Kline stands out in the dual roles of the heartless tycoon and his playboy son.

An entertaining look at a genuinely offbeat subject.

If you have claustrophobia and/or fear insects, the last film you should see is Bug. I'm not sure it's worth a trip even if you don't suffer from those maladies.

This well-directed Hong Kong drama is at its best when it captures the casual affection that grows between the main characters. It also touches on important Chinese social and political themes, but Kwan understates these so sketchily that they build little psychological power.

This is one of those radical change-your-image performances that tries too hard to defy our expectations. Kidman has indeed proved in the past to be quite versatile, but this muddled, scabrous, neo-noir procedural does her no great favors.

This good-natured comedy serves up plenty of laughs while suggesting that the best experts in human psychology are plain old humans.

More imaginative and responsible than the somewhat similar "Life Is Beautiful."

The story grows sillier as it goes along, culminating in a final switcheroo that's about as deep as the comic-book ideas that inspired the plot.

Egoyan is one of Canada's most ambitious and original filmmakers, but the power of this intricate drama falls short of its aspirations, despite his personal investment in the subject, since he is of Armenian ancestry himself.

An engaging and sometimes gripping movie, if ultimately a superficial one. Reiner has mastered the surface skills of moviemaking, although the inner depths continue to elude him. [11 Dec 1992]

The director of "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" scores his most funny-sad movie to date.

There are multiple murders and two gory scenes, but if you love getting scared, then you'll enjoy this thrill ride.

Iceman is often engaging and sometimes exciting, but despite its jumpy cross-cutting between the technological and natural worlds, it never crosses into the magical realm it reaches for so earnestly. [17 May 1984, p.27]

The Ice Harvest isn't a subversive piece of work; it's not making some grand statement about the dark side of the holiday spirit. But what it IS saying in its grimly funny way is that we can't always control the timing of our disasters.

Sharp jokes and clever sight gags rub elbows with cheap humor and low slapstick in this comedy about a dissolute movie star preparing to appear on a 1950s TV show. [16 Dec 1982, p.19]

A swiftly told, smartly acted yarn, and it even has an idea or two on its mind.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an ersatz experience, a commingling of forced uplift and exotica, but it's moving anyway.

This unusual Macedonian release is engrossing if not always nimbly directed.

The Abyss' isn't abysmal, but it's a replay of hits we've already seen - a recycled "close encounters of the wet kind'' with far too few ideas of its own. [18 Aug 1989, Arts, p.10]

The concept of dueling negotiators has strong dramatic potential, but Gray seems more interested in gimmicks and gunshots than in the psychological face-off between sharp-witted foes.

Gibson has done a capable job of directing The Man Without a Face, showing little in the way of a personal style, but taking advantage of the skills brought to the project by his collaborators. [27 Aug 1993]

Its discussions don't go very deep, and moviegoers with strong religious values may wonder why it comes down for humanism over spirituality.

I know we’re supposed to think that Besson’s daffy cinematic calisthenics are entertaining because at least they are not boring. But I was bored. It didn’t help that Morgan Freeman shows up as a brainy scientist explaining everything to us in his deepest intonations. When was the last time Freeman, a great actor, really acted?

May be accurate around the edges, but at its heart it's a fairy tale.

Abbott has a compelling unpredictability, though, and in a couple of his scenes with Lynskey, you can spot the stirrings of a more complex film than the one we finally ended up with.

Amanda Plummer is even more weirded-out than usual as a serial killer wandering through England with her sadly befuddled girlfriend. [10 May 1996, p.13]

At some point in their careers, most male actors want to play (a) Hamlet, and (b) a hit man. I hope that Clooney has gotten "b" out of his system.

If the picture is often less spellbinding than it wants to be, it's partly Hoffman's fault for creating fantasy moods through traditional stage devices -- lavish props, cute makeup, peek-a-boo costumes -- that seem rather tame for this age of morphed-up visual surprises.