And while Simien’s “Haunted Mansion” might not entirely bury the memory of its predecessor, it sure throws a few shovels full of dirt on its grave.

You can color me unimpressed.

The fact that there are so many good comic bits here allowed Kasdan to assemble a great comic cast.

As clearly calculated and self-consciously cutesy as it is, it's also tender and meaningful stuff -- and far more watchable than other recent attempts to capture the existential angst of adolescence. ("The Art of Getting By.")

The result is a well-executed but stubbornly formulaic crime thriller that telegraphs most of its major surprises long before they ever happen. It's not a bad movie, mind you. It's just one that will strike viewers as exceedingly familiar, and as generic as that say-nothing title.

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.

At worst, though, the film's faintly sleazy bait-and-switch tactic robs the film of its biggest asset -- its sense of fun.

It is powerful, it is affecting and it -- that is, Hiddleston's eerily accurate performance, from start to finish -- is easily the best thing about director Marc Abraham's Shreveport-shot biopic of the country music legend.

The chief problem with such gimmick films -- including Maniac -- is that storytelling so often takes a back seat to the gimmick du jour, resulting movie that can be interesting from a technical perspective but not nearly as compelling as one would want.

It features predictable humor and an underdeveloped story.

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

This is a movie that confuses teary with sweet. Mopey with sad. Discomfort with humor. And, worst of all, it confuses weird with odd.

Hollywood has made, over the years, some pretty silly films about mental illness, but "Mr. Jones" - the story of a romance between a deeply disturbed patient and his psychiatrist - surely ranks with the looniest. [12 Oct 1993, p.E8]

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

An uneven story that tries too hard to be meaningful and not hard enough to be funny.

Even when he isn't at the top of his game -- and in Wonder Wheel, he certainly isn't -- Allen's films still tend to have something intriguing to offer.

Here's a movie that is far from perfect, far from seamless and far from unassailable. But it manages to be a fun diversion anyway -- and one that will likely leave audiences hungry for more.

That's not to say it's a bad film, necessarily. It's just not as good as it could have -- and should have -- been.

All along, though, I was struck by an even stronger feeling, that I was sitting in on somebody else's therapy session. That's not a comfortable feeling -- and that makes Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close considerably less rewarding than it should be.

As fun as it is at times -- particularly early on -- the longer The Sorcerer's Apprentice goes on, the more the magic wears off.

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

You'd never know, watching a loud, shrill, relentlessly stupid comedy called Airheads, that this 90-minute waste of celluloid is by Michael Lehmann, the ostensibly talented director of "Heathers," a wickedly sharp black comedy released in 1989. Unless, of course, you happen to recall that Lehmann is the same guy who more recently gave us the atrocious "Hudson Hawk." [5 Aug 1994, p.L26]

How do you know when a romantic comedy just isn't working? Key indicators are that your audience doesn't get goose bumps in the inevitable third-act reunion. They don't get misty-eyed. In short, they don't really care.

Aja's film ends up being an fairly satisfying Halloween diversion, using those magical horns to overcome its flaws and transform itself into a decidedly dark, but weirdly sweet, ride.

This is a tragedy, not a comedy.

As it turns out, though, the most troubling part of the film for me wasn't the rape scene, or the siege scene or the Southern stereotypes. Rather, it was the audience's reaction to Marsden's chilling spasms of bloody violence as he defends his home. Rather than breaking out in hives, many in the audience broke out in laughter.

There's a chance Black or White just might offend some, but it's more likely to get them thinking and talking. In this day and age, and given recent headlines, it's hard to ask much more from a movie.

Boudousque is young yet, and so he has room to grow as an actor, but he's got nothing but upside to him at this point. It'll be fun to watch his career grow from here.