Robert Benton’s recent films have been vexing combinations of gentility and stiffness, and despite a fair bit of nudity "Feast of Love" behaves itself all too well. It’s as neat as a pin; it ties up every loose end in careful "Playhouse 90" style. Despite some awfully smart actors, Benton’s movie made me long for a few interrupted sentences and the occasionally conflicted character.

Ostensibly a story about first love in college, and I never believed a frame of it.

This one’s no gem. It’s simply large, and long (two-and-a-half hours, the usual length lately with these products). I remain unpersuaded and slightly galled by the attempts to interpolate the history, locale and tragic meaning of Auschwitz into what used to be known as popcorn movies.

I found the mythology of I Am Number Four vague and sloppy.

Penny Marshall, the sitcom actress ("Laverne and Shirley") turned filmmaker ("Big," "Awakenings"), manages to make even such elementary material seem labored and phony. The film, which was shot in and around Chicago last summer, is a major disappointment.

Parker is pretty much a disaster here, shrill and phony and, worst of all, spineless. She reminded me of Tea Leoni in "Spanglish," her performance working against the movie, serving only as a cumbersome, opaque obstacle.

Trust the Man could easily carry the following subtitle: "Men Who Behave Like Petulant, Spoiled Children and the Women Who Decide It's Easier to Love Them As-Is Than To Try to Turn Them Into Grownups."

While it's no disaster, it's oddly indistinct and uncertain.

There’s a good movie in the story of Joe Bell and Jadin Bell. The good one struggles to emerge from the good try we have here.

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.

The film undeniably captures the breathtaking and unique landscape of coastal Western Australia. It's an incredibly beautiful film, but it's a challenge to emotionally connect to it. It feels like the outline of what would have been an epic novel, but in the translation to the screen, it has lost its interiority, and anything profound it might have communicated.

Ephron delivered an incredibly flimsy script based on her novel about her former husband's repeated infidelity during their marriage and her pregnancies. Nicholson isn't given a character to play. He just lumbers onto the screen and cheats off-camera.

For all Ricci's zingers, the actress who gets the most laughs here is Kudrow, who has an amazingly right-on offbeat comic sense and rhythm. Playing a bright, sexually repressed Indiana teacher, she displays priceless timing. [19 June 1998]

The latest ballroom dance-fever picture isn't very good, but some of the dancing is fun.

A magic-meets-macho cop movie that's more gimmick than actual movie.

Young audiences will enjoy her journey from surly to empowered, and as countless visitors to Brookfield Zoo can attest, there's nothing like watching dolphins. So a star for Schroeder and a star for the title players.

Pearce and Bonham Carter are remarkably photogenic, but the movie is fitful and mannered to a fault, full of watery allusions and stormy scares.

Over the Top is pretty much like all of the other successful Stallone films, which probably means that it will be a success, too. In fact, it`s considerably better than the ragged, recycled Rocky IV, though it lacks the wild excesses that made Rambo and Cobra campily entertaining.

The leads' chemistry in The Lucky One is more theoretical than actual. Still, the sunsets and sunrises and sunbeams through the windowpanes fall easily on the eyes.

All Center of the World has is the double entendre of its title, some unremarkable dramatic and sex scenes, and some embarrassing moments for its very game co-stars.

There are few sports the movies haven't tackled. Side Out (1991) found one: volleyball. Thirtysomething star Peter Horton brings his shaggy dog sincerity to his role as Zack, the former king of the beach who gets a chance at redemption when he becomes mentor to C. Thomas Howell. [17 Sep 1991, p.3C]

Distressingly ordinary for such an extraordinary subject.

Just one more example of Hollywood cramming any old idea it can unearth into a moneymaking formula. [17 Feb 1995]

Wiig and Mumolo work so easily and smoothly together, you feel like an ingrate for not enjoying their efforts more in these script circumstances (especially since they wrote it). Now and then, though, the payoffs arrive.

The strongest minutes in The Good Mother belongs to Chicago-trained Karen Aldridge. She takes care of business so well in her monologue about her character’s grief and loss, her exit from the narrative becomes just one more oh-well factor in an indifferent Albany noir.

I realize writing a new Christmas screenplay can’t be easy; to get made, it must check a certain number of predictable boxes. Murphy is game, but only in a few moments with Ross — small-talk scenes not dependent on forced wonderment or reaction-shot gaping — do they appear to relax and enjoy the company.

To be fair, it's little better or worse than the original. But, to be honest, the original--minus its nascent stars--wasn't very good.

Mulcahy has toned down the fancy, self-conscious camerawork of the original, which he also directed, and pushes the story forward with enough flash and pop to divert viewers from the shaky premises. [01 Nov 1991, p.F]

The plot thickens and thickens and thickens until it chokes on a tangled mess of double-crosses.

Written with such murderous gravity, certainty and gloomy solemnity - such an absence of real life or feeling - that it tends to kill our interest.

This Little Women adaptation is faithful to a fault, which results in a very strange world where this group of five present-day women depends on men for their social lives and careers — basically anything that gets them out of their cozy house of feminine fantasy.

Muddles through as a film so uninterested in character, it doesn't bother assigning names to them.

A typically weak sequel that has no legitimate artistic reason for being. [July 22, 1983]

The film's tone veers from misjudged sincerity to shrill sketch comedy of the broadest stripe.

The lovely shots of Appalachian vistas are spoiled by cheesy special effects straight from the 1960s Chroma-Key era.

Never really moves beyond its premise. It never takes us to a place of real understanding.

For many, this central performance will be more than enough. For others, the film will simply be too much.

Scoop isn't going for complexity. It's a trifle.

The result is a placid tale of impulses running wild. Farino is a smooth operator, but he puts little on screen that feels like life, as opposed to a middle-of-the-road indie.

cleverly conceived and professionally executed and to hell with that. It's a serial killer movie in the dime-a-dozen era of serial killer movies, with the selling point being that the murderer is played by a movie star. This way you'll like the guy.

While Lowriders offers an interesting entree into this world, it's unfortunately too formulaic and predictable to leave much of an impact.

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.

Here's how you know Josh Brolin has become a movie star: Jonah Hex may not be much with him, but without him? Perish the thought. Perish it, throw an ax in its heart, then burn it to a crisp.

Larger Than Life is far closer to Murray's worst than his best. It's a truly senseless, erratic, if occasionally charming comedy that manages to waste Murray, a fine cast, good location photography and a terrific actor: Tai, the 8,000-pound trained pachyderm whose considerable stuff was strutted in 1995's Operation Dumbo Drop. [03 Nov 1996, p.11C]

At least Reno is around -- and he's the only spice in this stale, slick stew

It’s not quite an airball; you won’t find yourself returning to it again and again, either. But there’s a part of me that’s just happy to see non-blockbuster movies about human-scaled dilemmas still getting made.

The movie’s total lack of focus and its unimpressive script should render it totally unwatchable. Weirdly, that doesn’t quite happen. There’s something endearing about these characters.

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

Sonnenfeld mishandles the broad part of the comedic formula, preferring repetition to thematic development.

No better or worse than the average (and I mean average) time-filling sequel cranked out by other animation houses.

Elaborate misfire, which misuses an unusually good cast.

David O. Russell’s Amsterdam is very plush in the looks department. Enjoying the costumes and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s lighting and some of Russell’s shot designs will get you through it. But only if you don’t have to listen to it, or track it, or believe in the people on screen.

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]

With a story that is absurd every step of the way, Mr. Majestyk is turned into a hodge podge of cruel and unusual punishments.

Challenging to follow, at best.

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.

Feels constrained and rather dutiful, no matter how passionate these people are about what they're observing.

In Rendition Gyllenhaal is supposed to be the smartest one in the room, yet he’s essentially just a good-looking plodder. And despite its whirligig story machinations, so is Rendition.

All the astute acting in the world can’t bring such a preposterous story into the station on time and intact.

Robert De Niro's characterization is too jokey, a knockoff of his Rupert Pupkin ("The King of Comedy"), and Irwin Winkler's direction is earnest but lethargic. Jessica Lange does better as a barmaid who wants her own saloon. [23 Oct 1992, p.CN]

May be the only movie in recent memory unworthy of its own genuinely hilarious Web site, www.finemanfilms.com.

Disarming one minute, baldly manipulative the next, Champions is a tricky one.

With its quick fades and creamy lighting, Autumn is all about looking good. McGee may well have strong films in him, but this one feels pretentious and gassy.

It's not much more than a collection of clever sight gags and one-liners that leaves the door wide open for another, better film about political correctness on the quad. [29 Apr 1994, p.D2]

Its purpose is simply to allow you to soak up the happy grrrrl-power vibes of this easy-on-the-eyes trio amid unevenly executed computer-enhanced action scenes, at which points the movie resembles a video game.

For a film about outlandishly kooky dolls, the film sure is flat, listless and narratively bland.

Though Ernest barely exists apart from his trademark catch phrase (Kno- whut-I-mean?) and his propensity for waggling his nose in wide-angle lenses, Varney's energetic mugging is good for a few mild laughs.

By all rights, this material should be far more insufferable and less entertaining than it is. [23 Aug 1991, p.H]

You find yourself smiling at some of the bits, wincing through many, many others, and ultimately wondering if the pacing would've improved had either H or K developed a terrible cocaine habit.

Mighty Joe Young is a mighty big movie about a mighty big gorilla. And a lot of it is mighty bad -- unless you're a devotee of high tech and low camp, elephantine effects and mouse-sized stories, politically correct nostalgia and/or Charlize Theron and Bill Paxton in jungle outfits.

A micro-indie passport party that, while well-intentioned, evokes the same feelings that have been known to arise from being subjected to your friends' vacation movies.

Compared to many movies of this kind, this Beaver is an enjoyable but mixed bag. [22 Aug 1997, p.C]

Medicine Man is a sympathetic project that gets done in by an excessively aggressive screenplay - one that keeps manufacturing artificial conflicts and false climaxes where some more relaxed character work would have gracefully done the trick. [07 Feb 1992, p.3]

Regrettably, director Jeff Kanew has no use for touches like these. His film is broad, flat and superficial. The first half is devoted to quick, sketch-like scenes in which Douglas and Lancaster encounter various bizarre phenomena of '80s life (punks, frozen yogurt, aerobic exercise) and look surprised. The second half wanders into the standard "go for it" territory, as the two stars decide to take another crack at the train they failed to rob 30 years ago. [3 Oct 1986, p.D]

Isn't good satire or good slapstick. It does have those lyrical, catchy Menken tunes, and the film perks up whenever Raitt or lang sing one of them. But much of this movie is deadly.

Plodding, literal and completely lacking in the erotic tension that seems to be essential to the genre. Not much passes between Matt Dillon and Sean Young that could be defined as frisson - there is no ambiguity, no risk, no charge. [26 Apr 1991, p.C2]

While Reyes seeks his own ambitious style, he can't quite step out from under De Palma's shadow and thematic choices. Everything from the voiceover narration to the final frame in Empire looks and feels like a low-budget hybrid of "Scarface" or "Carlito's Way."

Irwin Winkler's The Net, which should have worked a lot better than it does, is a glossy, intricately plotted, mostly implausible suspense movie about a woman on the run.

The sad thing is, even for NASA/space fans, a snooze isn't out of the question despite the film's scant 40-minute running time.

G.I. Joe may not be beefier, but it’s cheesier and less aggravating than "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," the summer ’09 headbanger it most resembles.

The relative success or failure of Adult Beginners, directed with a steady, nonjudgmental hand by Ross Katz, depends on how funny you find Kroll. I find him funny-ish.

Neat and tidy and well-mannered and dull, and not even Colin Firth and Jude Law and Laura Linney and Nicole Kidman and some very sharp fedoras can enliven it.

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

Patronizing and predictable where E.B. White's episodic 1945 book...is odd and open-ended.

But for all the pondering The Possession of Hannah Grace inspires, it’s also true that at 85 minutes, it still manages to feel tedious at times. The dour environment doesn’t help, the humor doesn’t pop, and disappointingly, the scares just don’t land.

Unfortunately, after watching Paycheck, you may wish you had the picture's gimmickry at your disposal, so you could erase your own memory of it.

Until it jumps the tracks into self-righteousness, though, Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas, can also be as unnerving as the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone."

Hawke and McGregor are the kind of actors who hold your attention as the story evaporates around them. Even so, they deserve far more to play with than they get here.

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.

It`s a lamebrained movie, without much sense in its construction.

Much like the "new age" music of its Philip Glass score, "Powaqqatsi" occupies an uncomfortable space somewhere between the aggressively avant-garde and the lullingly banal. [13 May 1988, p.J]

It's a two-hour lesson in how to act like a frenemy to your alleged friends. And it's not funny enough.

Besson's commercial instincts for sleek, violent fantasy are often sound, but "Valerian" is more sedative than show.

Shallow though it may be, is a breakthrough.

It's all pretty dumb, but if you're in the mood for this sort of thing, you won't have a bad time. [9 April 1999, Friday, p.F]

A ravishing crock. Like its title character, a computer-generated movie star programmed to resemble a cross between Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Kim Basinger, it's beautiful but empty, gorgeous but spurious.

This dizzy sequel can’t match any of the first “Detective Chinatown” action highlights, such as the food fight at Bangkok’s floating market. Here’s hoping the third outing, which will take the main characters to Tokyo, returns to the amiable, artful high jinks of the first.

A satisfying heist movie, animated or live-action, requires more selectivity and less clutter than this one. The movie dashes by door after door, but it lacks the key.