It is nothing if not a nice film. But it's little more than that.

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.

Despite the occasional outbreak of tension, it all ends up becoming repetitive as Eye in the Sky gets bogged down in the morality of it all, spinning its wheels for long stretches.

It's all fairly standard rom-com stuff.

To put it in Austen terms: They will not have the pleasure of understanding what Steers is trying to do here.

Regardless of how well-argued it is, when watching a film feels this much like homework, that's not likely to happen.

For better and for worse, it's neither better nor worse than the original "Ride Along." That's because it's essentially the same movie.

Most real horror fans, however, will likely be left wondering where the heat is.

When a film's clichés are so obvious that its cast points them out for you, you've got to wonder how hard it's really trying.

Admittedly, I'm in the minority here, with many other critics swooning over First Reformed and the big questions it raises. Regardless, the biggest question I had after watching it was simple: What the hell did I just witness?

There's a lot of eye candy in what ends up being a slick, breathless and at-times enjoyable sci-fi update. Unfortunately, it's what Wiseman forgets to do that makes the biggest difference in his film -- and which keeps it from becoming much more than a glossy missed opportunity.

So if a feeling of deja vu is what you most crave at the movies, go and see director Thomas Carter's "Metro." You'll pay six or seven bucks to feel as though you've seen it all before. And you have. Eddie, please, come back when you can find some decent material. [17 Jan 1997, p.L26]

For 91 minutes of its briskly paced 94-minute running time, the film works as a tightly wound bit of pins-and-needles storytelling. Then, Anderson lets it all unravel in a three-minute stretch of cheap writing that not only betrays the characters he worked so hard to develop, but that also thumbs its nose at any audience members with a brain.

Because while it can boast of some truly extraordinary special effects -- stomach-churning, face-hacking, arm-slicing visual effects, the kind that are sure to titillate the gleefully twisted -- this Evil Dead is far more gruesome than awesome.

There's a germ of a good story there, and Intruders isn't without the occasional tense moment. But unfortunately Hollowface is as undeveloped as the other characters in Intruders, which is the film's biggest flaw of all.

Here's a film that tries to strike a "Beverly Hills Cop" balance between crime drama and screwball comedy -- but that balance, it should be noted, isn't an easy one to strike.

You'd think that a movie about such a dynamic moment and such a vibrant ad campaign would be more dynamic and vibrant.

What we end up with is an arm's-length film that feels more haunted than haunting -- and one that audiences will want to forget rather than remember.

As well-shot and well-acted as it is, one can't help feeling there's a good movie in there somewhere. Unfortunately, it's buried beneath such an avalanche of extraneousness and artistic posing.

The resulting film, despite its occasional outbursts of action and tension, is less an action film than a psychological thriller, although even there it fumbles the ball.

Once the opening credits end, it turns out The Nut Job"= is far more "Romper Room" than "Step Brothers."

Any improvements over the original RoboCop are mere window dressing, more a superficial function of technical advances in filmmaking than of any sort of storytelling prowess or fresh narrative ideas.

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.

If there’s a knock on the first Coming to America, it’s that its two-hour running time often felt a touch padded. But that’s better than the entirely forgettable Coming 2 America, which is pretty much all padding.

This is a tragedy, not a comedy.

An uneven R-rated Christmas comedy that's more enjoyable than, say, your Nana's fruitcake, but which at the same time doesn't feel quite like the dose of memorable holiday cheer it could have been.

Niccol and Meyer -- who co-produces this, her first post-"Twilight" film -- choose to trade away any shred of the ripe social subtext that has made other body-snatcher films so rich. In its place: the kind of supernatural, star-crossed romance that generates so much swooning from Team "Twilight."

If you currently own a G.I. Joe toy or if you've dressed like a ninja at least twice since Halloween, you're going to find a lot to "hooah" about in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."