Despite hard-working performances and the occasional sexual frisson from ingénue Déborah François (a kind of French Renée Zellweger) and seductive Romain Duris (who looks like Tom Hanks by way of Montgomery Clift), Populaire hits mostly wrong keys.

Brolin's performance is funny, masterful, confident, and more than a little unsettling. If one human being can sample another, that's what's going on here. The rest of Men in Black 3 is about as good as one could hope for from an unnecessary sequel that's a decade late to the party.

The actor's job here is the hardest to pull off, since practical skepticism in a Tim Burton picture is next to villainy. Yet Crudup suggests complex grown-up feelings that makes the rest of Big Fish feel like an earnest collection of magic tricks.

As always, it’s a good idea to do your homework before or after seeing an Oliver Stone movie. You may come out convinced of his point of view and still feel hustled by how he got you there.

Lawless is very bloody - but the scenery and production design are a whole lot nicer.

Filled with fun, style, and ensemble give-and-take, the peppy Love and Other Catastrophes restores one's faith in sex, lies, and videotape. [11 Apr 1997, p.C7]

This is a corny tale, told with both generous helpings of deli-sliced cheese and a brief stretch of chilling tumultuousness.

It’s like an international-relations microcosm imagined by the Coen brothers, down to an occasional sense that the absurdity isn’t taking us anywhere.

Greeson writes dialogue that’s shallow but clever; and under Nisha Ganatra’s direction, The High Note tells a brisk, improbable tale.

It's a handsomely crafted revisionist Western that effectively destigmatizes the legendary Apache raider, reveling as much in political correctness as in its sunset-tinted red sandstone. [10 Dec 1993, p.53]

Yes, Younger has made an update of the ''shiksa who changed my life" story in ''Annie Hall." But Prime is missing the psychological acuity and scabrous cultural wit of Woody Allen at his best. These lovers meet standing in line to see Antonioni's ''Blow-Up" and never mention the movie.

Moana 2 is disappointing, but it’s also watchable. I appreciated the attempt to tell a story that wasn’t based solely on the studio’s IP. And the visuals will entertain the kids too young to endure all 160 minutes of “Wicked” this holiday season.

Though I enjoyed both films, I had the same problem with this “Mean Girls” as I did with the original: I didn’t know whom to root for as the story played out.

Its attributes and achievements are modest, but its arias, duets, and ensembles are engaging all the same.

The movie is both stunning on the level of visual pageantry and curiously inert as cinema.

It is Bowie's alter ego as the androgynous Martian rock star that remains, 30 years later, his most enduring artistic achievement.

Its protagonist haven't enough emotional substance to carry them through the long, darkly lit introspective sequences.

After an hour or so, Ask the Dust seems to have said everything, and the air starts to seep out of its hermetic atmosphere.

Despite the revival of narrative vigor accompanying Licence to Kill, you will perhaps sense that I find it too sane, too engineered. Preposterousness seems an integral part of the James Bond universe, which I'd hate to think was turning rational, falling into step with the '80s by abandoning fancifulness. Mercifully, Licence to Kill isn't altogether stripped of excess. [14 July 1989, p.65]

It's a slow, moderately involving descent into the inevitable, with Pearce gamely trying to figure what's going on. Better him than me.

The film is arriving on these shores in the wake of such successful foodie nonfictions as “Jiro Dreams of Shushi,” a 2012 art-house hit about an 85-year-old master of raw fish. Like that film, Ramen Heads reaches for the lyrical with slow-motion shots of roiling broth and soaring classical music on the soundtrack. Unlike the earlier movie, it goes so far overboard in ladling out praise that viewers might wonder if they’re being sold a bill of goods.

The downside is that "The Hobbit" no longer looks like a movie at all. It looks like a video.

The journey is not very exciting, but the destinations are inspired.

It’s a movie made for the kind of audiences who feel that movies aren’t made for them anymore — you know who you are. If you go, you might want to bring a raincoat.

An unremarkable comedy-drama.

Despite its lush photography, Green Card has the texture of peanut butter. It's more romantic than comedic, but there isn't an abundance of either. [11 Jan 1991]

This is an easy movie to watch. If only Julie Bertuccelli had more trust in her most interesting stuff.

The film casts Annette Bening as the vain, aging stage actress Irina Arkadina, Saoirse Ronan as the naive country beauty Nina, and Elisabeth Moss as bitter Masha, dressed in black “in mourning for my life.” Those are three excellent reasons to see the movie, and the filmmaking fights them almost every step of the way.

City of Ember lacks the vision and scope of "WALL-E," but it's based on a pretty good kids' book and it makes a pretty good "Twilight Zone" episode, with hope dangling at the end rather than one of Rod Serling's cosmic black jokes.

The pre-Thanksgiving release of Jonathan Levine’s The Night Before celebrates those Christmas blessings that are beloved by all: scatological humor, smarmy sentimentality, and gross product placement.

High-concept, low-budget, proudly set-bound, Hotel Artemis shouldn’t work at all. Somehow, miraculously, it does.

There are moments when Hill and Giler dare to turn Undisputed into an episode of ''Oz'' - albeit an insipid, belligerence-, and sex-free episode.

What goes on when Li isn't fighting the bad guys isn't worth discussing; it's that stupid.

Gross and tasteless...this high-school romp mixes the gross and tasteless with sentimental mush.

Satisfyingly, May also turns out to be lowdown genre fun, a film that nearly makes up in slacker wit and high-spirited gore what it lacks in budget and elegance.

The film Soderbergh's made is about promiscuous stargazing. And you don't need a brain for that, just two eyes and a mammoth appetite for heavenly bodies.

An attempt to turn the 2005 nonfiction bestseller into a high-energy docu-romp, Freakonomics is a misconceived botch.

In tone and plotting, Away We Go feels like a fairy tale built on an aggravating collection of attitudes. It's condescending, judgmental, righteous, yet sincerely searching.

Escape From Tomorrow, Moore’s sometimes surreal, sometimes sophomoric, black comic phantasmagoria, makes for a bumpy theme park ride.

This is a movie you could watch in your sleep.

If you enjoy laughing at a movie, rather than with it, then you might get a few chuckles. [18 Dec 1980, p.1]

All the animals are computer-generated, not that you’d know it by looking at them. Their interactions with the human characters are seamless — and, it must be said, at times the animal characters come across as less cartoony than the human ones.

A sweet-natured, terribly unthreatening drama about redemption and renewal, and it may matter more to the man who made it than the audiences who see it.

Fascinating but frustrating.

We’ve been here before and many, many times, and Monday, newly available on demand, doesn’t give us enough reason to be here again.

A humane alternative that makes the phrase family values mean something. [14 July 1995, p.33]

Everything Is Illuminated hasn't been adapted so much as gutted, stuffed, and mounted.

So few Hollywood movies go here that this one's oddly welcome, even in its most turgid moments, of which there are many.

A lot of people die, much danger is averted, and we’re once again treated to a grand spectacle at the film’s climax. It’s all wrapped up in a package that’s too neat to leave an impression.

Like its predecessor, Wicked: For Good benefits greatly from the fact that its two leads are fantastic singers, and its director knows how to stage a musical number.

With The Invention of Lying, the British comic actor Ricky Gervais has come up with a wickedly funny idea for a movie - and then purged the wickedness right out of it.

With its preachy, dull love story between a boy made of water and a girl on fire, Elemental should have been called “Guess Who’s Coming to Disney.”

By the end, we're left with a feeling of depletion rather than resolution, which may have been Gray's intention.

For all the film's flaws, it has a caustic, nondenominational view of apocalypses to come.

Every now and then, Benny & Joon makes you think it's going to finally take off, but it never does. It looks good but has credibility problems even on the level of whimsical fairy tale. [16 Apr 1993, p.86]

There are echoes of Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” in all of this that are impossible to miss.

Stark eye candy of the first order, the film is saddled with the oldest story this side of "Blade Runner." Still, comic-book fanboys and graphic designers with time to kill should feel no shame in checking this one out.

Jarecki's not remotely in Scorsese's league yet, but he knows New York and he has seen the dark soul of man. Maybe next time he won't blink.

Crank is an efficient, witty, junkyard dog of an action movie for its first hour. Unfortunately, the script runs out of gas before the hero does. While it's cooking, though, it's violently preposterous fun.

To paraphrase the old ad for Levy's rye bread, you don't have to be Jewish to love "Keeping Up With the Steins," but it helps.

It's assured and neatly crafted - the time zips by while you're watching it.

The story gets both complicated and predictable.

Daybreakers has unexpected flashes of brilliance.

Trishna should move the soul and engage the tear-ducts, yet it passes by as distant as it is lovely. And the blame must fall on the movie's star, Freida Pinto.

Samuel’s sophomore full-length feature is an ambitious misfire, a noble failure that starts off like “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” and ends like “The Passion of the Christ.”

Lila is all come-ons without any charm.

Never achieves the exhilarating feat of exemplifying the types of Hollywood movies it wants to unpack.

Color Me Kubrick digs all sorts of devilish ironies out of this "true...ish story," and it's a fine dark farce before turning sad and, worse, monotonous. The con wears off before the movie does, but while it's in the air, "Kubrick" spins with bogus cheer.

Going All the Way is a familiar story told with daring and unsentimental eloquence. At a time when it is rare for exceptional books to become exceptional films, Pellington's debut arrives as a pleasant and welcome exception. [10 Oct 1997, p.C5]

The film's most endearing trait is that these people sincerely love movies, and they truly love their own idiosyncrasies. And is that not the greatest love of all?

In the end, Holy Smoke crashes and burns.

As rich and literary a work as you might expect.

The unworthy new Hollywood remake of Japan's horror phenomenon, ''Ring,'' has packed on a definite article and a whole lot of hooey.

In a dismal summer for movies, Osmosis Jones is a fresh breath of foul air.

All these segments are well made and engaging, but their lack of interconnectedness reduces The Laundromat to a sketch comedy, and random guest appearances by actors like Sharon Stone (as a Vegas real estate saleswoman) and David Schwimmer (as a small-time lawyer) only add to the scattergun atmosphere.

And there you have the problem with The Zookeeper’s Wife: Dialogue and plotting that keep this inspirational, mostly true story earthbound by hitting every note with a hammer.

This time, director Rob Reiner and his cast take aim at comeback concerts and the documentaries they often spawn. In other words, “Spinal Tap II” is both a satire and an example of what it’s satirizing.

Returning director Wilson Yip commits to this tone too late, getting lost in tangential conflict and stunt casting — in this corner, Mike Tyson! — at the expense of the drama and even the action.

Monkeys end up supplying the movie’s real drama. While parentally overlooked mischief-maker Tao Tao gets up to the requisite, well, monkey business, he’s also witness to a stunning snatch-and-fly attack by an opportunistic goshawk. It might not be nature on demand, but it’s some scene.

This 19th Bond installment is passable, but only just.

Despite the artful, passionate performances by the cast, his experiment comes across more as contrivance than a work of thoughtful, aesthetic detachment.

Except for the evocative sets and Randy Newman's upbeat musical score, Ragtime is better read than seen. [18 Dec 1981]

It's more like a cartoon with a body count.

Dicks: The Musical is a three-star movie with a midnight crowd and a two-star movie when viewed at 3 p.m. My star rating splits the difference.

The best parts of Flicka are its pinch-me optimism and its old-fashioned-movie flourishes.

The liveliest, most original family values film of the year so far.

Intermittently engaging but inescapably overextended.

In a summer in which every blockbuster is zealous to be a video game, Rodriguez, with a wink, has produced his own.

This tired little movie got on my last nerve. If Driss is so charismatic and so full of ingenuity, why isn't he using any of that skill to help lift up his family?

For a holding maneuver, Thor itself turns out to be diverting enough - not close to a sharp-edged romp like "Iron Man" but not the B-movie roadshow some of us were expecting.

In short, Permanent Midnight is about what you would expect from a mild-at-heart movie that wants to titillate with a fallen artist story that has a wholesome outcome. [18 Sep 1998, p.D9]

It's a genre film - the action is fierce and nonstop - with a brooding undercurrent of unease that aims for the complexities of John le Carre.

Ball's trying to be honest about adolescent coming of age, but since he's dishonest about everything else, the movie collapses in on itself.

An elegantly made, almost unbearably depressing tale of WWII-era deprivation and survival.

Teeth is the "Incredible Hulk" of sex satires.

Charming, but not seductive.

Exuberantly mixing live action and animation, it's a high-energy dream teaming that shrewdly takes advantage of the chance to goof on Jordan's temporary retirement from basketball and unsuccessful fling at baseball, and even more winningly exploits the antic wildness that always distinguished Warner Bros.' bouncy Looney Tunes. [15 Nov 1996, p.D1]

A sometimes clever but ultimately clichéd comedy.