Crash. Kick. Stab. Punch. Talk (briefly). Smash. Chase. Screech. Shoot. Mumble. That's the wearying pattern of Safe House. Had "think" been an action verb, the movie might have risen above the knee-jerk excitement of the second-tier, "Bourne"-style spy thriller. But it never does.

A melodrama that reaches the heart but hardly ever convinces the head.

To call the film “unwatchable” is to unfairly insult Josée Deshaies; his lush cinematography delights the eye when the camera roams around Saint Laurent’s workrooms. But “incomprehensible,” “interminable” and “immaterial” all apply.

Whether or not you think of this as a knockoff, it has a ripeness “Twilight” never did.

Director Marshall Herskovitz and his cast haven't been able to achieve the outsized grandeur that could make us take the story seriously. It's not zany enough to be camp, except in one or two spots, yet it's too small to be epic. [06 Mar 1998, p.9E]

The final sad joke is this: Weitz took a wonderful story about the danger of severing a soul from its otherwise empty body and did that very thing to his source.

The movie's weirdness isn't organic; it's imposed, like barber-pole stripes painted on a prison wall.

Know how to tell if a war movie is mediocre? An outspoken bigot, usually a Southerner, abuses a patient member of an oppressed minority -- the Asian recruit, the African American or, in the case of Windtalkers, a pair of Navajo men from Arizona in his platoon.

A thriller with its share of nail-biting moments.

The film seems almost intentionally bad in most ways, as if Gilliam were expressing a suicide wish for his directing career.

Any of the key relationships would have been grist enough for one movie's mill, but "Feast" crams them all together.

They have turned a brief, appealing, honest autobiography by Susanna Kaysen into a long, appealing, rather dishonest film.

Writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris must figure the blinking lights on Angela's screen will cloud our brains. They ask us to ignore plotholes the size of craters... Nor does director Irwin Winkler shoot scenes suspensefully. [28 July 1995, p.9F]

Mighty Joe Young is based on the 1949 film of the same name, and it's nominally more aware of '90s concerns: destruction of the gorillas' habitats, illegal hunting, trade in animal body parts. On the other hand, it's no more enlightened about the intrinsic value of these clever, emotionally complex creatures. [25 Dec 1998, p.13E]

The movie runs out of steam before its finish, but she (Kidman) doesn't.

Is this just silly filmmaking, or have Ivory and Jhabvala succumbed to the Francophobia that gave us "freedom fries" in the congressional cafeteria?

The chorus backs the soloists powerfully, and they are as fresh as the rest of the film: fat and fit, homely and handsome, young gods and old codgers – in short, people you might really see in Greece. Reality in a musical? That alone makes it worth your open-eared attention.

The movie fails the credibility test right here. As those of us who were social rejects in high school know, the two qualities that would defeat any prom candidate are extra weight and a blotchy complexion. Laney has porcelain skin and a sveltely curvaceous figure, so she's a candidate for prom royalty. [29 Jan 1999, p.6E]

The film robs mermaids of everything exotic and remarkable about them in mythology.

About halfway through Irreversible comes the longest sustained act of violence I've seen onscreen.

Tthe kind of movie the clergy can recommend to anxious parishioners.

A loosely woven crazy quilt of other, better movies.

A picture sufficiently shallow that you'll discover everything that lies beneath it well before the end.

Part of the film's failure to arouse real horror is the languid direction; not enough seems to be at stake emotionally.

If you want my rock-solid statement on whether The Fountain is a masterpiece or a muddle, check with me in 2026.

I don't know if the new movie is Smith's weakest. It's certainly his most disposable, a warmed-over hash of jokes that will have Mewes fans rolling with laughter and the rest of us rolling our eyes in disbelief.

One of the opening scenes of The Accountant consists of puzzle pieces being dumped on a table, and that’s a fine metaphor for the film.... A few pieces can’t be made to fit, and two of those are big ones. (More on that in a minute.) But the rest of the story has been well-constructed, and the picture it gradually reveals keeps you guessing up to the final scene.

It combines elements of "Lord of the Rings," "Star Wars" and James Bond flicks with generically satisfying results.