The movie's all right, if you can take its rampant artificiality - and I'm not even talking about Parton's face yet.

Rush Hour 3 is DOA.

Plenty of comedies aren't funny, but this one is more than that. It's wholeheartedly narcissistic in its portrait of male petulance and self-pity.

Predictably cute. The only surprise about 3 Men and a Cradle is that it is the hit in Paris, winning three French Oscars, being nominated for an American Oscar, and, unbelievably, outgrossing E.T. and Rambo at the French box office. But then the French have loved the last few Jerry Lewis movies, too.

Violent and cynical on the surface, impassioned and celebratory below, Last Man Standing is such a carefully stylized film that sometimes it's hard to respond to it. [20 Sep 1996, p.C]

One more movie comedy about how love can turn you into an idiot. And its major flaw, among many others, is that the idiocy takes over the movie.

The movie, directed by veteran Jonathan Kaplan, has enough in common with such American-in-foreign-jail movies as "Midnight Express" and the recent "Return to Paradise" to make you wonder why it ever got made.

Elegant, scary fun.

Like sitting through a rerun of a show you kind of liked.

What we have here is the cinematic equivalent of a dead shark.

A movie meant to explode off the screen -- and it's at its best when those explosions are going full blast.

The performances and Marcos Siega’s direction put a pleasing sheen on the material.

The film wants to speak to some kind of old school, lone-ranger American hero type (as portrayed by a man from Northern Ireland), but it’s too vague, shying away from any controversy, to say much at all.

A gripping drama that will leave thoughtful cinemagoers wrestling with basic Big Questions.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle offers everything — several bored Oscar winners, two scenes featuring death by meat grinder, Elton John mugging in close-up — except a good time.

A stirring, large-souled movie.

Why does “New Moon” basically work, even with its grave self-seriousness? A few reasons. Weitz lets the material breathe, and his actors interact. The film does not try to eat you alive.

A string of slapstick sequences at the end of Brain Donors...finally unleashes its potential for subversive hilarity. But the wait is long and not altogether compensated by Turturro's smooth delivery.

The results are corny beyond measure. Yet there's something sweet about them, in part because there's something sweet about hearing the line "Congratulations! Why didn't you tell me you pledged?" outside the realm of comedy.

Kidnap probably could’ve played into its feverish, violent, trashy side more aggressively. As is, something seems to be holding it back from its own monstrously exploitative premise.

Unfortunately it’s all a bit dull.

Pacific Rim: Uprising may be not be much, but in the spirit of the film itself, let’s be realistic. It’s better than any of the “Transformers” movies, and shorter.

To become a true screen action hero outside the “Wonder Woman” realm, Gadot needs better material than this, and only when she gets to square off with Bhatt’s increasingly conflicted superhacker does Heart of Stone suggest a human pulse.

A disjointed and ugly film that has all the dramatic depth of a tractor pull. [06 June 1997, p.J]

The spookiest thing about Hotel Transylvania 2 is how much funnier, colorful and more original it is this second time around.

An awful vampire comedy from John Landis ("Animal House," "The Blues Brothers") that is enlivened only by the eroticism of French actress Anne Parillaud ("La Femme Nikita") who is willing to disrobe for her first Hollywood film and major payday. She plays a vampire who feasts on Italian mobsters in Pittsburgh, falling in love with Anthony LaPaglia along the way. The neck-biting and gunplay are gross. Don Rickles is a sore thumb as a mob attorney. [25 Sept 1992, p.C]

A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy isn't just not funny, it's totally just not funny.

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.

By salvaging a troubled script with deep, committed, touching portrayals, Plummer and Walsh help prove Schroeder’s points about how Hollywood isn’t just the province of the rich, young and pretty.

A fine shoot-'em-up remake. The story is mildly gripping, and the action is fresh and entertaining.

A smooth-swinging fable that lays solid wood on the issues that matter. [15 July 1994, p.F]

The movie's rhythm and scope are pure sitcom, but that keeps the vehicle running smoothly over sizable plotholes. [15 Feb 1988, p.7C]

One of those comedic pieces that steps off smartly but about halfway through starts to stumble home as it disintegrates into farce and squishy sentimentality. [23 Apr 1994, p.19]

We know exactly where this picture is going at all times. Holding our attention, however, is a cast of fresh talent among the trainees. [03 Jun 1994]

The film isn't terrible; Vaughn, Pratt and, as David's frustrated girlfriend, Cobie Smulders know what they're doing in terms of finessing the material for laughs as well as the h-word. But it's all sort of unseemly.

Dwayne Johnson leaves his lovable self behind in the violent but bland Faster.

The stunt work and special effects are top flight; Schwarzenegger and the kid are just fine, but we can't help but want this film to stop kidding around and thrill us. [18 Jun 1993, p.C]

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.

Scott treats the material as if it were grist for a 30-second spot or a rowdy music video.

Never quite transcends its movie-of-the-week trappings. But either you're glad to have spent time with these three generations or you aren't. Bottom line: I was.

A mixed bag of four short films done in the style of famous '60s TV show. Two work; two don't. [July 22, 1983]

See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a strange concoction - a bad taste comedy with a big, beating heart. [12 May 1989, p.B]

This House ought to be condemned for its insulting use of the Vietnam War and children as props for its nonsensical violence tinged with pathetic attempts at humor. [4 March 1986, p.C4]

Funny Games is fundamentally a bourgeois exercise in authorial sadism. As the methodical games grind on, the suffocatingly beige and white surroundings start to look like a mausoleum.

Visually, it's busy, hefty and propulsive, but emotionally and thematically, it's as light as air. These engines could have used a bit more in the tank.

Maybe every filmmaker should make their own Dracula — it’s a text that certainly can be quite illuminating

It's all neat and sweet and one-dimensional, more the moral to a story than a story.

The difference between Head of State and a good comedy is like the difference between Chris Rock and a real actor.

Nobody watches a disaster movie starring digital tornadoes expecting Oscar Wilde. But Into the Storm, directed with bland efficiency by Steven Quayle of "Final Destination 5," reminds us that unless a movie establishes certain base-line levels of human interest, it runs the not-unentertaining risk of coming out squarely in favor of its own bad weather.

Double Team is loony but likable, a would-be triple double that ends up eking out a victory over its own script. And while Tsui is the man who makes it work, Rodman, on his best bad behavior, does his bit, defers to his teammates. At the end, Rourke and Van Damme pull off their shirts, while Rodman keeps his on. And, wisely, The Worm leaves most of the kicking to his co-star.

The Raven squanders a promising scenario while half-burying Cusack's mercurial skills as a leading man with the wiles of a character actor.

Girl 6 is a snappy, contemporary comedy about an aspiring New York actress who drifts into and out of the world of phone sex. It's an often sexy, funny show with interesting slants on modern New York culture and mores. [22 Mar 1996, p.F]

When Jason Sudeikis and Ed Helms appear in the same movie there's a significant threat of clean-cut sameness. Mediocre material makes them like two halves of the same comic actor: Ed Jason Helms-Sudeikis.

The character played by Ryder is really the centerpiece of the story, and she is the best part of this slight story...The rest of the movie is a fairly standard portrait of small-town life, with characters in more pain than is typical of such films. [12 Oct 1990, p.C]

Hangover II is more like a spitball meeting, a series of ideas that might, in theory, be good enough for a sequel, than it is an actual movie.

If Steve Martin (“Cheaper by the Dozen”) and Eddie Murphy (“Daddy Day Care”) can’t make these PG-rated assembly-line comedies any fun, what chance does The Rock have?

Some movies run out of gas. This one could use an alternate fuel source.

Mary Reilly is a thinking person's horror movie, done with such obvious intelligence and artistry that it feels strange to watch it and be so unmoved. [23 Feb 1996]

Despite some impressive technical achievements, it too looks like a movie with little reason for being.

The movie loses its magic by the time the solution is revealed.

Rarely ventures beyond familiar territory.

In what may well prove a Titanic for tykes, Barney's sweetness gets spiked with some welcome wit in Steve Gomer's classy direction of Steven White's screenplay. [16 Apr 1998, p.6]

While Brand manages a couple of effectively brutal bits of violence, Matthew Waynee's gassy screenplay is all premise and no propulsion.

Snyder is not without skills, or ideas, but when a critic finds himself at odds with almost every aspect of a director’s visual approach to material like this, material like this becomes pretty joyless.

Thing is, Levy is a hard-sell man. He pushes the material so hard, it's as if he were working on commission.

Vardalos and Collette have mighty pipes, but it's Collette who moves with the confidence and flair of a musical theater veteran. Watching this film, I found myself caring less and less about the fairly predictable and safe story and waiting impatiently for the next number.

A big, creepy dollhouse of a movie--a sometimes engrossing shocker with a surprise ending that isn't especially shocking or surprising.

The trouble with Bridget redux is also simple: Thai jail.

A massive and rather tiring showcase for Bollywood action hero Akshay Kumar.

Craven has proven himself a talented director of horror films on several occasions, from Last House on the Left to A Nightmare on Elm Street. But this time he's chosen a project that plays not at all to his abilities, which lie with the creation of isolated, disturbing images rather than with the careful sustaining of suspense through story-telling. [13 Oct 1986, p.5C]

I found it bizarre and limp and all over the place and not in a good, messy, lifelike way.

Predictably, it descends into a meaningless blur of gravity-defying physics and robotic limbs by the end, where a lot of violence is happening but you’re never sure exactly why or even how.

The film's biggest continuing laugh is the very idea that Arnold Schwarzenegger, with his thick accent, could infiltrate the upper echelon of the Mafia. I could see him catering a German mob dinner, but a trusted ally? Never.

The dialogue comes straight out of "The Benny Goodman Story." That look, someone says to a staring, pausing Kutcher, "tells me you're on to something big." Nobody talks in this movie; everyone speechifies or take turns sloganing one another to death.

It's a bit too muddy, dismal-looking and smoky to beguile us, too fixated on filth and too dreary-looking to really shock us.

The movie is ALL revenge, all the time

To be clear: The odds are in favor of you hating it. I hated a lot of it when I saw a barely dry work-in-progress print, 163 minutes long, at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s 19 minutes shorter and better now, though “better” is relative when you’re dealing with a whatzahoozy such as this.

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.

Movies made from serious novels are often ridiculed as unworthy of their sources, but this one may be too worthy -- too reverent, too showy, too earnest.

All these good actors and all Crystal's sass and witty candor can't bring back the heyday of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. Or even, most of the time, their off-days.

It makes you sweat, laugh, squirm and self explore like few films -- fictional or documentary -- can.

The script is a mess. It's an object lesson in taking a nonfiction book ("The Feather Men," about a cadre of ex-British Special Air Service operatives) and making a hash of it.

Like an obnoxious uncle desparately trying to amuse the young'uns with poo-poo humor and dum-dum pratfalls.

Routine cinema but rich history.

Night Swim comes from a crafty 2014 short directed by Blackhurst and McGuire, not quite three minutes in length minus end credits. Apples and oranges, I suppose, but the short gets more done in terms of atmosphere and rhythmic wiles than the full-length version. Still: These filmmakers have both a past and a future in evocative horror.

A surprisingly heartfelt father/son relationship, handled with restraint by director Todd Holland.

Endearing but predictable.

The movie itself is hyperactive and a jumble.

Doesn't aim for more than padding a plot around Kennedy so he can do his Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character full-force. And the joke soon wears thin.

Though Ball's workmanlike handling of the second in the trilogy, "The Scorch Trials," proves mainly that he can keep a franchise from running completely off the rails when the tracks have been laid perilously near a swamp of "dys-lit" cliches.

City Slickers II, perhaps, isn't really special. But it's the kind of movie Hollywood should churn out more often: a professional, ebullient, formula entertainment that doesn't insult your intelligence and hits its marks with ease, wit and good humor. Unlike most current mega-movies, it's classy, smart, sometimes gaudily tasteless fun-done with such zest and skill that it often makes you smile. And laugh. And maybe even smirk.

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]

Hunter Killer needs its radar calibrated, because while it bounces between serious and silly, it never quite finds a suitable place to land.

I enjoyed large chunks of San Andreas, largely because the actors give it a full load of sincerity, and there's some bizarrely effective comic relief thanks to Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson as Brits who picked the wrong week to visit the Bay Area.

The result is a feeling of quiet heroism--people doing things because it's right to do them, even if it's not easy.

Making her feature-film directorial debut, Grant is going for an everyday conversational texture and a sense of life's curveballs. But the results wander and you never really believe them.

She tackled "The Tempest" on stage, years ago. On screen I wish she'd (Taymor) adapted it with a freer hand, and then directed it with a more considered one.

Schreiber and Stiles are good actors, and they're actually acting, if not to any actual avail. In the silliest recasting, a comically exaggerated Mia Farrow takes over for steely Billie Whitelaw in the evil nanny role.