Even though Lower City ultimately leads nowhere (the movie doesn't end so much as simply stop), you won't mind having taken the trip.

They're all too old to be considered a black brat pack, but you get a feeling The Best Man will lead to even better.

Schrader, one of this country's most literate filmmakers, can be a show-off, and there are times in The Comfort of Strangers when we're more aware of style than story -- this piece is impeccably tailored, and it looks awfully good even when it isn't making sense. [17 May 1991, p.G11]

Intentionally designed to rile as much as entertain.

At Any Price teaches you a lot about the business of corn seeds and genetic manipulation (the stuff is actually fascinating) but what interests director Ramin Bahrani most are the dynamics of this deeply dysfunctional family.

The War Within is dark and somber, adjectives that describe both the film's look and its message.

It looks fantastic, but it's also hard to sit through, because by that point The Bourne Legacy has repeatedly proven there are no surprises to be had here, no more fresh stories to be mined from this well. The stunts look exhausting, though. No wonder Damon bailed.

Elysium, the second movie from writer-director Neill Blomkamp, isn’t quite as inventive or fresh as his knockout debut, 2009’s "District 9." But the new picture is cut from the same cloth — furiously exciting sci-fi, carefully considered and loaded with allegories and social commentary.

Turns out to be something entirely different than it initially seemed, and while the conclusion brings everything to a logical close, it also renders the movie less interesting -- a stunt that didn't merit Bale's startling, and dangerous, transformation.

It's little more than an amiable exercise in nostalgia, but it's nicely performed and handsome to look at. [25 Mar 1988, p.C1]

The Monster Squad is schoolyard-clever and cut to the rhythms of Saturday morning TV, within which limitations it's actually a lot of fun. It's a swell movie for kids under 13. [20 Aug 1987, p.C8]

It gets awfully corny toward the end ("Print -- choke, gasp -- the truth."), but director George Cukor keeps the atmosphere spooky, and Darryl Hickman is good as a cute little brown-shirt. [12 Sep 1982, p.8]

The post-conversion 3D is more distracting than anything else, but the rest of this surprisingly fun entertainment is as sharp as the hero’s claws.

Lee is better at topical parody than he is at intimate character drama, at least so far. Another is that movies about jazz are never very good, and Spike Lee, talented as he is, couldn't do much to change that. [03 Aug 1990, p. G5]

An engrossing psychological thriller.

This is a movie that didn't have to be well made --its emotional impact has been assured by the daily news. But Jaffe took care. He made a solid Hollywood movie of a story that is terribly sad. He plays the heartstrings like a virtuoso, and that's not always a bad thing. [07 Feb 1983, p.C6]

It seems very much an exercise in time, place and character, without much soul, as if Demme expected the period to provide most of the romance. [17 Apr 1984, p.B5]

The movie's power sneaks up on you, reminiscent of something screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond once famously described as "the Billy Wilder touch": A combination of the sweet and the sour, because even funny people, like you and I, aren't always being funny.

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]

Quibbles aside, Ultimate X zips by speedily and is rad fun for sports fans and sedentary folks alike.

Mildly engaging.

In some ways, better than its book.

Following is a pitch-black crime story, but never forgets its gentler side. It is, at 70 minutes, a slim movie, but by the time it concludes in inevitable tragedy, Nolan's characters have accomplished something rare for an openly nihilistic work: sympathy. [10 Sep 1999, p.10G]

Cheese is written with plenty of sophisticated wit, but it is not quite convincing as a movie.

Familiarity is not without its pleasures. But Spectre is so confused and inert that Craig can’t even sell the signature “Bond. James Bond” and “Shaken, not stirred” lines.

Viewers who like their movies to adhere to some sort of reasonable logic, or to at least make sense, will not be pleased by Femme Fatale. For everyone else, it's playtime.

The movie will disappoint basement-dwellers who worried a female-centric Ghostbusters would somehow ruin their childhoods, because it isn’t bad enough to hate. But the film is an even bigger letdown for fans of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, who are forced to play most of this material straight, with no room for comic improvisation.

The talented actors are game, but they are done in by the shallow nature of their characters, none of whom behaves in a manner remotely resembling real life (they don't really seem to be related, either).