The movie is a straightforward nuts-and-bolts affair of no particular consequence, except for Neeson’s performance, which rightly does not resolve the question: Was Felt acting nobly or vengefully?

Spielberg has filmed Empire of the Sun with great care, paying keen attention to every detail of its time and place. If the film ultimately seems flat and superficial, it's because Spielberg just isn't the right filmmaker for this kind of tough historical subject. [9 Dec 1987, p.21]

This is fire-breathing melodrama masquerading as social commentary.

War Dogs ends up being no better than its protagonists at delivering the goods.

The derby sequences are just OK, and the conflict between Bliss and her uncomprehending parents, played by Marcia Gay Harden and (a fine) Daniel Stern, is so predictable that you wish someone had rolled onto the set to whip it into shape.

Too much of The Names of Love is a joke book posing as a movie.

Director Wladyslaw Pasikowski has made the mistake of going about his business as if he were fashioning a horror film.

The picture has moments of raw emotional power, but these are overshadowed by lapses into needless vulgarity and sadistic violence, especially in a repulsive scene that lingers on the vicious brutalization of a helpless woman. [04 Mar 1994, p.1]

The “what if?” aspects of this true-life drama are so tantalizing that the movie’s workmanlike execution is doubly dissatisfying.

Chen Shi-Zheng, well regarded as an opera and theater director, makes his feature film debut.

Watching actors tap out code as big buzzing screens of digital data flash on the screen just doesn’t cut it.

For all the glam and swank, the film is essentially a bright, shiny, empty puzzle. The puzzlemaking by writer-director Tony Gilroy is clever but most frequently an end in itself.

The film has a creepy allure but, as movies featuring full-bore sexual gamesmanship often do, it wears thin.

Departures is sappy and wacky – not the best combination.

The chemistry may be good, the movie isn’t.

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

Who can really differentiate between these films anyway? In the end, they all devolve (evolve?) into clashing, clanging bots.

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

Most of the music is by New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, and it’s heartfelt without ever really touching the heart.

The presentation has verve. But the story is confusingly told - everything is NOT illuminated - and, as the seeker, Elijah Wood is a big blank.

Most of the time, however, we are watching pathology without benefit of insight.

When we last see a much older Moses en route to Canaan, we can at least be grateful that this film, unlike so many other movies these days, does not seem primed for a sequel.

If only there was less mush and more meat in this stew.

The movie becomes, perhaps inadvertently, a celebration of selling out.

For an ostensibly soul-deep movie like this to work, we need more than smirks and scowls.

A promising premise and some very good actors are smothered in goo in The Answer Man.

Adam Sandler plays a dual role in Jack and Jill, and he's a lot better as Jill than as Jack.

I suppose the relationship is Oedipal or primal or something or other, but mostly it’s just an excuse for Dolan to stage a series of gaudy shout-fests.