Overdoes it and falls on its farce.

Surprisingly formulaic. So many scenes seem lifted from a 1950s melodrama, from Blake and Francis' repentent mother (Leslie Ann Warren) to the film's tearjerker of a final scene.

You have to be willing to take a lot of punishment for a few good scares.

Rebound is determinedly lightweight fare that shamelessly resorts to every crowd-pleasing cliche it can think of to wring sympathy and laughs from its audience. To say it succeeds is not meant as a compliment.

It's unfortunate that none of the principal actors is able to convey the passion the characters are supposed to have for each other.

While I have no problem with slackers making me laugh, when they start preaching, that's when my ears close and my eyes roll.

The out-of-control plot doesn't unfold gracefully or organically; it simply speeds along with no regard for anything other then getting to the next plot twist.

This turgid melodrama fast-breaks away from the heart of its own subject.

The bad guys just seem like a bunch of X-Games rejects, and Blart's ingenuity proves way more effective than it has any right to be.

It's just too bad that you can see everything coming from a mile away.

This movie proves to be the year's most anti-romantic comedy.

It's pretty off-handed, more a theory of a movie than a movie itself. [05 Oct 1996]

Despite stellar work from the cast, the movie seems as emotionally distant from its audience as its characters are from each other.

The casting in K-PAX is canny, but the picture as a whole is a clunky mix of the canny and the would-be uncanny.

Initially powerful and unsettling, the movie loses its hold when it becomes stupid and violent. [12 Apr 1996]

Unfortunately, whenever Beautiful threatens to work as parody, it veers uncomfortably into pop psychology.

As overstated and expository as a historical pageant, from the drippy music to a sputtering, running gag involving funky old jalopies to cliched speeches and teary-eyed deaths and a final voice-over crying out for peace. Why not add a song score and an exclamation mark in the title?

What's fatal to the film is that De Niro's character, though compelling, is so temperate and wise he gives no indication of why he was drawn to a life of crime.

Holofcenere genuinely wants to make pictures that plug into an audience's need for intimate contemporary comedies. But she doesn't do enough to quench that thirst.

In Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou tries to top the breathtaking poetic spectacle of his masterpiece, "House of Flying Daggers," and instead plummets into self-parody.

It's a sad day for film lovers when the best thing that can be said about a Western is that it's pleasant.

Remember mood rings? The Ring Two is a mood movie - a bad-mood movie.

A bit hard on the posterior, it is definitely easy on the eyes.

It's a rugged, almost chauvinistic celebration of American get-up-and-go that never acknowledges, even implicitly, that our get-up-and-go got up and went. It might be characterized by words begin with G: gusto, guts, gumption, gee whiz and gosharootie, though, er, never G-spot. [14 Jan 1994]

See it to be reminded (if you need further reminding) of this actress' remarkable range. Otherwise, take a pass.

Almost sinks under the weight of too many red herrings, but is rescued by a skewed sense of reality and pervasive sense of dread that should keep audiences from dwelling on them.

Domino should have been a terrific anti-heroine, but the movie never gets deep enough inside this walking time bomb to reveal what makes her tick.

As a whole, The Matrix Reloaded is thin on magic, charm, surprise and fun. It's less like an all-out escape, or even a thrill ride, than a sensory workout. At best, it's a treadmill-like bridge to the hoped-for splendors of episode three, The Matrix Revolutions.