Eddie Murphy does his patented routines effectively, and the dialogue has some pungent moments, but the movie doesn't succeed as the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" update it would like to be.

A bit too neat and calculated to make the emotions ring really true.

This sensationalistic tale doesn't delve very far into the issues it raises.

The performances, especially by Hugh Dancy as a sexually confused rich kid, are overwrought, and the script, which Michael Cunningham ("The Hours") wrote in collaboration with Minot, is slack.

Parents will yawn, but younger children may enjoy the fun. [09 Aug 1985, p.24]

Far from a great film, but it certainly stretches the envelope.

Old-fashioned storytelling.

Its ideas are worth pondering, but as a movie it's less memorable than its interesting cast suggests.

Flashy but uninvolving crime thriller.

Christopher Hampton's film conveys the basic plot of Joseph Conrad's sinuous novel but loses the book's sardonic tone and psychological depth.

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]

Despite his fascinating subject and an impressive cast -- Sayles lets his story drift in too many directions, as if he'd lost his Florida road map somewhere along the way during his travels.

The settings and visual effects are imaginatively done, but the dialogue is silly and the plot is a mishmash, with echoes of everything from the "Aliens" movies to Michael Crichton's novel "Sphere," which pushes similar buttons a little more intelligently.

Barely engaging spy thriller.

By turns jokey, portentous, and pretentious, the movie immediately sizes up each of its protagonists and never budges from that assessment.

The most startling aspect of this slow-building horror movie is how unexpectedly it morphs from a quietly romantic suspense yarn to a flat-out tale of terror that may have some viewers hiding under their seats.

Solid acting helps the story stay earthbound when Aronofsky's filmmaking gets addicted to its own flashy cynicism, but the picture sometimes seems as dazed and confused as the situations it wants to criticize.

Meant to be a romp in the old Ken Kesey tradition, it's more like a dull drive with a bunch of leftover flower children.

The screenplay provides enough cute one-liners and love-struck speeches to give the comedy intermittent charm.

Has touching and instructive moments.

Kids may yawn at the movie's dawdling pace.

There is a germ of a good idea in the notion that an imaginary suitor can be more powerful than a real one. But director Alejandro Agresti isn't the man to pull it off.

Murphy gives one of his more-restrained performances, which suits the mood of carefully contained mayhem established by Steve Carr, the director.

The result is maddening, exasperating, occasionally exhilarating – and mostly boring.

Where's the real 007 when we really need him? Or better yet -- Calling Inspector Clouseau!

Fantasy-style plot doesn't mesh easily with the unsettling psychological themes woven through it.

In both its original 1973 version and its expanded 2000 edition, this hugely popular horror yarn is less a cleverly spun story than a disjointed collection of shockeroos, surrounding a few ghoulishly effective moments with overcooked plot twists and in-your-face vulgarity. [2000 re-release]

Never quite catches fire.

What keeps The Mosquito Coast from being a great movie is too much caution.

Scott's filmmaking is as blunt and bullying as the mayhem it portrays.

The comedy is tooooo loooooong for the two or three jokes it has to play with, and Kinnear does the picture's only three-dimensional acting.

The setting is cramped and the story is illogical, but it's suspenseful as long as you don't think about it very hard.

I wish I could say it's a resurrected classic but, alas, it's mostly a mess – a 2-1/2-hour mess no less.

For most of the movie, we feel as trapped as she does, and the lurching narrative seems anything but novelistic.

Speaking of Tarantino, who should never be allowed to act under any circumstance, he's cast in a key storytelling role, and it's one indication among many that the whole project is little more than a stunt.

Like the Oscar-nominated "Seabiscuit," though, Miracle fails to ring true as it tries to make a sporting event an all-embracing metaphor for the American way.

Hanks and Ryan are as appealing as ever, and Ephron's fashion-conscious camera gives the action a slickly attractive sheen.

Directed by Charles Shyer, who brings much imagination to the first half but loses all momentum in the homestretch. [04 Oct 1984, p.27]

The remake of Unfaithfully Yours is just a shadow of its source, using the basic plot and characters, but diluting Sturges's ideas. [23 Feb 1984, p.21]

Biopics about civil rights icons are usually staid affairs. Cesar Chavez, directed by Diego Luna, is no exception.

More cautionary than titillating...some of it (is) deliberately disturbing.

Carax's cinematic imagination makes it worth viewing by movie buffs with a sense of adventure and a tolerance for explicit sex.

A likable though slender documentary.

Ostensibly it’s a tradition versus progress fable. In actuality, it’s a movie furiously, perhaps intentionally, at odds with itself.

An engaging and sometimes gripping movie, if ultimately a superficial one. Reiner has mastered the surface skills of moviemaking, although the inner depths continue to elude him. [11 Dec 1992]

It doesn't have a speck of authentic heart -- you can bet its Hollywood creators wouldn't move to Alabama if their lives depended on it -- but if you belong to the growing legion of Witherspoon worshippers, this is definitely the movie of the week.

Dusted off and brought up to date, it's still the same old Capracorn – minus the populist pizzazz he might have provided.

The drama is likably low-key but builds little excitement, and Bowie's star billing says more about the power of his agent than the number of scenes he appears in.

Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams do their best with a silly screenplay, and there are a few genuine laughs along the way. [20 Dec 1991]

Starts quirky, grows steadily darker, doesn't build much excitement.

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

Inherently stale.

Wordy, wearying drama.

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

Rob Cohen's movie has flashes of wit, but there's little substance to the story, and Draco's charms are surrounded by too much graphic violence. [31 May 1996, p.13]

This visually inventive fantasy paints the wide screen with colorful effects, but its psychological and spiritual ideas rarely rise above "new age" fuzziness.

Besson's account of the Maid of Orleans presents itself as a celebration of a martyr's faith but shows more interest in the violence and hatred that surrounded her life.

The quartet appears to be mightily lacking in the brains and judgment departments, but at least it tries to do something about its failings, employing a traveling psychotherapist whose interventions and ruminations provide some of the film's most unwittingly amusing moments.

The subject is compelling but the story is very, very slow.

Their shenanigans rarely run short of explosive energy.

The movie makes a commendable effort to celebrate bravery and underscore the terrors of war, but its melodramatic approach is more spectacular than insightful.

The film actually deserves four stars for its imaginative style and astonishing suspense, zero stars for its shameless exploitation of violent shocks and loveless sensuality.

The story is likable if not memorable, and the Chinese settings lend the basically ordinary plot a touch of novelty.

This is not storytelling by a confident artist. Even Zhang's former mastery of visual form has become shaky, with a pedestrian handling of dramatic scenes and a surfeit of picture-postcard landscape shots.

Disney studios, director Randall Wallace, and his screenwriter Mike Rich, obviously targeting a "faith-based" audience à la "The Blind Side," lard the soundtrack with "Oh Happy Day" and readings from the Book of Job.

Medusa, at least, is fun to watch, and, as a bonus, we in the audience don’t have to worry about turning to stone (although, watching this film, your eyelids do get awfully heavy).

The Muslim women in “SATC2” are props in the froth. Come to think of it, so are Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda.

Burton is an imaginative director with a distinctive artistic vision, but his originality is nowhere to be seen in this by-the-numbers retread.

The story has some chillingly suspenseful episodes, although it's marred by overfamiliar themes and weak dialogue.

While you can't fault The Dancer Upstairs for lack of ambition, its tantalizing ingredients add up to a less impressive package than I'd hoped for. Malkovich should select a more manageable subject the next time he sits in the director's chair.

This romantic farce has a talented cast and energy to spare, but somehow the ingredients don't burn as brightly as one would expect from such promising ingredients.

Animated version of the Rogers & Hammerstein musical.

More concerned with quickening our pulses than broadening our minds.

Ingeniously crafted with flashes of intelligence, if not very memorable.

Gary Sinise is chilling as the villain, and the screenplay by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon shows some interest in class hostility and other social issues, although this doesn't extend far enough to allow the women of the story a chance to shine in their male-dominated surroundings.

The movie isn't boring, exactly. It's too nutty for that.

The facts of this true-life story are highly dramatic, and they'd have much more power without the sappy sentimentality Beresford needlessly adds to the movie.

Hammers home its tragicomic points too heavily for either its humorous or dramatic aspects to gather much emotional steam.

Along with some creaky plot mechanics in the last third of the story, this reduces the film to ordinary dimensions - a sharp but no longer resonant show.

The movie makes up in sincerity and goodwill what it lacks in originality and style.

A former gang member, his ten-year-old son, and Los Angeles street life are the main concerns of this uneven story, which isn't convincing enough as drama to achieve the consciousness-raising effect that appears to be its goal. [26 Oct 1992, p.12]

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

In the end, however, the story is too contrived and melodramatic to reach its full potential.

There's precious little to think about despite the screenplay's comic-philosophical musings on fate and coincidence.

Paints a sincere and serious portrait of the seductiveness of evil and the self-destructive nature of depravity.

Peregrym is a fresh-faced beauty and Bridges is enjoyably cranky, but the film is as bland as an Afterschool Special.

The overall effect is about the same -- slow start, then escalating suspense and violence. Today's shock-movie fans will enjoy shrieking at it, and others should skip it. In space, no one can hear you ask for your money back.

The acting is endearing and the story has great charm before predictability and sentimentality eventually take over.

Most of the movie is standard action fare, but the political commentary is interesting when it's allowed to surface.

This historical fantasy is too ambitious for its own good, but contains some striking imagery and likable performances.

As the corrupt, populist Louisiana governor Willie Stark, Crawford was such a swaggering behemoth that it would take Godzilla to upstage him. Sean Penn isn't quite that.

Well acted, capably directed, not as substantial as it might have been.

Although some of the acting is strong, the atmosphere is so relentlessly sleazy that many moviegoers will want to go long before the final credits.

One of those movies designed as an Oscar make-over for its star. It didn’t work in this case. Aniston was not nominated for Best Actress, perhaps because the film is so obvious about what it’s up to.

Plenty of surprises, almost all of them nasty.

Bottom line: Kingdom of Heaven is the most exciting action-adventure yarn so far this year. Just don't expect anything deeper.

Would have benefited from more flamboyant film clips and fewer folksy conversations with the garrulous old-timers it focuses on.

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.