It is long. Very, very long...And it feels its length, feels every bit the 190 minutes of it. This is a problem for a movie. A movie can be any length at all if its audience remains unaware of its artifice, remains suspended in time. But in The Right Stuff, we are always aware that there's a movie going on, rather than lives on a screen; by the end, there is the feeling of having been dragged through recent history, feet first. The Right Stuff is exciting from time to time; it has its jolts and its snaps and its nostalgic tweaks. But there is more to a roller coaster than a bumpy ride, and The Right Stuff does not thrill. [16 Oct 1983, p.L1]

This movie Mozart seems little more than a wild and crazy music-maker, whose biggest problem was that his compositions had "too many notes." And that, as Forman's Mozart might say, ain't much. [20 Sep 1984, p.C1]

The acting is strong, especially from the raging Grant and the comically wistful Griffiths. Still, Withnail and I doesn't come off as an affectionate contemplation of the director's down-and-out days. [25 Sept 1987, p.5]

All is Lost is more fun to think about than it is to actually watch: It’s a testament to a great actor, an experimental piece of cinema and a bit of a bore.

The Master has become a contest between two gifted actors trying to shout each other down. The commitment to their roles is impressive, but it's tethered to a weightless, airless movie, a film so enamored of itself, the audience gets shut out.

What The Long Day Closes lacks is a narrative thread, however slim, to match the perfectly realized setting and wonderful visuals Davies has crafted. The whole thing feels like a chapter of a much larger work, one that, if finished, would doubtless prove more intriguing than what we get here. [7 Aug 1993, p.G5]

Someone involved with Prizzi's Honor, the new film from John Huston and starring Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner, doubtless thinks it's a fine satire, a comedy so black it will have us all squirming. There's no other explanation for the long stretches of time the movie spends on "idle," all that potential power, going nowhere. [14 June 1985, p.D1]

An artsy bore.

As intriguing as Hardy is to watch, the picture can’t overcome its cinematic-stunt vibe.

The movie is practically incomprehensible.

Although it deals with some monumental themes, Mademoiselle Chambon also feels wispy and inconsequential.

Late Marriage's stiffness is unlikely to demonstrate the emotional clout to sweep U.S. viewers off their feet.

The best science fiction leaves you with questions and ideas to ponder. Arrival is the sort of superficially profound movie that initially seems deep and weighty but stops making sense the moment you put down the bong.

Paris, Texas is thus a curiosity. On balance it seems overblown and rickety, as substantial as tumbleweed. And it seems to be less than the sum of its two major parts, the script by Shepard and the images by Wenders. Still, it's an essential entry into the Wenders file, full of hollow portents and signs signifying little. And it would be worth seeing for Stanton's performance alone. [8 Feb 1985, p.8]

A well-acted, well-crafted but excruciatingly tepid romantic film about a subject that will attract poetry lovers and yet test even their considerable patience.

Something happened to Mark Medoff's moving Children of a Lesser God in its translation from stage to screen: Somebody turned it into a soft-focus Hallmark card about deaf people. [3 Oct 1986, p.D1]

Despite the great care and research that went into the movie, Frost/Nixon pales in comparison to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" when it comes to humanizing the infamous leader.

Results in a weightless film. Worse still, McElwee's languid tone makes his journey lack conviction.

Watching an army of apes riding horses heading into battle is undeniably cool, but that’s the only thing the movie gives you: Neat eye candy. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is written at a level so low, even 8- year-olds will find it lacking.

Tex is well-meaning, all right, but a little inept. [04 Aug 1982, p.B4]

The Jungle Book has its moments — the panther Bagheera voiced by Ben Kingsley, the python Kaa voiced by Scarlett Johansson and a funny porcupine voiced by the late Garry Shandling are all memorable creations — but the overall film feels cold and mechanical, befitting a movie that was made primarily because technology made it possible.

Splashy, uneven version of the musical, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve). Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra seem miscast, but Jean Simmons is delightful as the Salvation Army woman Brando falls for. [04 Aug 1989, p.G37]

While We’re Young starts off as an empathetic, funny look at middle age and winds up as profound and schematic as a Neil Simon play — or, for the younger set, an episode of "The New Girl."

We get the feeling that whatever it is Scorsese and Price have to say about these marvelous characters, it is not anything very interesting.

Ruby in Paradise, which is really about nothing more than a woman's quest to succeed as a cashier in a boardwalk gift shop, never rises about the nearly staggering banality of its plot line. [12 Nov 1993, p.G15]

Chan's string of chop-socky films were never boring. Shanghai Noon is.

A decent ride. It has a boogeyman, exploding teen-agers and blood by the vat; it's part of the oeuvre. It is also, alas, no significant advance of the sub-genre some of us feel, however improbably, attached to. Teens-and- slash may be a form full ofhack work and dim bulbs, but so long as that form stays within reach of young and relatively unsullied directors, there is hope. [6 March 1985, p.C5]

One question in particular hangs heavily over the entire film, a plot hole so distracting it becomes the only thing you can think about.

The main problem with Submarine is that Oliver is not a likable protagonist.

For most U.S. audiences, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, an Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, is going to feel more like a history lesson than a movie.

Feels like the shell of a wonderful story.

De Palma does some borrowing, too. He always does. Pick your Vietnam War favorite -- Platoon, Apocalypse Now, et al. -- and you'll find an "homage" in Casualties of War. But you won't find the scale or depth that either the war or the genre deserve. It's a big disappointment. [18 Aug 1989, p.G5]

It's much easier to linger on his youthful idealism than on how that idealism eventually manifested itself. It certainly makes for a much prettier picture. But when your subject is Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara, it is disingenuous.

Set almost entirely in one location and shot in widescreen to accommodate its ensemble cast, The Invitation seems tailor-made for a talented filmmaker who wants to show off skills within the constraints of a small budget. But the script, by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (who somehow still find work after having written The Tuxedo, R.I.P.D., and Clash of the Titans), is flimsy and nonsensical in the manner of cheap, straight-to-video-not-even-VOD horror pictures, and Kusama’s direction is clumsy and uninspired. She also telegraphs too many of the plot’s twists.

It's a gorgeous pastiche of flowers and Gothic architecture that, like a painting on a museum wall, never quite involves the viewer. You'll be momentarily enchanted, then forget it entirely. [14 Aug 1993, p.G5]

The result is earnest, admirable and more than a little dull -- a pedestrian movie about a remarkable subject.

For all its splendor, The New World is really a love affair between Malick and his camera.

Time Regained is not really worth the time it takes to see it.

It's a movie of surpassing flatness, all surface, all monotone. Pace? It's as if the director, Alan J. Pakula, had dialed in half speed on the first day of shooting and never checked the throttle again. [27 July 1990, p.G5]

The Coens feel out of step this time; they’ve lost their rhythm the way they did in The Hudsucker Proxy, where the style consumed the entire picture, turning what should have been humorous and snappy into a grating chore.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles is the movie equivalent of a tired stand-up comic's air-travel routine. It strikes some resonant chords indeed, but it never quite leaves the ground, either. And given the stars here, that's a real bungle. [25 Nov 1987, p.D1]

The actors are talented enough to carry the movie, but they fade into the background once things grow dire, and the special effects take over. There's no sense of wonder or awe.

It's too civilized by half and never quite funny enough. [31 Jan 1986, p.D1]

A relentless descent into a psychedelic hell, a rambunctious feel-bad epic.

As it spins along at a reasonably good clip - no one is going to mistake it for the slicker, more action-packed "Salt" - The Double unravels its secrets, which prove to be its undoing.

The director was Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), about whom people have been using the word "potential" for a decade or so. Trapped inside Real Genius, there's a real director trying to get out. [7 Aug 1985, p.D5]

F/X doesn't have the surprises when it needs them. [8 Feb 1986, p.C7]

Elaborate special effects ruin the whimsy of this haunted house movie. The filmmakers parcel out the horrific gags so tirelessly they lose sight of the tale they're telling. This is one ghost story that needed an exorcism. [30 March 1988, p.C8]

Tadpole was shot on digital video, and the images often look smeary and blurry, to the point of distraction. Then again, in a better movie, you might not have noticed.

Unfortunately, The Big Lebowski doesn't hang together, and it's not supposed to: That's just the way the Coens want it. In some circles, this will be celebrated as the brothers' refusal to "sell out" after achieving Oscar glory. But anyone hoping for a real movie will see The Big Lebowski as nothing more than a pleasant waste of time. [6 March 1998, p.5G]

Edge of Tomorrow isn’t good, but it’s also forgivable. Just please stop the "Top Gun 2" rumors, Tom. Please.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too is ultimately like a one-night stand. When it's all over, it leaves you, not laughing, but feeling soiled and rather depressed. [23 Nov 1987, p.C6]

The film lacks the menace and danger of Sendak's book, along with the beautiful simplicity and delicated, understated portrait of a lonely, misunderstood boy.

Director Hector Babenco's sentimental, unconvincing adaptation of Varella's book, is a soft, simplistic look at a tough, complicated subject.

You start out fearing Don’t Breathe, but by the end you’re laughing at it — and the humor is not intentional.

Despite its entertaining and insightful dialogue, can also be a bore.

Moore's Debbie is earnest but uninteresting, which is a problem when she is playing half of the movie's focal couple. [2 July 1986, p.D10]

It's as if Dante sought so hard to parrot his producer that he wound up parodying, and all involved should have known better. There's a current of menace to Dante's work that sets him apart from Spielberg, and a measure of innocence in Spielberg's quite apart from anything Dante has done. [8 June 1984, p.1]

While Circuitry has its pleasures, it's not as intelligent as "Modulations," a previous documentary on the subject, and its focus is a bit skewed.

It's not very good, but there are redeeming features. [24 Apr 1987, p.D1]

The Krays is painted with such broad strokes, and the characters are so full of hot air, that the movie sags in the middle, ending up a mildly entertaining mixture of psychobabble and rat-a-tat-tat. [09 Nov 1990, p.G10]

Certainly pleasant, and occasionally endearing, but it's also strangely empty and unsatisfying, like hearing about someone else's wild dream: You can appreciate the details, but you don't really care how it turns out.

With touches of humor throughout, the gentle and peaceful film never becomes depressing or sad.

Audiences with an insatiable appetite for car chases, explosions, menacing helicopters and relentless mayhem should have a good time. For the more demanding, Lethal Weapon 2 is closer to Excedrin Headache No. 2. [07 July 1989, p.G5]

One of the problems with Rampart is that we've seen guys like Dave in movies and on TV for years now. The bad cop psyche has been delved into pretty deeply on all fronts, most notably in FX's brilliant series "The Shield."

In the old days -- when Hollywood knew how to make funny movies, and knew how to make cheap, sentimental potboilers, and knew the difference between the two -- City Slickers would have kept Laurel and Hardy busy for maybe 80 minutes. This version lasts nearly two hours, and the filler is all man-meets-cow, man-loses-cow. [7 June 1991, p.G-5]

The truth is, Jet Li has gotten soft in his old age. While fans of the "Once Upon a Time in China" star will be pleased to learn that at least half of Fearless is action, what they may not realize is just how mushy everything else is.

John Cassavetes has been making exquisitely personal films -- or agonizingly personal ones, depending on one's tastes -- for years now. Sometimes, they are intimate dramas (Faces, Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence). Sometimes, they are dark comedies in melodramatic dress (Gloria). And sometimes, as in the newly released Big Trouble, they are just a mess. [19 Apr 1986, p.D1]

Unstoppable is the slowest, talkiest movie you'll ever see about a runaway freight train loaded with toxic chemicals.

An impeccably shot, studiously staged, passionately acted bore, one of those curious fizzles in which everyone seems to do everything right, but the film simply refuses to take off.

Palo Alto is a pale imitation of the early novels of Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote about young ennui and misdirection from the inside out.

The title's only the beginning of the many puns, and the story takes enough twists and turns through the Irish countryside to be engaging. But in the end, too much talk, too much forced quirkiness, and too many scenes we've seen before bring it down. [1 July 1998, p.2d]

The Avengers has a knockout final 30 minutes, all gee-whiz crash and bang and eye candy that makes grand use of 3D and IMAX and all the other toys. But the Transformers movies did that, too.

It feels like three movies stitched together.

There are 10 minutes of animation in the film, and it could have used a few more: They have a spirited, inventive energy that the rest of this well-intentioned but awfully melodramatic movie lacks.

The movie fails utterly at coming up with a story that merits all the eye candy.

From a purely cinematic standpoint, The Underneath is Soderbergh's most daring work yet, full of elliptical flashbacks and fast-forwards; ominous camera angles and cinematic tricks. But Soderbergh's movies (sex, lies and videotape, Kafka, King of the Hill) have always been cunningly smart, and The Underneath is not. [28 April 1995, p.5G]

As it is, much of this movie is simply incomprehensible, however enthusiastically it was designed and is performed. If it were only a little better, one might even spend some time trying to figure what to make of it. [24 Apr 1985, p.B6]

Remains naggingly hollow, a cerebral exercise in whimsy that isn't nearly clever or funny enough to seem like more than grand self-indulgence.

What The Bank Job ends up stealing is all your precious time.

McGrath makes literal what the other movie only hinted at -- that Perry falls in love with Capote -- turning the relationship between author and subject into something far less complicated and more mundane.

The Cotton Club never seems to go anywhere, so that we are caught up short when it seems to have gotten somewhere. Then it's over, finished in Hines' blaze of glory, and a few minutes later one wonders what one has seen. It's big and colorful and terribly thin. [14 Dec 1984, p.E18]

If you're making a movie that purports to be about real love, at the very least, you have to make the audience care whether the lovers work out their problems.

The Hunger Games takes no risks.

Depp isn’t doing anything different here than he did in "Dark Shadows" or "Alice in Wonderland" or the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Once again, he’s unrecognizable under elaborate makeup and prosthetics, and he speaks with a peculiar voice (this time a thick South Boston accent).

Despite Fanda's shenanigans, and many are out-loud funny, Autumn Spring is not that uplifting though it isn't a downer, either. It's more an ode to friendship and marriage.

The Illusionist is dogged by an inert, stale aura that overcomes everything and everyone in the movie.

Whereas E.B. White's beloved novel introduced kids to the cycle of life, tenderly broaching the tricky subject of mortality, this latest movie version plays like just another piece of vegetarian agitprop.

It's all very sweet, but the film goes in too many directions.

Next time Damon will have to find a worthier vehicle. As the intended start of a franchise, The Bourne Identity is a bit of a bust.

Unfortunately Miracle is long on cliché and short on originality.

John Wick reminds you this actor deserves better. Reeves makes the movie entertaining in a background-noise way, but he can’t give it any gravity, even when the filmmakers pull the cheapest trick in the book to get the audience to root for the hero and hiss at the Eurotrash villains. Someone get this man some good work, quick.

The coming-of-age tale The Way, Way Back is sweet, heartfelt and utterly trite and predictable from beginning to end.

James Franco looks more bored and distracted in Rise of the Planet of the Apes than he did when he was hosting the Oscars: Watching the movie, I kept waiting for him to pull out his iPhone, aim it at the camera and take a snapshot while mugging sheepishly. Has there ever been a film with a less engaged protagonist?

While the scope of the movie is bigger, its impact is smaller. "Blue Valentine" was a precise, heartrending portrait of a marriage coming apart at the seams. The theme of his new movie is a lot harder to discern.

Lethal Weapon is neither a good film nor good entertainment, but it will be a big hit. It takes two popular stories, scrambles them together and delivers something truly bizarre. It's The Cosby Show meets Rambo. [06 Mar 1987, p.D5]

Jarmusch has never seemed quite this baffling -- or quite this dull.

Though the charter of the Enterprise charges its crew to "go boldly where no man has gone before," the marketing strategy of Paramount Pictures clearly mandates that the film go quietly in a predictable fashion to a place where the mass audience will feel comfortable. This Star Trek II does, with its familiar faces and lovable homilies. The film seems bound to be one of the summer's big hits. Kids will love it, and dozing adults will at least find it endurable. [5 June 1985, p.C4]