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

This woozily uplifting saga is big on homilies and deficient in just about everything else.

How does all this play out for those of us – i.e., me – who have not been staying up nights fretting over the origins of the X-Men and Women? The answer is: Fairly well.

It's not only light, it's thin. It's self-deprecating to a fault. Reynolds is required to practically wink at the audience, as if to say,"I know this looks silly."

Although there's quite a bit of nudity and sex, the potentially sensationalistic story is acted with sincerity and directed with a creative eye.

The movie is lively, funny, and endearing until melodramatics and sentimentality take over in the last few scenes.

This well-meaning drama was made with obvious passion.

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.

This belated "reimagining" is as beguiling as a dried-out palm tree.

The animated action holds few surprises for grown-ups, but the cute characters and fetching designs should enthrall young children. [14 Aug 1987, p.23]

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).

Rodin, directed by Jacques Doillon and starring Vincent Lindon as the great Parisian sculptor, does not, to put it charitably, add to the very small roster of Great Artist movies (such as “Lust for Life” and “Vincent & Theo”).

Such a feeble excuse for an action comedy that it's already taken pride of place in my upcoming worst-movies-of-2011 list.

The comically tinged action is as lively as it is brainless, and it revels in violence a bit less eagerly than many thrillers of its ilk.

The movie's real spectacle is the sight of so many talented people slogging through such idiotic material.

Socially committed realism and screwball comedy don't mix easily. That's the main reason that Teachers is a mess. [02 Nov 1984, p.25]

A more contrived and tenuous premise you would be hard-pressed to find, although, since this is a romantic comedy, suspension of disbelief comes with the territory.

The best thing The Edge of Love could do for you is to send you back to Thomas's poetry. Dash this folderol.

Punchy, cleverly stylized, but utterly empty yarn about a feisty young woman who welds by day, disco-dances by night, and dreams of the day when she can devote her life to her art.

Levinson made a great political comedy once, "Wag the Dog," but that had a script by David Mamet. Here, Levinson seems to be torn between making a political jest and a suspense thriller. Neither works.

It's about time Eastwood and Reynolds faced off - and I, for one, am glad they do it with barely hidden smiles. [06 Dec 1984, p.49]

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.

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

The movie morphs into a deconstructed remake of "Indecent Exposure" and it's downright riveting, with Campbell doing her best acting to date.

Practically every gag in this movie, and there are scores of them, is milked dry. When the gags aren’t very good to begin to with, this is a prescription for disaster.

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

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

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

As featherweight as its title, but Lyonne gives a winning performance and the mischievous story packs a few good laughs.

Sit this one out.

The still youthful-looking Sarandon playing a grandmother is a jolt, especially since she doesn’t resemble the doddering roustabout she’s supposed to be playing. Maybe that’s why the director Ben Falcone (McCarthy’s husband and, with her, the film’s co-writer) gives Sarandon a full head of gray hair.

Annie turns out to be a reasonably entertaining movie.

Directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg work up a stormy sea-parting finale that is better than anything in “The Ten Commandments.” Again, the trick to enjoying this film is to expect nothing.

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.

Some slow and vulgar moments aside, it's a minor treat for viewers who don't mind keeping their expectations low. [11 Oct 1985, p.25]

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

It seems to have had the opposite effect on the director's taste, as she strives for new levels of raunchiness.

A lot more violent and a tad less creepy than the 1974 original, the much-changed remake delivers enough gory, belligerent mayhem to keep horror fans screaming.

No amount of technical skill can substitute for genuine shivers, and in the fright department this picture rarely lives up to its hype.

The special effects are extra special. The screenplay is idiotic, though, and Diesel speaks his dialogue like a Sylvester Stallone clone who never finished third grade.

The best thing about the film is the majestic mountain vistas, shot in Canada. You can practically inhale them.

Nora Ephron's comedy tries to be sweet, hip, innocent, and sophisticated all at the same time, and it doesn't take long for these contradictory goals to cancel one another out.

This slick doodle of a movie is nothing so much as an advertisement for itself.

This fact-based drama is very well-meaning but also cloying, sentimental, and simplistic. Gooding's fake-toothed grin deserves an Oscar for best makeup, though.

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

Director Vadim Perelman is big on slo-mo lyrical effects and confusing time shifts, making the movie unnecessarily arty and detracting from what could have been a searing psychological study.

This should all be risible except that Dowdle, who has worked in the horror genre, knows how to amp the action and keep the terror taut.

It's not the retro attitudes in "Confessions" that bother me (at least not much). It's the lack of laughs.

The star's over-the-top energy isn't enough to make this hopelessly vulgar, numbingly repetitious farce worth watching.

Poor writing and directing are the culprits - and whatever possessed the gifted Moore to make her role a nonstop Diane Keaton imitation? There oughta be a law!

Great premise, but the ensuing trials and tribulations - not to mention hapless attempts at comedy - are as off-key as a karaoke scene in which Hudson sounds worse than any audition Simon Cowell has ever had to sit through.

The idiocy of the film's conceit is that Simon recruits innocents like Will to carry out these vigilante killings.

There are many tantalizing bits, but the overall result is a simplistic story wrapped in barely explained quantum physics and new-age sound bites. Fascinating and frustrating in about equal measure.

Poetic conceits only work if they're poetic.

The whole enterprise comes across like a first draft.

The action is fast, furious, and occasionally quite funny.

The film has enough wild driving to satisfy any "French Connection" fan or "Bullitt" buff, but there's precious little for anyone else to enjoy. 2 foolish + 2 flashy = 4 get it!

Robin Williams is no Fred MacMurray, but he plays the hero with his customary energy.

As generic as its title.

Tennant's featherweight comedy is clearly pitched at the date-movie crowd, and couples may enjoy it if they can get past the picture's simplistic ethnic stereotypes and its willingness to wish away every real-life family problem the characters will surely face after the feel-good finale.

The movie has promise as a psychological thriller, but the filmmakers show far more interest in chases and shoot-outs than characters and ideas.

If you're in the mood for razor-sharp satire, this is the most refreshingly outrageous movie of the season.

Don't expect much from the scratch-and-sniff "odorama" gimmick; the mischievous John Waters set a higher standard for that novelty in "Polyester" (1981).

The staging of the physical comedy in The Pink Panther is not always adept - director Shawn Levy is no Blake Edwards - but Martin, who co-wrote the screenplay, keeps spinning in his own orbit anyway. And what an orbit it is.

There's more than enough gruesomeness to keep hard-core horror fans screaming, but others should stay a million miles away - or 2 million, if spiders make you squirm. [12 Jun 1998, p.B2]

Crossing Over is not a success but make no mistake: There is great drama to be found in these streets.

As Judah Ben-Hur – full names, please – Huston is serviceable, but he’s a finer actor than this costumed kitsch allow him to be. As Judah’s boyhood best friend and adoptive brother, Messala, against whom Judah will eventually square off in the Roman Circus, Toby Kebbell has even less to work with than Huston, and he bears a disconcerting resemblance to motivational guru Tony Robbins.

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

Stoner jokes, awful gags, and just stupid stuff equate to one bad movie.

As clumsy as its title.

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

Only part of it is in 3-D, but youngsters should enjoy pulling their special specs on and off at appropriate moments.

The only surprise to me about this movie is that there no jokes about kilts – a serious omission in an otherwise entirely predictable farce.

A director of Frankenheimer's stature deserves less sensationalistic material, and so does his audience.

Perhaps Nair believes that heroism in our tabloid era has become degraded. If so, she overcorrected. Amelia is so pure in heart that it slides right off the screen.

Was Paper Man worth making? Captain Excellent and I would probably differ on that one.

Daft, excessive, boring.

This isn't a Ferrara classic like "King of New York," but even his less- memorable pictures carry an eccentric kick no other director could duplicate.

Any resemblance (except qualitatively) to "An Officer and A Gentleman" is strictly unaccidental.

What little plot there is involves drug-running and is just about as disposable as everything in this paltry excuse for a movie.

One thought that occurred to me while pacing myself through Flypaper: With the economy being what it is, will there be a rash of bank robbery movies?

Coil up with a tub of popcorn, get a stranglehold on your soda - this is a creepy, action-packed boat ride down a jungle river with lots of huge snakes dropping by for man-sized snacks.

The overlong comedy has few laughs and flirts far too much with racist, homophobic humor. A waste of a fine cast.

To see Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in The Tourist is like watching a chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong.

Filmmakers run out of ideas long before the final.

Given the decibel level of this movie, it's a miracle that these guys were able to give creditable performances. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the achievement: Imagine delivering a stirring rendition of the Gettysburg Address while standing under Niagara Falls.

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

Hammer plays the Lone Ranger as a clueless, stolid square, and the resulting contrast with Depp’s cartoonishness isn’t odd-couple funny, just blah.

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

It's a lot more cornball – i.e., enjoyable – than "The Tree of Life," which tried for some of the same things. Utopia, with its big blue skies and peachy-keen people, may not rank right up there with Shangri-La, but it's close enough.

Clocking in at 160 minutes, this interminable movie comes across like a rough cut. Perhaps Lee believed its length would give it gravitas. The opposite is true.

It's fun to watch for a while. But the movie runs much too long, and a few funny bits aside, most of the comedy writing is lame.

Comedy that seems designed to be as bad as it can be.

The screenplay aims high in terms of humanity and complexity, but director Hoge drains it of energy with listless meanderings that provide more yawns than insights.

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.

It's a bewildering mix of very smart and very dumb, but the cast, which also features a hilarious Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd as the Cheney-esque ex-vice president, and Hilary Duff as a Turaqistan airhead pop star, is tiptop.

Let's look at the bright side. If this movie bombs as it deserves to, we won't have to sit through "Analyze Those" a few years from now!