It pales beside the best down-and-dirty political movies (ranging from "The Candidate" to "The Manchurian Candidate") because, finally, it lacks the courage of its own lowdown convictions.

The film’s wrap-up, in which Jessica reveals some family secrets of her own, seems too engineered, too pat. Muylaert doesn’t do justice to the potential complexities of her premise. The film ends on a note of forced sunniness, but the outlook actually looks more like cloudy with a chance of showers.

The Founder remains fascinating largely because Keaton is so good at guile and bile. Not once does he wink at the audience or overplay the obvious. His Kroc is magnetically repellent – more so, I venture to guess, than the filmmakers intended him to be.

Ridley Scott has made two iconic sci-fi films, "Alien" (1979) and "Blade Runner" (1982). Trying for a hat trick with Prometheus, he comes up short. I'll say this much for it – it's not boring.

Overall this overlong movie is too knowingly coy for its own good.

The mordancy of this movie will not surprise Solondz devotees, but unknowing audiences expecting a raunchy teen comedy from the film’s title should be forewarned. This is not “American Pie” in a kennel.

The movie is admirable in its ambitions; in its execution, less so. The difficulty in making an “intimate” epic is that the characters have to fill out the frame in ways that are both highly individualized and symbolic. They have to be both lifelike and larger-than-life. In Mudbound, this combination works only fitfully.

Miles Ahead is obviously a labor of love, but it falls into the trap of so many biopics about anguished artists – it confuses the anguish with the artistry.

Writer-director Cao Hamburger works well with child actors and has a spare, unforced style. But too much of this film is desultory and thin.

Directed by Michael Apted, who keeps the action hopping at least for the first hour, and treats most of his Russian characters as reasonably whole human beings. [05 Jan 1984, p.23]

Director Len Wiseman is good on action, and Patrick Tatopoulus's dystopic production design is within hailing distance of "Blade Runner," his chief influence. But essentially this is a big-screen video game.

Broadway showman Mike Todd created this extravaganza, which launched the venerable movie tradition of the celebrity cameo. The color holds up well, although the leisurely pace may be an adjustment in today's world of fast-paced editing. [14 May 2004, p.14]

Switching between the 1950s, the '60s, and the present, it's compelling in a middling miniseries kind of way – expansive but not terribly deep.

At times, the movie resembled nothing so much as Kabuki with Cosmos.

Irons gives a deft performance as a man who is both entranced and flummoxed by his disciple, but the role itself is in most ways skimpily conceived. Hardy’s homosexuality, for one thing, is never really touched upon, as if that would somehow taint the proceedings.

Camping it up, Jackson is hilarious.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns maintain a tone of taut creepiness, but the plot’s double and triple crosses are more ingenious than believable.

Objectivity is impossible under the best circumstances, and perhaps Hahn comes as close to "fair and balanced" as possible. But unavoidably there's a sense of untold stories and elided details lurking right beneath the surface.

Something is going on all the time, even if that something is oftentimes clumsy, nonsensical, or flat. But the sheer whoosh of the story line keeps you watching anyway.

James Caan is excellent as the writer and Kathy Bates is brilliant as his captor. Unfortunately, what could have been a seamless psychological thriller is interrupted by violence that's as gratuitous as it is sadistic.

Equal parts preachy and melodramatic, The Company You Keep never quite figures out what it wants to be.

The animated action holds few surprises for grown-ups, but the cute characters and fetching designs should enthrall young children. [14 Aug 1987, p.23]

The only heartfelt moment of this movie for me came in the end credits, with its dedication to the late Alan Rickman, who provided the voice for the blue butterfly (and former caterpillar) Absolem. What a voice, what an actor, what a loss.

Judged on any kind of rational level, this film is a mess, and Fairuza Balk, as a punky friend of Howard's son, gives the single most annoying performance I have ever seen. But Franz Lustig's cinematography has a Walker Evans-like power.

This is a kid’s fantasy of how to be bigger and badder than anybody else. As for Washington, no doubt he now has his very own franchise.

Boyle loads his movie with so many snazzy effects that we lose sight of what it all means – if anything. His showoffiness confuses.

Depp is disappointingly recessive here, as he often is when he's playing characters who don't have an antic streak.

The 1950s atmosphere is vivid and the cast is solid, except Diane Lane, who saves most of her energy for the unnecessary sex scenes. The story builds a good deal of momentum and then falls completely apart in the last 20 minutes or so. [09 Oct 1987, p.21]