One of those blessedly rare films based on a self-help book, is remarkable in one sense: It prevents "The Lake House" and its magical mailbox from being the most ridiculous concept on screen this summer.

Beastly, for all its potential pitfalls, works better than it has any right to. Credit Barnz, who keeps his young characters contemporary in a world of text messaging and status updates and yet also gives them depth.

Jackman's charisma breathes the fire into Wolverine, not the rather pedestrian script or the by-the-numbers action.

The tone is all over the place, which makes the movie difficult to take neither seriously nor as popcorn fluff.

One of the most anticlimactic finales I've ever seen in a movie

In Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, choosing the dumbest character is a colossal task.

And though this may seem a perverse observation, Extremities just doesn't work as well magnified and distanced by celluloid. If the attack involves a real man and woman who are just feet away in the same room, the horror, engagement and catharsis are far more deeply felt. [22 Aug 1986, p.D1]

The new Fame is practically identical to Alan Parker's 1980 original -- I mean, it's the same damn movie -- except for all the parts with heart and humor and poignancy and soul and fun.

In the end, they are only moments, and even at a merciful 86 minutes, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights feels formidably long.

An Innocent Man might have been a decent enough study of justice gone horribly awry -- if the screenplay weren't so crudely manipulative, if the bad cops weren't such cardboard villains and if the title character had been played by a more appropriate (and better) actor than Tom Selleck. [06 Oct 1989, p.G4]

Captain Ron is tropical and picturesque. But like a scenic island postcard, it has little scope or depth. [23 Sep 1992, p.E4]

Kline is OK. Mastrantonio isn't, really -- she plays Priscilla on the edge of a groundless hysteria. Kevin Spacey, fresh from a tightly controlled performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, loses it here. But the real villain is the ramshackle story. It's just a mess. [17 Oct 1992, p.4]

This lavish, spectacular reworking of director Desmond Davis' beloved 1981 original is the rare sort of remake that actually makes sense: With all due respect (and copious apologies) to the generation that grew up with the first film, Clash of the Titans just wasn't very good.

How can a movie as overstuffed with funny people as The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard be so listless and leaden?

A big, boisterous action-comedy - a funny, exciting and intentionally goofy summer movie that just happens to arrive in the middle of January.

The best thing you can say about Just a Kiss is that it isn't every romantic comedy that throws in suicide, bondage and a plane crash in between all the bed hopping.

A competent but not extraordinary action-comedy.

Taking a lightweight comedy such as this seriously is probably a fatal error, but there's no way around it: This House is built on a shaky foundation.

Teachers is more or less entertaining, but TV tactics are too diffuse on the big screen. America is still waiting for someone to produce a school satire with some teeth in it. [05 Oct 1984, p.C9]

Though the quality of animation remains dismal, Care Bears II has many pretty pictures; they just don't move very well. Kids under five, particularly little girls, seem enthralled nonetheless. [31 Mar 1986, p.D6]

Sometimes I suspect there is secret high-stakes contest in Hollywood among filmmakers to try and come up with a movie without a single original idea. If so, Life As We Know It is a contender.

The combination of youthful irreverence and military indoctrination is jarring.

It's the damndest thing, watching this light but genial movie self-destruct. It's as if writer-director Barry Levinson set out to sabotage his own film by gradually turning what should have been a minor subplot into the story's main subject.

Parts of The Bodyguard are inadvertently hilarious, as in a romantic encounter involving Houston, Costner and a samurai sword (she unsheathes it so very, very carefully). Others just seem to go on, and on, and on -- at two hours and five minutes, this one is easily a half-hour too long. [25 Nov 1992, p.E4]

Yes, it's junk. But it's funny junk, and it seems even to suggest a filmmaking intelligence (when was the last time you saw a shot from inside a human mouth as a giant tongue depressor closes in?) [26 Oct 1992, p.C6]

An amiable bit of fluff that is noteworthy largely for its sumptuous production design and its pairing of two of the screen's most popular "lightweights," Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. [07 Dec 1984, p.D14]

With a script co-written by Penn himself and based on a well-regarded novel by the late French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette, this one has to have some meat to go along with the gunplay, right? Sadly, no.

Mediocre.