The filmmakers don't appear to know what's important, let alone how to pace an epic for big drama and maximum thrills.

The movie is full of risible pontifications about the nature of art but falls well short of capturing the angst of creative frustration.

The crime is appallingly petty. But occasionally the friction between two actors' idiocy will produce a comic spark.

Andy Serkis directed. Serkis, who’s given so many memorable acting performances (Gollum! Caesar the chimpanzee!), doesn’t elicit any here. The great cinematographer Robert Richardson shot the movie, which makes its lack of visual texture all the more dispiriting.

There are two reasons to put up with Soul Men, and that's the soul men themselves. Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac appear to be having a good time, and for most of this raunchy, poorly orchestrated buddy comedy, that's enough.

This is acting that seems more freaked out, more traumatized than it ought to for a movie about an unwanted houseguest.

The Quick and the Dead is a sly, savvy Hollywood sendup of Sergio Leone Westerns with Sharon Stone playing the Clint Eastwood righteous avenger role and Gene Hackman the heavy. You'd call it a spaghetti Western, but the budget is too high. Maybe we'd better think of it as Hollywood's first angel-hair-pasta Western. [10 Feb 1995, p.47]

The final act of Dark Matter is grim but unconvincing, and the shortfall leaves an ugly, exploitive taste in your mouth.

Reminds us that the human dynamic can do a lot that explosions can't, even when the film flirts with formula.

It's warmer and fuzzier than the first film, though every bit as tedious.

That uncertainty -- in the professor, in the audience -- is what drives Emperor's Club to a surprisingly thought-provoking, even disturbing conclusion.

It would be gratifying to report that there's a lot more to K-Pax than Spacey at the top of his form, but there isn't.

The limp script actually has the characters spout ''Let's get outta here!'' more than once. Or maybe that's just a wise member of the audience talking.

An intermittently arresting, mostly standard action entry that deals death noisily more than cleverly - a lot like the original.

The movie gets credit for showing the struggles he and millions of others with similar disorders live with on a daily basis. They’re not pretty, but — aside from Emma — they’re real.

The movie's an easy, engaging watch, even if it's literally all over the map.

As the romance blossoms, our hero is vindicated when Melody accepts his quirks, even enables his fantasy life. But the touches of magical realism begin to feel gimmicky. By the final frame, this romance never feels real enough.

A serviceable thriller that might have been something more.

Their (Danner/Lithgow) being together feels more like a device — there’d be no movie without their relationship — than it does a romance. There’s a lack of chemistry that makes for a listlessness of narrative.

It’s fun in stretches, but also busily forced.

Affleck the screenwriter seems to have dumped the story onto the kitchen table and pushed it around like dough, hoping for some shape to emerge. It resists.

Notably Wayansless. It's also notably devoid of a point of view.

Lee’s Oldboy stands on its own. It just stands a bit shorter.

This formula comedy could have been a disaster, but during their short-lived career as a comedy team, Kid 'N Play seemed to have picked up a few pointers. They're not Abbott and Costello, but that's not what's called for here - what's called for is a fresh face on the formula, a young and easygoing team that really believes what it's doing is funny. [05 Jun 1992, p.29]

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is yet another factory product that plays more like a marketing strategy than a comedy. Like the other farces bearing the National Lampoon brand label, it's a comedy of obliviousness - family man Chevy Chase refuses to alter his sentimental notions of family rituals despite repeatedly being slammed in the face with evidence of how far short of his expectations they fall. Here, the word "vacation" is a misnomer. The Griswold family, headed by Chase, doesn't go anywhere. Neither does the film.

Most of the time it looks like we're on the back lot for a Romanian production of "Lord of the Rings IV."

Reliable, standard Disney animated fare, with enough creative energy and wit to entertain all ages.

Blurs the line between black comedy and black hole.