Watching these coolly precise, methodical actors spar with each other at the top of their game is half the show.

As for the Marigold Hotel, well, it's not the Delano. But overall it's a fine spot to spend a couple of hours.

Bad Milo! directly envokes a number of earlier pictures Vaughan clearly adores, including "Basket Case," "It’s Alive" and even the workplace satire "Office Space." But the movie fails to ground its promising (if preposterous) scenario in any kind of recognizable reality.

Ward does manage to pump the film with tension in the climactic, will-the-Indians-beat-the-Yankees sequence, and I found Major League hard to resist in its last 20 minutes or so -- even though it's sappy enough to make Levinson's prettifying of The Natural seem positively dour by contrast. Maybe it's just the season. [7 Apr 1989, p.1]

A lightweight, formulaic piece of fluff, but you wouldn't know that by Meryl Streep's performance.

Corbijn makes the familiar strange, focusing on details other filmmakers would gloss over.

A hit-and-miss affair, but it's smart and good-natured enough to guarantee Stiller an open invitation to host VH1's annual Fashion Awards.

An earnest and well-meaning but disappointing failure.

Fast, wacky and bubbling with passion or dark, troubled and doomed. In the unusually titled crazy/beautiful, it's all those things at once.

Grisham is an expert at hooking the audience, and he fills the edges with legal details that, realistic or not, are always fascinating. Runaway Jury is an adequate, unremarkable piece of work, but as they say in the book world, you won't be able to put it down.

A captivating documentary.

The Good Shepherd, for all its noble intentions, manages to make even espionage boring.

Big Miracle even throws in an unexpected bonus, a surprise last-minute cameo that is funny without being the slightest bit mean, just like the rest of this hugely likable movie.

Even though its story is nothing new, Vice Versa works. [11 Mar 1988, p.C5]

First Blood is no more than a man-bites-town retread, in which Vietnam and its aftermath are merely the angle. [27 Oct 1982, p.B6]

The characters, starting with Lewis himself, are downright obnoxious. Not counting those singing frogs or the time-traveling T. rex (with its big head and little arms), only Lewis' sad-sack roommate ''Goob'' is remotely sympathetic.

Its overall ability to balance humor and drama, attention to emotional detail and a few winning performances outweighs its maudlin tendencies.

It's a good, old-fashioned North Pole adventure.

Admirers of the author will find in Edmond all the elements that turned Mamet into a favorite.

The Natural is dense with Boys' Life stories and grand heroics, and it sometimes wanders from black comedy to serious icon-bashing and back again. But mostly it's good fun. At the end, everyone in the audience is swinging imaginary bats. It's a great movie for summer. [11 May 1984, p.D1]

Self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers.

The movie, however, is the sort of picture in which people run around doing everything except the most logical thing to do, because that’s the only way to keep the nonsensical plot spinning.

When Collet is interacting with other kids or with his girlfriend and partner-in-crime Jenny (Cynthia Nixon, who played Mozart's maid in Amadeus), The Manhattan Project is a witty, enjoyable teen-age movie. But when, laughs and all, it is addressing the nuclear perils -- timely as the topic might be in the aftermath of Chernobyl -- the project dries up under the spell of sophisticated visual values, glossy props and sexy laser lights. [13 June 1986, p.D3]

The camera work is impressive, his sense of humor sharp, and the characters are well defined. The story leaves something to be desired, but that doesn't mean you won't find situations or lines to enjoy in the comedy. [20 Oct 2006, p.G15]

Night and the City is the most disappointing big- expectations movie of 1992. It's hard to overstate the magnitude of its failures. There is almost nothing right about it. [23 Oct 1992, p.G5]

Madrid, 1987 operates on a dizzying number of levels - as a romantic comedy, a sex farce, a study of culture clash, ageism and idealism - and the highest compliment you can give this ridiculously talky movie (which plays better if you speak Spanish) is that you're a little sad to see the characters go on their way once they part, probably forever.

A slow-moving but heartfelt film.

An exhilarating visualization of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel of betrayal and vengeance.