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.