Rich with colorful dialogue and characters, it’s sometimes ungainly but never boring, and there’s a core of truth in its portrait of exotic dancers.

Whatever the faults of Tank Girl, lack of ambition is not one of them.

We’re not buying what the script is selling, not for a hot second.

Mirror Mirror is a sumptuous fantasy for the eyes and a pinball game for the mind, as story elements collide and roll around bumping into each other.

Bullock brings a kind of ground-level vulnerability to 28 Days that doesn't make her into a victim but simply into one more suitable case for treatment.

Not a comic masterpiece, but it's entertaining and efficient, and provides a showcase for its stars. It's on the level of a good sitcom.

It is also probably relevant that Spacey, in preparing the project, knew something we could not guess: He is a superb pop singer.

The movie surprised me. It treats its disabled characters with affection and respect, it has a plot that uses the Special Olympics instead of misusing them, and it's actually kind of sweet.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a perfectly typical example of its type, professionally made and competently acted.

As quickly as Thing can snap its fingers, we’ll soon forget our visit with this version of The Addams Family.

Beaches begins on a note of impending doom, and that colors everything else with an undertone of bittersweet poignancy and, believe me, there is only so much bittersweet poignancy I can take in any one movie.

Clever in the way it avoids most of the cliches of the vampire movie by using cannibalism, and most of the cliches of the cannibal movie by using vampirism. It serves both dishes with new sauces.

Kafka, as subject or character, simply doesn't fit into the world of this film. Soderbergh does demonstrate again here that he's a gifted director, however unwise in his choice of project.

A bloody screwball comedy, a film of high spirits. It tells a complicated story with acute timing and clarity, and gives us drug-dealing lowlifes who are almost poetic in their clockwork dialogue.

The movie is an assembly of clichés and obligatory scenes from dozens of other movies, all are better. It has only one original idea, and that's a bad one: The inspiration of making the hero's sidekick into, simultaneously, his buddy, his critic and his rival.

Unlocked has the DNA of many a 21st century late summer release: It’s a well-made but terribly uneven film that’s been sitting on a shelf for two years, despite the credentials of the veteran director and a star-studded cast.

I wouldn't go so far as to claim Manderlay is fun to watch. Von Trier, who can made compulsively watchable films ("Breaking the Waves"), has found a style that will alienate most audiences. Maybe it's necessary.

Airheads has a giddy time living up to its low expectations.

Jolie, the daughter of Jon Voight, and Miller, a British newcomer, bring a particular quality to their performances that is convincing and engaging.

Part 2 seems even more like a Stallone vehicle than the first movie. I'm not even sure it's intended as a comedy. It's filled wall to wall with the kind of routine action and violence that Hollywood extrudes by the yard and shrink-wraps to order.

I’m pleased to report that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire carries the same endearingly goofy, science-nerd spirit of the first film and delivers a delightful balance of slimy ghost stuff, sharp one-liners, terrific VFX and a steady stream of callbacks to various characters, human and otherwise, from the 1984 movie.

It’s The Maltese Falcon meets Inception somewhere in the Vanilla Sky on the way to Chinatown in the inventive and ambitious but wildly convoluted and ultimately disappointing sci-fi noir Reminiscence, which careens this way and that, and this way and that, before running off the rails.

But the problem is, The Deal, like a lot of real-life Wall Street deals, is a labyrinth into which the plot tends to disappear. The ideas in the film are challenging, the level of expertise is high, the performances are convincing, and it's only at the level of story construction and dramatic clarity that the film doesn't succeed.

The movie is not a comedy classic. But in a genre where so many movies struggle to lift themselves from zero to one, it's about, oh, a six point five.

This is one badass movie.

Nothing heats up. The movie doesn't lead us, it simply stays in step.

Not a bad movie, although it could have been better. It isn't flat-out silly like "Troy," its actors look at home as their characters, and director Antoine Fuqua curtails the use of computer effects in the battle scenes, which involve mostly real people.

Grumpier Old Men is not terrifically compelling, although it is probably impossible not to enjoy Matthau and Lemmon acting together.