Eric Bana doesn’t have much to do as Henry VIII except play the monarch as an overgrown spoiled brat. He is, however, awfully nice to look at.

While the film runs a bit too long, and the heartstring tugging becomes overwrought, overall, this family melodrama about a devastating illness and the freak accident that cured it is surprisingly effective, even for those of little faith.

Starts like a house afire and then suffers an imagination burnout.

It's a cheap thrill, with twists that later seem evident and foreshadowing that often seems obvious, with a B-movie look and vibe reminiscent of the much tighter "Jagged Edge."

Wysocki is a genuine talent, as is Jacobs, but the subject of Terri remains a pleasant blur.

The Butler tells a lot of different stories, some more effectively than others.

The movie, a formidable technical and design achievement, has everything going for it except a sense of Jobs' inner life.

Though the new "Sabrina" has been updated to include micro-chips and corporate raiders, French fashion shoots and the Concorde, it doesn't transcend its time the way the old screwball comedies did. It doesn't even illustrate its own time memorably. Instead, the movie leaves us peeking through the trees like Sabrina, while trying to tell us that old movie fairy tales like this one are eternal, as relevant in our day as in their own. It's doubtful the people who made "Sabrina" themselves really believe that -- though they'd obviously like to. [15 Dec 1995, p.C]

The movie version of that life, directed by Richard J. Lewis, gives the adaptation an earnest go. But the script lacks juice.

The film doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is: a story of one woman overcoming low expectations. Gugino and Burstyn and the young performers playing the young players do likewise.

It's perhaps the first animated kids' film that can claim to be "based on a true story."

It's a reasonably efficient baby sitter, done up in 3-D computer-generated animation of no special distinction. But the first one's weird mixture of James Bond bombast and hyperactive pill-shaped Minions (the protagonist Gru's goggle-clad helpers) had the element of surprise in its favor.

100 percent right about our corrupt and hypocritical industry-controlled movie ratings system. Being right, however, doesn't automatically make for a strong documentary. I enjoyed a lot of it. Yet fully half of what's on screen is beside its own point.

A smart, sprightly little movie with beguiling actors and few inhibitions. Though there's nothing startlingly new here, there's a freshness and vigor to the acting, and the crisscrossing love affairs hold your interest.

A play based on the most delicately nuanced interactions inevitably loses electricity as a movie. Worse, it becomes predictable. [28 Apr 1989, p.L]

The original dealt with a collision of intellect, destiny and the soul, this sequel is content to limit its concern to survival. Darwin might not approve. [16 Feb 1989, p.2C]

The result is a brisk trot through a story that is, at heart, a tough slog.

Chevy Chase doesn't seem to have enough to do in "Funny Farm." He's a physical actor whose appeal can turn flat if he spends too much camera time sitting at a typewriter or working on his love relationship. Smith, as Elizabeth, is gorgeous and competent, but she lacks the comic verve of Beverly d'Angelo, Chase's memorable co-star in the National Lampoon series. This is a vehicle that does a lot for its supporting character actors and almost nothing for its stars. [3 June 1988, p.B]

A handful of films, from "The Battle of Algiers" to Paul Greengrass' splendid "Bloody Sunday," have met the challenge of dramatizing civil unrest and law enforcement outrages, memorably. Detroit comes close.

Never quite measures up to Pemberton's reach, but there remains enough to be excited about to wonder what will follow this imperfectly made though valuable work.

The best scene in Inside Man is one of the simplest, a cat-and-mouser, wherein the hostage negotiator played by Washington pays a visit to Foster's wily manipulator. These two play it so cool, yet so clearly enjoy each other's onscreen company, it's a ticklish reminder of the simple pleasures of screen acting.

A confessional film that's almost too confessional--is like getting buttonholed by a casual acquaintance at a party and then subjected to a flood of highly intimate revelations that just don't stop.

The one true amazement in “Dark Fate”? That’s easy: the magical transference of biceps from Hamilton to Mackenzie Davis’s tank-topped, genetically enhanced soldier of the future. In a heavily digitized enterprise, they’re the most conspicuous human camera subject.

Fairly entertaining and often exciting, expertly done in a way, but not especially engaging or new, and not as emotionally involving as its title suggests.

Director Suri Krishnamma, depends on Finney for its power. His great performance carries the film over its shallow spots, its wish fulfillment, its pull toward caricature. [03 Feb 1995]

This is a profoundly unambitious movie, a '70s cop show spoof that aims to provoke a few giggles, and that's about it.

The Cabin in the Woods is pure mechanics, as if the shadowy Dharma Initiative of "Lost" switched agents and found itself at the center of a brain-bending ensemble drama.

A movie of such cheerful craziness and nonstop ferocity that you can't take it seriously for a second.

The way Moncrieff has structured The Dead Girl, it's catnip for actors: Divided into five chapters, the script affords juicy roles requiring only a few days' work from each member of its impressive ensemble.

A grandly kitschy rendering of Genghis Khan's early years.

Violent and cynical on the surface, impassioned and celebratory below, Last Man Standing is such a carefully stylized film that sometimes it's hard to respond to it. [20 Sep 1996, p.C]

Rates as more determinedly heartfelt than the first and not as witty as the second (and best). Also, no Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart in jodhpurs this time around.

The story is an uneasy mix of adult dreams of immortality and adolescent anguish. [3 March 1989, p.A]

Stands a triumph of stunts over plot, of style over substance--of the wool we pull over our own eyes. It's brainless, high-speed, popcorn fun.

What pulls us along through the inky shoals of The Way of the Gun? Sheer style, plus the movie's refusal to play nice.

Recycled French farce isn't a bad thing, but do they really like all those pratfalls?

Cameo appearances by everyone from James Franco (as Hugh Hefner, putting the moves on Lovelace at her own premiere) to Hank Azaria (as a film "investor") dot the grimy landscape.

Novie lovers will want more of Winger and more Redford, both separately and together. If they had more scenes, their romance might seem more credible, rather than being simply the movie convention of ''star loves star.'' It`s a close call on Legal Eagles. It`s not a total waste of time.

Rarely ventures beyond familiar territory.

Too loud, bright and shallow for its subject: a movie that pushes too many obvious buttons to build naturally to the big, heartbreaking climax it obviously wants.

Never really feels right.

A comedy of bad manners with many punchy moments and many irritatingly glib ones.

Whitaker's performance is the rock here. Even when the confrontations and evasions get a little ridiculous, he's neither wholly saint nor sinner, but something like a human being.

Starts with such promising quirkiness that it's easy to forget for the moment that you are watching a teen comedy.

Going in Style stays in the safe zone every second, nervous about risking any audience discomfort, as opposed to Brest's quietly nervy ode to old age and its discontents. Times change.

More than anything, The Princess is a documentary that makes you think about its editing choices. There’s a curious lack of clarity or transparency around many of the unidentified voices (from broadcasters, presumably) that can be heard speaking over the assembled images and you’re left to wonder if this commentary originally accompanied said footage or if Perkins, the director, is mixing and matching.

A high school version of A Chorus Line, following a half-dozen talented students at New York High School for the performing arts as they try to become show-biz stars. When the kids perform, the movie sings, but their fictionalized personal stories are melodramatic drivel. [11 July 1980, p.8]

Lofing and Cluff certainly know the found-footage ropes, and the tropes; we'll see if their next project reveals a little more imagination.

Parts of The Birth of a Nation are bluntly effective and beautifully acted, though one of the drawbacks, ironically, is Parker's own performance. Even the rape victims of the screenplay have a hard time getting their fair share of the screen time; everything in the story, by design, keeps the focus and the anguished close-ups strictly on Parker.

It's a compelling drama, if only a little hollow. For my money, Pacino's bark is ultimately better than Two For the Money's bite.

Rønning, who helmed a later “Pirates of the Caribbean” film and “Young Woman and the Sea,” provides serviceable direction of the material without offering much innovation. The film loses fidelity toward the end, as it becomes a crashy, pixelated monster movie, as the real world has no capability for hosting the sleek, bloodless appeal of the grid.

The movie may not be as toxic and ultimately hopeless as Todd Solondz's "Happiness," but it also fails to find humor, dark or light, in anything.

Like Stone's "Platoon," World Trade Center has the visceral stuff it takes to appeal to audiences of all political stripes. Unlike "Platoon," however, its sense of craft feels impersonal.

The trouble with Bridget redux is also simple: Thai jail.

Still, the deadliest single element in this film can be traced not to Bacon's character, but to composer Henry Jackson, whose music seems determined to kill us all with waves of dramatic nothingness.

This movie gives us mostly the "what" when we need a bit of the "why" as well. In her other, better work, Denis always supplies it.

Even at a mere 82 minutes, the movie is guilty of killing time. It's not a complete Kaputschnik, but it's sure no Bellini.

There's a movie here, and there's a gimmick. The gimmick undermines the movie and the gimmick is attached to the wrong part of the movie. Other than that, Clue offers a few big laughs early on followed by a lot of characters running around on a treadmill to nowhere. [13 Dec 1985, p.38]

An okay kids' picture about a bunch of misfit hockey players who are brought together to play in the Big Game by a cynical, Yuppie coach (Emilio Estevez) doing community service. [02 Oct 1992, p.C]

But the film disappoints, partly because it inspires such large expectations.

Any Chekhov is better than no Chekhov, but it would be a shame if this was your introduction to one of the greatest plays of the last 100 years.

A solid meat and potatoes film. Like the land itself, there are no frills, and the cinematography by William Wages is commendable. But, someone should tell the filmmakers that there probably weren't any big mountains outside of St. Paul, even in 1917.

Richard Jewell is a sincere and extremely well-acted irritant from 89-year-old director Clint Eastwood. It’s destined to get under the hides of different moviegoers in radically different ways.

Bond, like rock 'n' roll -- or Tomorrow -- may never die. Even so, watching the movie explode and crash its way toward its climax, I could only keep thinking: Come back, Richard Maibaum.

Much of the value -- entertainment and otherwise -- of seeing a culture-specific movie is to connect with a larger world than your everyday life offers.

The new film seems a little nervous about the religious content; it's more interested in the swoony bits between Charles and Julia.

Energetic but unusually foolish "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!" high-school musical, redeemed by the exuberantly talented Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland combo, as a couple of kids preparing jaw-dropping numbers (choreographed by Berkeley) for a Paul Whiteman radio contest. [12 Dec 1997]

For all the whiz-bang visuals, however, "Little" could use a little consistency in tone.

Too much of “John Wick 4″ mistakes grandiloquence for excitement. But yes, as bloody diversion goes, the audience gets its money’s worth.

They are all more capable performers than are usually found in horror films, and the script is not as stiffly self-conscious as the average, either, with the result that this does of devastation is a bit easier to take than some of its predecessors. [22 Jun 1954, p.27]

An innocuous teen film.

For all the over-the-top operatic moments — car wrecks and prom throwbacks and rifles at the dinner table — there's something about the wild tonal shifts and chaos of Almost Christmas that rings true about the holiday season.

The younger Provenzano, while under indictment for racketeering and tax evasion, made his contribution to our mob lesson by writing, directing and starring in This Thing of Ours, another installment in the long line of bada-bings and fuggetabouits.

Thanks to director Howard's casual grace and humanism and the cast's talent and agility, The Paper is an entertaining show. But, maybe the reason it looks so real and sounds so phony is that, while it's set in the world of today, it really wants the kick of the old movies, and it never hits the right fluctuating tone between drama and farce. It may have tabloid ambitions and a tabloid look-even a tabloid soul. But it doesn't have tabloid reflexes. [18 March 1994, p.A]

For those seeking the vibrant innovation of Tarantino's first movies or the sheer rush of "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," Vol. 2 feels like a dulled blade.

Largely male gay sex, with nary a lesbian in sight, or in mind.

Most novels can't be encapsulated well enough in a conventional two-hour movie format, and Dreamcatcher may be one of them -- a miniseries gone wrong.

What's wrong is the decision to let all the actors improvise their lines...At the end, Irreversible looks less like captured or even distorted life than an acting class.

I wish the movie were messier, more surprising. But as with most of what we see, made on small budgets and large: The performances are not the problem.

Rough Night is good one minute, weak or stilted or wince-y the next, though even with seriously uneven pacing and inventiveness it's a somewhat better low comedy than "Snatched" or "Bad Moms," or (here's where I part company with the world) the "Hangover" pictures. Yes, even the first one.

Son-In-Law is a comedy that outstrips its aspirations. It could so easily be a movie you're embarrassed to be caught laughing at. [2 July 1993, p.C]

Probably the last movie to carry a credit for the late Christopher Reeve--as well as the last credit for Reeve's late wife, Dana.

Once Schwarzenegger got attached, the short-sighted, commercially minded forces took over; the man is desperate for a hit, so the movie dare not overestimate the audience's intelligence or tolerance for uneasily resolved dilemmas.

The Raid is maniacal in its pacing and assault tactics. It's also, absurdly, rated R. Fantastic. I love that a film this gory secured the same Motion Picture Association of America rating as "The King's Speech."

Cry Macho may be fond and foolish in equal measure, but it has a few grace notes to remember, in addition to a fine gallery of images of Eastwood in silhouette, at dusk, against a big sky, alone with his thoughts.

Despite its familiar trappings, Better Than Chocolate turns out to be quite enjoyable, thanks to some very engaging acting, a few involving subplots and an energy that must be credited to director Anne Wheeler. [27 Aug 1999, p.I]

There isn't much nuance or complexity to be found in The Call of the Wild, but it's an old-fashioned animal-friendly adventure flick for kids, a modern-day and high-tech “Benji” based on a classic piece of literature.

Fuqua goes for operatic style and pulp poetics, strung together with a strangely paced and structured plot that’s about as floppy as a spaghetti noodle (the script is once again by Richard Wenk). But the film is not unenjoyable on a purely impressionistic level, as Fuqua and Washington bring the audience along on their Euro trip and ask us simply to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride that is Robert McCall inflicting terror and mayhem on very bad people.

The essential problem with The Black Cauldron is that the central human character in the story is a complete drip, making it difficult to root for his success at saving the world from ruination.

Taken in isolation from the unsatisfying story, the performances are powerful--Knightley’s vivacious, wounded romantic does a great deal to carry the film on sheer personality, while Fiennes is a subtle master at projecting banked menace through his seeming detached ennui.

One of those lurid, macabre, amusingly exaggerated B-horror movies beloved by the psychotronic/Joe Bob Briggs crowds.

The movie -- even though it's based on real events -- seems unsatisfying and unconvincing.

Despite greater resources and high-tech whiz bang than the first movie, has a lot more turkey than dinner.

Even when the movie loses its way narratively, Washington’s in there, slugging, building a living, breathing character out of Gilroy’s knight-errant.

Each time a character gets tossed in the air by some manifestation or another, the effect is cheesy. Still, I've seen worse. For the record, the violence in Annabelle is far less copious and sadistic than the stuff in the Denzel Washington movie everybody's going to.

A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came 'round to it.

It's a good film but an over-obvious one. I wish I'd liked it more.

Gemini Man isn’t bad, but two Will Smiths — when one of them’s computer-animated — somehow feels like 66-75 percent of a real movie.