The movie gets as overblown and masochistic as the worst Joan Crawford vehicle. Its saving grace is that Bernal really does have his own deep-set, smoldering variation on Bette Davis eyes.

The movie is untainted by surprise or originality. It seems built from a blueprint, not a script. Anyone who listens to sports talk radio could write just as good a movie, no kidding. [29 Jun 1994]

The movie is edited and, worse, narrated in ways that sabotage the magic and even undercut the movie's message.

Some dazzling in-camera special effects, especially the ingenious idea of filming the story's ghost at a slow speed, six frames per second, giving the being a strange, otherworldly way of moving.

The movie has trouble getting beyond the winking stage and is always letting you know that these are the soon-to-be famous Beatles. [22 Apr 1994]

Becoming Jane isn't just a soap opera - it's a soft-soap opera.

A fuzzy, feel-good movie about baseball, babes and believing in yourself.

I found the sight of McAvoy as a piano player in jazzy-seedy duds a lot more disconcerting than Ricci's porcine prosthesis.

By the time it reaches its supposedly crowd-pleasing finale, Baby Mama may have self-respecting comedy fans (and even Tina Fey fans) crying uncle.

Unapologetically cliched and determinedly upbeat (even when it shouldn't be).

The Mexican is its own worst enemy, consistently undermining its best efforts. The result is an over-long series of quirks, a film that's far less than the sum of its often amusing and ingenious parts.

The latest in a line of quirky, feel-good British comedies, Greenfingers fits right into the breezily entertaining mold but doesn't expand it.

Fails to go into the one realm that would make it worthwhile, which is Ed Wood's brain.

Unlike Nicolas Cage in "National Treasure," Hanks lacks the game for it. The surface seriousness of these Dan Brown movies obstructs his affability and easy, attentive way with romance.

Poses as the story of a wild, eccentric love match but is really about a match made in limbo.

Since that gifted, attractive performer is Hayden Panettiere, who has already won a wide following for "Heroes," it's a wonder that the studio hasn't been more heavily promoting her appearance in this decent, genial youth comedy. After all, she does play, ah, Beth Cooper.

The whole thing turns into trash with flash.

Even Washington's welcome presence is not enough to save "Fallen," yet another spiritual allegory from Hollywood dealing with God, Satan and the presence of angels. [16 Jan 1998]

Director Gillian Armstrong drains all the emotional energy out of the people who dot her movie's lovely landscape.

Puerile, offensive, degrading, dumb, pointless, insipid and may just well be a harbinger for the end of Western civilization as we know it. But I laughed. Sorry.

Watching The Gospel of John is like listening to a religious audiotape while working a picture flip-book of the Bible.

Thank goodness for Davy Crockett; without him, the Alamo could have proven the blandest heroic siege in movie history.

Despite the cunning mixture of live-action footage and animatronic effects in Two Brothers, there's more imagination and wonder in a good old Sabu picture like "The Jungle Book" (1942). Two Brothers is more like a tacky jungle comic book.

Relentless in its crudity, so indiscriminate in its pursuit of tasteless laughs, so pure in its determination to offend, one almost has to admire it. It's even funny. Sometimes.

The cinematic equivalent of a careless foot fault.

Once the movie settles down to story, it turns out to play like an extended Twilight Zone episode that merely reiterates the theme of the first few minutes: that man is fundamentally a beast and he must struggle endlessly against his own worst instincts and that each victory over those instincts is merely provisional.

The film is achingly conventional. [03 Jun 1994]

The movie, brief though it is, feels as padded as a travelogue.