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.