Despite the fine performances, A Good Person starts off on the wrong foot and never finds a solid stride.

Nothing incendiary to see here, folks. Just a mostly forgettable, slow-season splatter movie.

Cluzot, with his uncanny resemblance to Dustin Hoffman, is an engaging actor who effortlessly summons up inner neurosis. The others are all skilled at light wit and banter; in a way, the film is simply a record of the French being French.

The animation isn't vivid, the characters aren't very interesting, and the songs are routine.

The movie is focused on two kinds of chemistry: of the kitchen, and of the heart. The kitchen works better.

Too bad that robots, unlike humans, cannot be discovered in one movie and go on to star in another. I'd like to see No. 5 in a film more suitable to its talents.

Too bad the movie relies on special effects to carry the show, and doesn't bring much else to the party.

Great energy and creativity went into the construction, production and direction of this movie, but it doesn't have a story that does justice to the production.

Will you like this film? Yes, probably, if you like monster and horror movies. The movie occupies familiar ground, but it has a freshness and winsome humor to fit it, and Craven moves confidently through the three related genres he's stealing from (monster movies, mad scientist movies, and transformation movies in which people turn into strange beings). There's beauty in this movie, if you know where to look for it.

A package like this looks OK on paper, but goes nowhere. It turns all of the characters into chess pieces, whose relationships depend on the plot, not on human chemistry. Since the plot is absurdly illogical, you’re not left with much.

In The Equalizer 2 the great Denzel Washington hits a variety of notes reprising his role as McCall, in a brilliant performance that often rises above the pulpy, blood-soaked material.

Even most of the fine actors, including Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly and Cheryl Hines, at times seem lost as to whether they should be playing the material for laughs, or going for a more straightforward approach and letting the laughs come to them.

It involves some of the best use of 3-D I've seen in an animated feature. It also introduces a masterstroke that essentially allows the series to take place anywhere: There is this land beneath the surface of the earth, you see...

The movie is a first-time directorial effort by Justin Theroux, a splendid actor, son of the writer Phyllis, nephew of the novelist Paul. He might have done better to have taken on something by them.

Forget the title: The only time Boiling Point generates any heat is when treasury agent Jimmy Mercer (Wesley Snipes) torches his unending supply of little cigars. [19 Apr 1993, p.21]

After all the clutter and noise, it turns out that “Snow White” is a perfectly serviceable, gorgeously filmed, toe-tapping musical that pays homage to the animated film while making significant changes, including deviating from the original storyline to make Rachel Zegler’s Snow White more of a People’s Princess and girl-power rebel than someone warbling “Some Day My Prince Will Come.”

The movie's a mixed bag, but worth seeing for the good stuff, which is a lesson in how productive it can be to allow characters to say what they might actually say.

That the movie is fun is undeniable. That it is bad is inarguable.

All of this has a fascination, and yet Red Trousers is a jumbled and unsatisfying documentary.

More fable than slice of life, and all these people and props give Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman their opening to create two screwy characters from opposite ends of the great personality divide

Things play out in predictable fashion, and we’re more than ready to bid farewell to these people and feel grateful they don’t live on our block.

As shamelessly as Tombstone rips off pieces of Unforgiven, you can rest assured none of them relate to Eastwood's strong portrayal of women -- or his antipathy toward violence. The latest shootout at the O.K. Corral is only a prelude to your basic bloodletting in the name of mass entertainment. [24 Dec 1993, p.25]

The movie labors under an enormous handicap: A much better, more intelligent and more exciting film has already been made about this same subject.

The Vault isn’t airtight, but it works as a slick piece of escapist entertainment.

Forget the plot. The movie is really about Steve and Terri taking us on a guided tour of the crocs, snakes, deadly insects and other stars of the outback fauna. Steve's act is simplicity itself.

There's too much contrivance and not enough plausibility, and so finally we're just enjoying the performances and wishing they'd been in a more persuasive movie.

While this charming movie will be targeted to senior audiences, I hope younger generations check it out — as the humor and underlying messages are truly universal.

American Flyers is shaky at the core, because it tries to tap-dance around its own central issues.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is probably about as good as we could have expected. It lacks the dazzling brilliance and originality of 2001 (which was an extraordinary one-of-a-kind film). But on its own terms it's a very well-made piece of work, with an interesting premise.

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.

There is a lot of individualism in this movie, both in the filmmaking and in the characters.

While not all the pieces of the puzzle perfectly fit into place, it’s still a good yarn filled with arresting visuals and solid performances.

Cuoco and Davidson make for an endearingly offbeat, magnetic pairing; the two actors are up to the challenge of playing different shades within their respective characters.

A project of this sort depends crucially on the chemistry between its actors, and Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke develop an erotic tension in this movie that is convincing, complicated and sensual.

In D.J. Caruso's Two for the Money, you can see Al Pacino doing something he's done a lot lately: Having a terrific time being an actor.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (best known for the Liam Neeson actioners Unknown, Non-Stop and The Commuter) is far too enamored with the CGI possibilities of an epic fantasy adventure, while the team of writers sacrifice character development in favor of banter heavy on groan-inducing puns and recurring punchlines that actually don’t pack much of a punch.

Management works as a sweet rom-com with some fairly big laughs.

This delightful, silly animated romp makes for a really fun time in the theater.

The performers breathe real life into the characters, starting with Elizabeth Pena and Alfred Molina.

Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability, creating a character you'd like to like, and could like, if she weren't so sad, strange and turned in upon herself.

I think it works like a nasty little machine to keep us involved and disturbed; my attention never strayed, and one of the elements I liked was the way Paltrow's character isn't sentimentalized.

The Stoning of Soraya M.”has such a powerful stoning sequence that I recommend it if only for its brutal ideological message. That the pitiful death of Soraya is followed by a false Hollywood upbeat ending involving tape recordings and silliness about a car that won't start is simply shameful. Nowrasteh, born in Colorado, attended the USC Film School. Is that what they teach there?

It’s a morose and slow-paced and off-putting drama, in which even the joyous moments seem brittle and draped in melancholy.

In the flourishing genre of faith-based movies, this is one of the better efforts we’ve seen.

We know we’ll be fed something we’ve consumed many times before, and there’s not a single development that comes as even a mild surprise, and it makes for a comforting, enjoyable and satisfying experience.

Unfortunately, the parts of the movie that are truly good are buried beneath the deadening layers of thriller cliches and an unconvincing love story.

The Devil Has a Name is a master class in casting.

Would a Republican enjoy this movie as much as a Democrat? Possibly. Party affiliations mean nothing to the characters, nor does the plot approach them. Then why are Huggins and Brady both Republicans? I'll save you the trouble. It's because Hollywood is run by a lot of rich liberals, right?

For all the gorgeous visuals in Brighton and Venice, and the scandalous-for-its-time storyline about a married man carrying on a torrid love affair with another man when being gay was literally a crime, My Policeman never really resonates.

We’re only about 20 minutes into the half-baked, ultra-lightweight, almost instantly forgettable rom-com “Ticket to Paradise” when our hearts start to sink, as we realize this big-screen re-teaming of Julia Roberts and George Clooney is quite likely going to be sideswiped and eventually sunk by a leaden screenplay that doesn’t come close to maximizing their massive respective star power.

I saw it a third time. By then I had moved beyond the immediate shock of the material and was able to focus on what a well-made film it was; how concisely Solondz gets the effects he's after.

The movie is not in any sense a musical featuring this band (which, as nearly as I could tell, does not have a name). The soundtrack has a lot of music, freely selected from pop hits old and new, but the running gag is that the band never gets to play, and so we never get to hear it.

Twins is not a great comedy - it's not up there with Reitman's "Ghostbusters" and DeVito is not as funny as he was in "Ruthless People" and "Wise Guys" - but it is an engaging entertainment with some big laughs and a sort of warm goofiness.

I know Letters to Juliet is a soppy melodrama, and I don’t mind in the least. I know the ending is preordained from the setup. I know the characters are broad and comforting stereotypes. In this case, I simply don’t care. Sometimes we have personal reasons for responding to a film.

The Island runs 136 minutes, but that's not long for a double feature. The first half of Michael Bay's new film is a spare, creepy science fiction parable, and then it shifts into a high-tech action picture. Both halves work.

Right up until an ending straight out of a mediocre rom-com from the early 2000s, You People never feels like more than a series of stitched-together scenes making some legitimate but obvious points about racial differences.

The movie is funny and entertaining in all the usual ways, yes, but I was grateful that it tried for more: that it was actually about something, that it had an original premise, that it used satire and irony and had sly undercurrents.

In the borderline trifling but consistently amusing and wry period piece My Salinger Year, Qualley has the opportunity to carry the story, and she delivers an effortlessly endearing performance in a literary adventure that plays like The Devil Wears Prada meets Can You Ever Forgive Me, only at lower stakes.

The movie is a pleasant, inoffensive comedy. It's indifferently acted, especially by James Hampton in the lead, and it's too talky. It has some success with making its youngest camel cute - although not as cute as Benji by several miles.

John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness gets off to an intriguing start. But then the movie loses its way.

Strangely enough, Ralph Nelson's Charly succeeds as a movie for reasons having little to do with the plot. As the story of a personality in crisis, it works. We care about Charly. But the whole scientific hocus-pocus, which causes his crisis, is irrelevant and weakens the movie by distracting us.

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 kind of movie that leaves you with fundamental objections. But that's after it's over. While it's playing, it's surprisingly good.

It's only 76 minutes long, but although kids will like it, their parents will be sneaking looks at their watches.

There is nothing wrong with the performances. All of the actors are professionals, although none have as much fun as Shelley Winters, who is the actor everyone remembers from the 1972 movie.

This is a slick con, all flash and no substance. Now You See Me seems awfully sure of itself, with self-important, intrusive music, sweeping tracking shots and actors chewing up the scenery.

I wonder who the movie was made for. Smaller kids, I'm afraid, will find it both slow and depressing, especially the parts about why God allows bad things to happen.

Funny Farm is kind of a loony, off-center comedy version of Hill's "The World According to Garp," another movie about strange people in bizarre situations.

Airport 1975 is good, exciting, corny escapism and the kind of movie you would not want to watch as an in-flight film.

MacLaine and Cage are really very good here.

The two leads are not inspired. Jake Gyllenhaal could make the cover of a muscle mag, but he plays Dastan as if harboring Spider-Man's doubts and insecurities. I recall Gemma Arterton as resembling a gorgeous still photo in a cosmetics ad.

Dark Skies is a bore that even the most forgiving genre buffs will find difficult to defend or endure.

The one saving grace in Halloween III is Stacey Nelkin, who plays the heroine. She has one of those rich voices that makes you wish she had more to say and in a better role. But watch her, too, in the reaction shots: When she's not talking, she's listening.

Sugar Hill is a dark, bloody family tragedy, told in terms so sad and poetic that it transcends its genre and becomes eloquent drama. [25 Feb 1994, p.33]

Elles has a surprisingly deep performance in a disappointingly shallow movie. The performance, acute and brave, is by Juliette Binoche.

Cowboys & Aliens has without any doubt the most cockamamie plot I've witnessed in many a moon.

Just when you think “The Greatest Hits” has painted itself into a corner, the script finds a way and the story lands in just the right place.

In The Purge: Anarchy, unfortunately, grim and brutal is pretty much all we get.

Writer-director Kerem Sanga has a knack for delivering arresting, noir-like visuals, especially from medium- and long-shot distance, and the talented cast gamely tries to sell the material, but The Violent Heart is so muddled there are times we have to remind ourselves of the connection between certain characters, and the histrionics so over the top we’re hoping everyone will just take a deep breath and CALM THE HECK DOWN.

It’s a memorable performance in a film that wants to dazzle us with its trick bag of visuals but is rotten at its core.

This is not the story of a fugitive trying to sneak through enemy terrain and be rescued, but of a movie character magically transported from one photo opportunity to another.

A breathtaking exercise in the macabre, a gruesome thriller with quirky cops and a killer of Lecterian complexity, and even when the movie is perfect nonsense, it's so voluptuous that you're grateful to be watching it anyway.

It looks good, it moves quickly and it is often a jolly good time. As mindless swashbuckling in a well-designed production, it can't be faulted. The less you know about the British Empire and human nature, the more you will like it, but then that can be said of so many movies.

After the bite and freshness of "Analyze This," Mickey Blue Eyes plays like an afterthought.

On its own terms, it's funny at times and finally sad and sweet.

A preposterous plot, but it's not about a plot, it's about acting.

The idea of the story within a story is one of the nice touches in The NeverEnding Story. Another one is the idea of a child's faith being able to change the course of fate. Maybe not since the kids in the audience were asked to save Tinker Bell in Peter Pan has the outcome of a story been left so clearly up to a child's willingness to believe.

While no reasonable person over the age of 12 would presumably be able to take it seriously, it nevertheless has a lighthearted joy, a cheerfulness, an insouciance, that recalls the days when movies were content to be fun.

Things Heard & Seen has the requisite horror-movie look (deep shades of brown and orange, low camera angles, repeated glimpses of effectively creepy paintings and haunting photographs, religious symbolism everywhere) and Norton in particular is a hoot as just the worst person in the world — but still, Things Heard & Seen should be neither of those things.

There is nothing to complain about except the film's deadening predictability and the bland, shallow characters.

It's slick, it has impressive production values and the acting is appropriate to the material. So why did I find myself so indifferent to the movie? Maybe because it never generated any sympathy for its characters. This is filmmaking by the numbers, without soul.

The identical premise is used in Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," which is like a master class in how Allen goes wrong.

It's not the kind of movie that depends on the certainty of an ending. It's more about how things continue.

So many scenes in Wilson play as if they’re dropped in from a different genre.

[An] uneven but timely and quite funny feminist satire.

Even accepting the increasingly dizzying level of logic-defying, mind-effing, increasingly convoluted time-bending developments in the entertainingly bad (but still bad) Don’t Let Go, I found myself wondering why and how.

Sure, it’s fun to see the Governator and the Italian Stallion he-manning it up together feature-length for the first time — the screen is barely big enough to contain the two of them — but the prison-break movie Escape Plan is unworthy of the momentous occasion.

Alice Waddington makes her feature directing debut with this futuristic sci-fi psychological thriller, and she is a clearly talented visual stylist.