A deft, elegant, melancholy tapestry of flawed outreach, and the big reason it succeeds is Podeswa's courage in dispensing with a lot of exposition and trusting the audience - and the faces of the actors - to fill a lot of what otherwise would be gaps.

It's no meal, but it'll tide you over.

It's a grisly, chuckling cartoon made on shots of tequila, Red Bull, and Sergio Leone.

Polar chaos notwithstanding, “Fate” delivers action with more consistent visual precision than in the last couple of films, as newly enlisted director F. Gary Gray accesses the flair he brought to 2003’s “The Italian Job.”

Isn't all wrong. But even at its very best, it's just all right.

As a performer, Murray moves through the film with a lovely doomed aplomb. And his quick verbal wit is almost enough to pull Quick Change off. But as a director, his inexperience costs him. His camera isn't as quick as his tongue. [13 Jul 1990, p.29]

Writers John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle bet that the central hook — Who’s the bad guy? How’s he doing this? — will keep us paying attention. And they’re right.

Kids will enjoy this film for the slapstick humor, but everyone will be rooting for Krypto to be lauded as a good boy.

The result is a story that’s awfully scattered thematically, but one with such inventive wit and screwball-quick pacing that issues like spongy motivation hardly seem to matter.

It's a smooth, compelling, almost suspenseful (more on that in a bit), and slightly hollow Hollywood period piece.

While there are moments of eldritch atmosphere and a few pro forma jolts, nothing here justifies our attention, let alone the film's inexplicable R rating.

This entire film is a troll, a refreshing, claws-out swipe at anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and beliefs. It’s also a testament to the power of queer people in front of and behind the camera.

Date Night manages to live down to its store-brand title.

Everybody in the movie is so tightly wound that Walters seems a model of actorly limberness. She cuts through the movie with speed and mannish, zany wit.

French Exit allows Pfeiffer free rein to play, and her performance is glorious in a major key of scornful hauteur and a minor key of self-pity.

Garçon Stupide was shot on digital video and is the rare piece of European sexual realism centered completely on a boy's awakening.

At heart, Sylvia is constructed as a psychological suspense film framed around the ambiguities of Hughes's infidelity and Plath's resulting paranoia. So at its strangest, the movie is a potboiler.

A big, handsome throwback to star-powered historical costume movies.

What you might call conditional whimsy, predicated on the audience overlooking so many plot implausibilities that it might get tuckered out from all the charity.

To truly appreciate Wagner & Me, a BBC documentary getting a spotty theatrical release in this country, you have to cherish the music of Richard Wagner with the same quivering intensity as host Stephen Fry.

Sabrina is a nice try that doesn't quite strike the romantic pay dirt it's after, but you won't walk away from it empty-handed. [15 Dec 1995, p.61]

A few of the sequences are bad enough to be funny, especially the ones involving Sheen skulking around alien central in a red jump suit, falling down a lot, as if directed by Ed Wood. [31 May 1996, p.52]

A celebration of a time when secret agents dressed impeccably, bantered with style, and had exceptionally cool toys. That the movie is almost instantly forgettable is part of the pleasure.

The movie itself isn't nearly as interesting as whatever it is Foster is trying to work out for its two hours.

Wolf Creek is ultimately all about the torture and the trauma. Happy holidays.

'39 Pounds of Love is a heartwarmer that looks away from darker, deeper, and more troubling matters.

It’s a handsomely mounted, intentionally claustrophobic film; too claustrophobic over the long haul, with relentless close-ups that constrict the galvanic emotions on display.

You’ll have to appreciate what fleeting cleverness you can here.

Oliver Stone's Wall Street plays like "Platoon" in civvies. It's a good bad movie, unable to muster the moral firepower of the earlier film, but entertaining on the level of a big, bold, biff-bam-pow comic strip that likes high-profile high-rolling more than it perhaps realizes. [11 Dec 1987, p.45]

The movie is corny enough to remind you that boxing rings are square.

One of the best things about the documentary is their interaction, as Depp visits Steadman at his home in the English countryside — surely, it has a garden? — watching him draw and paint (and splatter) in his studio while asking him questions about his life and work.

Neeson is much better suited to the loneliness and self-doubt of Martin's crisis than he was for the thuggery of the previous movie.

Most useful and enlightening as a historical tour through the major crises of the Kennedy administration.

The Rum Diary has been retroactively Hunter S. Thompson-ized. And not for the better.

Ramona and Beezus the movie, should not be confused with "Beezus and Ramona'' the book.

Breaking and Entering is a bourgeois movie full of bourgeois problems presented bourgeoisly.

Ends with a fizzle, not a bang.

A climactic contest takes place in arctic weather that would rival any New England Patriots playoff game. Had the filmmakers drawn more on this rowdy, hardy spirit, not to mention the hirsute gravitas of Peter Mullan, it might have done justice to its legendary subjects.

Despite the fact that Doc Hollywood isn't exactly brimful of surprises, it's awfully easy to take because it seems a throwback to the kind of formula movies studios used to grind out by the bushel in the '30s and '40s, relying on a squad of accomplished secondary and character roles to flesh them out agreeably. [02 Aug 1991, p.41]

A multi-character melodrama about the supernatural that's affecting both in spite of and because of its flaws.

In short, the film lacks the social context that would have enabled Death Becomes Her to take on invigorating breadth and bite. It needs more of the malicious zest that Streep's character has. Its last half is as hollow as its first half is funny. [31 July 1992, p.33]

The sly and subtle Minus Man is a wicked little sidewinder of a black comedy.

Triumphs over its own trendiness only by being vapid and superficial.

Pure bangers-and-mash realism: a spotty yet ingratiating working-class farce that suggests a Mike Leigh movie with opera buffa tendencies.

Just what Gooding needed to restart his stalled career.

Short, suspenseful, funny, and profane, the film's a throwback to the neat little B-level thrillers the entertainment industry used to crank out by the dozen in the post- World War II era and the early days of TV.

Isn't what you'd call a probing film, but it's a slick and savvy one.

The loosest, silliest, broadest thing the Coens have yet committed to celluloid, and that includes "Raising Arizona," one of this critic's favorites.

Can be quite amusing and enjoyable to watch.

At its intermittent best, Troy suggests a primitive pro-wrestling smackdown with epochal consequences. At its worst, it's a throwback to the ham-fisted sword-and-sandal international coproductions of the early 1960s: "The 300 Spartans" with better sets. Barely.

Phoebe in Wonderland gradually loses its grip on tone and believability, climaxing with a show-must-go-on moment that's just plain silly. Thankfully, Barnz knows exactly where to end his film: on the face of a girl, and an actress, at the crossroads.

Fast X is watchable, and its car chases are often exciting, but it’s not as satisfying as the best F&F movies (“Fast and Furious 6,” “Furious 7,″ and the extremely ridiculous “F9″). Part of the problem is Dante.

While this is Jolie’s show, obviously — and she’s terrifically arch — the surprising dearth of other compelling characters doesn’t offer much distraction when things get off track.

The playfulness and high spirits bubbling from the pages of Leonard's novels are squelched by Schrader's earnestness. Schrader's touch with Touch isn't light, and it costs him. [14 Feb 1997, p.D9]

Low budget, self-distributed, awkwardly charming, it's the kind of midrange Hollywood entertainment that's supposed to be extinct in this modern age. It makes you want to support your local vintner and your local moviemaker.

A sweet, gentle film with a personality problem. The problem is that it hasn't got enough personality to keep from being overwhelmed by the echoes of other films it evokes. [21 July 1989, p.21]

A problematic memory play, shot through with honey-colored nostalgia, that backs nervously into darker matters.

What ought to be a bittersweet movie about a woman's momentary unraveling feels like a workout class: Cardio melodrama.

Hunter has a scene with Pacino in a cafeteria where she expresses a degree of emotional pain, just through how she looks at him and holds her head, that’s at once awful to see and magnificent. It’s hard to figure out what Pacino saw in the script. What Hunter saw was this scene and getting to act with Pacino.

The storytelling here might also be stronger if Brown’s dialogue were less conspicuous, and left it to Patel and top-billed Jeremy Irons to more subtly communicate their characters’ passion for numbers.

Director Edgar Wright’s version is a more serious affair that not only has a duller hero than its predecessor, it’s also a half-hour longer.

My Girl is a pleasant surprise. It's sweet, offbeat and ultimately slight, but likable nevertheless for the emotional integrity it maintains in its story of a girl coming to terms with the death of someone close to her. It's one of the few American movies that tries to be honest about death and give kids credit for being able to cope with it, and that alone makes it recommendable. [27 Nov 1991, p.23]

Far from a classic of precision farce, but it's funnier than the trailers make it seem.

Pacino, thankfully, is on-screen enough to keep this stew on a solid low boil.

Throughout the history of film, nothing turns campier faster than dinosaur movies. This one will have a much longer shelf life than most.

Ultimately, Jordan's vision is so murky that Ned Kelly remains as foreign to us as wombat stew.

Never mind that it doesn't always work or that the film's two halves never quite mesh. The Cable Guy essentially is a genie escaped from a bottle, except that the bottle is a TV screen. [14 June 1996, p.59]

Pictorially, Alive is breathtaking. But there's no real exploration of character or primal drives. [15 Jan 1993, p.48]

For the most part, Fluffy’s material is just that — fluff, with a touch now and then of bile and bad taste.

The movie’s a shambles, alternatingly agreeable and aggravating, held together by our interest in its heroine and by Lawrence’s tremendously sympathetic performance.

How could the Farrellys not? It pleases me to report that the movie is far from a disaster – on a dozen or so occasions, it's even funny.

Spectacular locations on the southeast coast of England and a handful of fine performances are the best that can be said for Summerland, but that’s still better than most.

The main characters may be refreshingly cliché-free, but almost everyone they meet in Beverly Hills is a stilted cartoon.

Everyone in the film is an uninteresting grotesque.

Visually, the film is at its most interesting when Scott's camera rises over Osaka and photographs it in ways that make it look like a modular electrified Lego city with neon and plexiglass trim. We get the feeling that in Osaka we're staring the near future in the face. But if Scott has gone to Osaka in search of a new Blade Runner, he comes up with nothing more than an Asian French Connection II. Many exchanges play like truncated pieces of scenes that originally existed more fully. And the film's frequent nocturnal motorcycle revvings don't have the panache of The Warriors, much less The Wild One. [22 Sep 1989, p.31]

If you have to see Monsters vs. Aliens - and if you're a parent, you will have to - make sure it's the 3-D version.

Either you'll find the man hilarious -- or he'll seem like one of those awful, tedious comedians who only THINKS he's hilarious.

When it works, W. can take your breath away. When it doesn't, you can feel Stone still working out his feelings toward the man.

Rudely silly rather than transgressively shocking, Zack and Miri is the sort of bawdy but fundamentally decent farce you could take Grandma to, provided Grandma were familiar with the oeuvre of Traci Lords.

Actually, the movie's a better movie than the book was a book, in part because Meyer struggled to put her characters' galloping emotions into print whereas director Catherine Hardwicke just visualizes them in all their inarticulate purpleness.

In the end, the lure of the gimmick proves too much for Meyjes, clearly a writer-director of talent. If Max were half as audacious, it would be twice as good.

There's no real journalism here, just the sort of appalling revisionism that can turn a bloodbath into a beach party.

So spectacularly bent that it exudes a contact cough-syrup high all its own.

I wish the movie were so good that I could say you have to see it; while Smith’s performance takes on a life of its own, the movie seems locked to its talking points.

Anchoring this diverting, disparate collage are interviews with those who still believe in Van Tassel’s faith and message.

The movie’s weaknesses include the overuse of grainy flashbacks of Craven’s daughter as a child, and the conversations he has with her after she is gone. Both are tremendously moving ideas but eventually succumb to bathos from repetition.

An overly muted and cautious piece of work. Watching it is like seeing a man ease out onto the limb of a tree, constantly testing its strength.

Thus the hapless hordes of college kids who went to see “Spring Breakers” hoping for a mindless good time and were appalled when the fun got spit back in their faces with candy-colored brio. That movie was and is a conceptual masterpiece, a movie specifically built to cross an audience’s wires. The Beach Bum, by contrast, isn’t close to that level.

Entertaining if inconsequential gangster farce.

Director Parvez Sharma, a gay Muslim himself, takes pains to show the wide range of Islam's attitudes toward homosexuality.

What makes Love Affair fun isn't that its stars are offscreen lovers, but that onscreen they so obviously succeed at convincing you they're movie stars playing movie lovers, powering up the dream factory again, dishing out schmaltz like there's no tomorrow. [21 Oct 1994, p.50]

If the movie can’t maintain its interest in Chan, why should we? This narrative splice job simply doesn’t hold together. Call it a taut mess or a hot mess, take your pick.

Pacific Heights is the hot fall thriller Hollywood has been waiting for. A slick, jolting successor to "Jagged Edge," "Fatal Attraction" and "Sea of Love," it beats the odds by inducing us to sympathize with a San Francisco yuppie landlord couple stuck with a tenant from hell. [28 Sept 1990, p.45]

I’m So Excited! is probably its director’s most forgettable work. But it has its trashy pleasures, and it beats an in-flight movie — the one place you can bet it will never be seen.

She (Portman) has filmed the book according to its emotional meaning to her, and that’s fine. What she hasn’t done is whip it into shape as a compelling movie.

Back to the Future III has no future. The reason is that it never works up much of a past as it sends its gull-winged DeLorean time machine back to the Old West. In effect, it goes back to the Age of Steam and runs out of gas. [25 May 1990, p.45]

Like an ''Afterschool Special'' with costumes by Gianni Versace, Mad Love looks better than it feels.

Schwartzberg does stumble upon some pretty fascinating people.