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.

The Favor is a sex comedy without sex-and pretty much without comedy. [29 Apr 1994]

The pacing and staging of the later scenes could use a little more electricity and momentum, and a little less restraint. Yet The Night Listener keeps you watching. And listening.

With scanty and thin characterization and a twist you can see coming from miles away, 21 Bridges just doesn't make it all the way to the other side.

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.

I don’t know if this was due to the budget or COVID, but Marry Me feels small in ways that a big commercial rom-com frequently doesn’t and maybe that’s why you can’t fully shake the feeling that this Universal Pictures project is really just a marketing scheme cooked up to highlight Lopez’s real-life music career and some NBCUniversal properties, including the frequent cutaways to a decidedly unfunny Jimmy Fallon, which may be, ironically, the movie at its most honest.

Those looking for some human interest in their human interest may be equally frustrated.

John Carter isn't much - or rather, it's too much and not enough in weird, clumpy combinations - but it is a curious sort of blur.

There is no mythology, no irony, no real soul--just a Charles Bronson simplicity about the whole affair.

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

Stupid, predictable and fairly funny.

Might have struck a deeper chord with fans who are still looking for the Steve Earle who exists behind the music.

Anonymous is ridiculous, and like Oliver Stone's "JFK" it sells its political conspiracy theories by weight and by volume. But dull, it's not.

McQuarrie... is a real writer; his banter has snap and bite. His directorial skills are still catching up with his writing skills; the movie loses steam in the final half-hour.

At its best moments, Romeo Is Bleeding actually is the wickedly funny, violent black comedy it purports to be. [4 Feb 1994, p.C2]

Wilson does amusingly steely work, while Page goes bonkers, giving her gleeful nut job one of the more memorable horselaughs in recent American film history.

In French Kiss--a picture that isn't unusually funny or original but that has expert actors, smooth direction and ravishing French locales--we can get pleasure from the sheer, relaxed polish of it all, the effortless swing. It's a good time passer. [5 May 1995, p.C]

It's the film in which an entertainer at last becomes an artist, dealing with manifestly personal, painful emotions and casting them in a form that gives them philosophical perspective and universal affect. It's Spielberg's finest achievement, a film that will look better and better with the passage of time. [22 Dec. 1989]

Written by Marc Lawrence, a writer on "Family Ties," "Life With Mikey" has a sitcom sensibility. The script is simply incredulous, the lines are predictable and the stupid sight gags run from cake-in-the-face to, if you really want to know, retching-in-the-hat. One wonders why Lapine - a respected stage director ("Into the Woods," "Falsettoland") ever hooked up with this; obviously, he is determined to segue into films. [4 June 1993, p.F2]

The results are equal parts marital crisis, sins-of-the-father psychodrama and visceral body horror. They’re also a bit of a plod — especially in the second half, when whatever kind of horror film you’re making should not, you know, plod.

If you are willing to overlook the occasional missed block, clumsy tackle or dropped pass, there is more than enough in Varsity Blues to keep you engrossed.

Takes a fascinating true story and turns it into a conventional cop thriller, hoking up the provocative three-generation saga of the LaMarca family.

Though there is an artist's instinct behind Cadillac Man-an instinct that does surface here and there, with a particularly piercing line of dialogue or powerful gesture-it`s quickly blotted out by the Williams formula.

True Story is a case of a well-crafted film, made by a first-time feature director with an impressive theatrical pedigree, that nonetheless struggles to locate the reasons for telling its story.

The script is just so-so, but Ball’s directorial eye, clear in the first “Maze Runner” film though largely AWOL in the second, saves the third and final adventure from its own bloat.

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

Clarke, among others, deserves so much better. If you watch her amid the suds of “Me Before You” (2016) and now Last Christmas, you see an actor of sound comic and dramatic instincts at the mercy of pushy material. This encourages actors to over-exert themselves in the name of delivering the goods with a smile that threatens to turn into something more like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”

The Shadow shows what can happen when you overdress pulp. You wind up with something gorgeous and suffocated, bejeweled trash floundering in its own oversplendid stuffings. [01 Jul 1994, p.H]

Crowe's feature directorial debut, The Water Diviner, stems from an honest impulse to dramatize ordinary people who honor their dead. Yet the results are narratively dishonest and emotionally a little cheap.

If more of the picture had the inventively grotesque payoff of the scene set at the gymnastics tryout, capped by a female character's inarguably poor dismount, we might have something to puke home about.

It’s campy, it’s cheesy, it’s way more fun than you expect it to be, but there’s a knowingness to the whole endeavor on behalf of magician and audience. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is the kind of lightweight, harmless and ephemeral entertainment that allows us to be escape artists from reality for a minute — so go ahead and indulge.

Too often the movie’s franchise mechanics and green-screen overload have a way of dragging “The Marvels” into generic sequeldom. But the stars give us something to hang onto, even if Larson — so good in so many films — has yet to master the useful trick of looking neutral yet invested in her many, many reaction shots.

You've seen worse. The film industry is capable of better.

A beautifully tooled action thriller about love and terrorism.

Billy's burning, self-destructive energy is about all Young Guns has going for it-the suicidal kicks James Dean found in chickie races are here transposed to six-gun shoot-outs, filmed in a slow-motion process that strives vainly to evoke Sam Peckinpah. [12 Aug 1988, p.H]

The satisfactions of the film are in seeing what a screen full of excellent players can do to steer you around the holes. Bana never quite seems enough to anchor a picture for me; all the same, he acquits himself sharply here.

This movie has more parable than paranoia, more metaphor than roar and gore. [16 Sep 1992, p.3C]

Power is cast exceedingly well, with director Lumet being one of the best-connected directors in New York. Power gives us the likes of Gene Hackman, Julie Christie, E.G. Marshall, Fritz Weaver and Beatrice Straight in supporting roles! [31 Jan 1986, p.30N]

Aiming for a piece with the raw impact of "Precious," on which he served as executive producer, he (Perry) ends up with 134 minutes of misjudged intensity.

They Will Kill You is both irreverent, and reverential to its references, and cartoonishly violent in increasingly surreal ways, but it also maintains the emotional core at the center, which is Asia’s blind big sister protectiveness over Maria, powered by the guilt she feels over not being there for her. It’s a simple, but primal character motivation that Beetz sells with a wild-eyed ferocity.

American movies about childhood often have a spurious feel. They can be grandiosely phony or sentimental--or both, as in Home Alone. Unfortunately, Now and Then, despite massively good intentions, fits right into the program. [20 Oct 1995, p.J]

Hit & Run is pretty rancid as comedy. Worse, the chases are strictly amateur hour, all shortcut editing and no gut satisfaction.

The very elements of Eat Pray Love that helped make it a success in 40 languages -- the breezy prose, the relentless sorting-through of dissatisfactions, a steady stream of intriguing sights -- turn the film into a travelogue with a little spiritual questing on the side.

This century's Planet of the Apes is a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house.

The new movie, like its predecessor, is a crime thriller with a moral viewpoint, an eye and ear for street color and a taste for macho movie fantasy.

Some of its parts are nifty, but the sum of these parts is nothing.

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.

It helps if you think of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" as sort of a "Sesame Street" for teens. Beneath the self-aggrandizing plot, the rock music, the dudespeak and the humor lurks a smattering of knowledge. The premise is spectacularly silly, but harmless. Bill and Ted are a couple of woolly-brained teens who spend so much time dreaming about the rock band they're going to start that they are about to disqualify themselves from a public education. [20 Feb 1989, p.7]

Though the story is potentially fascinating and the visuals sometimes spellbinding, the movie itself is stranded in the purgatory of the second-rate.

The film is finally impersonal, almost anonymous; it's a chilly, lumbering project that carries little of the mark of lived experience. [25 Dec 1992]

There are flashes and occasional whole sequences when Edwards’ directorial eye snaps into focus.

It’s a lame and weaselly thing, made strangely more frustrating by some excellent performers.

After seeing No Reservations you'll be hungry for a really top-flight meal. And, to go with it, a better film.

Short Circuit is an obvious WarGames ripoff in which a robot steals every scene from wooden performances by the always-too-eager-to-please Steve Guttenberg and the usually likable Ally Sheedy.

What an enormous waste of talent and money is Labyrinth. [30 Jun 1986, p.3]

The Equalizer 2 just doesn't deliver the thrills.

Aubrey Plaza is so deadpan she's undeadpan, and not just in her new zombie movie.

The movie successfully balances the sentimental and bittersweet only about half the time. The performances are intelligent and well-crafted, and Blethyn is unmistakably a star performer, attracting attention like a vortex. But she's somewhat miscast here.

Not bad, not good, Ice Age 3 may be OK enough to do what it was engineered to do, i.e., baby-sit your kid for a while and rake in the dough.

Frame by frame, Crudup is fascinating.

Despite its title and promotion suggesting explosive action, Boiling Point is an almost leisurely thriller. It has less to do with Wesley Snipes' inner roilings than with writer-director James B. Harris' cool, sardonic view of criminology. [21 Apr 1993, p.C3]

Director Marc Webb moves it along, with a rock-solid lead, very well sung, courtesy of Rachel Zegler.

Overall, The Brothers is glossy fun, but it should have given us more ideas and energy.

As its awkward subtitle suggests, the execution is more than a little sloppy.

In making a movie that preaches love for odd ducks, Schumacher has turned Flawless into the oddest duck of all.

Lesnick seems to be saying that lesbian characters on screen can also meet cute significant others, spar in a lite Woody Allen fashion, and have a happy, sappy Hollywood ending. But a sitcom is still a sitcom -- gay, Greek or otherwise.

It's an up-and-down movie, honest one minute and a fraud the next, but you stick with it mainly because of Hahn.

If Godard's use of sound is as inventive as it was in his Dolby "Detective" of 1985, that's reason alone to check it out. [08 Apr 1988, p.B]

These post-Unforgiven westerns are a tricky business. The classics were mythical morality tales, good vs. evil played out with pistols and black and white hats. But look at today's headlines: Killing is rampant, guns are a plague and violence is no joking matter. The somewhat overlong Tombstone ultimately can't reconcile these conflicting impulses either, but at least it consistently entertains as it tries. [24 Dec 1993, p.C]

Fat Man and Little Boy tries to cover too much territory by introducing corny romantic subplots involving Oppenheimer's mistress and a relationship between a young scientist (John Cusack) and a nurse (Laura Dern). These awkwardly written sequences remind us that we are watching a conventional movie and destroy any documentarylike reality. [20 Oct 1989, p.A]

It's stylish, it's sort of smart, it's full of misplaced talent. But it's not funny enough, and maybe, in a way, not dark enough either.

Oscillates between pragmatist genius and B-movie mediocrity.

In film circles there's a name for pictures like Lifeforce. Film Comment magazine has dubbed them guilty pleasures, movies you're embarrassed to admit you like. Maybe somebody spiked my popcorn, but I can't deny that I liked Lifeforce.

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.

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.

With most of the action confined to the body of the plane (though there is a brief stopover at a Louisiana airfield), the screenplay poses some significant challenges in staging, none of which Hooks seems to recognize or accept. [06 Nov 1992, p.B]

Shot in the same style as “Spinal Tap,” Electric Apricot fails to wow in every way possible, but the music disappoints the most.

The cast's newcomers mix and mingle with ease with the hardened alums of Disney and Nickelodeon TV series.

Well, it's a masterpiece compared with 'Little Fockers,' the last movie featuring Barbra Streisand.

Charlie, who owes an obvious debt to Chuck Jones' Wile E. Coyote, comes equipped with one of the most expressive faces in cartoon history: Bluth keeps his features-ears, snout, mouth, eyes-in constant flux, a beautiful blend of line and volume that represents the pinnacle of the animator's art. [17 Nov 1989]

If an erotic portrayal of John and Elizabeth's sexual inclinations was all director Adrian Lyne had wanted to accomplish, he might have succeeded. But he was not satisfied with that. [21 Feb 1986, p.A]

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.

Blunt’s derring-do has its stray moments, and her comic wiles are most welcome. But this is blockbustering from a talented director whose talent has been pounded flat by the dictates of a script in the quality range of Disney’s “Lone Ranger.”

Padding disguised as a feature-length screenplay, adapted from Belber's one-act.

The Boss Baby is great fun for parents, but it remains to be seen if kids will get it at all.

It's what we need at the holidays, and it's the modest goal of a modest little picture like this--to capture something heartfelt and real.

The outline of Murder by Numbers may be familiar, but the filmmakers and Bullock do an expert job of filling in the colors.