With all the money expended on this movie, couldn’t anybody come up with a few good lines in between all the kabooms?

The Upside is a movie that somehow works, at least some of the time, even when it shouldn’t.

Almost every scene is pitched for dewy sympathy. Madsen, a strong actress who might have matched Freeman, is portrayed in varying shades of blandness. Even Freeman, good as his is, is held back here. His rock bottom isn't very rocky, and far from bottomless.

Virtually every person in the story is fabulously cute, picturesquely forlorn, adorably ditzy, or winsomely philosophical. In short, there's plenty of smooth storytelling but not a hint of reality here.

Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston give mature performances as the bereaved parents, and David Morse brings an offbeat touch to the basically decent man who traumatized their lives.

Sean Connery retains some self-respect as the doctor, but the rest of the movie pulls up very short. [16 Sep 1994, p.15]

The director, Taylor Hackford, doesn't have the cinematic savvy to sustain so many tensions in a meaningful way; and the screenplay strays far over the line between incisive political comment and heavy-handed Red-baiting.

It’s all terribly cliché-ridden and predictable, and the best I can say for it is that Shannon and Gugino do their best to convince us otherwise.

The movie means well, but neither its emotions nor its performances ring very true.

Sensitive acting by Morgan Freeman and stylish directing by Gary Fleder can't overcome the bottom-line pointlessness of the movie's melodramatic material, which never achieves the dark resonance that helped "The Silence of the Lambs" get under the skin of many moviegoers.

Anthony doesn't have a large emotional range as an actor, and neither does Lopez. Still, the musical numbers, which constitute a hefty portion of screen time, are thrilling.

The movie is gorgeously filmed and contains some fascinating lore about life in northern climes. But the plot is tritely predictable and far-fetched. Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, and Vanessa Redgrave are among the performers who deliver less than their best.

The stagebound setting gets boring; the action doesn't build a steady momentum; and the characters do far too much hanging around until the camera's ready to point at them again.

Soft, sentimental, and as unlike real family life as you can get.

Even by Farrelly standards, the film is a washout.

May find some fans among female teens. But even they may decide the project cares more about quick profits than real entertainment value, since the signs are hard to miss.

Influenced by Billy Wilder's classic "Ace in the Hole," this dark comedy-drama rambles on too long and strains credibility at times.

Nobody in it seems to possess a nervous system.

Potter's trademark devices are all present, including the way characters burst into songs lip-synced to vintage recordings on the sound track.

This variation on the "Rear Window" format works best when director Noyce gives free rein to Washington's thoughtful charm.

The movie's somber message is worth heeding, and the acting is mostly excellent.

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.

The movie takes no particular stance on the controversies surrounding its heroine, seen by some as a self-serving egomaniac and others as a tireless champion of the poor. Nor can much insight be gleaned from Madonna's energetic but oddly impersonal performance.

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.

Strong acting and smartly tuned-in directing turn a run-of-the-mill detective story into a striking, sometimes harrowing blend of horror and suspense.

The happy endings in "HTYMP," as sweet as they are to experience, seem more engineered than inevitable.

It's a moderately enjoyable escapade that isn't quite clever enough for adults and not quite imaginative enough for children.

There’s something off-putting about this film’s optimism: After all, how many people can afford to do what Crowley did?

There's heavy influence from the "Brave New World" brand of dystopian fantasy, but engaging performances and a stylized visual approach lend it originality.

Hackman gives a powerful performance as the killer, and the storytelling is often gripping. But the film contains much extremely offensive language and gratuitous depictions of violence, some of it aimed at children, not needed to get the plot across.

This strikingly unusual movie is at once an old-fashioned melodrama, a boldly stylized spectacle, and a very grim fairy tale, acted and directed with originality and flair.

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.

Violence Hitch would have found way beyond what's necessary. Horror fans will find effective shivers, though.

The pace is a little too languid, and the vulgarity a little too frequent, for the movie to work as intended.

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

Everywhere he goes he asks if anybody knows bin Laden's whereabouts – as if anybody is going to tell him! Why should we accompany him on his self-aggrandizing trip?

There's a great movie to be made about the survivors of Woodstock Nation and their children. But in order to make that movie, you first have to respect the ideals of that generation enough to at least give them their due.

What begins as a twisted sex romp turns film noir-ish. Guthe is so anxious to show us what a larcenous tramp Mini is that he never shows us any other sides to her.

Not a sterling example of how to make a high-toned weepie, let alone a serious examination of trauma.

As summer franchise superhero flicks go, it's tolerable.

I would imagine that even those who line up for this film will be somewhat let down, if only because it's clear that most of the juicy stuff will arrive in Part 2 – which won't be released until next November.

This thinly autobiographical gangsta odyssey never achieves liftoff, and Jackson is unconvincing.

It's disconcerting to see Virginia Madsen, who was so marvelous in her 2004 comeback role in "Sideways" reduced to playing the terrified wife here.

One dramatic ploy that doesn't work is the casting of Demi Moore as Tracy Edward, a homicide detective intent on capturing the Thumbprint Killer. Moore gave a rare good performance as the washed up diva in "Bobby," but her stridency here is grating.

Fans of Jacquelyn Mitchard's novel may find enough echoes of the book to justify the price of admission. But others can see this sort of thinly crafted melodrama in TV movies every week. For free.

A pleasant experience, if not the dazzling entertainment Lopez fans were hoping for.

Much of the style strains too hard to be cute, but true romantics may shed copious tears of sympathy and empathy.

Weitz doesn't have the chops for satire, let alone black comedy.

The great Ennio Morricone, still going strong at 87, wrote the marvelous film score.

Schnabel and his collaborators get points for taking on a crucial and underrepresented viewpoint. If only the result were more compelling.

Even the "surprise" appearance of Keith Richards, as the scurvy father of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, has already been hyped to death in the advance press.

Both Jolie Pitt and Pitt have demonstrated their chops in far better movies. I suspect the problem here is that there was no one around to tell them, “Please don’t. Please. Don’t.”

Like a nincompoop version of "The Usual Suspects."

After a powerful opening, when we see the first victim suddenly go blind while driving in traffic, the film devolves into a dystopian freak show and wastes many wonderful performers, including Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore.

Blanchett miraculously gives a good performance, even when saddled with lines like this one, to Clive Owen's Sir Walter Raleigh: "In another world, could you have loved me?"

At times, Pride and Glory seems to be about a war between actors, not cops. Nobody comes off well.

Colorful and cute. It would be better if it weren't quite so sitcommy and if it didn't outlast its ideas.

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.

Slow, beautifully filmed, Nolte's Jefferson implausible.

The director of this jamboree is appropriately named Olivier Megaton.

The mystery of the dual plot line is also a trick – a very cleverly executed one, which baffles the audience by exploiting their ingrained responses to certain cinematic conventions. I didn't figure it out until moments before the big reveal.

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.

Wilson has a gawky affability here that helps redeem much that might otherwise seem tasteless (as opposed to tasteless-but-funny).

Bacon lavishes his camera on her (Sedgwick) in various states of dress and undress, but the script, by Hannah Shakespeare - talk about having to live up to a name! - is a cheat. It rarely expands on the boy's crises in having to deal with such a mother.

Resembles a fast-and-flashy variation on "The Sixth Sense," with touches of "The Matrix" as a bonus.

Caine puts all his formidable talent into pulling this off, but Jewison's directing and Roland Harwood's screenplay (based on Brian Moore's novel) provide a regrettably shaky foundation for him to build on.

Barrymore and Busey walk away with the acting honors, but no aspect of the picture is more than mildly entertaining.

A promising feature-film debut.

It may not be much of a movie, but it's a terrific concert.

Fanboys, directed by Kyle Newman, doesn't delve into the mania of fandom, it exploits it.

It may not matter to audiences that this film...is junk. But shouldn’t it matter at least to Hawn and Schumer?

At times this indie is as repetitive and self-indulgent as its protagonist, but it captures a bit of the madness of being unrequitedly in love.

Intended as a parody of B-movie fantasies from the '50s, this satire more directly lampoons kiddie thrillers like "Captain Video," putting it perilously close to the pop-culture trash it aims to mock.

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

Too bad the acting is uneven. And the ineptly done English subtitles will have you laughing in all the wrong places.

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

Some scenes are just silly, others are dead-on uproarious. Ditka, a real-life football legend, is a real find as our hero's assistant.

One of a kind, turning Foreman trademarks such as self-satirical acting and out-of-nowhere music into powerful elements of an outlandish story.

Judged by the standards of ordinary filmmaking, it's as strange, suggestive, and surreal as other Lynch pictures have been. Judged by the standards of Lynch's own career, however, it's amazingly stale and second-hand… [and] contains not a single moment of genuinely felt emotion. [1 Sept 1992]

Country Strong is the latest and, in many ways, the least impressive entrant in the achy-breaky sweepstakes.

As a movie, it's mediocre.

The opening action sequence, unrelated to the main story, is nicely done, but after that it's all downhill.

The result is fine fantasy fun.

Spoiled by its simplistic portrait of people from the Mideast as incorrigibly violent and untrustworthy.

Solomon keeps the drama generally clear and interesting, though some touches make the film-noir plot seem too pretentious.

While the production is attractive in a calendar-photo sort of way, there's not a speck of genuine feeling in its glossy images.

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]

Taylor is utterly believable even when the screenplay (from an Anne Tyler novel) is too self-consciously quirky, and Pearce nicely portrays the guy she obsesses over.

Raimi’s film is supposed to be about magic, but magic is in scant supply.

Ratner, who has been accurately dubbed a "fauxteur," does an OK job keeping the action swirling, especially in the finale atop the Eiffel Tower.

In more ways than one, MacFarlane is trying to outgross Mel Brooks.

While the story has few surprises, parts of it are amusing and the performances are convincing.

It’s all third-rate “Pink Panther” stuff, and Brosnan, eager to play down his 007 bona fides, overcorrects.

Polanski's directing is marvelously assured and Depp is always fun to watch.

Fiction and fantasy to evade reflection on the world we actually live in.

The movie is visually impressive, but Ishii's virtuoso style can't overcome the flatness of the comic-book story he's telling.

The result is what you might call a mass-audience art film. It doesn't entirely succeed, but it's certainly a change from today's standard mysteries and horror movies.

Boorman treats this moving, important subject with restraint, tact, and candid views of horrors suffered by the nation.