Ephron's attempt at dark humor isn't a complete payoff overall in Lucky Numbers, but it doesn't fail either.

This handsome and occasionally exciting movie flounders because it confuses Tinseltown glamour with legendary heroism and beauty.

Cut above this genre's usual industrial sludge, even when the chops and kicks are too fast to follow.

The script is clever and would be brilliant if it worked.

Angelina Jolie focuses her wild energy into outlandish heroics, and emerges with more attractiveness and credibility than all three of those silly Charlie's Angels combined.

There's a subtlety to Crimson Gold that deserves applause.

Depends on breezy attitude and effortless delivery for its success.

Steven Soderbergh's Solaris is an uptight movie -- the opposite of his scintillating "Out of Sight."

The movie, in fact, is a lot like Willis' performance: impressive in an iconographic way, but really not nearly as much fun as it should be. It's like watching a spitting contest between totem poles. [20 Sep 1996]

Best when DeVito plays off the supporting cast surrounding him.

If nothing else, it may make one appreciate the cartoon even more.

Even at its most enjoyable, Eight Legged Freaks is disappointing -- it grazes your funny bone instead of tickling it like crazy.

The movie captures exactly why those of us who do this for a living can't seem to shed ourselves of it: that crazed, dizzying, exhausting sense of being, if ever so briefly, where it's happening; and the sense that somewhere out there in the great unknown landscape that is our readership is somebody who cares what we write. The movie understands what draws people to Suns both real and imaginary.

Role Models has a tart surface and a heart of goo. The movie grows more obvious as it goes along.

The climax and epilogue are the juiciest, most tough-minded bits in the movie. Too bad Mayer didn't work his way backward from the end.

I hope the producers bring Lin back for the fifth film and strip it down even more. They can lose all the human characters except Brian and Mia and simply call it F&F.

Huckabees boasts an impressive cast, and every one of them is fun to watch. But there's a strong sense that no one really knows what's going on here.

Turns into an amusing showcase for two of Hollywood's most appealing young actors.

New York Minute isn't High Art, but it is highly entertaining, especially if you're a member of its target audience.

What keeps the picture alive is Ghobadi's surprising, often explosive grasp of visual farce.

The best thing about 13 Going on 30 is that an ever-game Jennifer Garner is cheerfully convincing as a 13-year-old in a 30-year-old body. The worst thing is the feeling we've seen this movie before, done better.

Almereyda has done a splendid job of rendering Hamlet as expressive visually as it is verbally.

No great shakes as a documentary, but there are great shakes in the sight of 10- and 11-year-olds learning ballroom dancing in the New York City public school system.

What we have here is a suburban-legend movie stripped of rough edges and cut off from any depth that might have made it insidiously haunting.

The New Guy doesn't have a new idea in its head, but it trods over the old ground with such wit and heart that its lack of originality can be overlooked, if not entirely forgiven.

Look at Me is a virtuoso exercise in domestic tension - with the emphasis on "exercise."

Austin does have a psychedelic buoyancy and Dr. Evil an addle-pated sadistic goofiness that are original and engaging, but Myers doesn't build on their best stuff. That's where a real plot would help.

Eagle Eye has half an idea in its head, but over two hours there's no time to complete or explore it, since the movie isn't just a chase but a combination steeplechase and destruction derby.