Himalaya doesn't need a traditional story line to transport the viewer into another, fascinating world.

As a whole, it's a bit of a mess, the work of bratty geniuses with talent to spare, but unsure of what -- if anything -- they're trying to say.

Very French and at times threatens to dissolve into a steamy sex farce.

Achieves an assaultive intensity that adds a level of visceral excitement to car chases, mano-a-mano showdowns -- even simple conversations. It's a style that takes some getting used to -- the images flit by at near-subliminal speeds -- but proves tremendously effective.

The Proposition leaves you shell-shocked.

Lightness' greatest contribution will be to send people to Kundera's book. As a film, it is thoughtful and well-meaning but long and uneven. The filmmakers' love for their subject recalls a line from Kundera's book: "His love for Tereza was beautiful, but it was also tiring." That's what sitting through Lightness is like. [26 Feb 1988, p.C1]

Scorsese and Zimmerman seem to be building on Andy Warhol's proclamations about the nature of celebrity. What they've added is the sourness of it and the pointlessness, and their King of Comedy, for a while darkly funny, winds up being terribly sad. It's the most unpleasant fine film in years. [20 Mar 1983, p.L1]

Like most of le Carré’s novel, A Most Wanted Man has a veracity most spy thrillers lack, and the suspense is of the intellectual, not visceral, kind.

Even at his worst - and Robert does some awful things - the actor almost makes you root for him, hoping he'll get away with it.

This is minor Disney at best, forgettable at worst.

The results, for the most part, aren't pretty. The newly expanded Balseros, which adds an hour of footage to the previous film, is an even more compelling, if grimmer, work than the original.

One frenetic movie that doesn't know when to quit -- and leaves you wishing it could go on forever.

What distinguishes Spider-Man from most other comic book movies is that the film is at its most engaging when its hero is out of costume.

The Great Mouse Detective is destined to be a classic -- not just for the old-time quality of the animation, but for its general superiority over such recent Disney efforts as The Black Cauldron. [16 July 1986, p.D4]

This is nothing that a good episode of NYPD Blue hasn't shown myriad times.

Calling a comedy old-fashioned nowadays might seem like a backhanded compliment, but that's precisely what this genial, funny movie is.

Bayona is restrained here in terms of gore, but his landscape is a realistic vision of a hell we never hope to visit.

Like the best coming-of-age stories, I'm Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura) is, in part, a work of horror.

Clearly an important film, if only for such disheartening reminders that a McDonald's salad with ranch dressing has more calories than a Big Mac or that Miami is the 15th fattest city in the country (Houston is No. 1).

By the time its open-ended conclusion rolls around, you've forgotten you're watching a "comedy." All you can see in front of you are complicated, impetuous real people -- and that's about the biggest compliment any filmmaker could hope for. [06 Feb 1997, p.5F]

Once you get past its intriguing title, What's Eating Gilbert Grape turns out to be a plain if beautifully photographed slice-of-life drama decked in eccentric garb. Beneath its veneer of oddball characters, it's a rather simple, essentially bloodless tale about life in Endora, Iowa, a tiny dead-end town. [4 March 1994, p.G4]

These two fine, talented actors share a fatal lack of chemistry together, and it's a flaw this grandly ambitious movie cannot overcome.

Best of all, the story moves as fast as that bullet train, careening from one impossible predicament to the next while the characters jostle to survive.

Expertly shot and choreographed in Eastwood’s clean, unfussy style, the Iraq sequences are taut, harrowing and at times excruciatingly suspenseful, particularly a setpiece in which Kyle faces off against his Iraqi counterpart, a superb sniper who has made it his mission to take down the American sharpshooter.

The strained, strange relationship between father and son ultimately becomes the emotional center of The Clan, culminating with an astonishing closing shot guaranteed to induce startled gasps. It’s a great, jarring moment that is the work of a filmmaker clearly in love with his craft — and a flavor for the darker side of human nature.

Suggests that professional wrestling is more than a multibillion-dollar industry: It's also a way of life.

In a film overstuffed with tragedy, the most painful one might be the gradual transformation of Fernando's moral and intellectual indignation into a weary, cynical detachment.

Zhang, who tried to make his actors as unaware of the camera as possible, lets the story evolve slowly and deliberately.