The fight sequences are well handled, the three leads are pleasant (and quite good, it seems, at the martial arts) and the violence is bloodless and amusing, with all kinds of cartoon sound effects thrown in to soften the chop-socky violence. If the audience at a sold-out Saturday afternoon showing I attended is any indication, 3 Ninjas delivers the promised action-packed, empty-headed goods. As long as your age is still in the single digits, that is. [10 Aug 1992, p.C6]

For 2 1/2 hours, Strange Days swirls and blooms its way into your head, sounds and colors popping like fireworks, a stream of ideas flowing steadily beneath the dazzle. It's a light show for the mind, a kaleidoscope of exhilarating action, social commentary and post-modern science fiction -- yet when it's all over, you can't help but think, "Is that it?" [13 Oct 1995, p.5G]

It's a formula and hard to describe as good in any artistic sense, but the viewers who pay to see it -- and many, many people are going to -- will get exactly what they want.

Aside from its period New Zealand setting, there is little to distinguish Bride Flight from something you might watch briefly on Lifetime, then change the channel.

The movie is best when it sends up the whole culture of child stars and commercials -- "I wanna grow artistically," says one well-paid brat. "I wanna work with Michelle Pfeiffer." But it loses its edge, and soon Life With Mikey is awfully close to the thing it sets out to lampoon. [4 June 1993, p.G5]

At least The Game Plan does have Johnson, whose innate charisma will make it easier for adult viewers to endure the film without ruing the decision to make a family outing to the multiplex.

Good for some giggles. Especially if you're under the age of, oh, 8 or so.

Its failure to be extraordinary is thus all the more cutting, and its redundancy all the more unforgivable.

It's a bloodless film, however; a spy story that actually drags for long stretches in the middle. And even though it's based on fact, there's rarely any drama in it. These are odd failures. [25 Jan 1985, p.D6]

So it's all pretty silly. But it does move along, and the range of weapons is formidable. Steve Carver, who did Norris' An Eye for an Eye, knows how to handle action, though Lone Wolf might have been more convincing had he let any of the bad guys shoot straight. [5 May 1983, p.B10]

The body part joke to alien joke ratio seems slightly skewed in favor of the former, which makes the humor more than a little repetitive. How many different ways can one film say: "Men are idiots"?

A splashy, silly movie that inexplicably stars Jeremy Irons but will delight 10-year-old boys across the realm. Regrettably, the hordes of pre-adolescent boys it would have delighted most were that age 20 years ago.

Mr. Destiny wouldn't be all bad if it made some variation on the recipe, but it's too generic and predictable -- and too blandly acted -- to be engaging. The magic's gone. It's like sucking on a Tootsie Pop for two hours and never tasting the fudgy center. [12 Oct 1990, p.G5]

New Year's Eve is not unbearable. It's not bad, but it's not good, either. It delivers exactly what you expect: pretty faces, shallow romance and a mythical fanaticism about an event in a friendly Manhattan unblemished by hyper-vigilant security measures, obnoxious drunks or New York Jets fans.

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

Lack of any real substance.

If you're in the proper frame of mind -- namely, forgiving -- there's some fun to be had here, but you'll respect Don't Be a Menace's daring more than you will its humor. [15 Jan 1996, p.8C]

Mistress is a black comedy about the trials and tribulations of a writer/director trying to get his film financed, and if it had been released last year, it might have seemed better. But memories of Robert Altman's The Player, which deftly covered similar ground, are still fresh, and Mistress suffers badly in comparison. [30 Sep 1992, p.E7]

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.

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.

The movie is facile and manipulative, but it can't hide the gifts of Jackie Gleason in the role of Hanks' father. [30 July 1986, p.D6]

Chasing Madoff is as much a journalistic exposé of Madoff as it is a love letter to Markopolos, shot in the style of "Natural Born Killers" by a director terrified of boring his audience. In Proserman, the documentary genre finds its own Michael Bay.

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.

A big part of the problem comes in the casting. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes - the kind of odd pairing of actors that comes only after your first and second choices have passed - are unconvincing and curiously unsympathetic as the architect Alex and his girlfriend.

An incredibly lazy movie -- but not an unbearable one, thanks to Aaron Eckhart's charm.

Seems to vanish from memory even as you're watching it. The movie is an exercise in minimalist storytelling.

Hard to Kill is all Seagal, and if pure action thrills are your preference, this will do just fine. [13 Feb 1990, p.C7]

What ensues is an uneasy mix of farcical slapstick and comedy of errors with a violent, blood-soaked tale of inner-city crime.