William H. Macy has pitch-perfect instincts as an actor. As a movie director, he’s bound to do better than his first feature, this big-hearted, nicely paced but ho-hum character study.

If a black-metal band ever made a 107-minute music video, this visually striking but otherwise ludicrous epic is probably what it would look like.

All of that ends up making this movie — originally titled “Jeff,” in a telling bit of overpersonalization — feel like a late-night cable-news hack job.

Just not feeling the holiday spirit? Maybe a brainless, extra-bloody B-movie will provide the boost you're looking for.

As for Bond’s glib wit, which has been running down lately, the screenwriters haven’t solved that problem. Some of his double entendres are older than Moore and one of them had to be used twice.

Those who go looking for tragic relevance in Scott Rosenbaum's debut indie won't find much to grasp onto.

The “Millers” script — it took four writers to cobble together something that seems so slight — hits too many obvious notes between the moments when Aniston can strut her stuff.

What Getaway needed most is enough juice to get to the finish line, narratively speaking. Because while jumping into the car is great, the fun dies fast if there’s nowhere to go.

This stilted crime drama from Atom Egoyan feels misguided from the start. He’s attempting to fictionalize a true story that has already been told better, several times over.

Some of the talk gets a little bombastic, but it's hard to deny the thrill involved.

Peter Berg’s ultra-bloody battle film “Lone Survivor” is ultimately more grueling than satisfying. It’s more carnage than cinema.

The fact that it stars the extremely funny Melissa McCarthy is both its saving grace and incredibly frustrating.

Though impressively shot, the doc is a weak advertisement for 3-D. Hillary's bees pop out during a background episode, but that's old hat. It's the story of that final ascent is the real stirring stuff.

The result was remarkable, but the story of it, while true to the moment, needed — ironically — much more dynamism.

The film borrows plenty, but it brings nothing new.

A lot makes me uneasy about where biology and technology are going. But Great Scott! Is Morgan really the best you can do?

The long shadow of David Fincher's "Seven" falls on Anamorph, a moody, ultimately unexciting thriller.

Marries an unengaging love triangle to a flat visual style, nearly squashing the one good thing in it -- a scruffy, slouching performance from Peter Sarsgaard.

Airplane loses its buoyancy. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, who share both writing and directorial credits, become so desperate for laughs that the jokes descend to a much cruder level. And Airplane does an abrupt nosedive, turning a hopelessly flat movie, sparked only by the occasional appearances of Lloyd Bridges as an easily rattled air traffic controller whose nerves are such he depends on booze and pills to keep himself going on the job.

Becomes too melodramatic and bleakly obvious. Weaving, though, as always, is never less than magnetic.

Shares a spiritual link to the Japanese works of Hayao Miyazaki but lacks his films' narrative drive and magical overlay.

It's a tired idea, and it produces an episodic, unstrung film. [6 March 1998, p.49]

Goes about its game so bloodlessly, the result is some of the most unexciting action and seduction sequences in recent memory.

Gere and Grace do make a decent odd couple, but neither seems entirely committed.

Children, of course, won’t notice the political subtext. But do be prepared for them to exit the theater demanding that you make only Tofurkey in the future.

Anthony Byrne's lazy drama is insulting to just about everyone, including Maeve Binchy, who wrote the short story on which it was based. But nobody fares well, especially cast members Vanessa Redgrave, Brenda Fricker and Imelda Staunton.

The story here, like a lot of bar bands, goes loud to cover up mediocrity. When Streep sings, though, so does the film.

Director Sergei Bodrov’s movie is based on a kids’ book in which Tom was a 12-year-old, and the actors wisely pitch their performances to a young crowd.