Evil Dead offers the core audience for modern horror plenty of reasons to jump, and then settle back, tensely, while awaiting the next idiotic trip down to the cellar beneath the demon-infested cabin in the woods.

At its fizziest, the camaraderie among the principals buoys the picture. Hemsworth and Thompson in particular toss off their lines with throwaway aplomb. Waititi’s heart plainly belongs to the muttered asides and the eccentric details; the action sequences, meanwhile, squeak by, and barely.

The film never gets going. It's too slow and plodding for kids--even too obvious.

At once proudly conservative, passionately idealistic and beautifully assured.

Once you get used to the broad gestures, visual stylings and reach-for-the-sky emotions, you may find yourself luxuriating in this movie's undeniable grandeur.

In some ways it's not a film that surprises us much. But it's a notable directorial debut anyway -- smartly written, very well cast and skillfully done.

Costa-Gavras' powerful, awkward Amen is a dramatically uneven historical thriller.

Hannibal, riding the malicious wit of Hopkins' sophisticated fiend, is a gorgeous, wild, sometimes sick thriller, a feast for enraptured eyes and strong stomachs.

The inescapable problem with this film is that everything is precisely as you expect it. And so, cheated out of anything interesting, you just want "My Life Without Me" to be a movie without you.

In between all the sentimental (i.e. corny) mumbo-jumbo is a potentially fascinating subplot.

Too ambiguous, too meandering to envelop us. It's ambitious work but ultimately cold, distant and difficult to piece together.

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.

It's labeled a "true-ish story," and the results are cheeky fun.

First-time feature director Wes Ball's version of The Maze Runner makes the cliches smell daisy-fresh.

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

A movie like this can handle a large character roster, but it helps if the story retains clean lines and a sense of propulsion. Iron Man 2 sags and wanders in its midsection

A real gem: a deadpan fantasy that turns into one of the best pictures ever about the post-"Star Wars" studio moviemaking era.

Lasseter's sequel smooshes the vehicular ensemble of the first "Cars" into a nefarious James Bond universe, heavy on the missiles and ray guns and Gatling guns and electrocutions. Sound peculiar? It is peculiar.

You don't believe a second of it, but it's easy to enjoy, partly because of the casting of all three leads.

Even when it’s outlining its own ideas more through rhetoric than character, France keeps us on our toes regarding what’s around the corner. Seydoux’s the chief but hardly the only reason to find out.

This is not a film intended for a wide audience. But B-movie fans who find their way to Adam Green's gory schlock extravaganza are going to like it.

Scheinman, whose long list of producer credits includes Stand by Me and Misery, makes his directing debut with a good sense of storytelling and a low-key comic style all too often absent in this kind of entertainment. [30 Jun 1994, p.28]

The movie delivers, in its chosen way. But it’s a soulless way. The violence may be for laughs, and many Neeson fans will likely respond to the larky brutality of Cold Pursuit, which is very different from the star’s previous mid-winter vehicles (“The Grey” is my favorite). But I don’t get much psychic recreation from this sort of action movie.

Despite all the rich elements — the fantastic cast, the wonderfully detailed production and costume design, an oddball family story of black sheep finding each other — there's something missing from The House with a Clock in Its Walls. It's weightless, hop-skipping over necessary story-building, glossing over Lewis' warlock training as well as the personal histories of his guardians.

Easily the wittiest, most ridiculous and best-written comedy of the year.

The Wall may be fictional, but at its occasional, patient best it feels truthfully scary.

The Addams Family doesn't deliver. After a while the ghoulish one-liners and macabre sight gags grow repetitive - the sadistic/masochistic interplay between Morticia and Gomez particularly grows weary - as too much of the humor comes off like unbridled Late Mel Brooks. [22 Nov 1991, p.B]

Completely successful or not, films like Saudade do Futuro are needed. And we need people like the Nordestinos.