A modernized version of that great sentimental horse movie, 1943's "My Friend Flicka," and it comes with the shiny trappings, high professionalism and glamorous accessories you might expect...Something is missing though.

It's a dreary movie about a dreary character, offering little insight into her poetry or the mental illness that ultimately conquered her.

Despite the actors, who at least get some swell clothes to wear, Winter's Tale is a bit of a soul-crusher itself.

Poltergeist at this point is a brand name without a distinctive product to sell-no vivid characters, no unique situations, no look or meaning of its own.

Bad Moms keeps settling for less than it should, given the talent on screen. It's lazy, and tonally indistinct; half the time you wish it went further, and risked something with the Kunis character. The other half of the time you may find yourself frustrated with the puerile caricatures filling in the margins.

Doesn't know how to do what I think it's trying to do.

Another slapstick comedy from the folks who created Police Academy by ripping off the comedy style of Airplane. [22 Apr 1985, p.4C]

Sidelined by a script that plays like an imitation of another era’s artifacts. It’s an oxymoron: a mild screwball romance.

Wine may be sunlight held together by water, as Galileo said, but Bottle Shock is held together only by Alan Rickman.

Despite its literary origins, the film feels a bit like a writer tossed a few darts at a board labeled with aging action stars and various terrorist groups and just decided to make it work.

If only they had allowed their characters to develop naturally after those first mismatched meetings, Km. 0 might have ventured into more intriguing territory.

If anything, this new film version is cornier and more conventional than the first screen adaption of the novel. [2 Oct 1992, p.C]

Most of the clues in Veronica Mars pertain either to Internet sex tapes or the various surveillance uses of the latest tablets. Anybody who works in tech support will probably enjoy the film a tad more than I did.

I enjoyed these characters more when they were rich, rather than obscenely rich, when their self-involvement and life crises had one foot on planet Earth -- and when they weren't all gussied up like Mae West in "Sextette."

Might be best described as Thailand's version of "The Alamo."

A cute, well-acted film that tries to mix tones sharply.

Sure, it's funny, mainly because it's utterly absurd and meandering.

Freaky Friday commits a lot of sins; luckily, it has Curtis and a few others to cover them up.

The supporting players in Man on a Ledge bring more to the party than the leads, and my suspension of disbelief seems to have gotten hung up in traffic while attempting to cross the suspension-of-disbelief bridge from the Brooklyn side.

Louder Than Bombs never quite comes together. You keep waiting for it to gel, but it just drifts along until it drifts away.

Beaches is a melodrama in the original sense of the term: a drama with music. And as long as the melo is handled by Bette Midler, who performs half a dozen songs, Beaches can`t be all bad. But the drama, as transacted between Midler and Barbara Hershey, is pretty dreadful.

The only thing this film has going for it is its improbable title and title song about four fighting turtles changed into upright, man-size creatures by exposure to radioactive wastes.

It’s a morose sort of screwball comedy with heart, and right there that’s three elements going in related but separate directions.

Rahul Bose's pleasant little flick, could have been much more than just fine had the director taken more risks. Instead, this movie pulsates with lost opportunity and unanswered questions.

Dwayne Johnson leaves his lovable self behind in the violent but bland Faster.

For all its slickness, is an R-rated version of "Survivor," "Big Brother" or any number of reality-TV shows that present voyeurism as entertainment and exploitation as insight.

Filmmaker Dana Brown's major error is that he doesn't just shut up and get out of the way.

An uninspired misfire of a TV-series knockoff that, despite its great cast and smart filmmakers, never manages to scare up much magic.

A pumped-up, flag-waving, outrageously hokey and ridiculous -- but sometimes incredibly exciting -- war movie.

Director Madden vacillates between treating the issues and historical context of The Debt seriously, and as the story demands, as pure, heavy-handed pulp. The cast does what it can in the service of this assignment. But some jobs simply resist satisfying completion.

There’s not much kick to Isn’t It Romantic, even after it goes over the rainbow. It gets by, and commercially it may well be a modest hit — but has more to do with Valentine’s Day timing than the film itself.

In movies as in life, superior technology doesn't necessarily trump humor, magic or really shaggy dogs.

Despite the proficient technique, after a while you may feel you're watching a particularly scenic snuff film.

The film gets by on the sheer good-naturedness Reitman is able to place in all of his efforts, though it doesn't seem likely to inspire the same level of affection as the original. Innocence is one quality that can never quite be recaptured. [16 Jun 1989, p.28]

There is a genuine sweetness in Reitman's work that balances the innate cruelty of much '80s film comedy. But this time the gags are too feeble to provide a counterweight and the film tips into the cute, benign and pointless. [9 Dec 1988, p.A]

Director Joe Nussbaum (“Sleepover”) doesn’t do much with his cast; there’s a lot of standing around as he indulges Bynes’ tendency to mug.

It's a thoroughly professional job, but even in making a feature film, Giraldi still seems to be working to please a client. He shoots the script, supplying just enough style to make it stand up but not enough to make it move.

The movie is full of dead ends, logical gaps and bizarre inconsistencies. Yet Donaldson is deft enough, both in his composition of shots and his direction of actors, to create a scene-by-scene sense of competence and control that carries the picture across some very rough spots.

Girls do rock, and the final concert is both wild and cathartic. Too bad we haven’t learned more about these rockers along the way.

The Exorcist: Believer has its moments, but we’ve had a half-century of this stuff. And the filmmaker in charge has to show us something new; there’s more to life, and moviegoing, than coasting on cherished memories of projectile vomiting and head-swiveling.

The Curse of La Llorona is middling B-movie schlock that goes for the low-hanging fruit: sequences you know will end with some kind of jump, bump or scream, and jokes that cut the tension and indicate everyone here knows what's up.

She tackled "The Tempest" on stage, years ago. On screen I wish she'd (Taymor) adapted it with a freer hand, and then directed it with a more considered one.

Settles for being simple, familiar and ineffective, though I suspect it'll warm a few hearts.

It’s not a movie, really. It’s a commemorative “Downton Abbey” throw pillow.

Absorbing in places, but considering the large and diverse pool the filmmakers had to draw from, it's a surprisingly repetitive and predictable collection of big-city sagas.

Suspect smothers in misapplied seriousness-it's the thriller as civics lesson. [23 Oct 1987, p.A]

Pacific Rim: Uprising may be not be much, but in the spirit of the film itself, let’s be realistic. It’s better than any of the “Transformers” movies, and shorter.

Too often the film itself simply shuffles the postcards of Tibetan scenery, Buddhist rituals and the Tibetan people (many amazing faces on view, to be sure).

The sense of the unknown that "Padgett" created are largely absent. And the movie fails to supply us with an antagonist to work up some dramatic conflict. Nor are the toys themselves very interesting and Mimzy is a toy bunny of no distinction.

Less a movie than a loud, heavy, money machine, a think tank where nobody thinks. The movie seems intended to extract maximum profit with minimum artistry -- and if you like having your pockets picked by experts, this is probably the show to see. [15 Mar 1996, p.C]

The film is a competent but callow work dealing with a monstrous subject that automatically rejects callowness.

Has heart, but lacks bite.

A tedious picture, redeemed in part by Tom Wilkinson's performance as Tuppy--he's the sole cast member who doesn't give birth to every epigram--and by the hats.

The latest Reacher film is directed, with reasonable skill and no trace of personality, by Edward Zwick, based on a screenplay taken from the 18th novel. I wish I had more dynamic news to report, but contrary to Reacher's own violent tendencies, some things in life and the movies practically defy a strong reaction.

Though the Thornberrys provide some much-needed energy, asking them to carry the movie is like expecting a sweeps-week celebrity cameo to make an entire 30-minute sitcom episode funny.

The directive behind this sequel, clearly, was non-stop action. Let's think about that phrase a second. Do we really want our action movies to deliver action that does not stop? Ever? I get a little tired of action sequences that won't stop.

I didn't laugh much, nor did my 10-year-old companions, but nobody had their soul crushed by the experience. This is the film industry's Hippocratic oath: First, crush no souls.

This film has so many good ideas, it tends to seem better after you've left the theater. But the mock TV stuff is just too faux to be funny.

A big, hearty fantasy-adventure with spectacular fire-breathing effects and a fizzling story. [31 May 1996, p.C]

By creating a kind of politically correct version of Andy Griffith's "Mayberry," director Bezucha has drained the movie not only of bigotry but also of dramatic conflict.

Cher plays a footloose, life-loving mother of two fatherless daughters who sports a bouffant hairdo and, at one crucial point, a Mylar mermaid costume that looks as if it were constructed, on a bet by designer Bob Mackie, entirely out of common household objects. The part isn't much of a stretch for America's reigning queen of wacky non-conformity, though it should please her established fans while scraping the nerves of the unconvinced as lightly as possible.

Part gambling heist, part graphic novel, part metaphysical mumbo jumbo, Revolver is a mess of many colors, few of them satisfying.

The absurd meets the violent meets the droll, and we just watch from the outside, never having been drawn in by anything resembling believable feelings or behavior.

The trajectory of the film -- despite its excellent cast and intelligent mounting -- is too preordained.

A wildly expensive movie full of computers, nonsense and violence, a film where wit, romance, elegance -- everything -- is sacrificed on the altar of giganticism, cliche and over-the-top action.

Striptease has its moments, but by the clunky ending it has gathered more steaminess than steam.

Boyle's new movie is mostly a zombie fiasco, closer to the vacuities of "The Beach" than the scintillating social satire of "Trainspotting."

Wexler told his story in credible human terms. Writer-director Stone felt the need to jazz up his action with wacked-out characters who belong in a ''Saturday Night Live'' sketch.

Galifianakis steals the show as the friendly fussbudget in a performance we've come to expect from him. The enormous potential on screen is tantalizing, which is why the disappointment of failed execution stings.

The script of Follow That Bird simply plays like a TV vignette blown up to movie size, failing to fill both the screen and our imagination. [06 Aug 1985, p.5C]

Keith -- a consistent hit-maker who wrote the controversial 9/11 song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" -- has a future in movies if he wants it. Hopefully, they'll be better ones than this.

The cast manages some sweet moments, and Plowright lends a touch of grace and wit to each new indignity or kindness. Yet the whole thing feels programmed; the movie's sense of humor lacks understatement.

What the movie doesn't have, besides too many laughs, is either the pungent style and sociology of true film noir, or the sheer yuppie desperation of the hard-core erotic thriller. Instead of being hard-boiled, it's over easy.

A breakthrough for karate comedy king Chan, but not necessarily the kind we've all been waiting and hoping for. It's an ultra-digitized DreamWorks show crammed with elaborate special effects, the kind that physical-stunt specialist Chan has always avoided.

Riddled with comic potholes.

Alien Nation is a sluggish, forced and hopelessly derivative action thriller, sporadically redeemed by the wit of its stars and the velvety sheen of Greenberg's night photography.

The sequel's themes of friendship and interdependency fail to generate much momentum.

Though the racing action scenes are initially satisfying, one soon tires of the mountain scenery. And the obvious-from-the-start ending robs the race of whatever dramatic tension it ordinarily might have possessed.

All worldwide musical phenomena carry with them some enigmatic quality that encourages, deliberately or not, a kind of adoring guesswork on behalf of fans. In Bob Marley: One Love, both as written and acted, Marley himself remains more cipher than enigma.

This is a project whose elements, from concept to script to casting, refuse to follow the usual formulas, which is good, yet they never quite cohere.

A likable little movie without much to offer but cute tots, recycled gags and a talented cast amiably wasting their time and ours.

Stone Cold has a basic proficiency, despite some notably awkward edits. Director Craig Baxley paces the story well, and Walter Doniger's script follows the classic formula for the genre: the more evil the villains, the greater hero the star and the more justified the film's gore. [20 May 1991, p.4C]

It’s a strange, grimly comic collection offering many grotesque sight gags, the occasional moment of seriousness and a general wash of melancholic, photogenic, elegiac Old West atmosphere. I liked the least jokey tale the best; by the time it came along, in the fifth-out-of-six slot, I’d had it with the kidding.

Napoleon was many things, and with this dutiful career highlights reel, Phoenix and his director deliver glancing blows to as many aspects of the warrior-tyrant-genius-fool-lonely heart as cinematically possible in two and a half hours.

Shackles its characters with stale dialogue straight out of decades-old Sgt. Rock comic books.

Barker unleashes the full force of his special effects crew and the movie implodes in a cataclysm of jelly-fleshed creepy-crawlies. It simply loses its grip. [17 Feb 1990, p.3C]

The film's tone is utterly indistinct, beyond fatuous adoration of its subject.

No one expects documentary realism in these memoir-to-movie transfers. It's reasonable, however, to expect more vibrant and expressive fictionalized treatment than this.

Now and then The 355 sticks a landing.

Evans and Kelleher could have used the same premise to tell a different story -- one in which viewers could relate to some of the perks of being First Kid instead of just the inconveniences. Luke could show kids a more exciting world. [30 Aug 1996, p.C]

The damper here is Affleck, who appears to have been too concerned with placing himself just so, and then posing, so that nothing drew attention away from cinematographer Robert Richardson's pretty light.

But what's the excuse for the film's script? What we get is a reworking of "Flashdance" and "Footlose" into a routine story about a couple of high school kids who want to become regular dancers on a show called "Dance TV," or "DTV" for short. [10 May 1985, p.LN]

Beowulf is all right as far as it goes, and it goes pretty far for a PG-13 rating: Dismemberment, “300”-style blood globules comin’ atcha, and a digitally futzed and, for all practical purposes, completely naked!!!

As a filmmaker, Benjamin is capable of the occasional light, graceful touch, but the overall view eludes him; just as he was unable to bring out the sly blend of satire and psychological drama in Bo Goldman's script for Little Nikita, he's unable to find any harmony of tone in this scattered, cacophonous material. [09 Dec 1988, p.B]

The harder this assault weapon went at my tear ducts, the more duct tape I wrapped around them as a defensive measure.

Everything not right with Don’t Worry Darling wasn’t right from the beginning. Even a good director — and Wilde is that, though her hand in developing this material clearly wasn’t without some wrong turns — must deal with script problems if they’re there, in the story, lurking and waiting to mess everything up and send audiences out muttering, wait what?

O'Rourke acts way over the top; Dunaway is more effective because she seems more desperate. Both characters are the kind of people who want to be left alone. That's what you may feel like after you spend a few minutes with them in one long brawl after one long argument after one long soliloquy.

Predictably cute. The only surprise about 3 Men and a Cradle is that it is the hit in Paris, winning three French Oscars, being nominated for an American Oscar, and, unbelievably, outgrossing E.T. and Rambo at the French box office. But then the French have loved the last few Jerry Lewis movies, too.