A film based on this information is potentially interesting, but Conspiracy of Silence, set in modern-day Ireland, is incoherent and often hard to follow.

First-time writer-director Robert Resnikoff's visual style is bland at best, and his script has nothing memorable in it -- except for unbelievable occurrences. [12 Apr 1990, p.F8]

Ends up as colorless as Reeves' first Superman suit.

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

It's not only the mythical, mind-reading creature at the story's center that prevents the film from taking flight. A worn-out plot and a novice actor also contribute to the disappointment.

The film emits a subtle yet distinct John Hughes vibe.

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]

Shockingly, it's an understated but amusing Ferrell who keeps Winter Passing from growing unbearable.

What's missing most in the film, though, is a palpable sense of tension.

Considering its superlative title (second only to George Stevens's New Testament epic, "The Greatest Story Ever Told"), I'm sorry to report that The Greatest Game Ever Played ranks somewhere in the murky middleground of sports movies.

It feels like three movies stitched together.

Guggenheim managed to turn a Power Point presentation into a crowd-pleasing Academy Award winner, but he can't do much to free Gracie from its constraints and clichés.

With a script co-written by Penn himself and based on a well-regarded novel by the late French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette, this one has to have some meat to go along with the gunplay, right? Sadly, no.

At its best when it simply lets Hoffman and De Niro play off each other .

Whoopi Goldberg gives a first-rate performance in Clara's Heart, enough to atone for the sins of her Fatal Beauty period. But it's nifty work in a lost cause. The movie is sickly sweet, shot through with the kind of confectioner's sentiment that Hollywood used to crank out on assembly lines until the formula slid into disuse. [21 Oct 1988, p.E10]

Navy Seals is all action, no talk, and it never slows down enough to let you see how dumb it is. But the sudden lack of enemies in a world gone crazily, treacherously peaceful is a problem for Hollywood. [20 July 1990, p.G5]

It's the damndest thing, watching this light but genial movie self-destruct. It's as if writer-director Barry Levinson set out to sabotage his own film by gradually turning what should have been a minor subplot into the story's main subject.

The movie, which has more than 10 credited producers, feels like one of those slick, for-the-money projects Hollywood studios cook up via graph charts and marketing surveys.

Director Hector Babenco's sentimental, unconvincing adaptation of Varella's book, is a soft, simplistic look at a tough, complicated subject.

What most hurts The Day After Tomorrow is its unfortunate, lecturing tone.

F/X doesn't have the surprises when it needs them. [8 Feb 1986, p.C7]

At several points, Strange Brew is so unhinged that it works -- when it looks as if Hosehead the skunk/dog will be late for Oktoberfest, he jumps into the air and flies there -- but as Bob and Doug seem to concede in the film's opening, they are simply not interesting enough to carry a movie. Neither is anyone else involved, and there you are: small beer. [29 Aug 1983, p.C6]

It's a shame that no one involved with Flight of the Phoenix knew what a hit phenomenon "Lost" would be, or else they might have taken greater care in developing the challenges this crew would face.

Beautiful to look at but aimless as a broken compass.

The whole thing means to come down to big, round tears and mass sniffles, but though Spielberg invokes as many golden-era cliches as he can recall, he never gets the romance really working. It's tough being compared to Spielberg, and perhaps unfair if you happen to be Spielberg, but this is easily his least substantial film to date. Some tears, yes. No sparks. [22 Dec. 1989, p.G5]

The result is like a low-rent "Wizard of Oz" or "Labyrinth," sticking close to the formula of a kid who falls asleep and wakes up in a fantastical wonderland where everything's just a little bit off.

Schwarzenegger doesn't at all seem too old for the part; his bulging muscles still fill the action-hero's suit just fine. It's what he's doing that is tired and, maybe, played out.

Real Men is too goofy for its own good, but not nearly funny enough. [21 Oct 1987, p.D5]