The strongest message for most Western audiences will be the way the subjugation of women saturates every aspect of this society, and clearly informs even Mehran's kinkiness. Yes, but I wish Keshavarz had chosen a more low-key, everyday approach to two ordinary teenagers, and gone slowly on the lush eroticism and cinematic voyeurism.

A wacky and eccentric heist comedy with many virtues, but it is also a remake of "Big Deal on Madonna Street" (1958), a movie much beloved by me. Some scenes are so close to the original it's kind of uncanny.

While this is not perhaps the best of Disney, neither is it the worst. It is probably perfect for smaller people, ages 4 through 7. [05 Jun 1998, p.20]

If this is messy filmmaking, it's vibrant and winningly acted. Johnson reveals genuine star quality in her her film debut. It's to her credit that Chantel's up side lingers in the memory well beyond her down side - and that Just Another Girl is not just another movie. [06 Apr 1993, p.30]

Here's a movie that's well visualized, that does a riveting job of exploring an authentic subculture, that has a fairly high level of genuine suspense from beginning to end. . and that then seems to make a conscious decision not to declare itself on its central subject. What does Friedkin finally think his movie is about?

The point of the exercise, it seems, is to trap four seemingly decent people, all more or less friends, in a dark, claustrophobic, pressure-cooker environment to see how they respond to the threat of imminent death — or worse. Spoiler alert: human nature doesn’t get a thumbs-up in this one.

Although not bowling me over, Planet 51 is a jolly and good-looking animated feature in glorious 2-D.

Despite the strong performances and more than a few audience-pleasing moments where peace and love triumph over stupidity and bigotry, the film travels such an obvious path and falls into such a predictable rhythm, it doesn’t quite carry the emotional resonance such a powerful true-life story should convey.

This is a movie with a deeply split personality, and despite some flashes of creativity from a talented director and cast, neither the straightforward biography nor the flights of creative fancy are particularly resonant.

There is a long stretch toward the beginning of the film when we're interested, under the delusion that it's going somewhere. When we begin to suspect it's going in circles, our interest flags, and at the end, while rousing music plays, I would have preferred the Peggy Lee version of "Is That All There Is?"

Adventures in Babysitting seemed littered with unrealized possibilities. The movie has good raw material, but it never really was pulled together into something I could care about much.

On film, Rent is the sound of one hand clapping.

Sex Tape feels like the halves of two different movies. There is a fun, believable comedy about family life... that is upended by the overly broad, barely funny attempts at reclaiming the sex tape.

So heavy on incident, contrivance, coincidence, improbability, sudden reversals and dizzying flash-forwards (sometimes years at a time) that it seems a wonder the characters don't crash into each other in the confusion.

It is a story worth telling. But Bernstein cannot bring himself to apply the same brutal honesty to his subject as Ungerer does to his.

Heaven Help Us has assembled a lot of the right elements for a movie about a Catholic boys' high school - the locations, the actors, and a lot of the right memories. But it has not found its tone. Maybe the filmmakers just never did really decide what they thought about the subject. For their penance, they should see "Rock and Roll High School."

There is little human interest or excitement. It isn't written that way. The music and the dialogue seem curiously even and muted, and there aren't the kinds of drama we expect in a biopic. Everyone is too restrained and discreet to expose themselves that way.

If Edwards had somehow found a way to really grapple with the implications of his story - if he had pushed to see how far he could go - Switch might have been a truly revolutionary comedy, on the order of Tootsie but more sexually frank. Unfortunately, he seems determined to make everything palatable to the sensibilities of the kinds of people who probably wouldn’t attend this kind of movie in the first place - and, in the process, he takes a daring idea and plays it safe. Too safe.

Possibly the most under-plotted, underwritten, over-photographed film of the year. Which is not to say it isn't great to look at. It is.

This is transcendently goofy. It isn't a "good" movie in the usual sense (or most senses), but it is jolly and good-natured, and Michael Caine and Dwayne Johnson are among the most likable of actors.

At Middleton is an innocuous romantic comedy.

Non-narrative films can be opaque in deep ways. Visitors slips into pseudo-profundity. That said, I’d see it again.

Superman III is the kind of movie I feared the original "Superman" would be. It's a cinematic comic book, shallow, silly, filled with stunts and action, without much human interest.

I think more edge is needed, more reality about the racial situation at the time, more insight into how and why R&B and rock ’n’ roll actually did forever transform societies in America and the world.

A lot of Murder at 1600 is well -done. Characters are introduced vividly,; there's a sense of realism in the White House scenes, and some of the dialogue by Wayne Beach and David Hodgin hits a nice ironic note. But then the movie kicks into auto - pilot. The last third of the film is a ready-made action movie plug-in.

Romero loses momentum in the closing passages because he has too many loose ends to keep track of. Somewhere within this movie’s two hours or so is hidden an absolutely spellbinding 90-minute thriller.

There's a good story buried somewhere in this melee.

Chilean writer-director Sebastian Silva re-creates a youthful road trip with a head trip at the end in Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, more character sketch than psychedelic sojourn.

A fairly competent recycling of familiar ingredients, given an additional interest because of Harrison Ford's personal appeal.

Three Days of Rain is only a sketch compared to the power of Rodrigo Garcia's "Nine Lives," which continues to grow in my memory.

The movie is ambitious, has good energy and is well-acted, but tells a familiar story in a familiar way. The parallels to Brian De Palma's "Scarface" are underlined by scenes from that movie which are watched by the characters in this one.

There is a very good movie named "Before Sunset" that begins more or less where this one ends. Which tells you something right there.

The movie is sort of a sideways version of "Sideways," even down to a scene where the two men join two women for dinner. The difference is, in "Sideways" the guys desperately want to impress the women, and in The Thing About My Folks, they want to impress each other.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang contains a lot of comedy and invention, but doesn't much benefit from its clever style. The characters and plot are so promising that maybe Black should have backed off and told the story deadpan, instead of mugging so shamelessly for laughs.

A smaller picture like this, shot out of the mainstream, has a better chance of being quirky and original. And quirky it is, even if not successful.

All plausibility is gone, we sit back, detached, to watch stunt men and special effects guys take over a movie that promised to be the kind of story audiences could identify with.

There are so many Wes-ian constructs at play here, so many deliberate attempts to keep us at a distance, it’s as if we’re standing on a sidewalk in the rain, looking through a thick window at a painting hanging on a distant wall. We’re too busy thinking about what we’re seeing to feel much of anything at all.

By the end of the film I conceded, yes, there are good performances and the period is well captured, but the movie didn't convince me of the feel and the flavor of its experiences.

Artfully designed to appeal to lovers of romance and books, but by the end of the film I was not convinced it knew much about either.

Ice-T's streetwise humor saves this from an exercise in silliness. [16 Apr 1994, p.24]

Adam Driver (who has now played a French squire and an Italian fashion heir in consecutive Ridley Scott movies) and Lady Gaga have legit chemistry together, and it’s still a kick to see Al Pacino roaring like a lion in winter. But Hayek and Irons are playing cardboard-thin characters, Leto flounders about as if he’s in a movie all his own, and “House of Gucci” feels coldly calculating when it should have been flush and warm with scandalous sensationalism.

Yet again we have a film with a lovely, life-affirming, uplifting message — unfortunately delivered in such a heavy-handed, gooey-sweet manner that audiences will exit the theater in a near-diabetic coma.

The movie has the potential to be a truly great story about communication between alien species; it could have been a space thriller with a mind and a heart. Instead, it gives us an alien that is too human, too familiar. It takes that amazing planet and gives it food, water, gravity and atmosphere that are suitable for both humans and Dracs. It depends on plot gimmicks like the convenient arrival of enemies and the equally convenient arrival of friends to the rescue. It doesn't dare enough.

In drawing out his effects, Amenabar is a little too confident that style can substitute for substance. As our suspense was supposed to be building, our impatience was outstripping it.

There is real wit in Glover's performance. And wit, too, in R. Lee Ermey's performance as the boss, which draws heavily on Ermey's real-life experience as a drill sergeant.

Johnnie To, the director, is highly respected in this genre, and I suppose he does it about as well as you'd want it to be done, unless you wanted acting and more coherence.

I feel something is missing. There had to be dark nights of the soul. Times of grief and rage. The temptation of nihilism. The lure of despair. Can a 13-year-old girl lose an arm and keep right on smiling?

Based on the novel of the same name by M.T. Anderson, the third effort from the talented Finley (“Thoroughbreds,” “Bad Education”) features some impressively staged sequences and terrific performances, but awkwardly straddles the fence between biting social commentary and dark humor, never quite finding its footing and ending on a curiously flat note.

May errs in styling this human interest saga.

This one is not terrifically good, but moviegoers will get what they're expecting.

Just about every scene in Ghost in the Shell is a visual wonder to behold — and you’ll have ample to time to soak in all that background eye candy, because the plot machinations and the action in the foreground are largely of the ho-hum retread variety.

While Peeples follows a very predictable course as a romantic comedy and does not break any ground in that genre of filmmaking, this movie is more engaging than you might expect.

Most of the time I wasn't laughing. But when I was laughing, I was genuinely laughing - there are some absolutely inspired moments. This is the kind of movie that serves as a reminder that comedy is agonizingly difficult when it works, and even more trouble when it doesn't.

Whimsy with a capital W. No, it's WHIMSY in all caps. Make that all-caps italic boldface. Oh, never mind. I'm getting too whimsical.

While never losing its visual dazzle-factor, Epic keeps returning to overly familiar themes and characters.

The remake has a superior caper but less chemistry.

There is no rhythm to the movie, no ebb and flow; it's all flat-out spectacle.

Winstone's interaction with Gibson provides the movie with much of its interest. For the rest, it's a skillful exercise in CGI and standard-order thriller supplies.

I feel like recommending the performances, and suggesting they be transported to another film. The actors emerge with glory for attempting something very hard and succeeding remarkably well. They deserve to be in a better movie.

And yet ... gee, the movie is charming, despite its exhausted wheeze of an ancient recycled plot idea.

For at least half a movie, it’s a wildly entertaining concept with some pretty good payoffs and there was a chance we’d have the best B-movie in recent memory, but then the story takes the easy way out and we’re left wondering why they didn’t ride the original idea all the way to the finish line.

Worth falls just short of having enough strength in the screenplay to warrant a recommendation.

The long-delayed biopic Gotti is an entertaining and well-acted but uneven B-movie.

The Lucky One is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling.

It's an ambitious undertaking, this mix of Mamet and Godard, and it is to Nolan's credit that he takes it on so early in his cinematic career. It doesn't completely click, but there is plenty in this 70-minute black-and-white exercise to keep us involved.

From Streep and DiCaprio and Lawrence through the supporting players, Don’t Look Up is filled with greatly talented actors really and truly selling this material — but the volume remains at 11 throughout the story when some changes in tone here and there might have more effectively carried the day.

The movie is nice to look at, the colors and details are elegant, the animals engaging, the action fast-moving, but I don't think older viewers will like it as much as the kids.

Writer-director Hiroyuki Okiura, however, does not match the high expectations for story and design set by other Japanese animators.

Some of the stories are pretty good, especially Charles Burns' tale involving a nasty and vaguely humanoid insect that burrows under the skin.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Ariana DeBose leading the way. For a relatively small-budget film, the visuals and sets are better than good. Ultimately, though, “I.S.S.” runs out of big ideas and sputters across the finish line.

Desert Flower tells a rags-to-riches story, but it plays like two stories in conflict. Everything involving Waris in Africa or in London before her success feels true and heartfelt. Many later details are badly handled.

On balance, I think it's an interesting miss, but a movie you might enjoy if (a) you don't expect a masterpiece, and (b) you like the dialogue in Quentin Tarantino movies.

For all of its sensational stunts and flashes of wit, however, Last Action Hero plays more like a bright idea than like a movie that was thought through. It doesn't evoke the mystery of the barrier between audience and screen the way Woody Allen did, and a lot of the time it simply seems to be standing around commenting on itself.

The Lady is more professional but, for me, "They Call It Myanmar" is more useful. Lieberman answers questions that Besson does not think to ask.

With an intriguing premise, the magnetic Daisy Ridley (Rey in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy) in the lead and a stellar supporting cast including Naomi Watts in a dual role, Ophelia has its moments of inspiration and beauty.

With a cleaner story line, the basic idea could have been free to deliver. As it is, we get a better movie than we might have, because the performances are so good.

What's lacking is a feeling for the heat and deafening chaos of actual club shows. The movie hangs back a little, folds its arms and nods its head, rather than rushing the stage or diving into the mosh pit. The tumult is depicted, not captured.

Kazan writes plausible, literate dialogue and Hoblit creates a realistic world, so that the horror never seems, as it does in less ambitious thrillers, to feel at home.

There are a lot of things in Billy Jack that are seriously conceived and very well-handled. Some of the scenes at the school, for example, with real kids experimenting with psychodrama, are interesting. Some of the action scenes are first-rate. But the movie has as many causes in it as a year's run of the New Republic.

It’s interesting that When the Game Stands Tall is essentially a movie about losing.

Its pacing is too deliberate, and it doesn’t have a light heart. That’s revealed in the handling of some characters named the Brownies, represented by a couple of men who are about 9 inches tall and fight all the time. Maybe Lucas thought these guys would work like R2-D2 and C-3PO did in “Star Wars.” But they have no depth, no personalities, no dimension; they’re simply an irritant at the edge of the frame.

Here is an unsuccessful movie with some surprisingly successful scenes. It has moments when it is electrifying and passages where it slows to a walk.

The film is well acted all around and the excellent art direction brings the ’60s to colorful life. But Bandele struggles to balance an epic story of civil war and death against the equally epic story of sisters whose lives are forever changed by circumstances they can’t control.

As the body count piles up and the action gets bigger and bigger, even the great John Luther comes perilously close to being overwhelmed by the spectacle in an increasingly ludicrous storyline that favors admittedly stunning and often gruesome visuals in favor of anything approaching plausibility.

There’s no denying the talents of director Domee Shi (Oscar winner for the 2018 animated short “Bao”) and the infectious, energetic performances of the voice cast, particularly Rosalie Chiang as Meilin. The problems are mostly with the script, which often requires Meilin to be almost irritatingly obnoxious.

Surrogates is entertaining and ingenious, but it settles too soon for formula.

Recycles the 1977 comedy right down to repeating the same mistakes.

The movie is too flighty and uncentered, and it allows actual violence to break the spell when false alarms would have sufficed.

That looking-glass quality is missing, alas, from Back to the Future Part III, which makes a few bows in the direction of time-travel complexities, and then settles down to be a routine Western comedy.

Intervista is not a very organized movie, and long stretches seem pointless and uninspired. It would not be of much interest, I imagine, to anyone who was not familiar with Fellini's earlier films.

The Best of Me was a better film than I expected. Much of that is due to the performances delivered by Marsden, Monaghan, Liana Liberato and especially young Australian actor Luke Bracey as the younger version of Marsden’s character.

It's the ending, really, that spoils The Cowboys. Otherwise, it's a good-to-fine Western, with a nice, sly performance by Roscoe Lee Browne as the trail cook, and the usual solid Wayne performance.

For the first half of this movie, I was able to suspend judgment. Interesting things were happening, the performances were good and it is always absorbing to see how other people live. Most of the second half of the movie, alas, is taken up with routine cloak-and-dagger stuff.

Lespert’s film, made with Berge’s blessing, does not sugarcoat the demons that plagued Saint Laurent.

The dialogue in places leans toward the banal, but a couple of plot twists help hold interest.

In Bird on a Wire, director John Badham doesn't pay the dues before he brings in the exotic locations. We don't believe the characters, and so the elaborate chases and escapes and stunts and special effects are all affectations.

There is nothing really wrong with In Secret, yet in the end one feels dissatisfied. It’s as if you’ve just sat through a dry academic lecture dissecting the novel.

The film would have benefitted by being less encompassing and focusing on a more limited number of emblematic characters -- Meinhof and Herold, for starters.