Strictly a kids' movie--brimming with easy-to-swallow life lessons.

Overstuffed, formulaic but very easy to take.

The leap from pointing out the hollow values of advertising to a full-scale attack on capitalism is broad, and in trying to make it, Robinson falls into an abyss of speciousness. Nevertheless, his intensely personal style and vision mark him as one of the most promising filmmakers working in England today. [12 May 1989, p.G]

The best of Laggies, both in the writing and the playing, comes in the square-offs between Knightley and Rockwell.

This is an intoxicatingly amusing blend of cynical urbane comedy, slick detection and breezy romance. [24 Jun 2005, p.C6]

Streep once again unnecessarily proves she’s the best in the business with her performance, delivering more in a single quiet line delivery than most actors can achieve.

The movie is hit-and-miss in an unusually clear-cut way. It's funny for 45-50 minutes. Then it's strained and abrasive and entirely too devoted to action-movie tropes for 45-50 minutes, minus end credits. I can recommend the first half.

Phoenix acts his ass off, often entertainingly, and from the hoariest of ancient dark-comic tactics, Aster pulls off the occasional little miracle here and there, especially when LuPone and Posey are around.

Branagh’s portrayal of a somewhat older and wearier Poirot, muted but carefully calibrated, remains two steps ahead of Branagh’s direction.

Moderately funny though immoderately derivative.

The Signal combines the inconstancy of an omnibus film with the blandness of art by committee. The end result feels less like a blend of distinct styles than an opportunistic hodgepodge, a second-hand premise wedded to an attention-grabbing gimmick.

Clooney remains as game as ever, but the way he and McDormand push the energy here, you feel the strain. Pitt, just floating through, comes off best. He doesn't judge the moron he's playing; he just is.

The actors make it work. Greg Kinnear's Coach Vermeil exudes Southern California good vibrations without a lot of fuss or attitude.

For a movie that begins so intriguingly, Boiler Room becomes boilerplate all too quickly.

It is less a film than a puny trampoline -- an occasion, though a grim one, for this most fervently movie-mad of American directors to show off his love for the various pulp genres mooshed together by the 2003 Dennis Lehane novel.

One of those lurid, macabre, amusingly exaggerated B-horror movies beloved by the psychotronic/Joe Bob Briggs crowds.

Bone Lake offers up an appealing surface, but it’s just too shallow to get very far.

Right in the "Rebel Without a Cause" vein, of course, but grittier and less romantic. [16 Jun 2006, p.C8]

An odd little movie and a good one, worthy for what it is and potentially groundbreaking for how it's being made available.

If "Roll Bounce" and "Boyz n the Hood" fell in love and had a PG-13 baby, it would be ATL.

Schumacher's work in The Lost Boys consists of turning undertones into overtones--of taking the latent, the implied and the mysterious, and turning them into the loud and the obvious. He takes a story and turns it into a bunch of scenes, each of which contains its own payoff and none of which seems to draw on what has come before. And in these days of concept films, a story is a terrible thing to waste. [31 Jul 1987, p.D]

I’d place Thanksgiving halfway between “fair” and “good.” Inevitably, Roth can’t keep his baser storytelling and filmmaking instincts at bay forever.

Youth in Revolt isn't bad -- the cast is too good for it to be bad.

So-so. [23 Jan 1997, p.9B]

As a screenplay Tequila Sunrise is a very impressive piece of work. But as a movie, it's knotty and confused. [2 Dec 1988, p.B]

Visceral and suspenseful, Hotel Mumbai is also deeply humane and moving, anchored by searing performances from Patel, Kher, Boniadi and Hammer.

Porter and his ingratiating actors do all they can to humanize the material. The movie works because a lot of that material is engaging and genuinely humane to begin with.

I prefer my horror with a chaser of wit, and Severance, a modest but very lively British import, serves it up in harsh but high style.