Even if we leave aside the obvious time travel paradoxes, we can have a good horse laugh at the rest of the plot's inanities.

The supporting cast is almost uniformly good, from Conchata Ferrell as a sympathetic waitress to Erick Avari as a corporate type with a surprisingly big heart and a hidden silly streak. Turturro relishes his quiet overplaying and steals the bulk of his scenes.

Excruciatingly flat comedy.

A painful bore.

De Niro wears a shamefaced look most of the time, as if doubly embarrassed: He agreed to a movie he knew was worthless, yet he's too lazy or indifferent to give us his best.

Many critics will complain about emotional manipulation, but I share Roger Ebert’s view: “Some people like to be emotionally manipulated. I do, when it’s done well.” I think “Beauty” does it well.

Heavy on cheap, dirty humor (Gordie and Sean clean septic tanks for a living, a fact that is milked frequently for laughs), but it's never substantial enough to truly offend or delight.

Passed as slowly as if I'd been sitting naked on an igloo, Formula 51 sank from quirky to jerky to utter turkey.

Isn't satisfying or surprising. It doesn't even make sense from scene to scene.

Just when the story reaches its idiotic nadir, Neil (Diamond) shows up to save the day with a song and a smile.

Gomez is a nonstarter as an actor, alternating dully between petulance and indifference. Hawke compensates with a vivid, ferocious performance that doesn’t go over the top.

M. Emmet Walsh and Elizabeth Franz enliven the film as a couple across the street...These wonderful old actors briefly raise the level of the picture to the kind of warm but honest drama it ought to have been.

It's well-shot and well-edited by Hollywood standards, though special effects don't reach the top Hollywood level. The stars have their hearts in their work: Cameron and Johnson don't have great depth but give their all. Currie makes a subtle villain.

It's no surprise, and it's trite, but sometimes fun -- and not magic -- is more than enough.

Like the Big E himself. It starts out fast, dangerous, sexy, confident, funny with an edge. It ends up confused, bloated, unable to leave the stage when it should.

It's a terrible muddle unless you take it as a satire on the Age of Ellis, the Jacqueline Susann for that Flock of Seagulls era. That way, the unintentional laughs seem almost ironic.

Spade, who almost invariably plays smug or smarmy characters, proves he really can act.

A frenzied, cacophonic cartoon.

As a British politician said of a corrupt but articulate peer, "The Cat in the Hat" is like a rotten mackerel seen by moonlight: It shines as it stinks.

Utterly generic.

Zomboid, convoluted excuse for a thriller is among year's worst.

After five minutes, Christopher Walken vanishes. We wait vainly for the next 90 minutes for someone, anyone to bring that kind of danger, unpredictability and vitality to a story as drab as army fatigues.

Let me say, in my desire always to be positive, that Serving Sara is the funniest film I know where a man sticks his arm up a bull's rectum to massage its prostate.

The movie is somewhat below average. The plot doesn't always hold together.

The assault is against our ears, as the soundtrack pours forth a stream of thrash and Goth music.

No, I don't recommend it. But it kills fewer brain cells than daytime talk shows. [5 Feb 1996]

It's bombastic, chaotic, plodding, visually dreary and patchily written.

Slater narrates as if reading a restaurant menu. Reid seems to have learned each long sentence in segments, so she wouldn't be overtaxed.