Where the previous sequels have been mostly dour gun blasts, The Dead Pool is a thriller with wit and humor and tension. [15 Jul 1988, p.A]

Red Tails squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche.

Linda Cardellini can play just about anything, with honesty and delicacy, so it's no surprise she makes even a semi-sweet nothing like Austin Found worth a look.

It's a slick, ambitious movie that doesn't always nail all the many moods and themes it's after.

When it comes to storytelling, Zhang Yimou's 19th feature is decidedly backward-looking: A lavish period weepie set against the atrocities of the Nanking Massacre, "Flowers" abounds with well-worn movie archetypes and slathers on schmaltz.

I liked Flirt better than any of Hartley's films since "Trust." The playfulness he shows here seems better integrated, more meaningful, than the strange narrative whimsies of 1992's "Simple Men" or 1994's "Amateur." [08 Nov 1996]

It's one of the more authentically moving entries in the genre, powered by a gripping lead performance from "This Is Us" star Chrissy Metz.

The movie seems so convinced of its own entertainment value that it has neglected to factor in the elements that make a comedic thriller more than just a facile exercise -- i.e., suspense, tension, heart. Being amused by plot turns is not the same as caring, and Clay Pigeons never inspires you to grab your armrest or catch your breath. [25 Sept 1998]

A welcome respite from verbal nastiness and sexual cynicism. It's nice to see characters who enjoy falling in love, even if it's to a schmaltzy light-soul score.

They should've thrown everything away except the title and the outline. That's what the "Devil Wears Prada" creative team did, and that film turned out a lot richer than this one.

The best efforts of the performers cannot authenticate a plot that no longer feels inevitable. It feels contrived. And the audience stays at a remove instead of entering someone else’s nightmare.

You couldn't accuse the film of practicing what it preaches: careful stewardship of a precious resource.

Jeong and Schaal are quite funny in the limited time they're given, but one can't help but think the story would have worked so much better as a drama, or some kind of "Man on Fire" actioner, with Coleman's chops and Bautista's brooding presence. Hopefully a director can figure out what best to do with him as a leading man, and soon.

Fortunately, this loud, hectic movie doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it wouldn’t have the material to last a second longer. It’s bright, busy, inoffensive and exactly the opposite of the weird, dark, edgy 1993 movie adaptation. That may be better for the business of Mario, but it’s not exactly terribly interesting either.

The result is a placid tale of impulses running wild. Farino is a smooth operator, but he puts little on screen that feels like life, as opposed to a middle-of-the-road indie.

Toy Soldiers is a movie that appeals at once to adolescent self-pity and adolescent anger-a film that takes feelings of rejection and inadequacy and transforms them into a violent revenge fantasy, directed against all those distant daddies. It's hardly the first teenpic to do so, but it's certainly one of the most thorough, the most methodical and, not coincidentally, the least fun.

Joseph's direction offers up an energetic take on the material, incorporating text visualization, quick-cutting montages, and creative uses of animation to bring the thumping electronic music to cinematic life.

If actors this good cannot overcome their material, then we can only say: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock … Max von Sydow, Zoe Caldwell, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, John Goodman… thanks for your honest efforts in the service of a fundamentally dishonest weepie.

It's a distraction: a buzz in your head that won't go away. [31 March 1995, p.HI]

Makes compromises itself, but only because of its small budget and its director's mixed dark-and-rosy vision, at once cynical and sentimental. Yet at least it has a vision -- of both life and cinema.

A cutesy, heavy-handed morality tale that contains nary a believable moment.

Isn't exactly a good movie, but it turns out not to be bad, either. It's a romantic comedy that strains to be screwball but at least is likable.

The imagination, energy, chutzpah and sheer affection shown for Darin by director-writer-star Spacey, who plays the singer, are admirable, kicky. This is a movie, that, like Darin himself, takes a lot of chances and delivers on many of them.

Knoxville, Jed Rees and Bill Chott act daffy and more impaired than their counterparts, and that never sat right with me. This may not be the equivalent of acting in blackface, but it's awfully close.

The CGI is relentless and what you might call reverse-magical: The more we're hit with stuff, the less wondrous it becomes.

The appeal of this The Addams Family, which doesn’t break the mold, is simply to spend some more time in this gently spooky world, which is a gateway for budding creepsters and goths. It’s refreshing that it doesn’t try to overreach the limitations of its story, but it’s so slight, it merely whets the appetite for more Addams fare, rather than providing anything truly satisfying.

Beaches is a melodrama in the original sense of the term: a drama with music. And as long as the melo is handled by Bette Midler, who performs half a dozen songs, Beaches can`t be all bad. But the drama, as transacted between Midler and Barbara Hershey, is pretty dreadful.

For about half its length, Ravenous is a fairly effective scare picture, with a laugh or two. Then it just goes sour and pretentious. [19 March 1999, Friday, p.D]