As a war drama, Zelary is as gentle and pastoral as its setting. At times, you think it's a new chapter in "The Sound of Music."

Make no mistake, Racing With the Moon is a modest film; that's one of the reasons it works so well, being a meticulously made miniature. And it's a joy. [28 Mar 1984, p.C7]

The film is filled with scenes about scrappy, cut-and-paste filmmaking, and the movie-within-a-movie that drives the plot also ends up as the centerpiece of the hugely affecting final scenes.

Engaging and enjoyable.

This is easily the funniest of the Terminator movies (although not, it should be stressed, the lightest). It is also the shortest and most compact.

Rising above simple sentiment to explore class differences and the enduring clash between East and West with wit and wisdom.

The excellent performances by the three leads, and the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat reality, elevate the film far beyond after-school special territory into something far more lasting.

The movie could have used a few more scenes focusing on Child at work in the kitchen -- a few more scenes with Child doing anything, really.

Whedon knows this is all nonsense, but it can be great fun, too. Age of Ultron is all rush and sensation with little substance. But what a feeling.

Evans – always a reliably dynamic and vivacious screen presence – can't do much to bring the character to life. As far as superheroes go, Cap remains a bit of a stiff.

After starring in a string of heavy dramas, Andy Garcia lightens up and goes for the funny in City Island, a breezy comedy that fits the actor like a güayabera.

It's a glossy, somewhat condescending comedy, with all the substance of a cone of soft vanilla ice cream.

If watching cartoon characters spout four-letter words is your thing, this might well be the greatest movie ever made.

Beverly Hills Cop is an old-fashioned movie; it's a star vehicle. And the star makes it worth the price of admission. [5 Dec. 1984, p.B1]

Diary of the Dead is at its best when Romero is just goofing off, like when he shows us home video footage of a children's birthday party.

White Hunter, Black Heart looks good, but it's as humorless as Eastwood himself increasingly appears to be. [21 Sep 1990, p.G5]

War is hell, and so are bad movies about war.

Campos, a cinematic disciple of Stanley Kubrick and latter-period Gus Van Sant, opts to let the movie do the talking for him. The fact that this is a film of few words only adds to its hypnotic, relentless pull.

Thanks to a superb cast headed by the popular Brazilian actress Regina Casé, this unorthodox tale is ultimately believable.

Neither man nor mouse nor any other critter has a prayer of holding his/her/its own once the real star of the sequel shows up: Snowbell, the worrywart feline voiced by Nathan Lane.

It's a clammy, depressing movie, but not a very illuminating one.

There's a streak of compassion in Dark Horse, a sincere empathy for a thoroughly detestable man, that is as surprising as anything in Solondz's earlier, more transgressive work.

The movie is long and sad, but it also seems small. You get the feeling that, like the lives of its protagonists, it could have been more. [11 Jan 1992, p.E1]

Polanski, who seldom has a problem with directorial conviction, falters here. He tries to gives us Alfred Hitchcock, without much success. Frantic works best when Polanski delivers Polanski -- that sharp-edged vision that injects a harrowing situation with black humor, even slapstick. [27 Feb 1988, p.B1]

For a good hour, Seven Psychopaths is lively, bloody fun. Then the yawning starts.

The magic of the film lies not in the mysterious spring but in the richness of its performances. The producers have assembled a cast with three Academy Award winners.

When the action founders on cliches and implausibilities, there are only the characters to fall back on. And this time, they're papier-mache. [13 May 1983, p.C2]

The movie is happy and bright and thoroughly nice, and every now and then it's loud and funny and at least as large as life. And it could have been larger, and better. [22 Feb 1983, p.C5]