Recycled French farce isn't a bad thing, but do they really like all those pratfalls?

Cameo appearances by everyone from James Franco (as Hugh Hefner, putting the moves on Lovelace at her own premiere) to Hank Azaria (as a film "investor") dot the grimy landscape.

Novie lovers will want more of Winger and more Redford, both separately and together. If they had more scenes, their romance might seem more credible, rather than being simply the movie convention of ''star loves star.'' It`s a close call on Legal Eagles. It`s not a total waste of time.

Rarely ventures beyond familiar territory.

Too loud, bright and shallow for its subject: a movie that pushes too many obvious buttons to build naturally to the big, heartbreaking climax it obviously wants.

Never really feels right.

A comedy of bad manners with many punchy moments and many irritatingly glib ones.

Whitaker's performance is the rock here. Even when the confrontations and evasions get a little ridiculous, he's neither wholly saint nor sinner, but something like a human being.

Starts with such promising quirkiness that it's easy to forget for the moment that you are watching a teen comedy.

Going in Style stays in the safe zone every second, nervous about risking any audience discomfort, as opposed to Brest's quietly nervy ode to old age and its discontents. Times change.

More than anything, The Princess is a documentary that makes you think about its editing choices. There’s a curious lack of clarity or transparency around many of the unidentified voices (from broadcasters, presumably) that can be heard speaking over the assembled images and you’re left to wonder if this commentary originally accompanied said footage or if Perkins, the director, is mixing and matching.

A high school version of A Chorus Line, following a half-dozen talented students at New York High School for the performing arts as they try to become show-biz stars. When the kids perform, the movie sings, but their fictionalized personal stories are melodramatic drivel. [11 July 1980, p.8]

Lofing and Cluff certainly know the found-footage ropes, and the tropes; we'll see if their next project reveals a little more imagination.

Parts of The Birth of a Nation are bluntly effective and beautifully acted, though one of the drawbacks, ironically, is Parker's own performance. Even the rape victims of the screenplay have a hard time getting their fair share of the screen time; everything in the story, by design, keeps the focus and the anguished close-ups strictly on Parker.

It's a compelling drama, if only a little hollow. For my money, Pacino's bark is ultimately better than Two For the Money's bite.

Rønning, who helmed a later “Pirates of the Caribbean” film and “Young Woman and the Sea,” provides serviceable direction of the material without offering much innovation. The film loses fidelity toward the end, as it becomes a crashy, pixelated monster movie, as the real world has no capability for hosting the sleek, bloodless appeal of the grid.

The movie may not be as toxic and ultimately hopeless as Todd Solondz's "Happiness," but it also fails to find humor, dark or light, in anything.

Like Stone's "Platoon," World Trade Center has the visceral stuff it takes to appeal to audiences of all political stripes. Unlike "Platoon," however, its sense of craft feels impersonal.

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

Still, the deadliest single element in this film can be traced not to Bacon's character, but to composer Henry Jackson, whose music seems determined to kill us all with waves of dramatic nothingness.

This movie gives us mostly the "what" when we need a bit of the "why" as well. In her other, better work, Denis always supplies it.

Even at a mere 82 minutes, the movie is guilty of killing time. It's not a complete Kaputschnik, but it's sure no Bellini.

There's a movie here, and there's a gimmick. The gimmick undermines the movie and the gimmick is attached to the wrong part of the movie. Other than that, Clue offers a few big laughs early on followed by a lot of characters running around on a treadmill to nowhere. [13 Dec 1985, p.38]

An okay kids' picture about a bunch of misfit hockey players who are brought together to play in the Big Game by a cynical, Yuppie coach (Emilio Estevez) doing community service. [02 Oct 1992, p.C]

But the film disappoints, partly because it inspires such large expectations.

Any Chekhov is better than no Chekhov, but it would be a shame if this was your introduction to one of the greatest plays of the last 100 years.

A solid meat and potatoes film. Like the land itself, there are no frills, and the cinematography by William Wages is commendable. But, someone should tell the filmmakers that there probably weren't any big mountains outside of St. Paul, even in 1917.

Richard Jewell is a sincere and extremely well-acted irritant from 89-year-old director Clint Eastwood. It’s destined to get under the hides of different moviegoers in radically different ways.