There are some moments that fall flat—the cinematic world might be a better place without Crystal's deeply unfunny parody of a gangster—and the delightful Lisa Kudrow is woefully under-used.

Gremlins 2 has its horror-movie side, but the grisly is definitely subordinate to the gags. Only a snob could resist such a generous level of lunacy.

Whether you regard her as a symptom or a cure for a culture still locked in its eternal battle between the puritanical and the prurient, [Madonna's] out there at the barricades. In Truth or Dare, she's at her button-pushing best.

A warm-hearted romp that will leave you smiling -- and strutting.

Ninety minutes into this massive movie the attack commences, and the spectacular images come hurtling like fireballs. This is, let's be honest, what we're here for, and what most Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movies serve up best: the poetry of destruction.

Working Girls has its shortcomings (the madam is too caricatured, the script occasionally reads like rehashed research), but the film, a fiction with the conviction of a documentary, fascinates and provokes. [06 Apr 1987, p.64]

This movie is so packed with character, incident and detail that it seems to whiz by like a ferocious number by a high powered jazz ensemble. In the process it skimps on connections and short-circuits many of its emotional relationships. But Coppola, called in to rescue the project and working under crazy financial and creative pressure, has come up with a vision of jazz-age fever in which violence, romance and race are choreographed to the music of the Harlem renaissance. [24 Dec 1984, p.52]

Richard Benjamin's first film as a director, My Favorite Year, is a valentine-shaped satire with a tone of courtly rowdiness all its own. [04 Oct 1982, p.77]

For Your Eyes Only is one giant second-unit film, an anthology of action episodes held together by the thinnest of plot lines. Most of these episodes are terrific in their exhilaratingly absurd energy: Steven Spielberg himself would not sneer at them. [29 June 1981, p.72]

Fletch Lives feels like TV, but at least it's clever, unpretentious TV. [20 Mar 1989, p.83]

The simplicity of Sicko's argument is also its power.

This Freudian folderol is actually well handled by writer-director Richard Tuggle, who wrote the script for Eastwood's Escape From Alcatraz and here, in his first shot at directing, gives Tightrope a quietly effective tension and suspense. [27 Aug 1984, p.68]

It has a timely resonance. While it doesn't have that transcendent quality of Majidi's earlier work -- the implied bleakness from across the border puts a slightly darker hue on the proceedings -- it does tell a story worth telling.

It's hard not to be impressed by Kerry's courage and calm leadership--and to wonder if that guy will show up again.

Blood Diamond only skims the surface of many important subjects--the script doesn't begin to explain what the civil war was about. But if it opens a few eyes, it will have done its job.

Adorable, if uneven, romantic comedy.

Bizarre, edgy and haunting tale.

It may be clumsily made, shamelessly contrived and utterly cynical in its calculated uplift, but there's no getting around it: the damn thing is funny.

Recklessly perched on the edge of the ludicrous, this examination of a destructive erotic passion unfolds with an unsettling mixture of steam and mordant iron.

Shot with gritty flamboyance by Robby Muller, cast with a fine eye for fresh, tough-guy faces, To Live and Die in L.A. may be fake savage, but it's fun. Friedkin can still cook up a good set piece: there's a tense, comic three-way chase in the L.A. airport, and a bravura car chase designed to evoke memories of "The French Connection." [11 Nov 1985, p.80]

A finely polished, stirring court-martial drama that retells the true story of three Aussie soldiers who are put on trial for the murder of Boer prisoners of war and condemned to death by the British, who hypocritically deny that they were acting on Kitchener's orders. [15 Sep 1980, p.104]

What this version offers is the chance to watch Russell Crowe and Christian Bale—two of the more charismatic, macho leading men around--duke it out psychologically, while another fine but less well-known intensity artist, Ben Foster, steals

There's plenty of bravura camera work and two terrific supporting turns from Carla Gugino, as a terrified key witness, and Stan Shaw, as the soul-searching heavyweight champ. De Palma didn't hit the jackpot here, but he certainly didn't roll snake eyes.

The journey requires patience and the willingness to suspend your expectations of what a Burt-and-Goldie movie ought to be. This is a movie about what happens to a Fun Couple when they're not having fun. [27 Dec 1982, p.61]

De Palma's takeoff on the Godfather genre doesn't have the subversive slyness of Prizzi's Honor. Wise Guys aims lower, but that's an honorable direction in which to aim, and De Palma and writer George Gallo riddle the belly with dumdum laugh bullets. [19 May 1986, p.73]

Director Irvin Kershner handles the early part with wit and style, but he's hamstrung by Lorenzo Semple's script, which is based too much on "Thunderball." Still, there are fun passages. [10 Oct 1983, p.93]

Thanks to Ejiofor's wonderful performance--his easy, commanding body language wordlessly convinces you of his character's nobility--and Mamet's knowing take on the arcane world of Brazilian jiujitsu, Redbelt never loses its muscular hold on your attention.

The old pros cavort grandly. Moore even strips down to a black bra and panties, and rolls in bed with her husband (George Segal).