bright light in Chamber of Secrets.

The movie's cinematography is sumptuous, in its own intimate way. But all that's glorious about this film is the flesh tones. There isn't enough flesh and blood.

Taken together, the sum of so many parts is too schizophrenic to be wholeheartedly embraced -- the movie is played for parody, but with a veneer of respectability that leaves the whole endeavor betwixt and between.

It's a tough slog, but worth seeing once. [08 Nov 2008, p.4C]

Jonze lets the magic ebb away in a sorry mesh of strained relationships.

This would be an excellent movie from a first-time filmmaker, but from one of America's premiere directors, it's a disappointment.

Enigma, named for the Nazi secret-coding machine, has everything going for it except a pulse.

As a visual adventure, "The Lawnmower Man" is great fun.

Characters are manipulated and lives made whole in ways both satisfying and unexpected.

A pleasant little confection that leaves behind the sneaking suspicion it should have amounted to so much more.

Beautifully mounted and shot, Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book still feels somewhat callow. Its title aside, it never really deals with the issues that the great Kipling raised continually in his distinguished body of work.

A great cast can't quite pull City by the Sea out of the drink.

Unfortunately for Fox, the softer his movie gets, the more Ashkenazi and Berger grow to resemble Ben Stiller and Ashton Kutcher in some unreleased, homo-erotic comic romance.

Like the particular brand of music Dewey espouses, this is a movie more concerned with exploiting rock than understanding it.

Salma Hayek merrily struts off with most of Brett Ratner's wispy caper comedy.

A star is born in 8 Mile, all right, but his name is Mekhi Phifer.

Passed my popcorn-movie test. Using the vast, expensive technology of a big studio production, it roused enough cheap energy to drive me to eat a bag of popcorn fit for a circus animal and wash it down with a quart of Diet Coke.

Those not familiar with Proust will doubtless feel lost. Unlike the printed word, film does not offer the chance to pause and reflect, or go back and re-read a passage.

About as good as the genre gets.

Unwaveringly predictable.

The Cell is eye candy - but it could give your brain a bad case of indigestion.

As scary Halloween movies go, Thirteen Ghosts' "Oh, please" factor is pretty darn high.

Kasdan has assembled a stellar cast of supporting players to lend this low-key tale some interest.

It doesn't take a genius IQ to figure out the movie's final twist far in advance, leaving the attentive viewer to wonder only about how Shyamalan will pull it off and to hope the movie doesn't turn silly.

When it sticks to the subject, the movie is sad and affecting.

It took guts to bring this story to the screen, but at its core it has the wrong stuff.

This isn't your father's Stuart Little, but youngsters will be delighted. Mostly.

The result may not make for a great adventure, but it's sure a fun ride.

The soundtrack is guaranteed to send chills where they'll be most effective, and the ultimate resolution is a real shocker. While it doesn't explain away everything that's happened, it comes deliciously close.

A comedy that doesn't work if you think about it too much. Cut it some slack, however, and you just might have a good time.

In real life, Bacon and Sedgwick are husband and wife. Their scenes mark one of the rare times an off-screen couple's intimacy enriches on-screen passion.

Its heart and head are in the right place, but its feet and hands aren't busy enough.

Connie and Carla is a good-hearted comedy that missteps by trying to become a moralistic one.

Brimming with values that should serve its young audience well: altruism, friendship, self-sacrifice, responsibility.

Dunston Checks In checks in somewhere between cute and zany. It's never really funny, but director Ken Kwapis has a low flair for slapstick that occasionally ignites a spark or two.

Has a sweetness to it that's irresistible, and its techno, trance and jungle soundtrack is as infectious and hypnotic as a contact high.

Handsome and well-acted, yet it can't hold a pawn to Nabokov's harrowing and moving character study.

A grade-B rumination on what a nasty guy the devil can be.

The cinematic equivalent of a beautifully wrapped gift box with nothing inside.

It fails to dig beneath that surface picture and offer up anything in the way of explanation or motivation.

Unfortunately, it lacks emotional lift or folkloric fervor.

This movie registers like a pop song that enters the mind only in fragments because, as a whole, it lacks the style or substance to be memorable.

It's a gimcrack assemblage of gags, action scenes, favorite moments from the first hit and diorama-like views of high and low Victorian culture.

Kevin Spacey delivers his least-mannered, most effective big-screen performance in years as the voice of the nearly omniscient computer-robot, GERTY, whose silky ambiguity resembles HAL's in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Too sketchy about her protagonist's interior life, and too fast and loose with the details of this story, to make much of an impact beyond its initial shock.

Come Undone would have benefited immensely from less constricted performances from Elkaim and Rideau, both of whom go through the film determined not to crack a smile.

Some might find the whole thing exhilarating, but exhausting is more the word that comes to this man's mind.

Sokurov, for all his accomplishment, is less a bold innovator than a raider of lost art.

Where "Boyz N the Hood" cut deep, to bone, this one stays glibly on the surface. It's slick and routinely entertaining, if never quite persuasive. [06 Nov 1996]

Has been designed to make gentle hearts soar beneath neo-grunge exteriors. It's a mixture of high-SAT humor and high-jinks so crude they're really low-jinks.

Sadly, most of the fun and all the magic derive from the location. The most enthralling fantasy of Just Like Heaven is that an unemployed landscape architect and a fledgling doctor can afford a sprawling apartment with a rooftop view in San Francisco.

In Head of State, Rock may be verging on becoming a heart-warmer.

Provides an arresting journey through the Japanese countryside and culture.

Secret Window leaves you unsatisfied and frustrated. Depp's performance both makes the film and undercuts it. He's a poet caught in a machine.

There's enough here to keep the movie light and avoid the curse of interminableness. Will there be enough to warrant a third Scooby-Doo film? Must we find out?

It's a small, amusing movie that's long on charming affability. [03 Feb 1995]

Yes, the movie asks hard questions, but it would be better - or at least more honest - if it weren't so insistent that everyone arrive at the same answer.

Ice Age snaps with visual wit whenever director Wedge breaks the stale story to pieces and pumps in some bracing fresh air. So it's fitting to find, when the final credits roll, that he played Scrat.

The movie's already peaked, even before the opening credits.

Would have been better served if Carrera had spent a little more energy developing his story and less on emphasizing his message.

True, John Ford and John Wayne did this stuff a lot better back in the day, but they're not around anymore. John Singleton is, and it's nice to see someone caring enough to keep the tradition alive.

Keeps filmgoers wondering what will happen next even as they are repulsed by what's happening in front of them.

It's considerably flawed. It has a middle that's padded, a look that could use a few more light bulbs, a protagonist who never earns our sympathy, and an audio mix that leans much too heavily on the bass, often making it impossible to understand what's being said.

Critically lacks Highsmith's sixth sense for drawing you into the heart and soul of sociopaths, then jolting you with the realization that things are much worse even than they seem.

His film would benefit from more subtlety and tighter editing, but as both director and star, Gibson takes the story by the hilt and plunges forward, as single-minded as Wallace screaming into battle.

There's an awful lot of kinetic energy to Chopper, and the violence is portrayed as graphically as imaginable.

The basketball sequences are the most magical in the film -- both Harrelson and Snipes can play -- but more to the point, he also has a great gift for evoking the needling hostility of athletes, the way the games aren't just about talent but about ego, will, self-esteem.

Stars Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno give Jet Lag everything they've got. Too bad the movie doesn't better reward their effort.

Pawlikowski's heart may be with Mona, but his art is closer to Tamsin. He luxuriates in his sensibility without delivering a movie that pays off in originality or insight.

A friendly movie, as scruffy and cozy as a woolen watch cap.

Reiner should have had faith in his sensational material to make its points without a minister in the pulpit. The movie would have been much better, and much shorter, too. [03 Jan 1997]