Without Gibson, this soufflé would fall pancake-flat.

Campion has no clue how to sustain suspense and no actress of the caliber of Holly Hunter, Nicole Kidman or Kate Winslet (her recent leading ladies) in the main role.

Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe attempt light romantic comedy in A Good Year, and the results are as grindingly discordant as a punk band writing a suite of waltzes.

A sometimes clever, sometimes clumsy movie.

The Girl Next Door is to "Risky Business" what near-beer is to beer. If you're desperate for a mild buzz, you might make it do.

I think the movie intends to empower all of its female characters, but it ends up chaining them to stale, timeworn ideas.

Without a philosophical payoff, without characters whose relationships resonate in our hearts, without explanations for situations that beg for explanations, what are we left with? To quote another great writer of battle scenes: "a tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying -- nothing."

The conversion to 3-D has left the movie looking grim and dim. Almost every scene, whether indoors by candlelight or upon the open ocean, seems awkwardly dark; competent 3-D effects don’t compensate for this distraction. Equally drab are the performances, except for Gleeson and Whishaw.

The picture doesn't inspire or reward high expectations, but it raises smiles.

All true, but not new -- and not especially compelling.

If you're going to serve up a half-baked idea, you might as well have Sigourney Weaver do the cooking.

When Elle Woods watches "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" for inspiration in the middle of Legally Blonde 2, you have to admire the nerve of the people who made this comedy: "Smith" is to LB2 what jumbo jets are to ultralight gliders. But nerve is all they've got.

You cannot always judge movies by their titles, but you sometimes get good advice. The sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, supplies its own five-word review.

The film seems like a loose and uncredited updating of "The Great Man Votes," a more serious 1939 entry.

Your reaction will depend on your response to the title character, who's meant to be God or one of God's messengers.

The warm performances give the film momentum, but writer Audrey Wells and director Peter Chelsom (who chops dance sequences clumsily) often stumble.

The British actor, best known as Loki in the “Thor” and “Avengers” series, disappears into the character’s skinny body and twangy voice.

You must cast aside all rules of our space-time continuum to appreciate a fantasy like this one, though even then you might consider 130 minutes to be too much of a good thing.

Bits of welcome weirdness creep in, mainly through the too-brief character of Ghantt’s intense fiancée (Kate McKinnon). But Hess has little time for wit.

If the spate of action movies must continue, especially at Christmas, let more be like "Daylight." [6 Dec 1996, p.13E]

Man on Fire is as ludicrous as "John Q," "Virtuosity" and "Out of Time," yet substantially more violent, artificial, self-conscious and dull.

The acting is adequate, though Lohan looks more like someone who has just gotten out of high school than college.

The Giver has an unsavory reek of box-office calculation about it, from the overworked “teens-must-save-a-world-ruined-by-adults” plot to the casting of pop star Taylor Swift in a small and irrelevant role.

While it doesn’t recapture the black magic of the original, it delivers the requisite terror in the last half-hour after a slow and ambiguous start.

I didn't believe most of what I saw until the last 20 minutes, and whaddaya know? This thriller finally cast the spell it had been trying to achieve and lifted itself above the pack of late-summer, clean-out-the-studio-attic releases.

When Rock of Ages remembers it's supposed to be a cartoon, it's a noisy, sweaty, giddy ball of fun. When it suddenly develops a conscience or tries to process a thought deeper than "I love rock 'n' roll," it trips over its own feet.

We waited 10 years for a sequel to the movie version of "The X-Files" – and the best Chris Carter could do is The X-Files: I Want to Believe?

Lil' Bow Wow deserves a better-made film than this pleasant, sloppily assembled fairy tale.