Soderbergh does overemphasize the "little-people" dreariness of it all. But there is much low-key humor here, too, albeit on the dark side.

Just sweet enough to avoid being negligible.

The story is so eager to highlight macho action scenes that it loses track of the important historical and political issues it raises.

Swinton's performance, and practically everything else about Julia, seems off – tone-deaf. She plays an out-of-control wastrel who enters into a kidnapping scheme gone horribly wrong, as does the movie.

The Young Karl Marx disappointingly resembles for the most part a conventional biopic. It has little depth, either political or psychological.

First-time director James McTeigue's big, bold imagery, with slashing reds and blacks, is a close approximation of the novel's look and feel.

Director Mark Waters does a fine job meshing the fantastical with the quotidian.

Next time out, more dwarfs, more Aslan, and definitely more Reepicheep.

It's refreshing to find a comedy that deals with such resonant material. True, there's nothing profound in the screenplay by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger, and director Garry Marshall wraps most of the emotions in bundles as tidy as a Thursday-night sitcom. But the story has serious things on its mind, relating to intimate areas of family life and sexuality. [30 July 1986, p.21]

Of all the Star Wars-themed movies, this one is the closest to a Saturday afternoon serial/western. Don’t expect more than that. But it could have been less.

Proudly old-fashioned in every way except the often excessive violence that director Martin Campbell splashes across the screen.

The action, directed by Shane Black, ranges from passable to interminable. The plot goes from clang to bang. Downey Jr. is still the best thing about this series.

Heavy on violence and special effects, light on everything else.

This movie might have been better if it hadn't fashioned itself as a cross between "Citizen Kane" and "Chinatown," and instead had used Reeves's story to dramatize the transitional state of 1950s Hollywood.

Wildly irreverent fantasy.

Inherently dramatic but needed a stronger director than Anthony Fabian, who overdoes understatement.

The filmmaking is TV-movie-of-the-week dull and Robinson’s ordeal is hammered home to the exclusion of virtually everything else in his life.

The bloody wrap-up isn't handled especially well, and I must confess that the most shocking thing about the movie was the casting of Carrie-Anne Moss as a suburban mom. I kept expecting her "Matrix" skills to show up in the final reel.

Its greatest assets are imaginative camera work and top-flight performances from Pam Grier as the heroine, Samuel L. Jackson as the deadly boyfriend, and Robert Forster as the bail-bondsman who falls battily in love with her.

The story is lively and energetic, if you can take its raunchy jokes and rowdy behavior.

As directed by Hugh Hudson, the movie isn't workaday for a second, with its epic scale and awesome vistas and all. Instead of enhancing the story, though, the niggling details and dignified touches just slow things down. [12 Apr 1984, p.33]

Sometimes, oftentimes, trailers showcase only the good stuff. The actual movie is a pale substitute. Such is the case here.

Tim Robbins gives a strong performance in this first-class horror yarn, which has a surprisingly strong political edge.

Throughout the film there are small, rapturous moments.

The fact that this movie, with its 65,000 painted frames, was even attempted, is daunting. It’s the kind of folly that demands a measure of respect, for the effort, if not altogether for the result.

Puenzo may have started out to make something more ambitious than an intelligent, real-world horror thriller, but what she did achieve is still commendable. The melodramatics in this movie may be cooked up, but the fears it conjures are very real.

Jenkins has an admirable feeling for, as the French would say, mise en scène, and a gift for placing actors in naturalistic settings. What he lacks at this point is a strong story sense.

Most of the music is by New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, and it’s heartfelt without ever really touching the heart.