That may enough to pique your curiosity. It did mine, for a while, until it didn’t. To paraphrase what Brahms once told a young composer, what’s original in the film isn’t very good, and what’s good in it isn’t very original.

At least “Hidden Figures” was savvy enough to please its crowds. A United Kingdom, with its saintly good folk and sneering bad folk emptily exhorting, is closer to a dry historical tutorial.

Because most movies about Holocaust saviors feature Jews as victims rather than as rescuers, Walking With the Enemy, by contrast, has a special cachet. But the film is as dramatically inert as its origins are inspirational.

The movie is all nuance and it continually wafts away into artiness.

It's rare for an Egyptian movie to look so closely and unflinchingly at class conflict and other forms of social disarray, but lively acting keeps the story engaging even when it wanders and meanders.

The screenplay has some amusing punch lines, and Samantha Mathis steals a scene or two as a park ranger who never expected so much excitement on her usually peaceful turf. [9 Feb 1996, p.13]

The film has so many moodswings that watching it induces whiplash, and just about everybody in it, from Winslet on down to Judy Davis, playing the dressmaker’s crotchety mother, flagrantly overdoes it.

A deluge of funny, inane jokes.

Director Koepp relies more heavily on editing tricks than old-fashioned atmosphere.

Tries to be a new "Something Wild"; ends up being tamer than tame.

Funny dialogue, crisp black-and-white cinematography, and a well-chosen cast of mostly stage-trained actors raise this eccentric fantasy a notch above the ordinary.

The first half is high-quality science fiction, the rest is a high-tech chase adventure with a gleeful yen for destructive thrills.

The impressive presences of Audrey Hepburn and Ben Gazzara help just a little. Otherwise, it's a hollow and very minor affair. [31 Dec 1981, p.23]

This indirect rehash of "To Catch a Thief" trades Hitchcockian shrewdness for the slickest kinds of Hollywood glitz, gloss, and vulgarity.

Adam Sandler is funny as the volatile hero, and the screenplay is just abrasive enough to keep the story surprising.

The action is carefully calculated to captivate a wide audience while allowing hard-core trekkies to savor nuances of plot and personality.

Directed by John Landis with a surprising amount of class, though he lets some of his old ''Animal House'' vulgarity slip ostentatiously into the action.

Cheadle's innate goodness is the film's main dilemma, since the truth under the story's surface (which we won't reveal here) can be contained for only so long, and with ever-diminishing dramatic returns.

At a time when most movies try far too little, I don't like berating Excalibur for taking on too much. It's just that Mr. Boorman never quite achieves what he attempts. [23 April 1981, p.19]

It’s a rote piece of work that, oddly, also feels dated even at a time when the press and the White House have rarely been more at odds.

Most of the laughs come near the beginning, before Rick Friedberg's klutzy directing becomes annoyingly monotonous.

Its eventual failure to make sense indicates that it's intended more as a surrealistic fable than an ordinary sex-and-violence adventure.

Spacey is almost as swinging as Darin was, but his filmmaking leans toward tried-and-true formulas.

Gooding and De Niro bring their characters to vivid life despite the unsubtle screenplay and hyperactive music score.

The mood is awfully dark for an escapist fantasy, though, and the high-tech mayhem gets repetitious.

Enough odd twists to be mildly interesting.

At a time when much public education is in a state of perilous decay, one wonders whether this sentimental ode to old-school dignity and privilege is in touch with today's pressing realities.

Has good intentions, but its exaggerated celebration of quick-witted improvisation ultimately trivializes the human and historical horrors evoked by the story.

Look for a cameo by a movie star whose initials are J.D.

Intermittently insightful, but a disappointment from the talented Munch.

Darkly elegant cinematography helps compensate for awful dialogue and lackluster acting.

This is one of those movies that profits from very low expectations. If you go in expecting something dreadful, be assured: It's only near dreadful.

It's a creepy and disturbing movie, but there's not a lot going on behind people's eyes. The soullessness lacks soul.

The pacing soon grows dull and the frequent narration is a nonstop string of clichés, platitudes, and truisms that should have been flung out the cutting-room window.

Petroni's directorial debut is too bittersweet and atmospheric for its own good, wrapping a potentially strong story in too many layers of misty emotion.

Roberts brings a sense of personal conviction to her part -- she's quite a feminist herself -- and as much sense of humor as the corny screenplay allows.

What may have started out as a comedy devolves into quasi-Stephen King territory.

Cobb would be a more persuasive picture if the filmmakers had a clearer idea of their intentions.

Park employs all manner of cinematic derring-do – shock cuts, off-kilter compositions, discontinuous storytelling – all to no great purpose other than to make us go “Wow.” A more appropriate response might be, “Huh?”

This time it's just chasing, fistfighting, and shooting. A disappointment from the director of "Bloody Sunday."

Wargnier chooses a sweeping title and a sweeping topic, then turns everything into half-baked melodrama, heavy on over-the-top emotion but light on subtlety and ideas.

Light, slow, funny one-liners.

The atmosphere is more compelling than the plot, but the story does pack a surprise or two.

Rowlands is superb, as usual, and Garner partners her with the grace of a dancer. Cassavetes's directing style is slow and stilted, though, indicating yet again that his notion of moviemaking is the opposite of everything his father, the great John Cassavetes, stood for.

It probably won't make a jot of difference to all the screaming tweeners lining up to see this movie, but The Twilight Saga: New Moon is not wonderful.

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

Beneath its regrettably banal surface, White Noise raises the creepy question of whether intimidating, even malign forces may be lurking in those fancy gadgets that fill our living rooms and offices.

Moviegoers tired of ethnic humor will find plenty to complain about.

Frances McDormand and Patti LuPone are solid as his girlfriend and ex-wife, respectively, and James Franco is just right as his wayward son. They're a talented team. Too bad the movie doesn't live up to their abilities.

This is basically a 10th-tier rehash of the Indiana Jones genre, laced with moments that are actually clever and exciting. Dawson is alluring, Scott is smug and bratty, Walken is terrific, and The Rock is, well, The Rock.

The movie gains a few points for its colorfully filmed Boston background and bright bossa-nova music. But it's filmed in a fake-spontaneous style that's as stale and artificial as the relationships between the characters.

Different viewers might find different portions worthy of anything from zero to four stars, but anyone with a faint heart or weak stomach should stay miles away from it. [24 Oct. 1997, p.13]

Fans of the genre will enjoy it if they're not distracted by trite plot twists.

After arousing high expectations, Runaway Jury turns out to be a trial to sit through.

This disaster film has action from the get-go; but its awesome special effects hide a laughably corny plot, and for a picture about terror from the depths, its characters are ridiculously shallow.

The movie raises more interesting issues - often connected with the hazy lines between appearance and reality - than it's prepared to coherently explore.

Fans of ultraviolent sword-and-sorcery nonsense will have a good time; others will head for the exit. [19 Feb 1993, Arts, p.10]

[The Coen Brothers] sweat and strain to deliver more of the same cinematic ingenuity, but the result seems more nervous than inspired. Relax, fellas! [13 Mar 1987]

Written and directed by Mark Waters, who strives for David Mamet-style punchiness but doesn't develop the quirky momentum that would carry the deliberately out-of-kilter story past its implausibilities.

This sentimental drama is wildly uneven as it switches between ballpark scenes, which are very involving, and romantic episodes, which are badly overplayed.

The filmmaking technique of writer-director Kevin Smith has matured since the raunchy "Clerks," his popular debut movie; but although his dialogue is often witty, he still relies on blunt sexual humor to get his point across.

A central dictum of any mystery thriller is this: Make your protagonists, especially your villains, worth caring about. The Girl on the Train, directed by Tate Taylor from a script by Erin Cressida Wilson, falls down on the job.

Penn is always entertaining when he's playing characters drunk with depravity. Gangster Squad could use more of him.

The story soon lapses into familiar private-eye formulas, though, and the characters aren't interesting enough to hold much attention on their own.

The picture is intriguing and obnoxious in equal measure; even Berkowitz gets tired of the game before it's over, but there are some laughs and surprises along the way.

Bids for originality by focusing on an offbeat profession. Every other aspect is pretty stale, though, from the smart-alecky characters to the romantic-triangle plot.

(Kerrigan) remains an insightful stylist with impressively high artistic standards.

The movie has homophobic touches, though, and with so many Asian characters, some viewers may wonder why every single one is portrayed as either a hapless victim or a wicked villain.

Shyamalan remains a stilted screenwriter, but Roger Deakins's cinematography is spooky, creepy, eerie all the way.

An unconvincing talkathon that might have worked better on the stage as a two-man showpiece.

The premise is promising, but Herzfeld cares more about sensationalism than substance, and portions of the picture are far nastier than they had to be.

Matt Damon and Robin Williams give touching performances, but Gus Van Sant's filmmaking is surprisingly ordinary.

True-blue golf buffs should find it a treat. For others it's no deeper than a tin cup on a putting green.

Bernardo Bertolucci's romantic drama has great visual beauty but little new to say about life or love.

The whole enterprise comes across like a first draft.

This throwback to the outmoded blaxploitation genre is skillfully filmed by Dickerson, but has little else to offer besides cheap, violent thrills.

The story is a retread of the old "Exorcist" and "Omen" formats, but it delivers as much action and spectacle as fans of the genre could want.

Could we please declare a moratorium on funny-sad movies about dysfunctional families, especially families that come together for the holidays?

Take the Lead mixes classical dance with hip-hop gyrations and features perhaps the most scrubbed set of delinquents since "West Side Story."

Provides a compassionate look at problems of old age that Hollywood rarely bothers to treat seriously.

Too bad the action scenes rarely rise above standard kung-fu comedy, diluting the film's otherwise considerable entertainment value.

The action is as grisly as it is surrealistic.

The mood is often more coarse, crude, and nasty than needed to make his cautionary points and also by that "distancing effect," which diminishes whatever feelings of empathy or sympathy the story might otherwise inspire in its audience.

The plot is familiar from decades of earlier bank-robbing sagas - the classic "Bonnie and Clyde" seems to have been a particular inspiration for its overall tone - and neither the action nor the dialogue rings meaningful changes on the genre.

Just sweet enough to avoid being negligible.

It's a pity that such vital, thought-provoking material has been rendered so lifeless and inauthentic on the screen.

The material is familiar and the ending is corny, but Huston's acting and directing keep the comedy-drama likable if not very imaginative.

The movie tries to outdo "Thelma and Louise" by upping the number of heroines, but it lacks the moral seriousness to tackle its sensitive material.

George Clooney looks great in a cape, but this fourth installment in the series has invested so much capital in razzle-dazzle special effects that it hardly matters whose head is under the pointy-eared helmet.

Its screenplay veers in highly questionable directions before reaching a mean-spirited climax that outweighs Ron Howard's workmanlike filmmaking and the contributions of a star-powered cast.

All of the actresses are fun to watch, and as much attention appears to have been lavished on their outfits and hairdos as on their high-flying fight scenes.

Uneven but always energetic and sometimes very funny.

Director Marc Forster and screenwriter Jason Keller take the easy way out by turning Childers into a Bible-thumping Rambo. Just because the Childers of this movie is not, to put it mildly, introspective, is no reason why the filmmakers had to be equally dense.

Wong Kar-Wai, whose energetic and inventive style isn't enough to give the shallow story the substance and resonance it needs.

If the picture is often less spellbinding than it wants to be, it's partly Hoffman's fault for creating fantasy moods through traditional stage devices -- lavish props, cute makeup, peek-a-boo costumes -- that seem rather tame for this age of morphed-up visual surprises.

Well acted and ably directed, if not very probing about its subject of underclass youth.

The plot is sordid and predictable -- indiscriminate nightclubbing leads to escalating drugs, promiscuity, and violence. Things perk up cinematically in the last few scenes, but by then it's almost too late.

Home of the Brave is a milestone of sorts. But it's a formulaic, overacted piece of work that rarely delves deep.