Even when the film's cheating, Firth refuses to tidy up the fictionalized Lomax's emotional state. The actor, so good at playing stalwart men contending with inner demons, can utter a simple line — "I don't think I can be put back together" — and break your heart, legitimately, without histrionics.

The script of Follow That Bird simply plays like a TV vignette blown up to movie size, failing to fill both the screen and our imagination. [06 Aug 1985, p.5C]

It's an almost overwhelmingly professional picture, murderously fast, slick and full of outlandish notions, painstakingly realized. And it's also surprisingly satisfying -- thanks to Washington, a good cast, Tony Scott's swift direction and that unyielding professionalism.

Cocaine Cowboys would be a great one-hour television piece. Unfortunately, it's a two-hour long documentary that recalls, in scrupulous, unnecessary detail, the rise and fall of Miami's role as the cocaine capital of America.

The film is a more quiet, wintry contemplation and tortured soul-searching. If not entirely successful, it’s still a fascinating take on how we put rock stars on screen, and a valiant attempt to understand how they make the music that moves us.

All of us had at least one teacher who inspired us during our formative years, and Mr. Holland's Opus is a cinematic thank you to all those chalk-stained magicians who were somehow able to spin flax into gold. It's a moving tale of sacrifice that is well worth seeing.

It's reflective of the Ginsburgs' real-life egalitarian marriage, almost never seen in Hollywood films. But the role is so much more than just the typical gender-swapped "spouse on phone" roles most often seen, and Hammer is a delight as the sunny Marty.

Directed, frantically, by Jaume Collet-Serra, written by Brad Ingelsby, Run All Night promises a sprint punctuated by a lot of gunfire, and bleeding, and bodies. Mission accomplished.

The essential problem with The Black Cauldron is that the central human character in the story is a complete drip, making it difficult to root for his success at saving the world from ruination.

Gray’s writing lacks the punch and zing that might take your mind off such rickety plotting.

Ever Again isn't a subtle film, but then it never pretends to be. More lecture than conversation, it's not designed to delicately challenge opposing viewpoints.

This "Ice Age" is still a good movie (especially for kids) with top-of-the-tech CGI.

Though this film shows flashes of the electric writer Mamet was to become, Lakeboat is mostly distant thunder over choppy waters.

Signs -- though Shyamalan's most visually beautiful work -- seems thinner, barely more than a sketch for a movie, with characters trapped in formulas. Beautifully trapped perhaps -- but paralyzed nonetheless.

For my taste, too much of the new Powers looks like bad TV and sounds like old burlesque.

Mix of stylish action and meta-musings, provides plenty of confusing, satisfying surprises, though it could have used more tightness and punch.

While Nico and Dani presents itself as a no-frills coming-of-age tale, its soundtrack seems lifted from a teen comedy like "American Pie."

It's a small film, perhaps less ambitious or probing (even in a comic vein) than it might've been. But it's a good one, and the actors go to town without turning Elvis & Nixon into a chance meeting between an Elvis impersonator and Rich Little.

Witherspoon goes further, pouring so much humor and pizzazz into Elle that she lifts up the whole movie.

Cars 3, a reasonably diverting account of middle-aged pity, humiliation and suffering as experienced by Rust-eze-sponsored race car Lightning McQueen, is not the weakest of the Disney/Pixar sequels (I’d vote “Cars 2” or “Monsters University,” those sour, desperate things). But it’s by far the most guilt-ridden.

The movie doesn't really jell. Glossy, good-looking and well-produced, it affects you and even sometimes moves you, but it doesn't really convincingly connect.

The whole thing feels a bit desperate.

It's not as if Stone is above this sort of pulp. But as rejiggered for the movies, Savages has trouble making us care what happens to the beautiful people - the untouchables - at the center of the sun-baked fairy tale.

The movie is a thing of honey and gloss, yet there's just enough heart in the central father/son relationship, and in the teenagers' ensemble interactions, to make it glide by.

Moliere transforms into a fuller piece whenever Morante takes center stage.

Mission: Impossible does provide enough old-fashioned fireworks for a big-budget summer spectacle. But despite the cinematic bravado, this mission ultimately represents a white flag being waved at the notion of updating the TV show. The movie seems to argue that because the Cold War is over, all the good global-conspiracy plots have become obsolete. The intrigue, instead, must turn in on itself like a snake devouring its own tail. [22 May 1996]

You find yourself tricked and having enjoyed the experience after all.

Eighty-six minutes proves to be more than enough time to spend with these characters, but the Hughes Brothers make the case that this is a subculture as compelling as it is repellent.