There is nothing especially wrong with it other than that for some of us it represents 105 minutes in hell.

Somewhere between John Cassavetes’s “Husbands” (1970) and “The Hangover” (2009) you will find Last Vegas. Not necessarily a bad place to be, except the film unfortunately has the madcap hilarity of the former and the emotional intensity of the latter.

Luck is a somewhat confounding blend of past, present, and future. The confoundedness comes of throwback elements and visionary never quite cohering — that, and an increasingly cluttered plot turning a sweet-natured film into a bit of a slog.

A thought-provoking and graceful portrait of a tenacious peace warrior whose frankness is his greatest weapon.

What he's (Brooks) come up with is one of the most humane works ever made about the lives of working mothers.

The movie moves predictably to its formulaic finale, which -- unwittingly perhaps -- reprises Plummer's own sugary classic, ''The Sound of Music.''

Isn't the most seductive film ever made about border life or undocumented immigrants, but in a way it's unfair to compare it to such artistic triumphs as ''Touch of Evil,'' ''El Norte,'' ''Lone Star,'' and ''Traffic.''

Brad Pitt and Michelle Pfeiffer? Great to look at. Astonishingly dull to listen to.

The plot -- it's inspired and ridiculous at the same time -- is best described as "Groundhog Day" meets "Memento."

So much of Virgin is bunk masquerading as sexual politics.

The film would be just as powerful, if less likely to saturate suburban megaplexes and flatter its patrons, were its saviors -- I don't know - French.

Would have benefited from putting a wider lens on the man and his detractors.

Gets on your nerves.

This one has more in common with Scott’s “Thelma & Louise” in the memorable way it escalates, inevitably but also unexpectedly, into a spin through wilder country, and a meditation on bigger themes.

Movies can convey the fever of new love more intensely than almost any other medium, and Song One is best when it shrinks the world down to James and Franny alone together in a crowded city.

It's always raining or snowing or misting. This makes for a nice visual, but it also makes the scenes look interchangeable. This is even more of a problem because the writer-director, Michael J. Bassett, imparts no shape to the story. Many movies suffer from worse problems, but not many waste the talents of Max von Sydow, as Solomon's father, or Pete Postlethwaite.

Paris Can Wait is Coppola’s feature solo writing-directing debut, filmed in her 80th year. It would be cheering to report that it’s a great movie, but you can’t have everything.

It's a thrill to watch Posey incorporate, at last, some true emotion into her exuberant screwball wit.

An acceptable creature feature at best and a waterlogged “Alien” at worst, Underwater sneaks into town as a true January release: a shelf-sitting production that 20th Century Fox’s new owner, Disney, is putting outside the store like a loaf of stale bread. It’s there if you want it, and you could chew on worse.

The film is faithful to its absurdities, sometimes hilariously so.

Isn't as dark as ''Heathers'' or as witty as ''Clueless,'' but it's at least pointed in that direction.

The casting alone should warn you about what kind of bottom this movie's going to hit.

It hasn't got a brain in its body, but it's fun to watch.

The question facing the target audience for Scary Movie is whether the funny bits will be enough of a payoff for sitting through the tedious stuff between them.

The Baby-Sitters Club is far from an unalloyed success, but it offers more pluses than minuses and is both gentle and instructive. [18 Aug 1995, p.50]

Ed Harris, who voices Blade Ranger, the no-nonsense helicopter who heads the fire-and-rescue operation, doesn’t lay it on too strong. Julie Bowen, as Lil’ Dipper, an air tanker, does.

When MacArthur stands side by side with Hirohito (Takatarô Kataoka), it’s the ultimate in victor-vanquished encounters. That’s also true whenever Jones shares a scene with Fox.

After a brisk and promising opening half-hour set in London and Hong Kong, the movie devolves into a Saturday matinee B-movie, and not in a good way. It’s pure product, and a waste of a savvy leading actress.

Shiny and peppy, with some solid laughs and dandy vocal performances, but even a small child may sense how forced this movie is -- how hard it tries to be all things to all audiences.

Von Trier's The Idiots is both lively and juvenile.

The movie's chief audience, consequently, will probably be gullible and young, responding to the cliches only because they haven't seen them before. They have a word in Vegas for these people: Suckers.

The film’s visual look is as inert as its screenplay, and its attempts to make the real racing scenes look like Gran Turismo gameplay by overlaying the game’s graphics with live footage fall embarrassingly flat.

Faced with a limited location and concept, Renfroe points his camera everywhere: The movie's seriously overshot, never settling for one angle when five would do.

A mildly diverting gay-straight odd couple comedy that has just enough bright one-liners to carry it past its plot structuring.

She's like Bob Hope with fake breasts and a wig. Now, that's scary.

Avalanches are nothing compared to the deadening touch of the stereotyping and audience-insulting simplicities in the scenic but brain-dead Vertical Limit.

The real core of The Core is the beautiful friendship between a highly emotive Eckhart and the sacrificial Karyo. Their bond is the best thing to happen to Franco-American relations since SpaghettiOs.

For an anonymous Saturday afternoon, it's the best lump of coal Hollywood can jam in your stocking.

Broken Lizard has a way to go to match the absurdity and conceptual genius of Monty Python or Kids in the Hall, but Super Troopers has promising moments of oddity.

Basically, if the first “300” was a pep-talk from Coach on how to lose with dignity, Rise of an Empire is an inspirational speech on the value of teamwork.

If you're an "Escape From New York" fan, you might have wondered about those rumors about a possible remake...Well, wonder no more. Producer Luc Besson's action factory has beaten everyone to it, stylishly. They're just calling the thing Lockout, and setting it in outer space.

There is much to learn from Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies. First, a wealth of sharp professorial minds and great artistic eyes is no guarantee of equivalent documentary moviemaking. Second, when making a sort of thesis statement, it helps to have a thesis.

While Memoirs of an Invisible Man has its moments - like so many Chevy Chase movies - you spend an awful lot of time waiting between laughs. [28 Feb 1992, p.28]

The script and direction are her real enemies here. Sleeping with the Enemy is a vehicle with too many manufacturing defects. [08 Feb 1991, p.39p]

It's a surprise that Stallone is as funny as he is playing a hit man paired with a cop in Bullet to the Head. He's man-cave witty in a way that his "Expendables" movies have strived for but haven't really managed.

Ends with a curious whimper instead of the bang it has been pointing toward; the filmmaker's reverence for his heroine seems to bind his hands.

Just Cause is a textbook example of one rewrite too many. [17 Feb 1995, p.38]

Parts of it are close to genius; most of it is actively torturous to watch.

If only the movie had the courage to be as gonzo as it wants to be!

Watching what Howard has done with the book - covering up the lewdness, blunting the snobbery, and spackling the amazing plot holes - is dismaying. This adaptation has the stink of superiority about it.

Although dated, it's not a bad musical.

Every minute of the film is trash, and director Carl Franklin seems to know it.

You can't help cheering on Shallow Hal. That and the fact that it's not at all politically correct. It's something better. It's big-hearted, and it's funny.

One wishes Incantato was made of something other than musty air. Avati provides no real emotional counterweight for all the whimsy and nonsense, and the movie carries neither the force of morality nor the titillation of trashiness.

Everyone in this overstaffed showbiz sampler has been better somewhere else. An assortment of talented comedians, character actors, professional athletes, sports commentators, one rapper, and two former sitcom stars sit in this movie like too much food on a buffet cart.

It's pretty endearing - a low-budget labor of schlock.

A miscast, underwritten, drably directed adaptation of a very popular novel, it's the feel-bad film of the summer and an almost perfect example of how not to turn a book into a movie.

This gulf between a woman's public and private faces is an intensely rich subject that Rapaport glosses over.

Tolkien gives us the passing of a vanished England and the loss of a generation but not quite enough about what was won, by him for us, nor the mystery of how he won it.

Shakhnazarov's film effortlessly captures the times and the author's conflicted yet unyielding attitude, yet it never draws any conclusions -- the film remains under glass.

A bland, insistently amiable comedy that doubles as road movie.

About a magical toy shop, but it has some of the sadder moments I've seen in a movie all year.

Alive with infectious rhythm, likable characters, and slick dance moves, Step Up gives clichés a good name.

This story could have gone in a number of more inspiring allegorical directions but winds up your average bedtime story instead.

Cheerful, skittish entertainment that never takes its subject seriously enough.

If good intentions were all it took to create a decent movie, Thom Fitzgerald's 3 Needles would be some kind of masterpiece.

There's death, domestic violence, alcoholism, racism, attempted suicide, and a mental breakdown. Naturally, it's a comedy about the eccentricities of Southern women.

The Quantum Realm is definitely where the action is. Too much of it.

Slick and outrageous and subversively funny, Doom Generation is the kind of date movie that will tell you perhaps more than you want to know about your date. [03 Nov 1995, p.46]

This purposefully bad dystopian gangsta drama - imagine a "Boyz 'n the Hood,'' "Mad Max,'' and "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo'' mash-up - simply fails.

Darling never quite ignites. The closest it gets to ignition is Pugh’s performance. Styles is perfectly fine, but it’s her movie.

One soggy slab of sentimental uplift, but it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and there's some honor in that.

As an orphan who dreams of joining the Paris Opera Ballet in the animated feature Leap!, Elle Fanning really hears it about the artistry and precision required to become a prima ballerina. The makers of this cheery but subpar confection probably should have been taking notes in addition to scripting them.

The movie’s a mixture of good intentions, a wobbly tone, and a plastic script, and it debuts a somewhat kinder, softer Schumer than the in-your-face comic trainwreck of “Trainwreck” (2015). I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

The film feels as if it’s drawing its characterizations far more from the appeal of its stars than from any prose.

There's some terrific music in "Blues Brothers 2000," but you have to sit through a lot of tedious overkill to hear it. [06 Feb 1998, p.F5]

The Great Raid amounts to a noble failure. This is sad news for those of us who remain hopelessly partial to Dahl's mean streak. The failure we can live with. It's the noble part that will never do.

Stuffed with smart performers doing graciously silly work, and all Levy has to do is manage traffic.

The movie itself is petrified meatloaf. It's a body-transference comedy in the vein of "Big," "Freaky Friday," and other candidates for Turner Classics.

Not the knee-slapper it wants to be, but it's endearing nonetheless.

Brown and Dennehy aren't teen-age, they're not mutants, they're not ninjas, they're not even turtles, but they're just as entertaining the second time around, and of how many sequels can that be said? [10 May 1991, p.30]

Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard, director Ash Brannon (“Surf’s Up”), and crew combine these ingredients into something that’s uniquely likable, and even unique-looking at times.

It's a family comedy-drama that wants to pluck the heartstrings but keeps getting tangled in its own tinny sentiment.

In short, when Buffy starts getting fangy, it stops being tangy. It gets all serious and earnest and flops as a teen-age love story and as a vampire thriller and even as a parody. It's not even a "Fright Night," much less a "Near Dark," and only hints at a "Lost Boys" ambience. [31 Jul 1992, p.38]

Neither (Bullock/Reynolds) brings out anything good in the other, and watching them try hurts the eyes, the tummy, and the libido.

Often as noisy, dippy, and enjoyable as 2004's "National Treasure," and when it's not, it's just another sequel, more absurd than most.

It does give believers and those tottering on the edge something to chew on, and it steadfastly refuses to demonize everybody else.

You’ll just have to look to your own effects-jazzed inner child to find a kid who’s relatable here.

Ultimately, the kids carry this manipulative tear-jerker. They're warm, lively charmers.

If you liked the earlier ''Mummy,'' you'll probably like this one. In fact, at many points you'll probably think you are watching the earlier one.

As Diesel says, ''I like something fast enough to do something stupid in.'' Mission accomplished.

Where "Nemo" was clever, soulful, and marvelous to look at, "Tale" is manic and surprisingly ugly, with a script that leans on the shallowest aspects of hip-hop street cred while pimping for corporate product placement at every turn.

Works hard to give quirk a bad name.

More storytelling and less preaching would have served those messages better.

At its best, the movie is provocative, sleekly assured, and a legit showcase for its intriguingly deep ensemble

Miley may vacillate, but for now her indentured servitude to Disney continues. The image that comes to mind is Princess Leia chained to Jabba the Hutt, but that's probably just me.

A horror film with a moral. No matter how nasty a gang of murderers is, the moviemaker calling the shots is ultimately worse.

Very little of it is as persuasive or enveloping as its beloved English counterpart. But it works very hard to distract 11-year-olds from thinking about the November arrival of “The Deathly Hallows.’’