Theirs is an affair not worth remembering.

Mostly plays like a routine thriller with a classy cast.

Very Bad Things only getes worse. [25 November 1998, p. 44]

It strains to hard for laughs, with stale jokes about unweildy corpses.

It makes sly sense to link female hormonal bursts with the lunar cycle of the werewolf, but the movie's final act is the usual matted-fur chase.

This year-in-the-life comedy will appeal mostly to its target audience -- the boys of middle school, USA -- and frankly, that's all it needs. Who else would appreciate the idiocy of social pressure,

Cross-dressing and the Irish Troubles don't mix well in Neil Jordan's cloying, fanciful Breakfast on Pluto.

Of course the experiences and sacrifices of black troops, which were so often overlooked, should be represented and honored. But because Lee underestimates our desire to do so, the movie that follows doesn't do them justice.

You won’t find anything new here: the sequel is basically a retread of the original, in which Scott delivers the strongest emotional moments, while an amusingly over-the-top Smith perpetually breaks the tension.

Muppets From Space has its share of whimsical lines aimed over children's heads at their parents, but speaking for one parent whose kids are grown, it's not enough. [14 July 1999, p.36]

The inspector general is an interesting figure, and the images of criminals sobbing over their newfound inner peace are certainly memorable.

Too often crosses the line between good melodrama and rank cliché.

The movie never really comes alive, and Crialese's coyness with Lucy's character is more frustrating than mysterious.

Eventually any serious statement is lost in a sea of sadism, as he forces us to watch scene after scene of gruesome, humiliating torture.

The actors are emotional, but the presentation is theoretical to the point of absurdity.

The Village is Shyamalan's weakest story, and its ending - whether or not you're surprised by it - is a genuine clinker.

Farrell plays all this as if he means it, but he seems slight in the role and without great physical presence. In a scene in which Alexander is roaring at his troops to rouse them to battle, he sounds like Mighty Mouse pretending to be Superman.

Zwart never gets the tone right in this very American comedy.

An intriguing idea undermined by a lackluster follow-through.

Not even Rupert Everett is able to breathe life into soapy Thing.

Sometimes, more is less. Although it’s called Captain America: Civil War, the latest Marvel movie is actually a supersized “Avengers” picture -- overstuffed to bursting.

Carrie is back and she's all the rage.

There's something deeper at play in the film, something psychologically foul, voyeuristic and personal.

When a 6-foot-tall man is playing your emotionally delicate heroine, a little subtlety goes a long way.

Though it lacks a focus or greater artistic vision, Thomas Balmès' no-frills documentary offers Westerners a valuable glimpse into the sweatshops of the new China.

Not so much a movie as a self-contained world for like-minded people who wear their outsider status on their sleeves.

It's impossible to overstate the silliness of all this, but it would still be a decent Halloween trick - if it were Halloween.

You may not subscribe to the film's evangelical message, but you'll be floored by the extraordinary musical scenes, which lead up to a showstopper featuring gospel superstars like Donnie McClurkin and Yolanda Adams.

The always strong Gunn does her best with the very familiar, quickly paced storyline.

What kind of movie is misdirected, poorly acted, preposterously written--and still wholly entertaining? A B-movie, of course. While Illegal Tender has misguided pretensions towards Serious Filmmaking, it's surprisingly likeable if you see it instead as a cheesy thriller good for a lazy Friday night.

There are some funny moments and amusing cameos, but it's not enough to elevate this project's slapdash approach.

Egoyan's uncharacteristic bid for the mainstream flames out on many levels, but it's hard not to stare with fascination at the dying embers.

A few genuinely tense scenes are not enough to overcome a thin script, weak direction and an unceasingly high-strung score.

Because his self-conscious musings are given so much space, it helps to arrive at the movie already awed by Shicoff's talents so you can overlook his (and this dramatically unfocused film's) flaws.

So laughably preposterous that it's thoroughly entertaining.

Bogdanich turned in an exhaustively thorough document that sheds some light on a tragedy that remains shadowy to those outside its domain.

Earnest, fact-based drama is marred only by the fact that it wants desperately to save your soul.

Old-fashioned comedy-drama.

Benigni clearly intends to make some impassioned statements about the futility of war, the power of romance, the enduring strength of optimism. However, the once-appealing innocence of his exuberant persona has become curdled over time.

Just another cutesy, rather toothless comedy about the pitfalls of first love.

Baldwin and Streep do make the most of the situation, and their sparky chemistry provides the only real draw.

The movie works as well as it does ­because the cast knows the material so ­intimately. (review of re-release)

The movie comes alive in bursts such as a train-top fight hampered by gale-force winds. Cruise's star wattage may hog the show, but it insures that Mission: Impossible won't self-destruct easily.

The tone moves from gently jocular (Irons appears in drag) to mystically morose (a female shaman tries to ululate up a cure), and that creates a jarring effect from which the movie does not recover.

With the film's hypnotic emphasis on artistry and architecture, most viewers will probably get their satisfaction from the striking visual elements, particularly the stop-motion animation.

Watching the movie felt like any number of bad blind dates.

None of the three screenwriters strained himself with effort. But the relative lack of coarseness and snark may come as a surprising relief, even to 21st-century audiences.

Charles Shyer's update is a pointlessly tame romp.

It's in French with French actors, but its film noir sensibilities have a filtered Hollywood vibe about them. In other words, it's pretty much a mess.

The vision of him pretending to be a sullen teen is a distraction the movie never overcomes.

Why remake a horror film if you can't make it scarier?

The movie is mostly a series of frenetic clashes, dubious near misses and car chases. It lacks the human interest and snowy splendor of the first movie, directed by Doug Liman.

A vanity project by a moderately talented artist that has moments of real brilliance in it.

Certainly there are people who will welcome this kind of "wholesome" family entertainment, but it feels false.

Don't like archetypes? Wait till you meet the cliches.

At least it's as sweet as it is superficial.

The dialogue is nothing to speak of, but the movie has a dynamite opening sequence in which the corporation turns on its workers, leaving them, if not dead, then with "virtually no intelligence," like office workers everywhere.

It works so hard to evoke a sense of teary patriotism it leaves behind a grimy feeling.

The 2,400 Americans who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor deserve a nobler memorial than this sentimental hogwash that reduces heroism to "Top Gun" antics and pretty cinematography.

As a meditation on love and loss, the award-winning script is perhaps too blunt.

Something less than a gem. It has a brilliant lead performance from Yuliya Vysotskaya as Janna.

Weintrob's shallow analysis of virtual reality might have been more resonant in the mid-'90s, but he seems well aware that some things are timeless: By the end of his film, he has firmly shifted focus, concentrating far less on the cyber than on the sex.

The special effects remain startling, and in your face. But there's nothing new here, and what's old feels like less. The corporate villains seem to have wandered over from "Rampage." The humor has vanished.

Big Momma's got game, but she doesn't have much else.

The result is a gorgeous, third-person version of an extended family-vacation movie that the Piersons, their friends and their former Fijian neighbors can enjoy for years to come.

The source for Jieho Lee's The Air I Breathe is an ancient Chinese proverb about the four cornerstones of emotion - love, pleasure, happiness and sorrow. But Lee and co-writer Bob DeRosa went 0-4 with their convoluted screenplay, making me thankful they didn't try to adapt the Seven Deadly Sins.

To see Allen, now 70, trying to reclaim the persona he's been handing off is like watching Willie Mays fall down trying to hit a slow curve during his last season. Woody may go on to direct many great films, but it's time for him to retire Alvy Singer.

Offers a passably entertaining bridge between empty-headed summer fare and fall awards hunting.

Rev. Robin Williams goes from mildly comic to downright creepy.

The frantic proceedings are more likely to have you wishing this summer would just come to an end.

An unsubtle allegory about a way of life withering on the vine.

This pretty trifle is a movie about gorgeous women having an illicit affair -- period.

The Ten is so proud of its own wit and irreverence that when you fail to be equally impressed, you are likely to wonder if your own sense of humor is, in some way, deficient. Rest assured it is not.

Truth is, it' not very good.

Horror fans will be appalled by the frivolity of the beheadings, amputations and blunt-force trauma. But when Tilly, complaining about all the good roles going to Julia Roberts, says she could have played Erin Brockovich and done it without the Wonderbra, you know you're into something almost inspired.

The first feature from Adam Bhala Lough is brashly passionate in its desire to express the power and validity of graffiti art. But it's also preachy and single-minded, populated by a world of sympathetic heroes and hissable villains.

Among the creepiest adult monologues you'll hear in a regular theater this year comes from Karen Young in Heading South, a well-acted but misguided tale of displaced sexual longing on the beaches of Baby Doc Duvalier's 1970s Haiti.

In the funniest and, coincidentally, most "Jackass"-like scene in Todd Phillips' School for Scoundrels, a planned game of paintball gets off to a bad start when the players begin shooting each other at point-blank range.

A movie about a maverick ought to be a little daring as well, and Mona Lisa Smile is as safe and predictable as chintz.

It is both inside-baseball and self-parody, exposing a world that is just as ruthless and shallow as we've been shown it is in films like "The Player" and "Permanent Midnight."

The story line is frustratingly haphazard, spreading out in several directions without ever focusing on one.

Passion this profound can't help but make an impact.

If aesthetics are a prime factor in your movie choices, you may get something out of Ann Hu's overwrought, but beautifully atmospheric, period romance.

All three leads grow on you.

Yet it all comes down to one simplistic idea, and the result feels like a one-film evangelical movement.

The World has a pokey pace, but it presents a uniquely powerful look at the new big kid in the global economy.

A ghetto horror movie that sets up some decent scares before becoming so amused with itself, it's a wonder we don't hear the crew laughing.

Perry makes sure villains get their comeuppance, while heroines get big, frilly weddings - with God, and an imperious Maya Angelou - presiding over it all.

The resulting movie is a mixed bag, not quite a documentary and yet as "true" to Weber's fascinations as a dog named True can be to his master.

For all its spiritual angst, Constantine is about as silly as fantasies get.

Freida Lee Mock's adulatory portrait makes for pleasant viewing - but should it?

It may be a dismal comedy thriller, but Antoine Fuqua's Bait has one piece of bait that's definitely appealing: Jamie Foxx.

The only thing to do, then, is settle back and appreciate Hudson's no-nonsense performance, an appealingly mature turn that makes you hope she has turned her back on second-rate romantic fluff. (Whether second-rate horror represents actual improvement is another matter.)

With style to spare, Hype Williams' gangsta rap epic Belly applies a wide range of MTV techniques slow motion, strobe effects, seemingly more fish-eye shots than there are fish in the sea to tell a confusing, fundamentally undramatic story about two holdup men from Queens (played by rappers DMX and Nas) who graduate to dealing a new kind of superpowered heroin. [06 Nov 1998, p.56]

Essentially a home movie, nicely shot but dull.

The three actors do their best to breathe life into their caricatured roles.

If you're a rave virgin, it'll more likely make you feel like the guest nobody invited. And why would you pay nine bucks for that?

Nia Vardalos carved herself a niche with "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" in 2002, and she's still furiously digging away at it with the screechy, unpleasant comedy Connie and Carla.