It's very funny, and at times exhilaratingly so. But when real life tragedy is used as a basis for movie comedy, some consideration of responsibility has to enter the equation.

At the end of Jojo Rabbit, you’re just left wondering what the point of it all was.

I admit I would've had a hard time getting through it without the help of Simmons and Addai-Robinson, over there in the B plot. The character at the center of the story is treated with respect and admiration, but in dramatic terms he's about as real-world plausible as Batman.

As a director, Bogdanovich seems caught in much the same predicament as that of his characters, a victim of his own history. [28 Sep 1990, p.B]

But after introducing these issues, director Jonathan Kaplan ("The Accused") takes the easy, unimaginative way out by turning Liotta's character into a complete lunatic in the manner of the psycho-husband who terrorized Julia Roberts in "Sleeping With the Enemy." How much more interesting "Unlawful Entry" might have been if his character had been played brighter and less easily dispatched than simply with a bullet. [26 June 1992, p.C]

This 1989 movie looks much of the time like an old idea that's been too enthusiastically colorized. The prison sequences work best, and they seem almost like a completely separate film.

Too sympathetic to really dislike, but too benign to leave an impression. [05 Jan 1990, p.G7]

The script by Jordan and Ray Wright, from Wright’s story, wastes little time in getting to what “Fatal Attraction” enthusiasts might call the bunny-boiling bits. But the movie frustrates. And it squanders Huppert, which really is a waste.

Solemn, inchoate and close to complete enervation, Francis Coppola`s ”Gardens of Stone” seems less a movie than a depressive symptom–a mass of feelings that Coppola has been unable to transform into art.

When everything and anything is possible, nothing feels urgent or truly dramatic. The movie devolves into a melange of digital effects and sequences of glamorous slaughter, as Lucy swaggers around, with that big brain, and slouches toward becoming a full-lipped deity.

Species carries the whole idea of the erotic thriller--that '80s yuppie genre that mixed sex and slaughter--past cliche into howling absurdity.

Stolen Summer is no disaster, though. It's merely one more misfire fortunate enough to attract actors like Bonnie Hunt and Aidan Quinn, who almost make it work.

The pathos: considerable. The sight gags, involving Crystal puking chili dog on a kid's face, or the grandson with an imaginary friend peeing and causing an X Games skateboarder to wipe out: artless. The results: tolerably amusing.

The emotions and crises feel pre-sanded, smooth to the point of blandness.

The arrival of Ra (Jaye Davidson), bearing sci-fi cliches, changes Stargate from a merely hokey movie to one that is truly ridiculous.

Works so well for the first 40 minutes or so, that when the bottom falls out of it, I felt more than disappointed. I felt betrayed.

Enough with the snatching, already.

By the time this film hits the 45-minute mark, temps aren't the only ones watching the clock. [22 May 1998, p.A]

The entire film is poorly lit, and the melancholy music, much of it from the wonderful Wilco spin-off band Autumn Defense, gives us the sense that things are getting heavy. But in the end, we observe more than feel.

More an uninspired letdown than a flabbergasting turkey... One reason for this lack of bite lies in the werewolves themselves. They're a bit too teddy-bearish, even oddly cuddly, and the fright scenes work better when you don't see much of them.

Akira remains the work of a cartoonist, rather than a born animator: Too much of the movie is played out in the static frames of a comic strip, and when movement is used it isn't to define character (as in Disney) or establish a rhythm (as in the Warner cartoons) but simply for its physical impact. Pounding away, it becomes monotonous. [30 Mar 1990, p.D]

A bimbo-rama of the type you'd see on USA Network's "Up All Night." [24 Jan 1992]

An expensive-looking new detective thriller that should have been much better.

Billy's burning, self-destructive energy is about all Young Guns has going for it-the suicidal kicks James Dean found in chickie races are here transposed to six-gun shoot-outs, filmed in a slow-motion process that strives vainly to evoke Sam Peckinpah. [12 Aug 1988, p.H]

The idea that rich people are an alien tribe is just one of many that get lost in Wittenborn’s distracted script. Instead of exploring the concept, he throws out random incidents until he hits one that sends the film into a dark, grotesque spiral.

The results are boring boring.

The Mountain Between Us falls flat, struggling to truly enthrall beyond a basic love story.

The comedy part of the equation is awfully mild, however. This is a movie that aims for warm smiles rather than belly laughs.