A well-intended but scattered dramatic comedy.

Before it gives itself a chance to deliver on that promise, however, it morphs into something different -- something often resembling a soap opera, just with prettier sets and less-passionate smooching.

Lillard's film ends up being more unsatisfying than anything else. His "Fat Kid" might rule the world, but it doesn't quite rule the screen.

Dunston does all sorts of zany things in Ken Kwapis' wisely brief feature, but whether the movie is therefore worth seeing will depend on whether his monkeyshines are apt to make the viewer go ape. [12 Jan 1996, p.L24]

Lacks any real sense of vitality. And no matter how worthwhile a film's message is, it's difficult for audiences to care if the path to the payoff so often feels like a slog.

Never coalesces into anything memorable, much less meaningful.

Twenty-five years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that Imagine That would see Eddie Murphy and The Beatles coming together to create family entertainment, but I'll be darned if it doesn't work.

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.

It's a dark, troubled world that O'Brien has created, and one that's not without its occasional predictabilities. (As soon as you see Christopher Lloyd in the cast, you know he'll figure into the plot at some point. And you'd be right.) Still, it's one that -- like "Stranger Things" -- proves hard to resist.

Between its ridiculous setup and its hard-to-care-about ending, McDonald still manages to craft an engaging suspense film that -- when you're not scratching your head in puzzlement -- will have you on the edge of your seat.

This offbeat comedy-horror flick about a young man with a terminal fear of commitment turns out to be a modestly funny affair. [30 July 1993, p.L27]

Unwieldy and awkward. If you want to like this story, you'd better expect to have to work for it.

Director David Bowers' story is straightforwardly -- almost unimaginatively -- approached. But, armed with a talented cast and Kinney's chuckle-generating source material, it functions nicely as a sort of big-screen "Wonder Years" for Millennials.

What it lacks in style, however, it more than makes up for in substance, as Shearer -- as smart as he is funny -- has assembled a vital and admirably accessible post-mortem on Hurricane Katrina.

Amusing as it often is, it's all also fairly predictable stuff. If there's one thing Arteta's script is missing, it's imagination.

While director Rupert Wyatt's film has a handful of things going for it -- alien invaders, bursts of action, sociopolitical subtext, a stern-faced John Goodman -- it is missing one key element: a soul.

Granted, "intelligent" might be too generous a word to describe Oblivion, which flirts with big questions, but never answers them. What's left is a story that doesn't quite go where no man has gone before.

It's undeniably a B-movie in disguise, leaning heavily on formula and well-established movie tropes to tell a familiar story.

The problem is, Draft Day doesn't really capture that sense of urgency until late in the film.

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

It’s beautiful, but it begins to fade, and fast — until there’s little, if anything worth remembering.

An amusingly meta B-movie send-up that -- largely thanks to its deadpan sensibilities -- manages to offer an entertaining riff on the zombie comedy, even if it doesn't particularly contribute anything ground-breaking to it.

A satisfying dose of wild imagination and unbridled silliness.

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.

Burton's most imaginative film in some time.

One of the reasons it's so effective is because it's based on a real-life, odds-defying story: that of mountainous Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron).

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

Director Robert Rodriguez and his crew do a magnificent job of world-creating, thanks to impressive technical wizardry. Actress Rosa Salazar also brings the lead character to life with sweet (though lethal) charm...It struggles under the weight of the rangy, multi-pronged narrative before effectively cheating moviegoers by leaving them with a cliffhanger ending.