The trite story has plenty of distasteful moments, but Wahlberg and Yun-Fat justify their growing reputations as capable Hollywood actors.

Some of the material is dramatic, other bits are dull.

Energetic acting and directing make it a less exasperating experience than it might have been.

Tomb Raider, sloppily directed by Roar Uthaug, would not be worth watching without Vikander, who darts, leaps, and pummels her way through this mediocre escapade with a winning fierceness that makes you wish she had paired up with Indiana Jones in his heyday.

The humor is more childish than raunchy, but it's interesting to see that becoming a big-time Broadway impresario hasn't led Waters to sell out his affection for gross-out gags.

Araki graduates from his usual obsession with teenage angst in this neon-lighted comedy, but fails to hit the visual and verbal high notes he strains so hard to reach.

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.

Its main value is the prolonged look it gives of the late artist Basquiat.

Hopkins has been fitted out prosthetically to resemble Hitchcock and he does a reasonably good job of impersonating him, but it's a foredoomed effort.

They should call this overloud, underwhelming movie "Real Steal."

Loses its way in a crime-movie subplot and a less-than-believable love affair.

Is this misogyny, as some insist, or a critique of misogyny, as others say? Many moviegoers, grossed out by the film's gothic approach to medical matters, won't watch long enough to find out which is the answer. [30 Sept 1988]

There's nothing wrong with it, exactly. But there's nothing to recommend it, either, except its generally good nature, which gets rathers strained during an overlong climax full of speeding cars and exploding motorboats. [10 Sep 1981, p.19]

It comes on strong, but in its bloody heart of hearts it’s no more resonant than one of those old Vincent Price-Edgar Allan Poe contraptions – and less entertaining, too.

It starts with a promising angle, portraying the perennial conflict between the Federation and the Klingons as an allegory for real East-West relations. But the screenplay does little to capitalize on this. The result is an ordinary science-fiction adventure. [12 Dec. 1991, p.14]

You meet some fascinating personalities during this uncomfortable voyage.

Films borrow tricks from pictures made years ago -- try to watch Bourne without thinking of "The Manchurian Candidate."

A spicy critique of tabloid TV is buried in romantic-comedy material that strains too hard for cuteness. Ditto for Murphy's acting.

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.

This is standard plot material in most respects, and Kasdan has done little to make it seem new. Fans of time-tested formulas may applaud his fidelity to the genre, but others will wish he'd come up with a few original notions to energize this very long picture.

Frivolous but fun, somewhere between a comic "French Connection" and the craziest Nascar race you never saw.

Oliver Stone's imaginative style runs rings around John Ridley's idiotic screenplay.

The movie has a broader range of emotions and visual effects than any "Star Wars" installment since "The Empire Strikes Back," but the writing and acting are as stiff as R2-D2's metal torso.

David Mamet and jujitsu come together in Redbelt, and the result is a draw.

A sad experience, but the sadness has no emotional heft because its people have none. This movie hasn't earned its funk.

The story is hardly original, but this well-directed Taiwanese drama paints an intermittently vivid portrait of life on the Chinese mainland in the 1930s era.

The trouble lies in its stereotypical style, its schmaltzy emotionalism.

Most of the time we see her through Hal's idealizing eyes, though -- no surprise, since Hollywood won't let glittery stars like Paltrow play down their sex appeal for long.