The aggressively over-the-top plot is sloppy and totally irrelevant. What counts are the jokes that fly so fast they're easy to miss.

An ensemble cast brimming with great theater actors and movie stars tears into a collection of meaty, moving, funny roles, with largely vibrant results.

Cusack, of course, is the perfect Anti-Schmaltz. His rapid-fire delivery makes everything he says sound like it's just pouring from his brain to his mouth, so that even the sappiest dialogue is rendered sincere.

But for all the duplicitous minds playing games with each other on the screen, Nine Queens' best con artist turns out to be Bielinsky himself -- and his target is the audience.

Literature lasts, but sometimes, The Last Station suggests, the ties that bind last, too.

It's not nearly as good as you figure it will be, but it is a full-bore, flat-out fantasy, and outside of the Disney animated jungle, we don't find many of those anymore. [18 Dec 1992, p.G5]

While it embraces many of the conventions of the movie- musical, Absolute Beginners overcomes the ready cliches with the crackling energy of jazz and youth. Both Kensit and O'Connell catch the rhythm of their personas early on, riding Temple's roller-coaster tale with care thrown to the wind. They careen off the brainless characters and the hard-knocks facts of life with a "who cares" resilience, never missing a beat in their quest for experience. [4 June 1986, p.D5]

There's too much caution and not enough lust.

The amount of information the viewer is asked to process is voluminous and never stops coming.

Even frothier and more frivolous than the first movie: It's a heist picture so laid-back and unconcerned, even the heist feels like an afterthought.

Unashamedly sticks with its light comedy roots.

Despite what you might fear, the movie is not torture. And even if it doesn’t inspire lust, you will breathe a warm sigh of relief, thinking: This could have been so much worse.

Silver garners a hilarious performance from Dempsey, whose charm is only surpassed by his talent for slapstick. And though she lets the movie lapse into a lengthy montage in the middle, she keeps the story's wit and romance intact to the very end. Loverboy is a movie worth falling for. [2 May 1989, p.C5]

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.

Passably interesting, occasionally riveting and largely superfluous. But it's certainly a worthwhile curiosity, and it's not what anyone expected. At the movies these days, that alone is worth something.

Executive Decision is a gripping, though occasionally overcomplicated, thriller arranged like a Tom Clancy novel. [15 Mar 1996, p.7G]

The weirdest movie of the summer. OK, the year.

The movie is at its best when it flirts with becoming a meta-sequel — a film whose characters know they’ve been in a movie called “Trainspotting.”

By the end of Breach, we never come to fully understand Hanssen -- who could? -- but Cooper's beguiling performance and his tense cat-and-mouse games with Phillippe help bring an extra layer of entertainment to this otherwise rote thriller.

Despite its flaws, The Gatekeeper will keep you engaged.

What goes on in Streets of Fire is not quite stupid -- it's saved from that by the remarkable love for style of its director, Walter Hill -- but the film doesn't show an intelligence to match its style, either. [04 June 1984, p.C6]

Turtles II is unabashedly a kids' movie -- lighter on the colors, freer with its wisecracks, less vicious in its violence. [22 Mar 1991, p.G5]

It's not easy to forgive a movie that so ungratefully wastes its potential with such a poorly structured plot, but Shaft has a few redeeming moments up its sleeve after all.

As light and fluffy as it is, Return to Me still proves surprisingly inviting.

Eagle vs. Shark feels like a low-budget, foreign cousin to Napolean Dynamite, less polished and sly. But it's definitely in the same family, lulling us into friendly acceptance with its persuasively silly rhythm and deceptively big heart.

Hiding Out is a pleasant bit of fluff; it's Back to the Future without the fantasy. It's no breakthrough in movie- making, but it's not dumb either. There are enough funny lines and enough winning performances to forgive the implausibilities and the ridiculous action scene at the end. [06 Nov 1987, p.D5]

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.

Only Nunn has enough charisma -- despite relying on a stereotype or two as Bradley -- to easily command attention whenever he's onscreen. If only he could have transferred some of that charisma to Ford -- and to Regarding Henry -- during the therapy sessions. [10 July 1991, p.D1]