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

As a series of sights, which movies like these are, Oz the Great and Powerful is more like "Oz the Digital and Relentless." Certainly this is true in its final half-hour, which seemed to me to be all explosions.

Lo's writing is generally solid, and he creates some genuinely funny and touching moments with his use of dream sequences and flashbacks. He may not have gotten his proportions perfect in this first try, but Catfish in Black Bean Sauce shows that Lo has sharp cinematic instincts.

This “Last Dance” may be shaggy, silly and even a little bit stupid — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially when it’s winking so hard at its own genre play.

While it's done well enough here - written smartly, staged crisply and acted to the hilt - it doesn't last, except as a brief virtuoso piece for three players.

A somewhat bewildering and unsatisfying film that nevertheless contains more inspired moments and brilliant scenes than many movies we call successes.

Crowe's chilliest movie. In part this is by design. Like "Open Your Eyes," to which Crowe is mostly faithful, Vanilla Sky is a head trip that merges thriller, romance and science-fiction elements while playing with our notions of dreams and reality.

A thickly plotted disappointment, yet it has three or four big sequences proving that director Michael Mann, who gave us "Thief," "Heat," "Collateral" and others, has lost none of his instincts for how to choreograph, photograph and edit screen violence.

The most interesting thing about this slick but frustrating picture is the way it puts Crowe’s Hoffman at the center of our mixed feelings.

The problem is that the movie is, in comedy parlance, a "bit fest" -- it tries to generate its humor with a barrage of bits, or external gags, rather than letting it emerge organically from the deepening interaction between its two leads.

There are some laughs, and director Anne Fletcher — like Kenny Ortega, who did the first one, she’s dance-trained and a veteran choreographer — manages a far smoother amalgam of effects, mood swings, mugging, headless-zombie comic relief and heartstring-yanking that miraculously almost kind of partly works. All in all, it’s twice as good as Hocus Pocus. It’s easier to write that if you didn’t like Hocus Pocus.

A wildly improbable story that neither Newman nor co-stars Fiorentino and Mulroney, for all their panache and chemistry, can make much sense of it.

I don't think it will seriously disappoint longtime fans, but it made me itchy as I watched it unfold in ways that the comics never did when I read them in the '60s.

It's all a little ultra-cool for me. Shakespeare was right. Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold, not cool.

With Hands of Stone, Robert De Niro officially enters his Burgess Meredith-in-"Rocky" phase, bringing the ringside grizzle and rumpled gravitas by the pound.

It's gut-grinding, to be sure. But a misjudged degree of cinematic dazzle obscures the outrages at the core of Standard Operating Procedure.

In a rom-com, there's no rom without the com. Hart and Hall give it their all.

The best material in the film is the loosest, capturing the perpetually insecure and overcompensating Pineda in his early concerts, leaping, bouncing, careening around as if every moment in every song were an audition for the next moment in the next song.

As an intentionally campy film, Girls Will Be Girls dips a cinematic toe into shark-infested waters. Not only must it operate on several levels-making us care for deeply flawed characters and laugh at their bitter lashings-it also has to carry a cohesive story arc. On this count, Girls Will Be Girls fizzles a bit.

This is a movie where you can get drunk on the B2], sloshed on the scenery. But perhaps not quite drunk enough. [11 Aug 1995, p.C2]

Tom Cruise does with bartending pretty much what he did with a pool cue in "The Color of Money." In other words, he shows skill at a con game while being less successful with the woman in his life. [29 Jul 1988, p.A]

There is a thrill in seeing them wooing and pursuing each other through the streets of New York, a city that here again, for a while, becomes a movie isle of joy.

Anne Hathaway basically saves it from itself.

There's a tremendous amount of material here, and the script covers too much of it, often confusingly.

Errol Flynn deifies Gen. George Armstrong Custer in a silly though well-directed biopic. [25 May 2001, p.C1]

There's some undeniable appeal to watching a well-oiled, built-for-speed machine operating with its pedal to the metal -- even if it's destined to wind up in flames before the finish line.

The results are pretty, and sometimes beautiful. They're also a tad stiff, and the dialogue and voice-over narration sometimes has the ring of a scrupulously faithful adaptation.

Relentlessly driven by fashionable revisionism and good intentions, Geronimo: An American Legend-which deals with "days of bravery and cruelty, heroism and deceit"-is so politically correct it often is dramatically inert. [10 Dec 1993, p.C]

It's sort of fun, certainly more so than the "National Treasure" pictures, as well as less manic (a little less) than the recent "Mummy" films.

If you can forget about the movie’s general moral vacuousness, the extremely uneven digital photography and the slavish devotion to designer assault weapons...the screenplay by “Watchmen” scribe Alex Tse keeps the shifting alliances and power plays in clever circulation.

Isn't without charm, or laughs. Director Shawn Levy's film features some of the best child actor casting since "The Little Rascals."

Welcome to the world of Ellie Parker, a faux-documentary and big, fat raspberry dedicated to L.A.'s underclass.

Burt Reynolds stars as a Dirty Harry-style detective who chases after a high-powered pimp in Atlanta. When Reynolds stays in character, the film works well as a straight thriller. When he winks at the audience with his dialog, the film falls apart. [25 Dec 1981, p.12]

I cannot say how I'd feel about The Walk if I'd never seen "Man on Wire," because I did see "Man on Wire," and I can't un-see it. I love it. I can only say The Walk struck me as an honorable good try of an also-ran, though with some lovely things to offer.

The best sequences involve Frank's inventive ability to stay within 75 feet of his car, but otherwise, it's the charismatic unruffled dexterity in the face of impossible odds that rivets.

When the story’s twist arrives, you half-expect Twohy to throw in a couple of reels from "Dead Again," plus outtakes from "The Usual Suspects." It’s a lulu; I'm just not sure if it's the sort of lulu that will lead to great word-of-mouth.

We want to watch pets behave exactly as we expect them to, and sometimes in a completely incongruous manner. Like the original, “Pets 2” delivers just that, nothing more.

Mission: Impossible III hasn't the kinks or the oddball Continental chic of the first "Mission: Impossible," but it's less pretentious and obsessively pretty than the second movie.

It`s a shame to have to knock the otherwise beautiful and haunting picture, but when you`re watching a love story and you can`t stand the character who is being loved, that makes for a very frustrating movie-going experience.

Trying to be more antic and cuttingly funny, it misses the premise's shivery tension. The story loses us at precisely the moment it should put us in the vise.

Walter Matthau is absolutely wonderful as the constantly tormented neighbor, Mr. Wilson, in this film adaptation of the popular comic strip and TV show. And although little Mason Gamble may not be another Macauley Culkin, he's fine as innocently troublesome Dennis. But the movie loses track of its energy during a labored, 10-minute sequence with Dennis combatting a thief. What would have been better is more scenes of tenderness between Dennis and Mr. Wilson. [25 June 1993, p.C]

Still, it's pretty rich watching Rogen puke all over a Christmas Eve Mass in front of his in-laws.

Even with its story hiccups — and by the end, they’re practically contagious — The Creator creates images of the future you have not seen before, at least not quite this way. The movie is messy and knotty but co-writer and director Gareth Edwards has yet to make an uninteresting piece of science fiction.

Maybe if I liked the first "Anchorman" a little less, I'd like Anchorman 2 a little more. Still, I laughed.

The action beats are so relentless, no sooner does one chase end than another begins.

Tarantino's debut directing job acknowledges the sloppiness and silences that are typically squeezed out of most crime films, but we get the point early on and the remainder is macho posturing. [23 Oct 1992]

For all the film’s minor flaws, it is deeply moving and incredibly important to witness the impact of "I Am Woman” as an enduring, uplifting cry for freedom and empowerment.

As is often the case in Loach's films, all the acting is exemplary. Padilla, who learned English only shortly before making the film, is a natural actress, a smoldering presence.

The first-person remembrances hit you where you live, while everything else (including a bland musical score by John Piscitello) often creates the opposite of the intended effect: It keeps you at arm's length from an extraordinary story.

Far less interesting than its premise, primarily because we never know what anyone is really thinking.

Much to enjoy in this potpourri of silly fun and forbidden games, but a bit less ambition and a tad more focus might have helped.

There's something too slickly contrived and hollow about this film. It's a yuppified wish-fulfillment piece dangling between real world and fairy tale, and it's mostly the actors --especially Lindsay and Elaine Hendrix (as the conniving publicist who is trying to marry Hallie and Annie's dad) -- who manage to bring it off. [29 July 1998]

The production is first-rate in all technical ways imaginable, but the villain that Holmes and Watson chase is not worth their intellect or time or ours.

It's too bad Spurlock settles for so little here, beyond the surface gag.

Full of groovy music and comic characters--many with a priceless reaction to Lovelace's oral party trick--but it hardly manages to say anything new or thoughtful.

The film is intimate without feeling particularly deep or complicated. Not that it needs to be.

If the movie is a mess, it's a purposeful mess, cannily, if not artfully, pushing all the right buttons to ensure Perry will be back for another round.

Good action movies live on style and excitement. But they also need credibility, and in Hostage, ALMOST a good genre piece, plausibility keeps getting slaughtered.

Cohen at his best is both brazen and sly. As is The Dictator.

While some pedestrian camerawork and spotty acting from supporting players deflate Love Object, it has enough juice - and a surprising twist - to keep fans of the slow-burn horror genre enthralled.

Don't expect a lot, and you'll probably enjoy Happy, Texas, as I did -- mostly. At the very least, Steve Zahn will make you laugh.

A Cure for Wellness is an odd film. It's exceedingly well-crafted; the attention to detail and design, composition and camera movement on display here has largely been abandoned by recent horror films grasping for a jarring sense of realism.

Larsson's leading characters have less to do in this wrap-up chapter. As Larsson wrote it and screenwriter and exposition-condenser Ulf Rydberg adapted it, it's a rather wobbly blend of courtroom drama and loose ends tied, albeit rather leisurely.

Joseph's direction offers up an energetic take on the material, incorporating text visualization, quick-cutting montages, and creative uses of animation to bring the thumping electronic music to cinematic life.

Aside from a couple of unintelligible conversations with himself, there's barely any God here. The film would rather just be inclusive. Luther might have wanted it that way, but as moviegoers, it's hard not to want more.

As with so much of this director’s work, I’m in the middle on Beast, though its efficient running time puts it a notch above. Like many of his previous films, this one has the advantage of modest scale and a passing interest in human resourcefulness under extreme duress. It has also the disadvantage of spectacle that is more technical than artistic.

An erratic but enjoyable sci-fi action movie with an extremely bent sense of humor. [09 Aug 1996, p.F]

I don't the think the "look" is quite right for the story. Nor is the dreamy, wandering score by Marcelo Zarvos, which adds the blandest sort of ambient "tension music" to whatever's going on. McGregor struggles to make Perry credible in his credulousness; Harris, far better, doesn't have enough to do; Skarsgard is fun.

Hart's turn as 0054 is both a fun riff on the genre and a statement that Hart doesn't need to ask for permission to be Bond — because he can do whatever he wants.

A second-rate nightmare: the Reagan generation meets Leatherhead with flickers of brilliance drowned in blood and snobbery, a corpse dressed by Bloomingdale's.

Teeth is about female exploitation and male castration.

The performances feel natural, improvised, and it’s easy to believe this is the world we inhabit. But if Rifkin’s message is pro-privacy, his script, laced throughout with menace, argues against it.

Game Night itself is not a long night; it’s reasonably snappy. But co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein place a misjudged emphasis on keeping the violence and the action “real,” so at its most routine and generic, the movie forgets it’s supposed to be a comedy.

A multilayered documentary that explores music and friendship, and in its own quiet way, the battle with fame.

Dark as it is, the humor makes it work, especially Greene's typically witty and compassionate portrayal of Mogie.

Pure spectacle has since been subsumed into narrative filmmaking, but the cinema of attractions is always present, especially in modern action movies, and there may be no greater current example of this than xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.

An uneven mix of genres that, even when it misses the mark, gets points for originality and a good beat.

While the world and the characters of "Detective Pikachu" are incredibly fun, the story within that world suffers. Most of the exposition is provided in flashback-style holographic recreations, and the action sequences are so inane, chaotic and incomprehensible that you may find your mind wandering to grocery lists rather than the film's stakes.

Are the results funny? In the margins, yes.

Men in Black: International isn’t bad; it’s an improvement over “Men in Black II” (2002) and “Men in Black 3” (2012), sequels that even its makers may have forgotten.

Black and Awkwafina and Hoffman do their jobs, but the jokes have a way of arriving like jokes, and sounding like jokes, but not quite being jokes. This is an action movie foremost, which is fine.

The notion that stories are the lies that tell the truth isn't new -- even Shakespeare knew that -- but the central conceit of "let's save lives by putting on a play" seems not only artificial, but also hollow.

Moments of this film reminded me of Alexander Payne's great library of male dysfunction -- "Election," "About Schmidt," "Sideways" -- not because King of the Corner actually reaches Payne's plane, but because I wish it had tried.

Just cute enough for some tastes, too cute by half for others.

Harsh Times, is almost a good, salty urban thriller.

Moana 2 is more of an action movie with a few accidental musical numbers of varying quality.

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

Around the halfway point it starts getting interesting and the people who put it together are at least working in a realm of reasonable intelligence and wit and respect for the audience.

Works better as a sociological study than as a gripping drama.

The appeal of this The Addams Family, which doesn’t break the mold, is simply to spend some more time in this gently spooky world, which is a gateway for budding creepsters and goths. It’s refreshing that it doesn’t try to overreach the limitations of its story, but it’s so slight, it merely whets the appetite for more Addams fare, rather than providing anything truly satisfying.

Of the 141 minutes in The Judge, roughly 70 work well, hold the screen and allow a ripe ensemble cast the chance to do its thing, i.e., act. The other 71 are dominated by narrative machinery going ka-THUNKITA-thunkita-thunkita.

The folks on the screen are the whole show, and this genial showcase for standup comic Jo Koy has the advantage of showing off a wealth of Asian/Pacific American talent, pretty badly undervalued by establishment Hollywood.

I’m flummoxed as to why the movie left me feeling up in the air, as opposed to over the moon. Partly, I think, it’s a matter of how Anderson’s sense of humor rubs up against that of the book’s author, Roald Dahl.

For sheer laughs, Willard and Piddock take the trophy.

Though the result is a distant, hyperstylized exaggeration of form and movement, the film itself turns repetitive and exhaustive.

If the key performances in Beautiful Boy were any less honest, the film's half-formed suppositions would undo it utterly.

This movie, an efficient time-passer at least until the plot starts obsessing over the fate of the family dog, is more into gadgets than people.

By the end we are left with a mildly amusing comedy and the lingering memory of a sterling cast that deserved better material.