Less original than the first "Star Wars" and less resonant than "The Empire Strikes Back," but packed with fast-paced action and downright cuddly Ewoks.

Stirring on religious and humanitarian levels, and very timely notwithstanding its 1979 setting.

Horror fans will find plenty to shriek about. Everyone else should keep their distance.

Sharper and smarter than any animation since "Shrek 2," making it one of the season's supermovies.

Worth viewing by anyone concerned about world events.

Offers much food for thought.

Hallström conveys a bit of the circuslike atmosphere of the times. But he overreaches in trying to turn the film into a commentary on the politically corrupt 1970s.

The story that Hidden Figures tells is so irresistible that you can almost forgive the fact that the movie itself is resistibly unoriginal. It’s an unabashed crowd-pleaser with a heavy history lesson undertow.

Light, lively, informative, fun.

The filmmakers are more interested in spinning an entertaining yarn than probing the spiritual dimensions of their important subject.

Detailed, compassionate, humane.

Cary Grant is irresistible as Dudley the angel, David Niven brings offbeat humor to the clergyman, and Loretta Young is refreshingly low-key as the title character. The picture is more witty than laugh-out-loud funny, but director Henry Koster serves up some fetching scenes, and there are snappy second-string performances from old pros like Monty Woolley, Elsa Lanchester, and James Gleason. [03 Jan 1997, p.15]

Humane, unsentimental, eye-opening.

The idealization of the native American existence in The New World, precolonization, is a pleasing fantasy but also timeworn and ahistorical. Surely someone as sophisticated as Malick - who once taught philosophy at MIT and was a Rhodes scholar - understands that he is putting forth a fabrication.

Efficiently and imaginatively directed.

A ruthless dissection of suburban malaise.

It’s a painfully uneven movie, but its best moments are ravishingly good.

The music and camera work are dazzling, and the story has solid sociological insights into a fascinating pop-culture period.

Sayles takes great storytelling risks to explore this theme; his unusual approach will please some viewers and irritate others. [04 Jun 1999, p.14]

It’s questionable whether this film needs narration at all, or at least whether it needs the faux biblical lyricisms served up here. The panoramas are so glorious that I didn’t ache to hear any highfalutin hoo-ha on the soundtrack.

The dialogue is often silly but Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, and Goldie Hawn deliver it with enough crackerjack energy to keep audiences laughing.

This engaging 1966 comedy isn't de Broca's best movie, but it was so popular with American audiences in the late '60s that it's still one of the era's most fondly remembered cult classics.

Harrowing, realistic, humanistic.

The movie's most striking assets are its lyrical visual style, which forms a silky counterpoint to the plot's turbulent emotions, and Beat Takeshi's smooth and expressive performance as a senior warrior.

At its best it's refreshingly offhanded. It's a hit-and-miss movie that's worth seeing for the hits.

For western fans, watching this movie is like encountering an old friend after a long absence.

This is closer to an Allen comeback than anything else he's made recently. Maybe he'll achieve it with his next movie, "Match Point," due this year.

Its grimness is explicit, so approach it with caution.