It's a dream of a movie, if only in the literal sense. The film means well; so it seems churlish to mention its total absence of originality. Care Bears poaches shamelessly on everything from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Androcles and the Lion," but its greatest debt is to Lewis Carroll, whose engagingly warped mind would surely recoil at this confection. [07 Aug 1987, p.Q]

It’s ungallant to single out MVPs in this ensemble. Nonetheless: If it weren’t for Moreno’s wizardly comic wiles and Field’s unerring, unforced timing, “80 for Brady” would not be here, there or much of anywhere.

Jolie and Banderas are two hot actors, in many senses of the word, and their scenes together have a lewd excitement.

Flashes of Goodnight Mommy are forceful and blackly funny.

Typically, movies about dogs are unrelenting tear-jerkers, but Tatum and Reid resist sentimentality, resulting in a film that’s refreshingly frank and surprising when the emotional moments do hit (and do they ever).

The whole film, in fact, seems too fast for its own good. It plays like a synopsis, jumping from scene to scene, grief to grief, and it doesn't let us relax into the various worlds it's creating.

A bit of a tweener, neither triumph nor disaster, a war-games fantasy with a use-by date of Nov. 22, when the new "Hunger Games" movie comes out.

The play itself, some felt, was static. The charge I'm afraid will stick to the film version as well. But the acting is considerable compensation.

Partly real and partly, increasingly, fantastic and outlandish in its wishful thinking.

The movie -- directed in such a frenziedly self-conscious style you often wonder whether the camera will topple over on his actors.

An all-too-familiar barfly story that often seems aimless. [25 Oct 1996, p.A]

The performances are pretty good--with the exception of the nauseatingly sweet H. Hunter Hall (the son of the director) as Junior and a one-note scowl from rapper The Game, who plays Meat--and the screenplay, by Hall and Darin Scott, has some genuinely funny moments.

A fair amount of Uncle John puts us behind the wheel or alongside Ashton as he drives, preoccupied with his misdeeds, along country roads lined with cornfields. No dialogue needed; in these transitions, Ashton and his surroundings are enough.

A promising film rather than a fully realized one.

Written by newcomer Melissa K. Stack, The Other Woman offers roughly equal parts wit and witlessness, casual smarts and jokes, lingering and detailed, regarding explosive bowel movements. Based on that ratio, I'd say the screenwriter's future in Hollywood looks pretty good.

I laughed a lot in the first half, before the movie's repetitive jackhammer pacing, which isn't ideal for any kind of comedy, began working against its better instincts.

The acting's strong; in addition to Moretz and Moore, Judy Greer is a welcome presence in the Betty Buckley role of the sympathetic gym instructor. But something's missing from this well-made venture. What's there is more than respectable, while staying this side of surprising.

Too much of the film is a muddle, and it feels like work, not play.

Whatever you do, don't leave before watching the snippets that run during the closing credits--the self-referential, tongue in cheek "outtakes" are quite possibly the funniest part of this movie--a visual stunner that seems to have misplaced its heart.

It’s a fairly engrossing bit of fan service, boasting many clever touches and a few disappointing ones. Director and co-writer David Gordon Green’s picture veers erratically in tone, and the killings are sort of a drag after a while, en route to a rousing vengeance finale.

Jim Jarmusch's underwhelming documentary on the veteran rock group Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Of course the music is fine; a robotic camera could capture that. But Jarmusch gets nothing out of his interview except the band members and manager repeatedly telling us how long and how well the group works together.

Always watchable and cinematically lively, but it never quite engages the emotions -- despite torrents of sentimentality and would-be heart-tugging scenes interspersed with the carnage.

More spirit and grace and less blood and guts may be what Passion needs.

Bird’s rather strenuous sequel lands more in the camp of “Cars 2” and “Monsters University,” mistaking calamity and mayhem for real excitement and wit.

As a document of his history, it's breathtaking, inspiring stuff. As an overlong documentary, it still manages to be inspiring, but also an uphill viewing experience.

A lot of Beautiful Boy is necessarily hard to take, though the script softens the roughest of Nic’s travails. Is this why the movie’s anguish feels more indicated than inhabited? Still: You can’t fault the performers much. Or Chalamet, at all.

It's fitting that a drama trading in classified information would turn out to be such a cryptic bugger.

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