Action junkies may enjoy this non-stop barrage, which barely pauses for anything but the most rudimentary (albeit complicated) plot exposition.

Remains watchable when it's not hitting you like a baseball bat with poignancy. But by the time you've endured all of the shamelessly manipulative plot turns and heart-yanking speeches that close out the movie, all you can do is cry foul.

Boasts a really spectacular cast to voice those reasonably funny jokes.

Suit #3: But what will we call the sequel? Suit #1: "XXXX"? Suit #2: Brilliant!

Bobby Long can enchant you. It's a film that feels lived in, confident despite its conventions.

The failure of Morgan is in its lack of restraint. The first half of the film is as tightly controlled as the lab facility, with small moments of foreshadowing planted expertly, if obviously. The second half descends into a violent bloodbath, and the twists in the story that lie just below the surface waiting to be discovered are spoken aloud, taken from theory to fact

I like the end-credits sequence best, which has nothing to do with hoary complications or the miseries of stardom or the magical spellbinding powers of a cheap wig.

Bertino's taut, spare thriller is plenty scary without relying on pseudo-historical context. Anchored by convincing performances from Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler, both of whom elevate their roles above the standard horror-movie caricature, this is an enormously unsettling movie.

Suggests that this could be the start of something adequate. Something big would've been nicer, though the movie's limitations are less a matter of scale than of imagination.

Directed by Ron Howard and produced by George Lucas, the film seems to mark the final paroxysm of a genre-the big-budget fantasy-adventure-that dominated American filmmaking for a decade but has recently been weakened by changing tastes, altered economics and sheer exhaustion. It's less a movie than a collection of morbid symptoms: a labored, arrhythmic narrative; a pathetic dependency on recycled themes and borrowed images; a sour, self-mocking humor that suggests the end is near. [20 May 1988, p.2]

No one ever said good taste was a requirement for good box office, particularly when the commodity in question is a summer teen flick, but it does help to have appealing characters in the leading roles and a script with at least the wit of a failing TV sitcom.

It’s hard to shake the familiarity of the premise and the set-ups in “Lake of Death The story rhythms wander instead of screw-tighten, and while Robsahm has little interest in Raimi-style pulp or dynamism, the placid surface of Lake of Death rarely gets disturbed, or disturbing.

Writer-director Stewart Wade expanded his festival-circuit short film into a blobby, watery feature-length enterprise, unredeemed by its cast (though Sally Kirkland shows up as Todd's mom).

This is familiar clowning territory for our actors -- hypothetically well-matched here, with Carrey a far more sophisticated and energetic comic partner for Leoni than Adam Sandler was in "Spanglish."

The melodrama and cheap theatrics of the story’s off-center segments drag the whole thing down.

For anyone who knew and loved the 1950s TV series The Phil Silvers Show -- in which Silvers played the peerless motormouth Army con artist, Master Sgt. Ernie Bilko -- Sgt. Bilko, starring Steve Martin, will probably be a disappointment. [29 Mar 1996, p.C]

At every turn Cote d'Azur settles for tidy, tinny resolutions to seismic family crises--yet, with a message of tolerance and its heart on its sleeve, the film is certainly tolerable in a summer rental-by-the-sea sort of way.

A mildly funny PG-13 effort that is just dying to release an R- or unrated DVD version of itself. That way all the pool party sequences can lay off the false modesty.

Delivers on the promise of its playful premise, thanks to some sly gender role reversals and Gibson's willingness to play along.

It’s a big, frothy, high-tech, cutesy-poo musical comedy.

It's really a crock: a coming-of-age boys' prison film that has only a fanciful link with Behan's life. The film is a bastard grandchild of Tony Richardson's 1962 "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner."

It's more that the plot is incredibly predictable, the score is manipulative and the denouement completely unsatisfying. I can sit through cliched and even offensive (to a point). Just leave me with a little bit of mystery, an iota of suspense. That’s all I ask.

Disappointingly hollow.

Hits more laughs than it misses and its characters are likable, empathetic people.

A satisfying and movingly acted story.

The movie has a nasty, creepy edge that never lets up, and the characters are deliberately grating and alienating. This is a thriller that, like some classic noirs, glories in its own mean aura, its casual profanity and grotesque violence.

It is one of the conventions of movies that maladies of the brain make people more childlike, lovable and full of life, as in, most recently, "Rain Man" and "Awakenings." But Regarding Henry drops even the marginally realistic trappings of those films in favor of pure fantasy, a fantasy of starting over, of returning to the womb. [10 July 1991, p.C-1]

The film, for all its pretensions of revelatory, life-altering enlightenment, is actually about as deep as a wading pool, as substantive as cotton candy.

The pacing throughout is languid. Your eye becomes fixated on the hideous 70s wallpaper behind them. If only the story's interstellar narrative developments had the intensity of that wallpaper. Rod Serling might've gotten a great hour out of it (the story, that is, not the wallpaper). It simply is not two hours' worth, no matter how many quantum leaps into the unknown Kelly takes.

My favorite thing in the movie is the way co-star and Korean action icon Byung Hun Lee uses his feet of fury to hoist a paint can and send it flying.

Wacky and heartless, bloody and silly -- and it ends in a flourish of grotesque sentimentality.

Cursed with an honest title, Failure to Launch waves a white flag in scene after scene, declaring surrender. We give up! We do not know how to make a decent mainstream romantic comedy!

Nothing, absolutely nothing, at either location is the slightest bit funny. [13 Sep 1985, p.C]

An engaging character study, steeped in religion, demonology and community politics.

In the end it's not the tricks that elevate this movie. It's the acting.

While sci-fi conceits still permeate the plot (alien DNA, rogue scientists), attention to personal detail float world-weary, superbly-drawn protagonists in a rare movie-a character-driven animated film.

Hotel might be best described as the art-house version of "Cannonball Run."

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.

Some of the players comport themselves better than others--Barrymore is sweetly wistful in her minor role, while Johansson, as a confident go-getter who sets out to steal her crush object rather than moon over him, is sexier than the whole cast put together.

Sets out to answer all sorts of cosmic questions, though the one most frequently asked is more mundane: Is it better than "Reloaded"? The answer is a matter of degree.

Kasdan has inherited much of his father's surface skills; he knows how to round out a scene and keep things on story point. But In the Land of Women doesn't for a moment feel messy and chaotic where it counts.

I wish Howard's film had more of a distinct personality and drive behind it; Howard's made some supremely enjoyable films, in various keys, but this waterlogged, effects-crazed picture isn't one of them.

The movie’s partially redeemed by Seyfried, who makes her character more than a repository for audience sympathy. (Her make-out scene with Fox is handled with more suspense and care than anything else in the movie.)

Timberlake is not afraid to make himself look like an idiot. He is, in fact, already the comic actor Diaz may yet become: a looker who knows how to use his looks to get away with murder.

This is the sort of film where a character says “Here we are, having a high-minded debate ...” and you wonder if countless moviegoers will be rolling their eyes in unison.

Dog Days is in some ways a very strange movie, in the way it straddles the worlds of weirdo comedy and family-friendly fare. But ultimately, it's the pooches who steal the show.

A documentary that will likely leave Phish diehards hankering for more, and everybody else still wondering what all the fuss is about.

Heartbreakers itself is something of a con game: an expensive imitation of older, better films from older, often better times.

Unlike other current D.C. types, Elle would never misplace or misidentify her own weapons of mass destruction. They're all in her wardrobe closet and makeup kit.

Instead of cashing in on barely healed wounds, Ladder 49 could have taken a different cue from pornography and gone the way of "Boogie Nights," a fascinating, difficult and honest glimpse into another storied profession.

This clunky remake can't rise from the ashes, nor would you want it to.

It's a fairly well-written piece and an even better acted one. And these days, when independent films are increasingly the salvation of the serious American dramatic movie, it's heartening to see something like The Architect, which tries to reawaken a major American dramatic tradition and sometimes succeeds.

The choicest dialogue in Burlesque provokes the sort of laughter that other, intentionally funny films only dream of generating.

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.

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.

Just about everything in the video-gamey World War I picture Flyboys rings false, although the planes certainly are terrific.

One of the most discouraging things about many big studio movies is the way they waste resources, mainly talent and money. Pushing Tin manages to waste an excellent cast, a glossy production and what initially seems to be a bright, funny script. [23 April 1999, Friday, p.A]

This one may be soft and derivative. But the actors establish a groove and stay on-message.

It's a sweet, oft-told story, and Murphy and Hall add a number of very sharp supporting roles-hidden by makeup-to add spice to the general level of gentleness. [1 Jul 1988, p.A]

Given the current political climate, it's hard to see how any film about Christopher Columbus could make everybody happy, and indeed, Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise seems unlikely to leave too many ticket buyers smiling.

Entertaining and even affecting, Where the Truth Lies is a failure primarily because it doesn't do justice to its originator, Rupert Holmes' dishy 2003 novel, which shared both of the aforementioned characteristics but also was extremely funny. The film, directed by Atom Egoyan, is not.

Though it's sweet and likable to a fault, it's also a movie that never seems heartfelt or deep.

Although Where's Marlowe abounds with many supposedly clever ideas, it's about as badly made as anything you'll see anywhere on television.

Beside its major virtues, it contains a vice: that one flat lead performance. Who would have thought Kevin Spacey would ever go dull on us?

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.

Flockhart, as an actress desperate to show the world her talent but lethally unsure if she has any, embodies the obsessively driven personality it must take to make it, or to try to make it, in pictures. She's the personification of what The Last Shot could have been.

The movie tries hard to duplicate the original's mood and story, but, like Gere or Lopez, is too much of a visual knockout to rope us in.

A train wreck you can't help but watch.

The beautifully shot but dramatically strained I Am David falls prey to the defect of all poor road movies: In gluing together unbelievable but convenient episodes with sugary sentimentality, it loses most of its credibility.

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.

Midway isn’t bad, really. Certainly, it gets a lot more done than the cinematic cinder block that was the 1976 historical drama also titled “Midway.”

A far more stylistically assured film than its fey predecessor, though it still carries almost no conviction.

This is not high art. It might not qualify as low art. But it is 90 minutes or so during which people can put their brains on the shelf and enjoy a few laughs.

Throbbing with music, seething with anger and romance, The Lost City is a film that breaks your heart, bewilders, alienates and ravishes you by turns.

Hiddleston, his eyes full of fire and melancholy longing, was an inspired choice. Everything not-quite-right with most movies, however, goes wrong long before the actors arrive on set.

The result is passable stupidity leaning hard on its wily leading men. The movie’s also pretty galling in its unceasing brutality for laughs.

It has a good director, snazzy visuals and some really funny animals, and that's at least half the battle.

This often entertaining movie mixes grand, epic effects and amazing visualizations of catastrophe with a sappy family-in-crisis plot that would look hackneyed in a '60s Disney TV movie.

Call it a weepy for the gay community:The Trip is an oddly marketed, oddly titled romance. Yes, there is a trip, but it takes place during the last 15 minutes of the film and seems almost tangential.

In short, Rambo is very good at what it does, but what it does isn't always that good. [22 May 1985, p.1C]

It's a big, smiley, free-floating blimp of a comedy: a farce about reluctant fatherhood that could use some parental guidance. [12 July 1995, p.N16]

The film shows very little of the nar-rative assurance that has character-ized Jordan's previous work. [21 Nov 1988, p.2C]

Director John Landis' comic timing is a little slow in spots - we get the joke before he thinks we will - but Oscar generates a solid pace of rolling big laughs and winds up as a pretty good time at the movies. [26 Apr 1991, p.C]

Well, it's pretty bad, a long way from the dash and satisfactions of the earlier picture.

He (Stewart) bogs down his talented cast with a bewildering plot, tired tropes and embarrassing dialogue. This one, well, it's simply resistible.

The eerily precise Heigl, who provided confident back-court support as the exile in Guyville also known as “Knocked Up,” has no trouble filling a leading lady’s shoes. She’s just snarky enough to be interesting, and she knows how to take a fall.

There's really nothing wrong with the movie; it delivers exactly what Arnold's audience wants, but I'm not part of that crowd. I'm tired of jungle fights and creatures with weird fangs. [12 June 1987, p.A]

Masterminds still has its riotously funny moments, thanks to the fearless, uninhibited actors and a director who lets them play.

The emotions and crises feel pre-sanded, smooth to the point of blandness.

Often ridiculous, mostly poorly written and, surprisingly poorly acted too. No matter how many flashy scenes the filmmakers shoot, the bad lines just keep dripping down. [21 Aug 1998]

There is really no one to like in this film.

It's one of those movies where talented filmmakers waste time with stale, phony material.

Man on Fire, which starts off as a good example of super-glitz moviemaking, gradually turns into a movie on fire -- another helter-skelter, big-studio spending spree. Too bad. It could use a lot more of Walken, Fanning and some more honest drama.

It's a dense, winding tale with all of Sayles' razor-sharp dialogue and intrigue. But instead of tracing character paths, Sayles sacrifices solid storytelling in favor of forwarding a political (and environmental) ideology.

Out of Bounds may be, like a comic book, pulp entertainment, but it's artfully done pulp--a pictorial page-turner whose pages turn themselves. [25 July 1986, p.A]

If "Mean Girls" was Lohan's debutante ball, "Herbie" sits her back at the kiddie table. She's matured, and no longer fits in the Disney mold.

Whole sections of “Godzilla X Kong” shove the humans off-screen for many minutes at a time. Few will complain.

An expensive-looking new detective thriller that should have been much better.