The film rarely soars with the kind of authentic spirit and passion needed to fully sell this decidedly old-fashioned material.

Top performances keep true-life mental ward tale Girl, Interrupted soaring, despite a script that frequently drifts into genre clichés.

Has been described as a "midnight-style musical." And perhaps it should be seen that way, with a crowd of kindred knuckleheads and some moshing in the aisles.

That anyone manages to care remotely about what's going on despite all this is a tribute to Bullock's appeal. She remains a disarmingly winning performer, though here she's saddled with some clunky, cliched bits of behavior.

[An] annoyingly oblique exercise in arty affectation.

An acceptable star vehicle, no better or worse than it should be, a well-worn standard diversion that gets the job done without eliciting either howls of fury or paroxysms of delight.

A tender love story and a dead-on lampoon of the genre, but its main drawback is that Showalter is egregiously miscast in the title role.

Absorbing, well-structured and superbly acted.

The movie is all surface, loudly clamoring for attention and then losing its voice.

A wildly whirling martial arts spectacle with an endless array of exotic knives, a penchant for Zen philosophizing and an unquenchable thirst for blood. It may just be one of the best bad movies ever.

When Love works, Noé achieves a lulling, melancholic frenzy about sex and memory, but the foundation isn't strong enough to make his movie ever seem more than a stereoscopic fermata: one envelope-pushing note held way too long.

Mighty Joe Young may be the season's most appealing family bet. Certainly, it has an appealing cast.

With some momentary exceptions, Jack the Giant Slayer simply isn't any fun.

The movie version of karaoke. It sings the same tune as the 2007 British underground hit, but it's a little, and at times a lot, off-key.

While the script (co-written by Eisener and John Davies) is weak, there is an endearingly scruffy vibe here, goosed by some cool-looking costumes and effects.

Besson, an industrial-strength entertainer and the reigning maximalist of the European film industry, isn’t selling originality so much as volume. He has made a madly overstuffed Mos Eisley Cantina of a movie, one that surveys its diverse alien constituencies with the wide-eyed wonderment of a small child and the attention span to boot.

Desierto is a generic thriller that happens to be wrapped in political packaging. That packaging is sometimes more interesting than the thrills themselves, but the film is bare enough to project what you want onto it.

The movie contains enough warmth, humor and nostalgia to prove an affable if unremarkable snapshot.

With “Geronimo,” an honorable effort to right some wrongs done the Apache warrior in past movies, [Hill] seemed stifled by his commitment to history. And in “Wild Bill,” which he wants us to see as a psychological profile of a legend’s final days, he can’t for the life of him let go of the legend.

It's too over-the-top, too lurid and at times simply too silly to represent any kind of valid commentary on the repressive '50s or the way in which institutions tend to destroy rather than cure. "Far From Heaven," which nailed '50s angst to perfection, Asylum could not be farther from.

Even with an energetic approach by co-directors Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge and fittingly playful narration by Jason Bateman, you can't help but hear a little "ka-ching!" every time images of a shiny new creation fill the screen.

A magnificent cast only partially compensates for the fizzling narrative.

Bier plunges herself into mainstream horror filmmaking with a gusto that doesn’t always offset her lack of precision. For visceral intensity, she never tops the early scenes of mayhem and mass panic; slow-building, artfully modulated tension in close quarters seems beyond the movie’s interest or purview.

Try as he might, Westmoreland can’t muster the same portraiture skills with a woman of mystery and brokenness that he’s shown with bold, expressive types (“Still Alice,” “Colette”).

Butterworth guides us through the world of chaos and romantic confusion he's created as if it's the most natural place in the world. After a while, we actually believe it is.

Made from a sophisticated European perspective, this is a light summer entertainment with an able, highly attractive cast.

Whatever the reason, his riff on Le Divorce follows the original only in broad strokes, hewing to a similar plot with many of the same characters but without the wit, the barbs and the politics.

Feels repetitive at times, but its star power and willingness to undercut convention come through at the end.

An exquisite love story directed with admirable subtlety and sensitivity.

So it is a surprise to say that the biggest mystery this legal thriller presents is how a film based on a novel by John Grisham, starring the bankable duo of [Julia Roberts Darby Shaw] and [Denzel Washington Gray Grantham] and written and directed by veteran Alan J. Pakula can end up more of a fizzle than an explosion. [17 Dec 1993 Pg. F1]

The beautifully crafted Naked in Ashes is the third of four documentaries made by Fouce, who for three decades has studied and embraced the religious teachings found in Nepal, India and Tibet. Her family name is familiar to longtime Angelenos; her grandfather Frank Fouce Sr. was a Hollywood film pioneer and a major exhibitor in downtown Los Angeles and elsewhere for decades.

Walter Hill's Extreme Prejudice is as red-hot as a Saturday-night special, an ultra-violent action-adventure fantasy so macho that it verges on parody--on purpose. Sensational rather than serious, it is an exploitation picture but one with class: it has style, a point to make that happens to be highly topical and, thankfully, a dry, saving sense of humor.

The story...never comes together as a satisfying whole, even if it all proves relatively painless viewing.

Though the filmmakers may have been imagining they were re-creating the old days of MGM musicals, it's the Village People's misguided "Can't Stop the Music" that comes to mind instead.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles never rises above its marketing-hook origins. It's a product, a commodity, a toy tie-in, a trailer for the comics, an advertisement for the cereal. It's a naked sell.

All the talking would be fine, but the dialogue is preachy, the drama too earnest and the action kind of sluggish, though it's hard not to get a jolt when Johnson jumps behind the wheel.

Its most memorable effects, though, are not technological in nature. They are the wary side-eye glances and unexpected smiles that cross Fishback’s face as she banters with Foxx and Gordon-Levitt and also the streams of hip-hop poetry — carefully scripted but thrillingly delivered — that come pouring out during a few welcome stretches of down time.

A teen comedy that actually puts a priority on intelligence and values and spans generations in its appeal, emerging as a special delight for anyone for whom high school was something less than nirvana. [29 Jan 1999, p.6]

Johnson doesn’t get to pledge his love for unicorns and Molly Ringwald in this relatively straight-faced outing, but his versatility is more than intact: He’s a human wrecking ball, a human bridge and a human teddy bear rolled into one. He’s a towering Dwayneferno.

It’s an old-fashioned injustice barn burner with narrative and emotional beats so sturdy you can practically see the rivets. But on the big screen, it’s just not convulsive enough to stir us and instead feels trapped in a limbo of not quite awards-prestigious, but not exactly indie-fired.

It plays less creepy on-screen than it sounds, at least in part because Herzlinger is an extremely likable guy and he goes to great lengths to avoid appearing to be a stalker.

Arie Posin regrettably sticks to the tastefully designed, artless tear-jerker. The lost opportunity is that he's got the masterful Bening and Harris to play with, great enough actors to turn any interaction — however tritely written — into an intimate, emotionally honest dance of the scarred and delicate.

The script, written by director John Slattery and Alex Metcalf, drifts too quickly into blue-collar cliches, leaving its interesting collection of characters only half-drawn at best.

Subtle it is not. Well-intentioned it certainly is. No one but the youngest in the family will care very much about it, though. And they may well be filled with wonderment trying to figure out what this big Babe person is all about.

Not every note rings true, but this breezy pop song of a movie is mostly fun while it lasts.

The wonder is that anything in a country this exotic, full of such potential wonder, could be made this enervating.

The insights into influencer culture and the thirst for fame in Susie Searches aren’t exactly fresh. But as a Hitchcockian thriller with a slippery hero, this film can be ruthlessly effective.

Noé;, with his Nietzsche-for-knuckleheads nihilism and extreme-cinema ambitions, clearly fancies himself a visionary, but mounting a camera on a roller coaster or putting a story into rewind doesn't make a film formally adventurous or interesting. Conceiving of a gay club as an antechamber to the inferno and sexualizing a woman's rape, however, do make it titillating.

At its best, Taurus captures the tumult of the artistic process, where happy accidents and unpleasant truths are perpetually in conflict.

The Wrath of Becky delivers satisfying action, as this underestimated heroine — well-played by Wilson — makes some terrible people look like absolute fools.

Risen is a fascinating cultural artifact, but as a film, it's destined for no glory greater than as an appropriate cable rerun on Easter.

It’s a profound, affecting and beautifully told chronicle of faith, family, obsession and the language of music.

Holdridge and Saasen simply lack the acting chops to carry their feature, leaving them with a scenic but indulgent selfie of a big-screen romance.

The cast is terrific, and kudos to Boyd for including some specifics about how 20-something Angelenos hook up in the 2010s. But there’s just not enough that’s new here — either in what’s being said, or how.

Though Butcher is appealing, Saint Ralph is anchored by Scott's persuasive work as a model of intelligent decency.

Think more classic Gothic horror than ghastly over-the-top occult. But that’s plenty to keep viewers such as me, who frighten easily, on edge as the story progresses.

Some may be offended by Eddie Griffin's blunt language, yet they would find it hard to deny that he tells it like it is.

Reasonably diverting, but don't count on it lingering in your memory.

The result is a comedy of errors. Errors, yes. Comedy . . . we're not so sure.

Becomes disarmingly warm and even a little folksy at times, but Edwin de Vries' script proves devastatingly deceptive.

Feels more planned than passionate, scary at points but unconvincing overall.

The admittedly simple premise — that El Libertador fought the good fight, for a worthy cause — is refreshingly escapist. By only briefly addressing the complications of Bolívar's later life as a ruler, it lets us revel in the antiquated notion, if only for a couple of hours, that there are some battles worth fighting.

If you allow yourself to drift with it, rather than get frustrated by all the non sequiturs, Nobody Walks becomes a more enjoyable film.

Gold does an excellent job of evoking the past. But there’s nothing really holding the film’s most poignant moments together: no narrative drive, and no sense of a larger world. This song has a catchy melody, but the arrangement is a mess.

Though the film is peppered with one-liners tailor-made for Spacey to sling with stinging effect, it doesn't so much leave you laughing as just weary, and wishing this weren't a true story at all.

That "Empire" lacks clear-cut heroes and villains is not necessarily a fault, but the movie's muddle too often comes across as an attempt to avoid assigning responsibility where it belongs.

The easygoing charm of Funeral Kings and its impulse toward honesty over overstatement robs the film of true dramatic tension, and a number of story lines - involving drugs, rivalry, love interests - are left somewhat unresolved.

Not unlike most of its Hollywood counterparts, though, this Hong Kong import can't resist the urge to dumb down a fascinating premise for the sake of mass consumption.

Poison Ivy suffers from a basic dramatic hitch. We in the audience are so far ahead of the people on the screen that there are no surprises, just the inevitable sound of the inevitable shoe dropping.

The movie has more twists than Chubby Checker, and as soon as you think Stephen Peters' script has used up every conceivable opportunity, it twists again.

Krzykowski’s pacing and tone is off as he tries to meld his comic book instincts – visually atmospheric if susceptible to arch cheesiness — with the requirements of a small-scale drama.

Kreuzpaintner displays a natural gift with actors and a clarity in storytelling that result in a fresh take on what otherwise might have been a familiar coming-of-age story.

The whole thing feels fusty and forced.

Director Maria Sole Tognazzi gently explores what it means to be unmarried, middle-aged and female. She illuminates a seldom-seen line of work, bathes her flawed characters in affection, and makes points both obvious and astute, soft-pedaling her insights with celebratory travelogue touches.

The problem comes largely in the conception of the hooker-niece character, Amanda, played by Brittany Snow. Tolan never quite figures out whether she is supposed to be a variation on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold or a genuinely troubled teen.

Although the film seems to play a bit fast and loose with that specific time frame, the assortment of provocative characters...intriguingly go about their business.

Whether this iteration of Dumbo is a good experience for you will depend on your tolerance for the familiar and the sentimental, and the joy you take in what is visually striking and beautiful.

The title of this strenuously crude and crotch-obsessed movie may be lazy, but it’s also pretty apt.

Working from a glib, chatty script by Robert Lowell that's not as cleverly hatched as it likes to think it is, Haley whips it into something reasonably entertaining.

Despite its penetrating handheld camerawork (by Arnau Valls Colomer) and mind-altering sound design, Lost Transmissions never quite manages to tune out the lingering element of self-indulgence.

The movie...resembles a sloppily tended garden plot where crude sight gags and violent set-pieces flourish like weeds, but anything resembling actual humor or delight refuses to take root.

Weir's orchestrated The Mosquito Coast's action to match Fox's progressive mental state, from rage to explosion to squalls and finally to hurricane velocity; however, the film leaves us not with an apotheosis, but exhaustion. [26 Nov 1986]

Surprisingly endearing and chock-full of a genuine appreciation of the moment.

Just to shake things up a little, I guess, the creators of the laughably over-the-top Doomsday thought it might be fun to turn the survivors of a deadly epidemic, rather than its victims, into maniacal murderers.

Interests us in ways we don't expect. It has a mordant sense of humor and a gift for character and incident that has attracted two of Australia's best actors -- Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths -- as well as an excellent supporting cast.

A comic actor of genius who raises silliness to an art form, the wonderfully expressive Atkinson makes excellent use of those devastating looks in the spy spoof Johnny English, where he turns up as a James Bond type more likely to kill adversaries by accident than on purpose.

The clichés are what make White Irish Drinkers a drearily predictable bout, so much so that the decent last-round plot twist that momentarily dazes is immediately undercut by the sappy, life-changing-fuh-EV-uh jab telegraphed from the beginning.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't show its subject's creative process as much as that of her collaborators.

The film is not without its problems, but its focus on the power of a mother-daughter bond and what can befall creative people when they no longer create generates considerable emotion by the close.

OF: RDG is classic recent Ritchie: star-studded, snarky, and ultimately grating, lousy with weird glasses and bad accents. This thing is so slight, a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a “Mission: Impossible” that it’s barely a movie.

What starts out as a screwball “Squid Game” ultimately yields a paltry payoff in the case of “Stanleyville,” a self-consciously quirky social satire that is content to coast on its waning surface weirdness.

It's regrettable that Woman in Gold is no more than adequate, more old-fashioned Hollywoodization than incisive modern dramatization.

A film with an intriguing premise and likable performances but not much excitement. [13 Oct 1990, p.F13]

Wooden performances by forgettable, generic actors -- again, just like in the original -- don't aid in making things any less leaden. Perhaps this is the best one can hope for from something like My Bloody Valentine 3-D, that it be just good enough to not be annoying. Or in this specific case, physically painful.

It's tough to think of another film in which sex between a mother and her son is not necessarily the worst thing that happens.

The prospect that this role would officially shift Bettany to a bigger stage, taking him from the character roles that have become his specialty to leading man status, dies a sort of Darwinian death from bad plotting.

The movie is like a big, smug, sunny ball of fluff, batting around in a crystalline cage. It's bright and well-meaning, but there's little to grab onto or feel. Not even the presence of those expert actor/farceurs, Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, give it any real presence or bite. [20 Dec 1991, p.16]

The movie but, rather surprisingly, given the gimmicky premise, it's not gag-me-with-a-pacifier cute nearly as often as it is genuinely charming. [13 Oct 1989, p.12]