Pedro Almodovar's Spanish drama is his most involving work since the comedy "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," but its mood of ironic melancholy doesn't hold up enough to make the picture a full success.

The story may be too slow and complicated for the youngest moviegoers.

Jake Gyllenhaal…the film’s only piece of believable acting.

Although this is a likable comedy-drama, it never quite balances its humanitarian message (disabled people fall in love like everyone else) with its standard-issue romantic angles.

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.

What he (Ball) intends as knife-edge realism instead comes across as another con job.

The story is spotty, but the acting is fine, especially when Walken is around.

The net effect is a barrage of jokes that strain to be outrageous - just as the marionette gimmick strives to be different - but wind up canceling each other out.

This violent Hong Kong thriller has more psychological depth than most of its kind, but ultimately seems like a pointless exercise in style.

At times, The Invasion comes across as a mishmash of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives."

This likable comedy-drama gets most of its oomph from acting.

What with the title and pedigree, no one would expect Eat Pray Love to be filled with thrilling action. But the word "movie" does imply movement, and almost nothing ever happens throughout the protracted two hours and 20 minutes.

The story offers more fast-moving intrigue than heartfelt emotion, but star performances by Daniel Auteuil and Catherine Deneuve lend it additional depth. [27 Dec 1996]

Carrey gives an awesome comic performance.. Look out for huge amounts of deliberately disgusting, gross-out humor, though.

Unlawful Entry would be an important film if it followed this scene with an intelligent look at the social, political, and institutional problems that lead to such incidents. Unfortunately, the movie isn't serious-minded enough to do this. What could have been an incisive examination of an urgently relevant subject turns into mere melodrama with the usual sex-and-violence twists. [14 July 1992, p.11]

The latest entry in this dubious enterprise is “Dumbo,” a perfectly lovely 1941 animated movie that has been transformed by director Tim Burton into a cloddish fantasia that never soars.

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

Paul Verhoeven's movie takes more action than ideas from Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel, which is just as well, considering the book's goofy suggestion that military veterans should control society from top to bottom.

De Niro, trying his ordinary-guy best not to be mannered, gives one of his most mannered performances.

Interesting for its historical content.

Cage is amusingly skanky, Molina is dependably arch, and Baruchel is engagingly down to earth. But do we really need to watch them play out this exhaustingly empty scenario?

A standard-issue slasher movie, stylishly shot, but with little to distinguish it from a long line of "Psycho"-spawned gorefests.

Goes on much too long, stretching a modest story into a marathon that outlasts its welcome by about 30 minutes.

A very uneven dark comedy.

Kingsley is amusing to watch, however, even though he overdoses on strangeness. He's like a superannuated hippie crossed with the swami he just played in "The Love Guru."

Hovering between "Last Action Hero" and "E.T.," this sci-fi extravaganza is bookended with violence but has some gentle moments in between.

Leo, in particular, seems poleaxed with good intentions. Her Lois wins the Most Understanding Wife award.

Doesn't develop enough momentum to justify its too-long running time.

For all its ambitions, though, the Coens' odyssey is a scattershot affair with too many tricks and twists for its own good.

After all these years of surviving everything that has been thrown at him, James Bond is finally being undone by his own team.

There's interesting material about Soviet history, but searching for answers about the revolutionary's spouse turns out to be less than engrossing.

This modestly produced drama isn't acted or directed with much flair, but it shows a welcome awareness of the complex links between personal and political impulses.

Pierce Brosnan wisecracks his way through the starring role with more aplomb than credibility.

More psychological realism and less showy cinema would have made this offbeat melodrama more memorable.

Talky and mostly humorless, but interesting as a reflection of Breillat's experiences directing her own popular film "Fat Girl" in 2001.

Based on Bennett's own experiences, the movie has no penetrating insights to offer, but it's acted and directed in an improvisational spirit well-suited to its ultra-low budget and digital-video technology.

It's as elegant as any movie around, though, and boasts strong acting by a distinguished cast.

This low-key drama is always warm and mellow, although it doesn't build much of an emotional charge.

The screenplay is so stale that even fans of the previous "Jurassic" installments might think this is one clone too many.

Written and directed by the clever Wachowski brothers, this is a sequel that only a die-hard fan could love. But those fans will love it very, very much.

Burns is one of the great entertainers of all time, but he's written out of the story much too soon, leaving us little to watch except Schlatter doing an endless Burns imitation. [08 Apr 1988, p.21]

While the story and acting are the opposite of subtle, young moviegoers may enjoy the action and suspense.

Eddie Murphy is one of the most alarmingly gifted comic actors America has ever produced but he persists in making comedies that are beneath him.

Much of the acting is solid, but earnest performances can't give the picture all the bite and excitement it sorely needs.

Horror buffs will find plenty of split-second suspense and in-your-face carnage, while others will scramble for the exit as quickly as the characters race away from their apocalyptic foes.

As gorgeous as it is to watch, Winged Migration suffers from a lack of organization.

It’s unfortunate, if predictable, that Hollywood found it necessary to almost entirely eliminate deep think in favor of deep action. As for Johansson, I have no big problem with cross-racial casting, but she’s so glum and seemingly uncomfortable here that you wonder if maybe she didn’t harbor the same misgivings as her detractors.

The drawn-out, lowbrow humor is either "love it" or "hate it," so it may not be your bag, baby.

Sincere acting lends the film a measure of dramatic dignity.

Heavily influenced by Quentin Tarantino's brand of quirky sensationalism, this high-energy saga by Paul Thomas Anderson goes a long way toward exposing the greed and stupidity of the pornography trade, then loses its moral compass and steers toward a sadly superficial ending.

Isn't terrible exactly, but it's bland, and in some ways that's worse. It's a romance posing as a detective story in which the solution is obvious and not worth the fuss.

This story is powerful enough without our being heavily coaxed all the time how to feel.

Director Susanne Bier and screenwriter Christopher Kyle (no, not the man depicted in “American Sniper”) aim for a tragic monumentality but hit very wide of the mark.

This thriller was overpraised in the '60s and it still looks hokey. The acting ranges from wooden to petrified: Day and Rex Harrison are at their least convincing, and John Gavin sounds like his voice was dubbed by someone barely more British than himself. [29 Jul 1987, p.19]

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

It delivers all the raunch and ribaldry its designated audience could hope for, but others may find it more deliberately disgusting than effervescently outrageous.

Gene Hackman is excellent when he isn't overdoing his patented nice-guy routine.

Too crisp and calculated to match the moods of its wild and woolly characters, and its interwoven subplots lead to predictable outcomes.

Certainly offbeat, but not on a level with director Kim's previous work about marginalized people.

The primary impression is lots of moping and mooning, plus a song at the beginning with some of the worst lyrics you've ever heard.

It's fun to watch superheroes who aren't quite at ease with their abilities, but "The Incredibles" - last year's similarly themed animated film - is livelier and funnier.

Alexandre Aja directs in full glop mode and the cast includes a few performers, including Ted Levine (from "Monk"), Robert Joy, and Kathleen Quinlan, who probably wish they were elsewhere.

Skip the first hour or so, but grab a seat in time for the surfing contest that climaxes the picture, complete with mile-high waves and the most graceful ocean-gliding this side of "The Endless Summer."

The story gets off to a slow start after its riveting documentary-style introduction, but heartfelt acting and unexpected plot twists eventually give it solid dramatic impact.

A country singer wagers that she can teach her trade to a New York cabbie, with predictable results. Directed by Bob Clark, who mostly exploits the presold personalities of stars Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone.

In its depiction of the Las Vegas nightclub scene and in its own cinematic strategies, the film is quite instructive about the intersection of sex, money, and entertainment in some areas of popular American culture. [29 Sept 1995]

All this gloomy masochism is made palatable because of the performers. And yet we must ask: Is this any way to show off two of our finest actors?

It's big, beautiful, and imposing. But there isn't much to it, and pretty pictures -- replacing ideas, not supporting them -- are its only real attraction.

I doubt The Gunman will do much to advance Penn’s foray into action-hero bankability, and that’s probably a good thing. He’s too fine an actor to be mired in nonstop shootouts while flashing his pecs and looking scowly.

The cast is terrific, the movie isn't... It all plays like the pilot for a series that wasn't picked up.

The movie has plenty of high-tech power, spinning out action so explosive you'll hardly notice how preposterous the story is or how cardboard-thin the characters are.

Newman's magnetic face isn't enough to raise this intermittently amusing thriller above the ordinary caper-comedy crowd.

My worst fears were confirmed almost from the start. In order to inject some pep into the proceedings, Law has been encouraged to play Wolfe as a motormouthed rhapsodist who seems less inspired than unhinged. He’s exhaustingly exuberant.

Plunges energetically into the 16th-century religious rebel's activities and philosophies. It dodges some significant issues in Luther's life, however, reducing its value as an educational film.

Less an American product than an international escapade, it's the kind of pigeonhole-resisting romp that Hollywood too rarely provides.

The idea of a Woody Allen movie about fame is enticing, but a meandering screenplay and uninspired acting make this one of his thinnest, tinniest films.

Paris Hilton also turns up, still trying to be famous for more than being famous. She has a ways to go.

There's good bad taste and then there's just plain bad bad, which is what describes most of Brüno.

Great cast, great atmosphere, little sense or first-rate suspense.

I enjoyed this movie more than the last two films from the Wachowskis, the interminable "Cloud Atlas" and "Speed Racer." On the other hand, "The Matrix" it's not.

Tasty while you take it in, but larded down with empty cinematic calories.

For a major sci-fi release in the Star Wars era, it's surprisingly slow and even maudlin.

Too many clichés and too much uneven acting dilute its impact.

The flamboyantly filmed story makes some telling points about adolescent life. But despite its oh-so-cynical mannerisms, it falls all over itself to flatter an allegedly self-absorbed and self-pitying teen audience. [7 April 1989]

The meandering story and channel-surfing style prevent it from gathering the emotional momentum it would need to get below the hero's skin and let us know what really makes him tick.

The multicultural cast gives a shred of substance to what's otherwise a standard adolescent gross-out flick.

Energetic acting helps compensate for a contrived script and directing that's sometimes as heavy as its cheerfully rotund characters.

Based on a popular book by Betty MacDonald, the story is silly at best, woefully predictable at worst. MacMurray and Colbert are in excellent form, though, and Louise Albritton heads a colorful cast of supporting players. [14 Oct 1987, p.21]

The story is an odd mixture of preachiness and paranoia, but the stars provide sizzling performances and the action moves at a lively clip.

Harrowing and imaginatively made.

The action is dynamically filmed and Willis is at his best. Suspense is soon hijacked by outright gore and grisliness, though.

The film is a so-so slog through a torrent of tired jokes.

The story's emphasis is on action, but there are some sensitive moments and interesting ideas along the way.

Director Claire Kilner and screenwriter Neena Beber don't walk the tightrope between comedy and drama skillfully enough to make either aspect work as well as it should.

Forgettable fun.

Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray give riotous performances, but be warned that the comedy is overloaded with gross-out humor from beginning to end.

The movie has almost enough corny appeal to offset its lack of originality, though, and Walken is fun as Cagliostro, the court's great prognosticator and all-around weirdo.