The film is also less bloated than "Bridesmaids" - a comedy is always more nimble at 90 minutes than two hours - and it's less maudlin, too. It's the aberrant, foul-mouthed child of "Superbad" and "Young Adult."

While not guaranteed to hold every adult's attention for the entire duration - though some could argue that a cat fight between Miss Piggy and MacDowell is alone worth the price of admission - Muppets From Space is what more movies designed for kids should aspire to be: a production made by people with respect for the intelligence and wit of the under-12 market. [14 July 1999, p.1E]

Wisely, this fast-paced movie has enough colorful characters and rollicking gags to keep the tykes from getting bored. [10 Apr 1995, p.5C]

This is a gorgeous, flashy, widescreen epic, like "Boogie Nights" or "Casino," about the most essential things in life: Family, friends and love. But most of all, love.

There's no real reason to see this movie. It's exhausting and pointless and not amusing enough to make up for its failings. You can do better. The filmmakers could have done better. Honestly, you're better off staying home and making hummus.

Though Breakin' follows the Flashdance formula as if it were blazed in concrete, working from a script that would make a 12-year-old snicker, it is so exuberant and lighthearted that it works. [09 May 1984, p.B5]

There is also a last-minute "Sixth Sense" twist, although it definitely won't make you sit through the movie again to see if the filmmakers cheated.

You know something's amiss when you're in the middle of a picture that runs under three hours and you're tempted to whip out your cellphone and send friends a text message that reads "Send food."

What O lacks is a sense of spontaneity: Despite its contemporary dialogue and manner, the movie can't overcome a nagging aura of artifice.

The quality writing, delivered by likable Hartnett and his talented co-stars, makes up for the sometimes flat production. A richly humorous background is provided by well-played eccentric minor characters.

It's not quite layered or weighty enough to fill the aching hole left in our psyches by the end of "The Sopranos," and most of the developments are as obvious as sauce on spaghetti. Still, Brooklyn Rules is a decent, if derivative, movie.

It's fun to wonder what Romero's realistic, no-frills cinematic style and jolting shocks would have brought to good King novels like Pet Sematary or The Stand. With The Dark Half, he tries hard -- it's his best directorial work in years -- but his reverence for the mediocre novel produces merely a serviceable thriller. [23 Apr 1993, p.G5]

Has nothing new to say, but it has a lot of fun covering the same old territory.

All of this, of course, has been done before and much better. Heartbreak Ridge isn't as interesting a training film as An Officer and a Gentleman nor as exciting as Top Gun. Watching paint dry might be less interesting than sitting through Heartbreak Ridge, but only slightly. [6 Dec 1986, p.D1]

The worst kind of sequel -- the kind that exists only to give you more-more-more of what you liked the first time around, without ever justifying its own existence. This lavish, superbly designed film goes on for an exhausting 2½ hours.

Pixie-like Bridget Fonda turns in a powerhouse, Rambette performance. [19 March 1993, p.5]

In his debut, Alwyn comes off as a likable, sympathetic screen presence capable of handling more difficult material. He’ll have plenty more opportunities. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, though, will be forgotten in a month’s time.

Those opening minutes, in which Hawn plays a heavy, are some of her best work. The rest we've seen before, a lot. Overboard is overlong, and stale as can be. [18 Dec 1987, p.D6]

Benji the Hunted is better-than-average family entertainment with some flaws. An irritating musical score undercuts the beauty of the nature scenes. The human performances are regrettable and look downright amateurish next to the animal. Benji is good. Just look into his haunting eyes, and you know why this doggie is a star.

Limps along, spinning not a silken web but an extremely derivative, tattered one not likely to snare anybody's interest.

An inept comedy.

Marley & Me gets so many of the details right, particularly in its final act, when it turns into a five-hanky weeper.

The big trouble with John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China is its tone. This time out, the director of Halloween and Starman has concocted a cartoon with human characters -- or, as it is described in the movie's press materials, a mystical action-adventure comedy-kung-fu monster-ghost story. Any film that needs that many adjectives to explain itself is already in trouble. [03 July 1986, p.D9]

This Carrie becomes less involving as it goes along, ceding its emotional power to special effects and unconvincing gore, and culminating with a closing shot so lame and uninspired, it’s as if the filmmakers just gave up and called it a day.

It's hard to knock The Cutting Edge without feeling like a grouch. It aims to be nothing more than an old-fashioned love story with plenty of banter between its two leads and a straightforward plot about Olympic ice skating. The actors work hard...But the script rings false from the get-go; the dialogue is straight from the school of clever quips and snappy comebacks, and the romantic plotline has been done so many times before, it's beyond cliched. It's too flimsy to carry a whole movie. [27 March 1992, p.G13]

I'm not suggesting Costner and Kutcher should run out and remake "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" just yet, but in The Guardian, the two actors turn out to complement each other well enough to make a lot of this supremely derivative and formulaic picture go down better than it should.

If you can overlook the lack of logic inherent in its central conceit, In Time makes for a fun, stylish piece of speculative sci-fi.

There's nothing in Bounce you haven't seen before, but the movie is surprisingly unsentimental, the Paltrow factor cannot be denied.