Love & Other Drugs is a slick weepie made by smart guys who want you to know they're better than the schlockmeisters. They've outsmarted themselves.

Invictus has an understated grace, but too often it comes across as hero-worshipy.

A sensitive, nicely made character drama.

Chapman coaxes good performances from his cast, especially Wilson, who makes Joe's immense conflicts a matter of empathy as much as abhorrence.

Too much of this movie is a conventionally rendered gloss that, in its own way, also attempts to cast Bauman as an inspirational icon. He is, but we can see in Gyllenhaal’s looks of grief and panic the makings of the more complex movie this might have been.

Perfect Stranger is far from Hitchcock, and Berry, although she gets an A for effort, can't do much with the half-baked characterizations.

Movies don’t become great by association, and Wonder Wheel is a far cry from “Streetcar.” There are ample flaws in this film, but they certainly don’t rise to the level of tragic.

Dash deserves great credit for reaching toward a new kind of cinematic structure that blends compassionate character exploration with a deep interest in the world of nature, and a bold willingness to let storytelling take care of itself at its own unhurried pace. One hopes, however, that in future works she will lean more decisively in a single clear direction - toward painterly visualization or toward psychological narrative. [30 Jan 1992, p.12]

This love letter to Valentino from director Matt Tyrnauer seems intended for the already smitten.

This is a technological breakthrough, all right, but a breakthrough to what?

The funny thing about this series is that, although we are regularly shown the most exquisite dishes, neither Coogan nor Brydon has much to say about them beyond the mandatory oohs and aahs. Winterbottom works in some midlife crises material, as he also did in “The Trip to Italy,” but to less effect here.

While it loses the charm of Romero’s low-budget clunkiness, it is in all other regards superior. Unfortunately, it’s not better than “28 Days Later...,” which is close enough to count as an unofficial remake.

Too much of Sunshine is like a cross between a middling "Alien" movie and "Solaris" (the woozy Steven Soderbergh version).

The fact that it's based on a true story doesn't alter the fact that, like most such Hollywood movies, it seems fabricated.

What keeps the film watchable, aside from the vibrant musical numbers in the nightclub, is Garcia's obvious love for the Cuba of his ancestors, of his dreams. A lot goes wrong in this overlong movie, but it has a human touch.

It's a modest film in most respects, but Albert Finney as Alfie is a man of great importance indeed, reminding us again that he's one of the most towering talents in film today.

It’s respectable, safe, intelligent – and a bit dull.

The film is never less than intelligent and never more than accomplished.

I wish the film had gone even further into loopiness. Like Ant-Man, the film, directed by Peyton Reed, comes in two sizes – it’s sometimes big on laughs but often small on risk-taking.

For all her chops as a dramatic actor, she's our new Judy Holliday and Goldie Hawn, only even sharper.

There are some rollicky moments in Finding Dory, which comes 13 years after the markedly better “Finding Nemo,” both directed by Andrew Stanton.

In Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon," which only looks better with the years, New York was as much a character in that film as its people. It was a movie that took its cue from the energy of the city. The Inside Man takes its cue mostly from other movies.

Capotondi keeps circling his movie in and out of dream states and waking states as the whodunit morphs into who-cares-who-dunit?

In more ways than one, MacFarlane is trying to outgross Mel Brooks.

Vigorous but rather scattered account of two gallant young runners in the 1924 Olympics, based on the real-life experiences of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell.

Janney knows how to nail a line like few others in the business. It helps that, in this film, she has most of the best ones.

As a piece of storytelling, Everybody Knows covers a vast expanse of human experience, but it doesn’t dive very deep.

Essentially The Conspirator is a courtroom drama with occasional bulletins from the outside world. It plays out to its predictable end with the doggedness, if not the verve, of a "Law and Order" episode.