The movie never seems to force its connections or its revelations upon us, but merely discovers them in their provocative places; in short, it doesn't seem to be working very hard, but the apparent simplicity is deceiving: There's a grand, clever and ultimately satisfying plan under all the running around and bumping into each other. [27 Sept 1996]

The performances of Luna and, especially, Reilly, make the film more enthralling than it perhaps deserves to be.

A slick sci-fi thriller that comes complete with enough twists to keep audiences satisfied and enough moral quandaries to keep the thinkers happy.

The film's action doesn't disappoint; if anything, it ups the adrenaline ante considerably.

It wouldn't stick in the memory were it not for Matt Damon's audacious, baggy-pants portrayal of corporate whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, the antihero of this reality-based farce.

Barrymore gives a performance that's nuanced, assured and captivating.

A bawdy, brainy sex comedy geared toward smart people with a sophomoric streak.

Possesses moments of fleeting grace, pathos and beauty, even if it ultimately doesn't amount to much.

Blues Brothers 2000 doesn't tell much of a story, but it makes for one smokin' concert. [06 Feb 1998]

It's a soaper with a high grade of imported soap.

That rare kids' movie that may be even more entertaining for its intended audience's adult companions.

Cinema has once again proven its ability to incorporate every other mass-media art form. Director Zack Snyder and his computer wizards have made the best example yet of the movie-as-comic-book.

Fantasy, not honesty, is the point of The Kid Stays in the Picture.

Clockwatchers has a terrific, submerged feel, in keeping with its themes of corporate lassitude, isolation and paranoia. [24 Jul 1998]

In his first fiction feature, Zwigoff doesn't forget to bring the funny. But he doesn't bring enough poetry.

For much of its frolicsome, rambling running-time, Son of Rambow is like a guarana-spiked soft drink: It goes down easy and delivers a kick.

Fits squarely into the "exciting" category; it's a white-knuckler of the first order.

It's all done with such good heart, and Stiles is so perfectly appealing as one of cinema's most grounded Cinderellas.

Yes, the characters in Clerks II hardly qualify as role models, but they can be blisteringly funny in an in-your-face, to-heck-with-taste way.

There's comfort in seeing actors we know doing what we've come to expect them to do. But more important, the film surrounds them with supporting characters who are less familiar to us, who act in ways we don't expect.

Will remind filmgoers that one of the chief pleasures of going to the movies is a good old-fashioned swoon

Not everyone is going to appreciate the politics of Barbershop, but you've got to admire it for having a political view at all.

The Man Without a Past has the slenderness of a folk-tale -- also the clarity and charm.

The highest compliment I can pay Pieces of April is that it brings to mind a Paul Simon lyric: "the mother and child reunion is only a motion away."

The excitingly well-made Death of a President imagines the assassination of President Bush as a way of analyzing political violence. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, sight unseen, has labeled it despicable.

An intense two-character drama that follows as the participants in an office flirtation attempt to go up a notch toward an actual relationship, with disastrously unforeseen consequences. [11 Nov 1994]

This movie doesn't pretend to be anything more than a cheerful night out, and on that count it scores.

Possesses memorable portrayals of thoroughly original characters and draws a beguilingly bleak portrait of its Rhode Island settings.

In an age when light-and-easy racial farces have become mainstream hits, he remains a tough-love comedian.

American movies are generally so skittish about sexuality that Adrian Lyne's appetite --and aptitude -- for exploring it in Unfaithful is a relief.

Cheerful and unpretentious.

A bravura, resonant performance by Nicolas Cage, combined with some hard questions raised about American responsibility for the worldwide glut of firearms, make the film close to a must-see, if not a must-love.

The film's strengths can't be separated from its shortcomings. Despite its heavyweight supporting cast, Stone Reader mostly pays tribute to the enthusiasm and purity of the amateur.

Even at its most hyperactive, Peter Pan has a core of good and bad feeling that will hit home to kids and to adults with honest memories.

All three actresses are appealing, but Fisher, proving her scene-stealing turn in Wedding Crashers was no fluke, shines brightest.

It's just another modest, unsurprising little heist flick. So why is it so much fun? Newman.

Campbell Scott creates a new movie anti-hero -- the weak silent type -- and goes all the way with it in The Secret Lives of Dentists.

This is a movie that earns its suspense and validates its emotions, especially its examination of the bond between mother and child.

Once you get the hang of Figgis' own brand of coercion -- one based on an intricate sound design and musical score -- you find yourself happily going along for the ride.

Unpretentious and brashly exploitative.

The film is a thoughtful, but by no means somber, look at an issue that might strike a particular chord with Jews.

For those of us who wish that John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club" had kept the cheeky tone of Hughes' "Sixteen Candles," what ensues is the best Hughes farce that Hughes never made about adolescent snobbery and heartbreak as well as adult obtuseness.

May be thin, but it's also sharp, like a stiletto.

The bulk of the film merely yearns for lucidity and magic. At its worst, Respiro resembles My Big Fat Italian Nervous Breakdown.

It's an odd duck: a labor-intensive piece of light entertainment.

In Julie and Julia, Ephron, like her heroines, has finally found what suits her: a surprising comic and romantic realism.

You may feel like you need a drink and a shower when you come out of "Naked," but at least you'll know you've been somewhere new.

Playing a perpetual victim like Victor (Walken) might be easy, but making audiences want to watch him for 97 minutes isn't.

Casino Royale marks a shrewd relaunching of a franchise. But Campbell and company show too much of their sweat. If these movies continue to follow Fleming's profane pilgrim's progress, the next Bond movies should be more emotional and funny, with a bit of brass-knuckled charm.

A good film that, with a little extra care, could have been great.

he Kite Runner lives in the galvanic performances of two young Afghan actors, Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada. They bring home the torment of Afghan life before and after the Taliban and, just as important, the resilience of children everywhere.

Ladybird, Ladybird is full of powerful, disturbing imagery. It offers a portrait of a woman victimized by a powerful and unfeeling bureaucracy, one that will literally rip a newborn out of the arms of its parents. But it's not didactic. [10 Feb 1995]

Kung Fu Hustle is to "House of Flying Daggers" what "Blazing Saddles" is to "Unforgiven."

Nicholson is terrific here, in a role that demands he act, rather than just be Jack.

Intelligent and robust contempt has become so rare in movies that the first half of Art School Confidential is intermittently exhilarating.

Freedom Writers is the rare inspirational-teacher film that is filled with genuine, jaw-dropping coups of real-life poetry.

The movie dazzles with its slick lines, but there's a situational intelligence at play too -- little vignettes involving minor characters are begun at one wedding and then evolve into major events at the next.

Too often when actors portray complicated or enigmatic characters, they seem to be flirting with the audience, playing hard to get. Not Williams.

This is a video stroll through a family scrapbook.

Its effects don't linger long enough to seriously detract from the raunchy good time had by all.

What makes the movie potent, though, has nothing to do with metaphor or parable. It's that the story provides Connelly, Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Kingsley's wife with all the tools they need to resurrect, flesh out, revamp and criticize outmoded male and female roles.

There's plenty to like about Adrenaline Drive, including the appealing, sympathetic performances of its two young stars and the tongue-in-cheek humor that pervades the film.

The fascination, humor and poignancy of Departures, this year's winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, rests in the Japanese ceremony of preparing bodies for their caskets.

Steadily, stealthily, The Eye works its way into your psyche, playing with your mind and always keeping a surprise or two up its sleeve.

What makes it all work is that Frank remains a self-made hero.

Swimming is perceptive and, ultimately, embraceable. Like the adolescent it so lovingly depicts, this is a movie you want only the best for.

But the most piercing thing about Heavenly Creatures is Jackson's refusal to forgive the girls. He indeed understands them and empathizes with them. But when he has to, he exposes the horrid squalor and ugliness of the crime, which, after all, was a blood-soaked execution, crude as anything done in Rwanda. [9 Dec 1994]

Wildly entertaining.

The beauty, vibrancy and complexity of Indian culture is on addictive display in Monsoon Wedding. If only there were more to the film.

Although the movie is unabashedly alarming, it's also intelligent fun.

It forces you to fill in the blanks, then refuses to judge whether you're right or wrong. It's almost like the audience writes its own script, and everybody appreciates his or her own work.

The heartbreak comes not from watching her fail, but from realizing how easy it would be for her to succeed. If only she knew better how to try.

Dawn of the Dead may depict the end of the world as we know it, but rarely has watching doom proved such a kick.

It pulls together diverse residents of the city, from produce vendors to academics, and trains a loving eye on their unique environments and the urban landscapes they all share.

A withering condemnation of a culture where greed is a virtue, a culture that you don't have to feel guilty for laughing at.

Generally, Orlando is too busy having witty fun to turn into a cautionary tale against one sex in favor of the other. It's more like an extremely vivid drawing-room comedy imposed on the background of a historical epic.

In a cinematic landscape where truly original ideas are rarer than floating food, recklessness like this deserves to be appreciated. Not understood, but appreciated.

Overall, you're left wondering why every big novel needs to be a movie. White Oleander would work better as a four-part miniseries -- or at least as a less conventional screenplay.

Moves along with great speed and verve, and it's got just enough of a sci-fi sheen to make things interesting, if not provocative. Philosophers and true believers may be disappointed, but for movie fans, I, Robot mostly delivers the goods.

Prime serves as yet another showcase for Streep; to prove how expertly she plays a Jewish mother with a Ph.D. in psychology, just imagine Barbra Streisand in the role -- you'd have a farce only a step above slapstick. With Streep, you get a smartly observant comedy that never overplays its hand.

Electric as Elektra, Jennifer Garner does a high-powered, blade-thrusting star turn as Marvel Comics' ninja-inspired superheroine, bringing such unbridled energy and sexuality to her performance, one barely notices the movie itself.

Crammed, cheek to jowl, with bleak moments, high hopes, sweetness and naked emotion.

There's pleasure to be had in a film that suggests teen life can be hard without necessarily being tragic.

The result is a passionate, enthralling film that isn't afraid to take chances - even if it sometimes should be.

A solid, satisfying movie.

Blessedly unimportant, Fantastic Four cruises along on modest yet genuine comic-book pleasures.

Leonardo DiCaprio brings straight-razor reflexes and rooted emotion to the role of a deceptively rugged CIA man.

The best -- the brilliant -- bits of Reality Bites etch in epigram, anecdote and brittle, dazzling dialogue the inner life of young people who want desperately to believe but haven't decided in what. It loves them but it doesn't pity or sentimentalize them. It's tough as nails.

The people are just a little too calculatedly quirky in Off the Map, an otherwise engaging comedy.

This picture is absorbing -- and eye-filling -- whether the prose and the passion are connecting or running on parallel tracks.

May not make adults feel as if they're 10 again, but it will awaken their memories of Saturday matinees that upped children's adrenaline without blinding them with Day-Glo colors or insulting their intelligence.

Producers hits few wrong notes on the big screen.

It's the talk...and the extraordinarily expressive faces of those who do the talking, that accounts for its engrossing, enchanting powers.

It's deliciously warped, deceptively smart and undeniably funny. Isn't that enough?

Quick and lowdown-delightful. It's also a graveyard or two up in class from the torture films that, in recent years, have redefined horror for the worse.

Reaches the highest comic heights when the show itself starts.

The movie may be Nine Queens, but it slakes your thirst for surprises and thrills because of its Nine Jokers.

Don't go expecting a good time to be had. But by all means, go to revel in a movie that, for about two-thirds of its length, is Mamet at the top of his game -- intelligent, tightly crafted, densely layered.