The final half-hour is like the not-so-grand finale for a silly-sticky sitcom. It's a college-town “Friends” with an unearned doctorate.

It's as if the book itself has been locked up and institutionalized, forced to conform to a system that all but obliterates its own unique personality.

It's exciting and satisfying, even if the chief villain isn't terribly original and the chase scenes are overlong. Bullock is plucky and believable as an average person who must marshal her strength and smarts to get her life back.

Disney is creatively bankrupt and bereft of ingenuity -- especially in its live-action films. [25 Dec 1998, p.8F]

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

The movie bobbles along on a weird, soft-edged sarcasm.

Like a party where everyone is so desperate to have a good time that it makes you miserable.

Aside from Lillard, the stand-out here is Cook, who plays a new breed of post-feminist Cinderella with a convincing mix of seriousness and vulnerability (although just once, it would be nice if Cinderella could keep her glasses on and still be beautiful). With her doe eyes and peaches-and-organic-yogurt complexion, Cook resembles a young Winona Ryder (if that's possible), right down to the appealing blend of sweetness and self-assurance. [29 Jan 1999: 1E]

Refreshingly, the movie never wavers in the importance it places on friendship over just about anything else.

The final resolution is silly by just about any standard. A little grounding in reality and a larger effort to avoid the trite could have made Everyone's Hero fun and inspirational for everybody, not just the very young.

Irreversible, though, is not a Kubrickian head trip. All Noe has come up with is a turn-on for sadists.

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

The one thing most sorely missing is movie magic.

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

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

Until the last 15 minutes, What Lies Beneath is a well-paced maze that earns every gasp from its audience.

Johnny English never builds any momentum, and Atkinson simply isn't a good enough actor to mine continued laughs from repetitive material.

Rarely has appalling, reckless behavior been so soporific as in Savage Grace.

Darren Aronofsky labors awfully hard to get across a pretty simple message in The Fountain. But his efforts are so ethereal and extreme, it's almost impossible to turn away.

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

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

Look, I love dogs. But this film tried my patience almost beyond endurance.

A slice-of-life where being gay is a fact of daily existence, not an excuse for existential dilemmas or grand tragedies.

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

Conventional wisdom has it that the best Star Trek movies are the even-numbered ones. Nemesis may keep that streak alive, but barely.

As a narrative, it has serious problems -- holes so gaping that they're all but unavoidable.

But the film's most annoying error is the arrogant conceit of revisionism. It postulates a world that did not exist, because it exorcises the entwined concepts of communism and Cold War.

This film isn't an enjoyable martial-arts extravaganza like "District B-13" or the "Transporter" films.