If the Giorgios were more interesting, perhaps Brooklyn Lobster would feel less sluggish. But as it is, the crustaceans' unhappy destinies are more compelling than the colorless lives of their captors.

But Babys also resembles "Sunshine State" in another, more satisfying way: It leaves you longing to know what happens to these characters once the movie ends.

The scattershot nature of the script, which feels as if it had been made up on the spot, leaves the actors looking like they're enjoying some private joke not shared with the audience. Self-indulgent does not even begin to describe it.

The bad guys are genuinely creepy, the victims likable enough to engage sympathy, and the conflict among the the crooks a kind of wild-card element. If they still made "film noir," the brooding crime fiction of Hollywood in the '40s and '50s, it would look something like this. You have to feel good for Elmore. [7 Nov 1986, p.D2]

The characters drive this story, not ideology. Damon and McDormand are terrific as co-workers seeking the same goal, though they see their work from different points of view.

The story's historical setting is fascinating, but the movie is populated by thin, uninvolving characters.

"Overworked" is the word for much of the movie. The Mean Season has the feel of a project much tinkered with, so that it seems both laborious and scattered. For a melodrama it moves too slowly, and for a thriller it is too obvious; you can see the seams, see the film's gears move when its works should be invisible. [15 Feb 1985, p.D1]

Everyone up on the screen appears to be having so much fun, you wish the movie found a way to let you into the party.

None of the actors is able to do much with their characters, because they are all playing game pieces on a schematic board. Rendition has passion to spare, but it is saddled with a story designed exclusively to drive home the filmmakers' message.

That's what The Sandlot repeatedly does: Confound your expectations. It's a charming and hilarious flick for kids (boys in particular will eat it up) that feels remarkably fresh, even during its occasional foray into cliche land. [7 Apr 1993, p.E1]

The cast, which includes Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) as a coach who pushes her daughter too hard, is likable and energetic, and the film's messages are entirely reasonable.

A continuous parade of slaughter.

Doesn't quite avoid the pitfalls of its genre, but at least the movie has the decency to make you laugh on its way to a foregone conclusion. Also, did I mention the sex?

Kleiser seems to know something about style and pace after all, and he seems to know something about having fun with a movie. These are minor revelations, and they make Grandview U.S.A. almost unique among its class of film over the past five years: It's worth seeing. [03 Aug 1984, p.C9]

The movie puts us back in Poltergeist territory, but it cannot approach that film's shock value. The plot is too simple. Watch the children pulverize the demons. Watch the demons terrorize the children. You get the idea. [22 May 1987, p.D5]

The mere idea of making a musical version of Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day India is delicious, though, and Chadha's lively imagination and good intentions almost make the concept work.

A handsome but empty romantic thriller with the most passionless love triangle you may ever see. [9 Oct 1987, p.D1]

However clumsily done, the handoff has now been accomplished, and it will be interesting to see how the new crew carries the torch in subsequent movies that aren't asked to carry such weight. [18 Nov. 1994, p.5]

It turns out to be under-powered and low-wattage. Breakin' 2's plot could use about six months on the Nautilus equipment to tone it up. [19 Dec 1984, p.C5]

The Conspirator hits a new nadir for Redford: Sitting through this stage-bound, talky, stiffly-acted movie reminded me of having to endure the Hall of Presidents attraction at Walt Disney World (one of the few existing bits of proof that Disney had a dark and evil side).

A mean and exceedingly well-made little B-picture, but the questions it raises are far too complex to answer with a simple gunshot.

Too bad Journey of Man, as a whole, is never as consistently compelling as that one visually arresting scene (with Yves Décoste and Marie-Laure Mesnage)

It's like a tantalizing CliffsNotes version of what could have been.

There was a fine family drama to be made here, but what we get instead is too sweet to swallow.

What's missing, really, is a point. Like "Snow Falling on Cedars," Hicks composes every shot in Hearts in Atlantis as if it were his last.

Snatch is admittedly superficial, if not downright disposable. More importantly, though, the movie is also fantastic, cheeky fun.

Volunteers is for the most part so good-natured and eager to please, or at least to solicit laughs, that it may be forgiven many sins. Many of the jokes simply don't work, but in the style forged by Airplane!, Volunteers keeps them coming. Wait long enough, you'll laugh; wait again, you'll laugh again. [16 Aug 1985, p.D1]

You don't find many teen films about blues singers. You find hardly any about characters who don't smirk for 90 minutes before stumbling onto the meaning of life in the final passages. In Crossroads, it's the absences that are most refreshing. [14 March 1986, p.D1]