The result is a film with sporadic outbursts of wackiness, but one that (Oh, Fortuna's Wheel!) never gains traction from a storytelling standpoint.

An underwhelming cop yarn - a suspense tale whose occasionally arresting characters are far more satisfying than its workaday plot. [20 Apr 1993, p.D7]

Unfortunately, on the way to delivering that message, it becomes weighted down by its own dreary self-importance.

A movie that offers exactly the kind of bittersweet drama you'd expect from something called White Irish Drinkers.

You want a change-up? Here's a change-up: How about if Hollywood stops spoon-feeding us this uninspired pablum and comes up with a fresh idea or two?

"Down" is in many respects a quite modest achievement. While several of his characters are colorful enough to elicit laughs (the sweet but bland hero, I'm afraid, isn't one of them), Breathnach takes a perilously long time to generate narrative excitement and delivers only a pint-sized dramatic payoff. [3 July 1998, p.L27]

It has its scares — but it all also feels exceedingly familiar, right up to the obligatory set-up for what the studio clearly hopes will be a sequel.

If the surpassingly murky narrative logic behind "Generations" is any indication of what's to come, Paramount had better start making explanatory material available to perplexed viewers as well as confused critics. [18 Nov. 1994, p.L27]

Bill Condon returns fans' love and gives them exactly what they have shown they want. That is: uneven storytelling, maudlin dialog and decidedly one-note performances, even from the big names in the cast.

While Nattiv’s film is a heartfelt tribute, it feels like a mere Polaroid snapshot of a woman who deserves a full panoramic portrait.

It's a shame to see Washington and Goodman, who share some ruefully humorous moments here trading philosophical banter as well as partnerly support, doing thoughtful work in such a thankless context. [16 Jan 1998, p.L22]

Not much sets director (and co-writer) Rowdy Herrington's suspenser apart from other run-of-the-mill efforts in this genre, though a number of supporting players acquit themselves well. And the story's resolution has the ring of unpleasant truth to it. Willis is by now so familiar with characters like the perennially grungy Hardy that he can portray them in his sleep - and at times seems to be doing just that - while Sarah Jessica Parker makes for a fairly lackluster romantic sidekick. [22 Sept 1993, p.E10]

Like the often glittering fashions it mostly celebrates, Altman's movie is a melange of hits and misses. The root of the problem is a wildly uneven script (by Altman and Barbara Shulgasser) that contains both near-brilliant bons mots and shopworn banter. [23 Dec 1994, p.L26]

There's no denying that 300 has its viscerally charged moments, but it would be a lot more fun if it didn't take itself quite so seriously. You don't get to be pretentious when you've populated your film with androgynous kings, lesbian concubines and giant elephants. [9 March 2007, p.4]

It's a dutiful but rarely lively effort, and hardly an inspired one - a film destined, perhaps, to please those unacquainted with earlier and richer cinematic adaptations. [01 May 1998, p.L40]

It's neither a good movie nor a bad movie. It's just a movie.

Ritchie is simply trying to buy a good movie here -- and forgetting that a little brainpower is also required to complete the job.

While Cruise is more than adequate in a part that demands "Top Gun"-style histrionics rather than subtle characterization, the drawbacks of this movie are ultimately overwhelming. After all, entertainment made too difficult is no longer particularly entertaining. [24 May 1996, p.L21]

Long stretches of boredom punctuated by a few thrilling action sequences is the most succint description I can give of M:I-2. [24 May 2000, p.E1]

When making a film for 10-year-old boys, it doesn't have to be good, necessarily -- just good enough. And that's exactly what Real Steel is: good enough.

I love a good, brainless action flick as much as the next alpha male, but this time I had a whole lot of trouble laughing along.

Built on spasms of explosive summertime action interspersed throughout a vacant shell of an origins story, animator-turned-director Jimmy Hayward's first stab at directing a live-action film ends up feeling like one great, big missed opportunity.

If it weren't the late Tupac Shakur's last film, there would be little reason to give a second thought to Jim Kouf's misleadingly titled "Gang Related." (The movie has nothing to do with gangs.) But because it's Shakur's last film, this pedestrian crime yarn must be reckoned a special disappointment. [10 Oct 1997, p.L24]

Unlike it's "Transformers" cousin, the story is appealingly straightforward, and the movie is chock-a-block with breathless action sequences.

Sure, it's an interesting scene as he (Stone) chews the fat with Raul Castro, and coca leaves with Bolivia's Evo Morales. But his South of the Border can't be taken seriously, muchacho -- and if you think it can, well, I've got a primo cigar factory in Havana to sell you.

All of this goes down somewhat easier, it's true, with talents like Cage (who's at his loose, non-Expressionistic best here) and Jackson (who proved himself a great dramatic actor in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever") at the helm. Both performers extract what reality they can from Frye's two-dimensional creations, and they give Amos & Andrew at least an iota of satirical bite. [05 Mar 1993, p.L21]

If there's a breath of fresh air in it all, it's in the form of the young actress Jessica Barden playing a smoking, swearing, Tom Sawyer-flavored teenage delinquent determined to add some life to her excruciatingly boring rural existence.

As telegraphed by that inexplicably vanilla title, Domont’s film spends much of the previous two hours vacillating between unembraceable and downright boring.

Raggedy as it is, Don't Be a Menace offers at least a momentary comic antidote to the casual horrors that have become entirely too familiar to today's youngsters. [19 Jan 1996, p.L28]

Tempting though it might be, it’s not fair to say Ritchie’s film gets lost in translation. But by the same token, when it’s all over, it doesn’t quite feel as if it has entirely lived up to its covenant with audiences.

By the time The American is finished, it feels like one great big pointless exercise. With George Clooney on the poster.

As ridiculous as it is, Man on a Ledge isn't a movie that requires suspension of disbelief. It requires the absolute absence of it.

A Dangerous Method still feels as if it's based on a rather pedestrian narrative --and so, in the final analysis, Cronenberg's film bores.

Clearly, Brevig's past as a visual effects maestro had him focusing more on the look of Yogi Bear than on crafting anything resembling a clever narrative.

Even at its worst moments, it's better than "awful." But at its best, it's never comes close to "incredible."

While hardly the sensation its hype promises, the D.A. PennebakerChris Hegedus documentary The War Room offers some droll glimpses behind the scenes at the workings of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and its twin masterminds, Cajun firebrand James Carville and cucumber-cool George Stephanopoulos. [4 Feb 1994, p.L26]

It feels like a desperate attempt at edginess -- and desperation is never becoming, whether in real-life romance or in a romantic comedy.

It is raw, it is searing, it is honest.

Many scenes, like Another Year itself, don't actually go anywhere.

The hard, cold truth is that the hard, cold For Colored Girls is just plain difficult to fall in love with, regardless of the amount of passion Perry poured into it or how much meaning he's freighted it with.

It's the same fine line that so often separates artfulness and "trying too hard" -- a line that Lebanon tramples all over.

A cast of American actors -- including Matthew Modine, Whoopi Goldberg and Wallace Shawn -- were hired to provide recognizable voices for the English version of the film. They fulfill that requirement, too: Their voices are, indeed, recognizable -- though little more.

The truth, however, is that for much of Soderbergh's film, it's all as yawn-inducing as its premise.

This period gangster yarn...is neither in the front rank nor the slag heap of Altman's oeuvre. Rather, it's an atypically accessible attempt at mainstream entertainment that contains both satisfying and off-putting elements. [16 Aug 1996, p.L24]

McNamara's relentlessly shiny, happy outlook crosses the line between believable and artificial by about the 10-minute mark.

Scene after scene falls flat, goes nowhere. Reiner seems to have left his storytelling skills up north. He even garbles the chronology. [13 Jan 1997, p.L23]

Blown up to big-screen size, you can see that "Going All the Way" isn't "a Midwestern 'Catcher in the Rye' " at all. It's really an old-fashioned gay romance - with everything but the significant glances ruthlessly cut out. [12 Dec 1997, p.L33]

Palmer is a tiny film, but it’s got a big heart, and that helps make it a pleasant and uplifting diversion at a time when many of us could use one.

That it's all true might make it more heart-tugging, but it doesn't make it any more interesting.

Half-written, halfhearted and half-witted, it is characterized by the film’s marketing team as an homage to the best of 1980s cinema. Instead, it plays like an empty-calorie parody of the worst of the era, a rudderless cinematic pastiche that passes off random 1980s references as punchlines and which — in spite of its “Frankenstein” concept — never quite comes alive.

It's still darker, still grittier, still absent any shred of camp. Best of all, it's still got Daniel Craig.... So what's missing? How about a compelling story?

Not only does the largely disposable Terminator Salvation fail to advance the franchise's overarching rise-of-the-machines storyline (a better title: "Terminator Stagnation") but, worse, it never manages to distinguish itself from any other reasonably budgeted action film.

The world is a whole lot more complex than Shadyac seems to realize. If all we need is love, wouldn't we all still be wearing tie-dyed shirts and headbands?

Jordan manages to squeeze a decent amount of drama from the obligatory third-act showdown, but even then, his reach exceeds his grasp, with a display of misplaced arthouse ambition.

For the first time in its 25-year existence, Pixar has created an utterly ordinary film.

It has a sweet quality, and Forest Whitaker gets a chance to show off his comic chops.

It's a genial and mostly well-crafted picture, if hardly one that breaks new ground. [27 Aug 1993, p.L21]

The result is an exhausting and ungainly mish-mash of a movie that pretends to have something to say but doesn’t really. Similarly, it doesn’t know what it wants to be or — consequently — who its audience is.

Pigskin fans will doubtless cheer "The Program," a new melodrama set in the high-stress world of collegiate athletics, but while this David S. Ward feature pretends to address many of the most troubling aspects of high-stakes college football, it winds up ducking just about every issue it tackles. [28 Sept 1993, p.C7]

Unfortunately, there’s just too much missing from the film to make it feel like a complete, coherent vision.

Dragon is guilty of simplifying the raw material of Lee's life for melodramatic as well as martial-arts purposes - and isn't always convincing in the process. Still, headliner Jason Scott Lee does a fine job of suggesting the charisma, grace and sheer explosive force of Bruce Lee's personality, as well as his drive to master self-awareness as well as self-defense. [11 May 1993, p.D7]

What we’re left with is a well-crafted genre thriller that is ultimately tripped up by its art house aspirations.

Raya isn’t without its formulaic plot points, predictable turns or lazy dialogue. Still, on the whole, it’s a reasonably diverting family-friendly showcase for Disney’s characteristic blend of humor, heart and artistry.

Doesn't boast enough universal meaning to make it truly sing.

As pleasant as the Downton Abbey movie is, it’s hard not to wish for something more substantive, more memorable.

While it's not really about football, it's not about sterling filmmaking, either.

And therein lies one of the film's most glaring problems. Perhaps that vilification of Big Agro will resonate with farm folk, but it's not the sort of thing that will have many city slickers -- even those who sympathize with the little guys on this issue -- exactly sitting on the edge of their theater seat.

As strong as that cast and those visuals are, however, they don't quite add up enough to guarantee a happily-ever-after for moviegoers looking for a memorable in-theater experience.

All aspects of this great story are drawn toward the middle ground of mediocrity.

it plays more like a drama kid’s fever dream. Overly self-aware, unfailingly melodramatic and very, very pleased with itself, it’s not half as clever — or a third as entertaining — as it seems to think it is.

While the improvised interplay of the talented cast -- especially between Hart and Haddish -- help keep things moving along, watching Night School ends up largely being an exercise in waiting for something genuinely inspired to happen. It never does.

The end result feels like only half a movie. That half -- the technical half, with Wong's stylistic flourishes and the film's lush technical elements -- is a heck of a film. The rest of The Grandmaster, however -- the storytelling -- is anything but grand.

This is what makes Anderson's film so infuriating. It's so damned irresistible -- until it becomes so damned insufferable, getting lost in a marijuana fog of poorly explained plot developments and indecipherable twists. Still, it's hard to look away for fear of missing some other equally inspired flourish.

"Second Best" might not be second-rate, but neither is it the match of the first "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."

The problems here are more with the story, which, even at just 89 minutes, feels a touch repetitive at times.

It's still, however, a long way from the Hundred Acre Wood that most "Pooh" fans remember so fondly.

Yes, it's flashy. But it's not flashy enough. It's got its moments of humor, but it's not funny enough. And it flirts with cleverness, but -- you guessed it -- it's nowhere close to being clever enough.

What you won't find amid the clashing cutlasses and flashing foils, however, is anything resembling a rapier wit.

This is not a feel-good movie. This is the frigid, hard-to-embrace cinematic opposite of a feel-good movie, in fact -- all wrapped in one long, dark metaphor for depression.

But its behind-the-scenes satire of the peccadilloes of "serious" French filmmaking eventually turns downright pedantic, while the backstage intrigue (much of it hinging on a female staffer's romantic designs on Maggie) is surprisingly tame. [25 July 1997, p.L31]

Still, while it wouldn't be correct to characterize Home Again as a formula film, it's generic enough that it somehow feels formulaic. Consequently, "Home Again" never distinguishes itself as anything but a predictable and thoroughly ordinary film, just with lots of fancy window dressing.

Najafi's R-rated London Has Fallen doesn't target the genteel viewer. Rather, it aims squarely for moviegoers who like their action bloody, their fights brutal, their body count sky-high.

Designed to lead viewers on a latter-day vision quest, "Little Buddha" instead offers only mystical mumbo-jumbo. And poorly plotted mumbo-jumbo, at that. [27 May 1994, p.L32]

As a result, while the film is certainly intense at times, it's not some sort of Sam Pekinpah blood-fest.

The wholesomeness and embraceable spirit of Their Finest will likely strike a chord with the sort of moviegoer who is drawn to such a film. But that doesn't mean it's as good a film as it could have been.

As for that murder scene, it's undoubtedly the part of the film that will get people talking the most. Clearly and meticulously taking its cues from the widely circulated photos of the crime scene, it is dramatic, it is attention-getting and it is memorable. It is, in other words, everything that the rest of Lizzie is not.

Still, as Death of a Superhero plays out, it's hard not to shake the feeling that this is ground we've trodden before.

Some of those detours are fun ideas - like Marty's O. Henry-esque tale of the Amish psychopath. Mostly, though, they feel out of place, like so much filler that distracts from the half-developed main story. Call me crazy, but I need more from my movie.

This is the sort of movie that Charles Bronson would have made back in the day, and indeed a shot of Johnson standing in a sporting goods store, contemplating a wall of shotguns as he gets ready to get busy, could have come from any "Death Wish."

What he ends up with is a film that boasts undeniably intriguing parts, but that -- unless you've just eaten some magic mushrooms of your own -- just doesn't gel as a whole, unified moviegoing experience.

The stakes in this latest, disappointing Harry Potter wannabe never feel as high as they should, or as important as its characters seem to think they are.

Pros and cons aside, Sinister has the benefit of arriving in the thick of Halloween season, right when movie-goers are most hungry for a few scares. And they'll get them from Derrickson's film, too.

Unfortunately, Franklin isn't quite as successful at capturing the depth of the traditions for which Anaya's source material is so well known.

John Wick makes a few feeble attempts at witty repartee, but, in the end, Leitch and Stahelski's film feels like an unintentional parody of itself.

It's more than a little ironic, then, that the one thing missing from director Craig Robinson's often-amusing, frequently episodic film is just that: a resonant emotional core.

Two Days, One Night offers a look into the lives of the everyday workers of the world -- the ones for whom a thousand-euro bonus (about $1,100 U.S.) can solve a heck of a lot of problems.

None of that is to say that Thor: The Dark World is a bad movie, necessarily. I would never speak ill of a man with a giant, magical hammer. At the same time, hammer or no hammer, it doesn't quite nail it, either.

Unfortunately, like the Poison song says -- and, in many ways, like the decade itself -- it ain't nothin' but a good time.