Some of this smutty irreverence is undeniably hilarious, goosed along by Melissa McCarthy’s game presence as Phil’s estranged LAPD partner and human foil. (In other felt-free casting, Maya Rudolph is equally entertaining as Phil’s trusty secretary, even if Elizabeth Banks and Joel McHale go to waste.)

The editing of the action sequences — and let’s face it, they’re the heart of the movie — is terrifically effective. Speed is one thing. Clarity is another. Top Gun: Maverick has both.

There aren’t sufficient words to describe the remarkable visual environment; suffice it to say that the production designers are the stars here as much as the cast. More so, really.

A better title might have been “All the Movies in the World.” We get a thriller, of sorts, and a crime movie, of sorts (Romain Duris, as a kidnapper, gives the most appealing performance). It’s also a morality tale crossed with family melodrama.

About the only thing the title doesn’t tell you is that the movie’s a loving, sensitive exploration of S&M bondage techniques and polyamorous relationships.

The results are visually dazzling. The movie as a whole is something less.

Danish photojournalist-turned-director Nicolai Fuglsig channels his experience into a credibly stark snapshot of war, one that helps audiences further grasp why the region has been so hellishly problematic for American troops.

As a portfolio of visionary images of surreal landscapes and hallucinatory flora and fauna, the movie sometimes dazzles. But as a metaphorical narrative, it often fizzles.

There's a little less hilarity in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult than in the first two films, but there's still enough slapstick firepower to put it across. There's efficiency in Peter Segal's direction, but never real zaniness, and in the gaps between the sight gags lurks the onset of sequelitis. [18 Mar 1994, p.68]

Worth seeing as further proof that Annette Bening can do anything and for a touchingly flummoxed performance by Jamie Bell, once the kid of “Billy Elliot” and now a strapping romantic lead. But if it sends audiences back to explore the filmography of Gloria Grahame, the movie will have truly provided a public service.

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]

Murky, clunky, but sometimes nihilistically exhilarating.

Putting a provocative spin on the body-fluids subtext, Lowensohn projects stony melancholy and a convincing capacity for romantic impulse as well, making Nadja a surprising little black orchid of a vampire movie. [29 Sept 1995, p.50]

For all its wide, open spaces, City Slickers II is mostly smoke and mirrors, but thanks to its humor and generosity of spirit, it's an enjoyable diversion in this summer of brang-yer-twang films. [10 June 1994, p.49]

Hawke delivers a strong melancholy variation on his familiar emotional cool as Reverend Toller.

Ronit’s ebullient spirit spreads vivacity, discontent, and resentment. She offers the possibility of choice — between secular independence or religious tradition. But Lelio opts for an insipid neutrality that does a disservice to both.

Telling all is not necessarily the same thing as telling the truth, even if Bowers’s memory seems as clear as the glint in his bright blue eyes. Maybe it’s his ego that’s not clear — or too much so.

Compared to a second installment that expanded the established Keanuscape in ways the “Matrix” sequels only wish they had, “Wick 3” fumbles for compelling, organically incorporated territory to explore.

Boy Erased is strongest when it simply focuses on Jared as he copes with the trauma of coming out in a repressed society. This includes, in the film’s most shocking scene, a sequence of collegiate gay rape that leaves the boy with PTSD, which goes unnoticed and untreated by parents, authorities, and, to some extent, the film itself.

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]

It's more of a throwback to one of the first SNL movie spinoffs, Steve Martin's "The Jerk." It's loaded with physical comedy and enlists Farley's SNL foil, David Spade, to serve as Abbott to Farley's Costello. Farley plays the blimp on uppers, Spade plays the pinched little know-it-all nerd with a chip - a computer chip, probably - on his shoulder. What mostly keeps it going is the sheer gusto with which Farley throws himself into the clowning. It's passably entertaining if you don't think about it too much - and to see it is to realize that it works mightily at getting you to not think too much. [31 March 1995, p.59]

As nifty as any of it is a witty, touching story thread about Adlon’s trepidatious geek wrestling with her sexual orientation even as she wrestles with peer pressure to hop into bed. And guess what? She and the movie make the smart call.

3 Ninjas is a skilled balancing act, a throwback to Disney's old live-action family films, starring and targeted to pre-teens. [07 Aug 1992, p.30]

Winkler fills the screen with some first-rate actors doing first-rate work. It's a handsomely crafted film as well as an honorable one. But it's also, on the whole, dramatically flat. [15 Mar 1991, p.41]

An entertainingly brutal portrait of feckless privilege and buried tragedy, hewing reasonably close to those points we know to be true and juicily provocative about what happened in rooms you and I weren’t privy to.

The boldest thing about Cutthroat Island may be the way it maintains a comic tone as it portrays him as her boy toy. Things get pretty waterlogged on the island, though. If there's a fresh way to photograph buried-treasure retrieval, Harlin hasn't discovered it. [22 Dec 1995, p.60]

The Neon Bible doesn't always supply the depth or underpinning its images demand, but there's nice work in it, and it won't bore you. [19 Apr 1996, p.55]

For all of Alita’s she-Pinocchio charm — and her Cameronian estrogen-charged badass-itude — she can’t quite carry the audience all the way across that pesky uncanny valley.