Pratt does a creditable job of playing distraught without seeming like a ninny, and Lawrence at least looks stylish, though she’s not called upon to do much acting. You can almost hear her saying to herself, "I wonder what David O. Russell has planned for his next movie and can I pretty please have a role in it?"

The more the picture reveals, the less interesting it gets, transforming its hero from an intriguing mystery man into a standard-issue screen vigilante -- and steadily upping the violence, complete with harrowing torture scenes, in a lame effort to keep our juices flowing.

Christopher Hampton's film conveys the basic plot of Joseph Conrad's sinuous novel but loses the book's sardonic tone and psychological depth.

When promising independent filmmakers decide to jump on the bandwagon and pump up the gore, the results are sure to be touted as visceral and unflinching. Don't be fooled. Kramer has even commented that the movie should be viewed as a modern-day Grimm's fairy tale. It's grim all right.

Its most impressive aspect is its visual style, patterned to some degree on Sergio Leone westerns. A picture this long and dense should work harder to be cogent and coherent, though.

Gilliam's visual style has never been more energetic or inventive, and nobody could be attracted to dope after this portrait of drug abuse as a hallucinatory quagmire.

At once dreamily surreal, acutely intelligent, and strikingly tough-minded, this pitch-dark dramatic comedy recalls David Lynch and "Donnie Darko" while remaining fresh and original to its core. A stunning directorial debut.

The most powerful scene in the movie, and the one that most fully encompasses its meaning, belongs to Mrs. Morobe (the marvelous Thandi Makhubele).

Hailee Steinfeld’s Juliet is rather lovely and rather bland; Douglas Booth’s Romeo might have stepped out of a special Renaissance Faire edition of GQ.

Described in the film's production notes as a "classic French comedy" – although I've never heard of it – and perhaps this is the core problem. French farce doesn't mix well with English gooniness.

A pleasant little dawdle and yet another example, in these dog days for cinema, that dogs are a movie's best friend.

As a frightfest it's better than today's average.

It soon gets down to its real business: fights, face-offs, and showdowns mired in the shallowest sort of Hollywood machismo.

It's a standard science-fantasy fable, but the visual effects are mighty impressive.

Based on Bennett's own experiences, the movie has no penetrating insights to offer, but it's acted and directed in an improvisational spirit well-suited to its ultra-low budget and digital-video technology.

Lively, colorful, violent, stupid.

Penn is always entertaining when he's playing characters drunk with depravity. Gangster Squad could use more of him.

This unevenly paced comedy is an amusing parody of monster movies from "Them!" to "Alien."

How can we take this doomsday scenario seriously when we keep waiting for Bruce Willis to rise from the ashes?

It's bold, and big, and even beautiful at times. That's more than most recent movies can claim. [26 Aug 1982, p.19]

The bad guys, who specialize in funny beards, funny accents, and shaved heads, would feel right at home in an "Austin Powers" movie.

I persist in believing that Melissa McCarthy is capable of starring in a movie that not only makes a scads of money but is – you know – good.

As Lucas’s girlfriend April, Isild Le Besco brings a sprig of sunshine into the film’s fetid hollows.

Stay home.

Writer-director David Ayer doesn’t have the right graphic technique for a comic-book-style jamboree – he’s strictly a noirish-pulp guy – and the characters, all of whom are promisingly introduced, fizzle fast.

Numbingly violent action.

The acting and crooning are sadly uneven, making this a shaky comeback vehicle for the screen musical.

The story is so sentimental that even soap-opera buffs may feel it outwears its welcome.