My affection for a lot of the earlier F&F movies has everything to do with the people on the screen, and the squealing of the tires. Not so much the world destruction. Outlandish mayhem needs better visual stylists than Leterrier.

This is almost entirely Angelina Jolie's show...this is a performance that goes from point A to point B without seeming rote, or ho-hum.

A comedy with a curious tone of depressive whimsy. It manages, somehow, to be both aggressively cute and oppressively sordid. [11 Dec 1987, p.G]

It may be a bit enigmatic and cerebral for some tastes, but if you don't mind your spirituality being served from a cracked chalice, you may find Touch is exactly what you've been seeking. [14 Feb 1997, p.G]

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

Shag still has its pleasures, though they're mostly among the casting. Annabeth Gish, as the shy Pudge, remains one of the most refreshingly natural performers in American films; a master of understatement, she scales down her gestures and reactions in a way that draws the camera to her, never asking for attention but quietly commanding it. [21 July 1989, p.A]

What we have here is a much less radical movie than writer Hughes probably believes he has created. Yes, he's given us an individualistic girl, but she swoons like a robot after the first reasonably human WASP or WASC asks her for a date. [2 Feb 1986]

Juvenile viewers may well benefit from the movie. But, for the adult, it’s ultimately a film that arrives too early for the season in its title and too late in terms of style and impact.

A strength of Then She Found Me, from Elinor Lipman's novel, is its straightforward, uncomplicated storytelling that keeps the threads untangled and blends the everyday and the absurd with natural ease.

The acting is impeccable, with Hernandez radiating an air of sleazy charm and Ochoa doing terrific work as a bitter man who's just lonely enough to have chinks in his well-developed armor.

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]

Wright makes the argument that in such a dystopian, fascist state, there are only a few things that will save us: class solidarity, physical media and literacy. It’s a powerful and potent message that cuts through any and all of the bombastic busyness of The Running Man.

A remake for schlemiels, or at least easy marks when it comes to formulaic Hollywood comedy. But the film's peculiar sluggishness and nagging hypocrisy probably won't get in the way of its popularity.

Of course, you expect talking animals in a Disney cartoon; you just may not initially realize that Dinosaur is the three-dimensional equivalent of one.

It suddenly morphs into one more overly slick, empty show.

If nothing else, The Cable Guy will make you think twice before trying to pick up a free movie channel. [14 June 1996, p.C]

Alive represents one of Hollywood's increasingly rare attempts to create a religious drama, but that novelty aside, the film is stiff, overlong and frequently risible. [15 Jan 1993, p.F]

Lawrence is very good in the role, as far as the role goes. But the script never jells; the comedy feels forced and mechanically boisterous, particularly in the crucial early passages.

Absurdly brutal slapstick is a tough thing to sustain across a feature. I spent a lot of The Three Stooges staring, not laughing. For me this was a stare-out-loud affair.

It's a refreshing spin on this type of film that's usually quite white and heteronormative.

Very different than "Kids." Where the earlier film was exhausting in its nihilism, the latest retains a good-natured charm.

Richard Pryor is a scream as a wrongly accused bank robber. Gene Wilder is just so-so as his partner. [19 June 1981]

Some actors are dinner. Kevin Kline is dessert, and his comic brio saves the film version of The Extra Man from its limitations.

Director Ridley Scott's Black Rain belongs to the blunt instrument school of filmmaking. This cop thriller, set largely in Osaka, Japan, is so full of screeching tires, flashing neon and extravagant violence that it's almost physically painful to watch, yet that seems to be the effect the director had in mind. If you smack the audience around enough, you'll be respected for your power.

It's tough to get on board with these monsters. They don't get the banter they--or we--deserve, and the screenwriters lean on wearying stereotypes.

Ruthlessly skilled as Atkinson is, the Bean persona of generic, maniacally grinning ineptitude owes most of its appeal to seeing just how far an actor can pull a face without pulling a muscle.

In the end it depicts its subject as lost, and pitiable--like Richard Nixon, but more a pawn than a dark knight.

There's just enough neurotic or sharp badinage and Rodeo Drive realism to make it all go down easy.

Zack and Miri has a bright, chipper look to it, thanks to cinematographer Dave Klein, a frequent Smith colleague. Wintertime in Pittsburgh never looked so good.

The superfast running effects, with Edward dashing up mountains, or rival, evil vampires swooping here and there at amazing speed, look genuinely cheesy, like the guy running the race in the smart-phone ad. I'm surprised Hardwicke and her colleagues couldn't solve this one more effectively. Set pieces such as a vampire baseball game fall flat as well.

A flawed film but an admirable one that tries to immerse us in a world of artistic abandon and political madness and very nearly succeeds.

Campbell’s film offers not surprises, exactly, but craftsmanship and low, brute, cunning satisfactions.

It's a very small film, undermined by a puttering rhythm and Pinter-worthy pauses in the second half and a resolution neither satisfyingly oblique nor conventionally pleasing.

A fun-for-a-while attempt by writer-director Harmony Korine, American indie cinema’s effrontery kingpin, to go a little bit mainstream. Matthew McConaughey is the reason it’ll get by.

The material, limited payoff; the performer at the center, never less than arresting.

This is a good movie, made by splendidly talented people-including Beatty, Annette Bening and Katharine Hepburn, co-writer Robert Towne, designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and composer Ennio Morricone-but it fumbles some gems, hearts and flowers on the way to the fadeout. [21 Oct 1994, p.C]

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.

Pacific Heights wastes our time and the talent of three top actors, Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine. What possibly attracted them to this inconsequential exploitation film about a tenant from hell terrorizing his landlords in an effort to steal their home? We keep waiting for the film to develop some larger meaning or greater purpose. It never does. [29 Sept 1990, p.C2]

Pretty silly. The Hot Spot certainly is, and it's occasionally quite entertaining for it, though the picture never really achieves a dimension beyond that of a Playboy Party Joke. [26 Oct 1990, Friday, p.I]

It's a movie that's too naive to be pornography and too callous to be art. [25 May 1990]

The documentary is strongest when it simply lets Steve — who resembles his father, minus the poof of hair — sift through his memories. There’s a lot of regret and melancholy there. Admiration too. And legitimate anger at how the Ross name itself is no longer his own. It’s a messy and complicated story.

Part III has the more adult emotions of the original, and with the presence of Steenburgen it recalls the quality of her other fine time-travel romance, "Time After Time." [25 May 1990, p.C]

Series 7 does exactly what independent cinema should -- challenge audiences while it entertains.

The movie is a delight in many ways: an unabashed romantic comedy and Capraesque fable that takes Spielberg into realms he's rarely traveled before.

Star Pilar Lopez de Ayala is such a feisty, striking presence, and the film so conventional in its depiction of a jealous and insatiable love, that it is hard to see Juana as anything other than a typical soap opera heroine.

Vision Quest survives by means of a few powerhouse weapons. One of them is Darryl Ponicsan's screenplay, adapted from the novel by Terry Davis, that tells the story with restraint, tenderness and a solid respect for theme. Another is director Harold Becker, who succeeds, most of the time, in touching the sensitive nerves of this tale without fraying them. Best of all are a couple of winning performances: Matthew Modine as a high school wrestler intent on beating an unbeatable state champ and Linda Fiorentino as the hard-as-nails drifter who wanders into his life. [15 Feb 1985, p.J]

A smooth but frustrating third feature with an extremely good ensemble cast.

Snyder films the violence in Man of Steel the way he films most of the rest of the picture: Like a man chasing tornadoes and not even trying to keep subjects in frame. It's a choice, and not a bad one, necessarily — the Smallville farm scenes, in particular, respond well to the approach — but by the end it's a visually limiting one.

Plenty of dramatic action, stunning imagery and an operatic score add weight to Escaflowne. It may not appeal to fans of traditional animation.

The Mission is "The Killing Fields" without Dith Pran, a movie that simply asks the audience to share its moral smugness. It wants us to feel good about feeling bad. [14 Nov 1986, p.AC]

Even if the film should be retitled "For a Fairly Good Time, Call ..." at least we're not back on the couch with another variation on the same old group of arrested-development young adult males, hanging on to their adolescence with as much determination as their marijuana intake allows.

Jim Carrey is good as Scrooge. There’s surprisingly little shtick in his performance.

This is the kind of movie that nice people call ambitious. Let's just leave it at that.

The surface pleasures of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights may be plenty, but the story itself, well, it never achieves climax.

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 solid cast and honest Austen scholarship make Becoming Jane fitfully entertaining. But it's hard for the film to escape the shadow of Austen's superior talent when it filches so much from her books.

Breillat has long been fascinated with the idea that women are not allowed to go through puberty in private but instead seem to be on display for all to watch, a situation that has no parallel with boys. A Real Young Girl seems acutely aware of this paradox.

This is "Fight Club" without the irony or the metaphysical gaming.

This is very light material, and, unusually for a Lee picture, not everybody in the ensemble appears to be acting in the same universe, let alone the same story. On the other hand: It’s fun.

Deftly uses the conventions of the urban buddy/ romance film to create a fast and loose, often humorous, atmosphere.

The Eagle becomes more interesting the further north it travels.

It's Mary Stuart Masterson, bringing a depth and tenacity to her role that nowhere appears in the screenplay, who leaves the lasting impression. She escapes the airiness of Hughes's vision to establish something like a human being. [22 Feb 1987]

Extremely well wrought. Not overwrought. Not underwrought. Just wrought.

The jaunty, energetic first 10 minutes of The Brothers Bloom are easily the best first 10 minutes of any film I've seen this year. And while the succeeding hour and 43 minutes doesn't hold up to the movie's opening scenes, the whole endeavor is still an awfully good time.

There are scattered pleasures throughout the film due to its two lead performances, which are the equal of the work done in the original. It's just that with a few exceptions, the characters Miyagi and Daniel are forced into conflict with aren't worthy of their time.

The movie doesn't really work, but it's fascinating in the ways it doesn't. Then again, I enjoyed the spacey insanity of the Wachowskis' "Speed Racer," which they didn't even like in Asia.

I prefer [HBO's Hitchcock biopic] "The Girl," not because of its salaciousness but because it gets at something underneath the great (truly, great) director's skin.

The film is easy to take, though it must be said: It's almost 100 percent blather.

The music's the best thing ... But it isn't enough to lift this middlebrow, middleweight and middling project ... above its misjudgments and limitations.

Is the central hook in “Old” enough? For many, I suspect, the answer will be not quite. The film, well-crafted when the characters quit reiterating the previous what’s-going-on-here? reiteration, could use a little more nerve and a little less plot machinery, designed to provide audiences with a happier ending than the graphic novel’s, and a lot of scientific folderol.

Dark Shadows illustrates the fine line in a pop reboot between "relaxed" and "lazy."

Though jarringly violent at times, the film becomes a wash of low-keyed comic attitudes thrown into the works of a crime story.

The movie is slick, predictable and, thanks mainly to Washington's canny underplaying, fairly diverting.

A flashy, splashy and violent chase thriller.

Does have heart and enthusiasm. But it might have worked better if it had been glitzed up and energized the way "Fame" was. It's not a script that can survive this kind of minimal, earnest, self-congratulatory treatment.

Not for the sexually conservative. Not even for the sexually moderate liberal. It is, however, for the right crowd in the right mood, a very fine film.

Twohy pulls all the strings to create an inventive genre piece.

I enjoyed parts of Street Kings but I didn’t believe one thing about it, and I couldn’t get past Reeves’ unsuitability to his role. He may someday play a cop on the edge convincingly, but the edge needs to be sharper than this.

Foster's direction, aided by cinematographer Matthew Libatique's sharp, clean light, is the most fluid and well-considered of her career. The script is an asset, too. Until it becomes a mixed-bag liability.

Everything in the film is high: high concept, high pressure, high stakes and it often feels bizarrely forced. Nothing makes any sense and is never explained.

What good is a movie that can’t stop moving, or screaming, long enough to pace itself?

It's nice to see an action movie take more than a passing interest in where our country is at the moment, and then exaggerating that moment into the realm of shrewd exploitation. To wit: Any film combining an indictment of false religiosity with an indictment of violence-solves-violence political pandering in a single line of dialogue — "These weapons have been cleansed with holy water!" — is OK by me.

Valmont is a superb piece of craftsmanship, impeccable in every detail from lighting to costuming, but as a work of art it remains tentative and blurred. [17 Nov 1989]

About overcoming adversity and one's innermost fears. On this count, Paxton hits the ball squarely in capturing the psychology of his characters, but hooks it into the sand trap of effects and thematic overselling.

Instead of becoming bewitched, we're caught up in one more gallery of cliches and storytelling blunders. The Glitches of Eastwick. [03 May 1996, p.C2]

Director Arthur Penn (Bonnnie and Clyde) may have intended this to be a campy homage to Hitchcock, but instead he gives us a boring, frustrating and stupid story. [06 Feb 1987, p.A]

Demme gets a lot of flavor and spice into his "Charade" remake, but he can't disguise that he's spiffing up leftovers that aren't so substantial or fresh.

The shame is that Pitre, shooting entirely in his home state, wasn't more engaged himself. His intimate connection to the people, place and story, which certainly inspired him to write the film in the first place, is wasted.

Ultimately, p.s. confirms Kidd's talent without expanding it or achieving the comic/dramatic heights of "Roger Dodger."

I can't imagine a better actress for this part than Australian-born Cate Blanchett. Blanchett, who can be regal ("Elizabeth") or slutty ("The Shipping News"), manages to catch the feel of Guerin.

Bold and totally off-the-wall comedy.

The actors — including Patton as Bobby's DEA colleague and sometime fling — cannot act what is not there. But with Washington, Wahlberg, Olmos and Paxton around jockeying for dominance, the standoffs have their moments.

There's something a little absurd about this story, but for me, it's endearingly goofy.

Enjoy the love in your life, and don't squander it: That's all Curtis is selling here, really. With Gleeson and McAdams at the forefront, About Time has a beguiling pair of rom-com miracle workers helping him close the sale.

This romantic-comedy action movie is a fizzle.

A dramatic true story has been made into a diffident biopic.

For all its limitations, the film still looks terrific. Flawless CGI and forays into animation keep things visually lively, and Nim’s enviable life is likely to hook kids into the story early and keep them entranced.

Naive, decadent, sluggish, dazzling, touchingly sincere in its belief that “a vital conversation” about the state of our nation can save us, even with barbarians at the gates: There’s something to vex everyone in Megalopolis.