This understated Iranian drama affirms life as vigorously as it provokes thought.

It's fun to see the regular gang on hand for new adventures, joined by fresh characters who add touches of novelty and spice. But the secrets in this chamber aren't all that amazing once you get a glimpse of them.

Considerably less slick than "An Inconvenient Truth," and no less urgent.

There's nothing to think about once the watery plot has run its course, and even Streep's plucky performance isn't enough to keep it steadily afloat. [30 Sep 1994, p.13]

Directed by John Glen, who keeps the excitement level high for an hour or so, then lets the show slip into the doldrums.

Based on the 1938 novel by Winifred Watson, it's a deluxe romance that most of the time plays like farce.

Taking great artistic chances in storytelling and performance style, Green finally fulfills the promise he showed in his fine 2000 drama "George Washington" as a terrific builder of mood, atmosphere, and psychological suspense.

Resembles the yacht where it takes place. Everything is arranged for fun, pleasure, and amusement. But the vehicle itself is heavy and cumbersome, and it takes a tad too long to get us where we're going.

Worth a dozen "Blair Witch Projects," with much more harrowing psychology and pithy dialogue. It's a bone-chilling plunge into no-holds-barred storytelling.

Not a great movie, but a valuable and revealing document.

Consistently good as long as it centers on Buck and his seriocomic travails.

Director Marc Forster is very good at amping up the terror, but after a while, we reach zombie overload and we might as well be watching an infestation of Transformers.

Shyamalan is a one-trick pony who needs to find a new rodeo.

It's surprising no filmmaker has adapted Dodie Smith's novel before now, and pleasing that Mr. Fywell and company have done such a responsible job with it. It's one of the season's most captivating surprises.

Hollywood censors made Wilder reshoot one scene, but the original version has been rediscovered; while it's tame by today's standards, it makes the movie's caustic social commentary more potent than ever.

No show-business tradition is sturdier than the two-man comedy team, and no contemporary stars are better suited to the format than Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Pairing them was a terrific idea.

An oddly discursive documentary that is, ultimately, more about Pierre Bergé, his companion and business partner of 50 years.

What's lacking in The Upside of Anger is a steady sense that we're watching real people cope with real, jolting emotions.

Best when it recreates the cultural and political ferment of the era, capturing the idealism that made youths push against the social boundaries imposed on them by elders.

Preteen girls – and not just those who are already American Girl fanatics – should be entranced. And why not? Not many movies for that audience are as respectful as is this one.

How To Get Ahead in Advertising is loud, aggressive, and boisterously crude. But it has something serious on its mind, and that's more than can be said about many current films. [30 Jun 1989, p.10]

Laggies itself isn’t exactly slow – its pace is pleasantly meandering – and it’s far from aimless, although what it’s aiming for isn’t always clear.

Eureka is vintage Roeg in its sweep, its bravado, and its explosive visual style. It's also a murky stew of half-baked story ideas, overcooked sex, and nasty violence, inhabited by characters who'd be tedious even if they didn't talk, talk, talk through one self-indulgent scene after another. [11 Sep 1985, p.23]

The picture often rambles as aimlessly as its characters, but its vivid depiction of alienation and self-destructiveness among suburban youth has much cautionary value.

No doubt some of it is charming enough to induce giggles in its preteen target audience.

This is the loopiest star vehicle in ages.

You meet some fascinating personalities during this uncomfortable voyage.

It comes on strong, but in its bloody heart of hearts it’s no more resonant than one of those old Vincent Price-Edgar Allan Poe contraptions – and less entertaining, too.

It's kind of fun, and Australians apparently love it, buying enough tickets to make it their country's all-time champ at the box office. But anybody much older than Star Wars - the movie that definitively replaced horses and six-shooters with rockets and ray guns - has seen it all a million times before. [03 Feb 1983, p.18]

The longest comic episode is too heavily presented, and the whole plot slows down during the third quarter of the picture. But most of Dreamscape is light, lively, and entertaining. [21 Sep 1984, p.23]

Soderbergh does overemphasize the "little-people" dreariness of it all. But there is much low-key humor here, too, albeit on the dark side.

Just sweet enough to avoid being negligible.

The story is so eager to highlight macho action scenes that it loses track of the important historical and political issues it raises.

Swinton's performance, and practically everything else about Julia, seems off – tone-deaf. She plays an out-of-control wastrel who enters into a kidnapping scheme gone horribly wrong, as does the movie.

The Young Karl Marx disappointingly resembles for the most part a conventional biopic. It has little depth, either political or psychological.

First-time director James McTeigue's big, bold imagery, with slashing reds and blacks, is a close approximation of the novel's look and feel.

Director Mark Waters does a fine job meshing the fantastical with the quotidian.

Next time out, more dwarfs, more Aslan, and definitely more Reepicheep.

It's refreshing to find a comedy that deals with such resonant material. True, there's nothing profound in the screenplay by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger, and director Garry Marshall wraps most of the emotions in bundles as tidy as a Thursday-night sitcom. But the story has serious things on its mind, relating to intimate areas of family life and sexuality. [30 July 1986, p.21]

Of all the Star Wars-themed movies, this one is the closest to a Saturday afternoon serial/western. Don’t expect more than that. But it could have been less.

Proudly old-fashioned in every way except the often excessive violence that director Martin Campbell splashes across the screen.

The action, directed by Shane Black, ranges from passable to interminable. The plot goes from clang to bang. Downey Jr. is still the best thing about this series.

Heavy on violence and special effects, light on everything else.

This movie might have been better if it hadn't fashioned itself as a cross between "Citizen Kane" and "Chinatown," and instead had used Reeves's story to dramatize the transitional state of 1950s Hollywood.

Wildly irreverent fantasy.

Inherently dramatic but needed a stronger director than Anthony Fabian, who overdoes understatement.

The filmmaking is TV-movie-of-the-week dull and Robinson’s ordeal is hammered home to the exclusion of virtually everything else in his life.

The bloody wrap-up isn't handled especially well, and I must confess that the most shocking thing about the movie was the casting of Carrie-Anne Moss as a suburban mom. I kept expecting her "Matrix" skills to show up in the final reel.

Its greatest assets are imaginative camera work and top-flight performances from Pam Grier as the heroine, Samuel L. Jackson as the deadly boyfriend, and Robert Forster as the bail-bondsman who falls battily in love with her.

The story is lively and energetic, if you can take its raunchy jokes and rowdy behavior.

As directed by Hugh Hudson, the movie isn't workaday for a second, with its epic scale and awesome vistas and all. Instead of enhancing the story, though, the niggling details and dignified touches just slow things down. [12 Apr 1984, p.33]

Sometimes, oftentimes, trailers showcase only the good stuff. The actual movie is a pale substitute. Such is the case here.

Tim Robbins gives a strong performance in this first-class horror yarn, which has a surprisingly strong political edge.

Throughout the film there are small, rapturous moments.

The fact that this movie, with its 65,000 painted frames, was even attempted, is daunting. It’s the kind of folly that demands a measure of respect, for the effort, if not altogether for the result.

Puenzo may have started out to make something more ambitious than an intelligent, real-world horror thriller, but what she did achieve is still commendable. The melodramatics in this movie may be cooked up, but the fears it conjures are very real.

Jenkins has an admirable feeling for, as the French would say, mise en scène, and a gift for placing actors in naturalistic settings. What he lacks at this point is a strong story sense.

Most of the music is by New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, and it’s heartfelt without ever really touching the heart.

Whether intentionally or not, Martin has given us something truly spooky: A full-fledged portrait of a hollow man.

Philip Noyce's anti-apartheid drama is tense and thoughtful, if somewhat marred by Hollywood-style thrills.

Blethyn's lively acting and some visually amusing moments lend spice to this minor but engaging comedy.

Few movies have sought this particular blend of detective-story melodrama and religious sensitivity.

The picture is more sociologically instructive than emotionally involving, serving as a document of contemporary Irish life rather than an ordinary inspirational story.

The screenplay by director Bell is packed with surprises, and the acting is excellent.

The most enjoyable thing about the "Ocean's" movies is that nobody involved seems to take them seriously. The star wattage is immense but the stars themselves are refreshingly self-deprecating, almost satirically so.

It is a splendidly appropriate project for Otto Preminger, even though he hasn't succeeded at making the most of it.

As any kind of introduction to Ibsen, this film is more a turnoff than a turn-on.

A lumbering number that takes its identity as a costume drama quite literally.

Whatever the approach, there isn’t enough psychological heft to the drama to make it seem much more than generic.

The movie is infused with enough of Burton’s beguiling gothic vibe to kick off the Halloween season, but the plot holes are large enough for the Great Pumpkin to fill.

We’re left with an enigma that is insufficiently probed: How does art this banal nevertheless capture us?

The movie wastes a good opportunity to look at important questions, such as who's responsible for American policy when the president is busy killing terrorists.

There's too much hokum and too little suspense in the screenplay by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson.

A standout is Ben Mendelsohn’s Aussie nutcase.

Because almost all animated films now are computer generated, the 2-D animated Curious George has the not-unpleasant patina of an antique.

Directed by Philip Kaufman, who pays equal attention to the literary ideas and sexual preoccupations of the characters, but generates little new understanding of either. [05 Oct 1990, p.12]

The action and special effects are mostly first-rate and Vogt-Roberts maintains a vaguely satiric tone that sidesteps schlockiness.

Only the acting of City Hall is strong enough to deserve a vote of confidence. Pacino does a solid imitation of Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, bringing dark-toned fervor to his intimate scenes and delivering speeches with enough pizazz to remind us that politics and show business have an awful lot in common. [20 Feb 1996, p.13]

Although it's touching and sincere, Washington's directorial debut is weakened by a too-slow pace and a story that offers few real surprises.

Norton's high-energy acting is the only element that saves the picture from being a total loss.

Goldmember comes after years of escalating vulgarity have thrown the need for caution -- and cleverness -- out of fashion.

Oliver Stone's film paints a reasonably complex portrait of Morrison's life and times. [01 Mar 1991]

The actors, who portray a reunion that is more sparring match than love fest, strike occasional sparks.

A sensitive, nicely made character drama.

Blethyn, as Frank's wife, is less high-strung than usual, which is a boon.

Seraphim Falls is essentially one long, bleak stalk-and-kill action thriller.

Kathy Bates gives her most gripping performance since "Misery," also based on a Stephen King thriller. The picture is weakened by a rambling and inconsistent screenplay.

Still, I prefer a bit more drama in my political docudramas. The Conquest never really breaks out of its genre in the way that, say, "The Queen" or "Il Divo" or the more fictionalized "In the Loop" did.

Seems more clever than heartfelt, and whether you enjoy it may depend on how much you like Robert Altman's eccentric western "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," which it uncannily resembles.

This offbeat drama has more atmosphere than logic, but a few sequences are strikingly well acted and filmed.

The premise is more interesting than the movie, which takes several wrong turns on its way to an unconvincing conclusion.

I hate to sound per-Snickety, but this lemon of a movie is a sadly unfortunate event.

Playing a cantankerous, beer-swigging human wreck of a man for the umpteenth time, Nolte is very good but very familiar.

Director Wladyslaw Pasikowski has made the mistake of going about his business as if he were fashioning a horror film.

Woody Allen wrote and directed this inventive comedy, which has some good laughs but a very nasty edge.

The picture has energy to spare, but children won't get the movie-buff references that provide much of its humor. [04 Apr 1997, p.13]

Little about Maverick lingers in the mind once the final image has faded from the screen. But it's cleverly crafted, and you can't help enjoying it even when you know it's manipulating you as brazenly as a poker dealer with tricky fingers and a well-stacked deck.

Like its predecessor, it's a hugely ambitious picture...But also like its predecessor, it cares far more about action, adventure, and violence than feelings, relationships, and ideas.