This latest Star Trek is a well-plotted, well-acted and consistently exciting addition to the popular movie series. [6 Dec. 1991, p.21]

This latest Les Miserables is a watchable, even worthy, attempt. It's far from miserable. [01 May 1998, p.21]

White Men Can't Jump isn't a terrific movie, but it's the best showcase Snipes has had so far to demonstrate how hip he can be.

You have to remind yourself to breathe.

Whatever the grownups say, Manyaka's Chanda is the one person in this village who understands how simple things really are, that it really does come down to Life, Above All.

A stirring account of the submarine Copperfin's daring mission to penetrate Tokyo Bay to help set up the raid. The film was convincing enough to be used as a Navy instructional film. [31 May 2001, p.F1]

"The Debt," a very good 2007 Israeli thriller with Cold War and Holocaust connections, earns a nerve-wracking and entertaining Hollywood remake.

The Firm and The Pelican Brief, both of last year, were solid entertainment. Now along comes the movie version of The Client - the best of the Grisham film trilogy.

If you're on - or even near - the film's wavelength, it's hilarious.

Thanks to Banderas and his Corinthian leather purr and writers who know how to use it, "Puss" is the best animated film of 2011.

Noisy and (nearly) awful, Noises Off is the sort of movie that gives filmed theater a bad name. Based on Michael Frayn's popular, Tony-nominated play, the screen version is so lame that even without having seen a stage production of the material I can tell that the film doesn't do it justice.

It’s filmic fool’s gold, as every scene that doesn’t sparkle is just dirt -- dank, gritty visuals, murky plotting and very bad line-readings from Troyer (Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies).

Actually, the rating fits. The movie isn't quite enough fun to qualify for the "average" category, yet not quite lame enough to deserve to be called "poor." [28 June 1991, p.6]

It is a well-acted and vivid re-creation of a dark, downbeat era when "girls don't play electric guitar," and you had to be someone pretty tough and pretty special to try it.

Branagh and Williams are worth the price of admission, the former "wunderkind" of British stage and screen having a go at the pretentious, plummy Olivier.

It's still a short-enough time-killer of a thriller -- not the worst of the summer, but a long way from the current state of the art.

It is Carrey, turning his patented rubber-faced, rubber-voiced shtick loose on a role with heart, substance and entertainment value, who makes this romantic farce a movie too good to sit on any studio's shelf.

"Evil" fails to triumph. Utterly.

It's a bleak yet optimistic film, and Ferrell perfectly underplays his Carver anti-hero and delivers a rich, layered and subtle performance. And a funny one.

One of the most entertaining history lessons you could ever hope to sit through.

X-Men: First Class still sings the praises of Marvel Studios' marvelous quality control of comic book movies. It's good, clean summer movie fun where the money they spend is up on the screen - with actors and effects - so that we won't mind spending our money on it.

If The Prince of Tides has a saving grace, it's the acting. In what is probably the most subdued role of her life, Streisand is remarkably graceful and charming: This woman who has so often been accused of self-infatuation hands much of the movie over to her co-stars.

Director Rudolph keeps the pacing tight and the atmosphere emotionally charged, so that even when his experiment in storytelling doesn't quite work, Mortal Thoughts is still compelling. [19 Apr 1991, p.4]

The mercurial Brand is spot on as the mercurial Aldous, putting over outrageously titled tunes with panache.

It's a fairly effective melodrama with an inventive visual design, swift pacing and convincing performances by Liam Neeson (as Westlake/Darkman), Frances McDormand (as Westlake's girlfriend) and Larry Drake (as the heavy). [24 Aug. 1990, p.4]

Most of the time, Soapdish is fairly amusing in a zany, anything-goes kind of way. [31 May 1991, p.5]

What's especially encouraging about Just Another Girl is that in it Leslie Harris demonstrates a genuine knack for capturing on film the sounds and rhythms of adolescence. [10 Apr 1993, p.E1]

Saoirse Ronan shines in the title role, a wily, physically-fit and lethal girl.

The first third is brisk and witty, the middle third gloomy and the finale of Part 1 not so much a cliffhanger as a grim, inspiring tease, a masterly build-up to put "I can't wait for part 2" on every Muggles' lips.

A most deserving Oscar winner and a film that could provoke discussion anywhere it is shown, anywhere people of any age are being bullied.

It's a plucky film that covers a lot of ground and uncovers this wonderful, ancient ritual that people of many faiths and from all walks of life take on.

The laughs - Doug tries to take up the pipe, a la Sherlock Holmes - are on the flat side.

If Winkler's heart is in the right place, his head is often somewhere else. There's a great movie to be made about the blacklist period, but this just isn't it. [15 Mar 1991, p.8]

Outbreak is sharp, sometimes-exploitative entertainment that does its job with great efficiency.

No, this isn't how it really happened. But director Charles Martin Smith ("Air Bud") wrings plenty of heartfelt tears and a few laughs out of this fictionalized account.

Once you get past the cliched Spanglish dialogue and the sentimental tone of the early acts, A Better Life settles down into something both involving and moving.

Fright Night can also boast of having the best vampire-villain in ages. The bushy-browed Colin Farrell was BORN to wear fangs.

If the Muppets sometime seem at sea in Muppet Treasure Island, the film still has more wit and irony than most kid-oriented productions. Fozzie, in fact, has more in that index finger of his than Barney has in his whole purple carcass. [16 Feb 1996, p.30]

This isn't satire, it isn't that funny and the only bits that work are the titillating ones.

This may be a dated film, one in which publishing companies were run by czars instead of corporations and a woman's worth was defined by mink coats and men. But it is also a smart, clever, funny film with a wonderful cast and some nice screwball touches by director PETER GODFREY. [23 Dec 2001, p.15]

While we may ogle Tamara, blush at her charms and revel in her world, in the end Tarama Drewe is just a bit of Brit tease that doesn't come off.

The sweet, the comic and the tragic blend together most agreeably in the winsome French romance The Hedgehog.

This thriller is so completely worked out that it might have been devised by paranoids. Not even the most demented Kennedy-assassination buff could be more thorough about making sure that everything fits with everything else.

At its best, Fried Green Tomatoes is a pleasantly nostalgic tale wrapped around a murder mystery (which, frankly, isn't all that mysterious). The filmmakers do a decent job of weaving the texture of the thoroughly racist and sexist society within which Idgie, Ruth and the movie's major black characters (played by Cicely Tyson and Stan Shaw) must struggle to preserve their self-respect and, at critical times, their lives. At its worst, the film is unexciting and rambles too much.

It's amusingly off-the-wall, but entirely too cluttered to come together.

There's no mistaking Flight of the Navigator for a really first-rate children's picture like, say, The Black Stallion. But Flight of the Navigator is an enjoyable film that encourages kids to use their heads. Unlike those children's movies that spoon-feed their audiences, this film keeps setting up challenging situations that young moviegoers must think through.

Harrison Ford - that most decent of decent men - helps to carry the new film on his broad shoulders. With his blunt, Everyman features and sympathetically furrowed brow, he comes off as such a solid, good guy that it's impossible not to care about his upstanding character.

It Could Happen to You does present a life-affirming message about keeping your word - a message that undoubtedly will lead somebody to proclaim it the "feel-good movie of the summer." Yes, it's nice. Very nice. But nice ain't always enough.

A low energy romance, a movie that rewards a filmgoer with the patience to let this affair play itself out. Sink or swim, Connie and Jack will come out of this changed. And so will we.

No one can know what Jim Henson would have thought of The Muppet Christmas Carol, but I suspect he would have admired the way it fuses Dickens' spirit with his and usually comes up with something fresh and subtly different from either. Taking Scrooge's advice, Brian Henson and his crew keep Christmas in their own way - which, I suppose, is the only way to keep it. [11 Dec 1992, p.C-19]

Yet Kids does stay with you - which is more than can be said for a picture like Showgirls, most of which vanished from my consciousness 10 minutes after it ended. Nearly a month has elapsed since I've seen Kids and, tedious though much of it is, the experience lingers. [29 Sept 1995, p.19]

The new creature feature Monsters is an intriguing mash-up of "District 9," "The Host" and assorted recent post-apocalypse road pictures.

Director Thomas Balmes and his editors find moments of humor in “discoveries” or the unfettered urinating of a baby brought up without diapers.

Populated with a peerless supporting cast, actors who bring just the right history to their roles.

Mistress has a few weak patches, but they're directly tied to the production's funky charm, and without them, the film might not be half so engaging. All things considered, I wouldn't change one word. [27 Nov 1992, p.18]

Bad Influence has a somewhat effective screenplay, provided by newcomer David Koepp. The dialogue is much sharper in Bad Influence than it was in The Bedroom Window - although the new film's plot could have used more work. [09 Mar 1990, p.5]

Chemistry is king. It's one reason the rom-com has long seemed like the toughest code for Hollywood to crack. But never underestimate the power of snappy, rapid-fire banter, the paving stones of the Hollywood road to romance.

Its grisly violence and ridicule-religion tone make it sort of the anti-"Exorcism of Emily Rose."

Cute, bordering on cutesy, yes. Light and shallow and inconsequential in a lot of ways. But funny? Rarely.

A sloppy, raucous, time travel farce in the grown-men-gone-wild "Hangover" style, it’s a surprisingly satisfying, if not exactly LMAO, riot.

British director Mike Figgis has a genuine knack when it comes to things such as mood, pacing and atmosphere. But he tends to lose track of crucial points - such as whether or not a central character comes out of the story alive. [19 Jan 1990, p.4]

If it's explosions, gunplay and wartime treachery that you're looking for, then director Brian Hutton's Where Eagles Dare is right up your alley. [12 Mar 1995, p.51]

The movie blends comedy with drama, and if it isn't the best party you'll ever attend, it does at least manage to sustain a party atmosphere. [20 Sep 1991, p.20]

These Elvis clones are just one aspect of the zany atmosphere in this sometimes-entertaining comic romp.

Green Zone isn't so much a bad movie as a misguided one.

The thrills and spills are often fun, despite their predictability. Watching this movie doesn't seem so much like white-water rafting as it does like taking a theme-park thrill ride that you've already taken a few dozen times. [30 Sep 1994, p.25]

A routine action drama, Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book contains qualities of both forgettability and painlessness.

Although the second half of the picture (which could have been called Single White Females Can't Live Together) is mostly a waste, the early scenes are tantalizing enough to be worth a look. [14 Aug 1992, p.17]

Comical, colorful, wonderfully cast and beautifully animated.

Cry-Baby is hipper and funnier than any Elvis flick ever was, but in many ways it's not so different from Viva Las Vegas or Blue Hawaii.

The voice casting is on the money and these funny people - and I'm including Pitt, who plays this sort of self-mocking Adonis well, even in animated form - make this cute comedy come off.

It’s not bad, but as Scorsese, America’s greatest living filmmaker and film history buff should know, even Hitchcock came up short on occasion.

Equal parts inspired and irresponsible, the new film from Miguel Arteta (director of the cult hit 'Chuck and Buck') turns C.D. Payne's books into a hit-or-miss homage to that French classic of outlaw love, 'Breathless.'

Prelude to a Kiss is a kind of fairy tale, but it's a fairy tale grounded in human experience. [10 Jul 1992, p.10]

Henry & June is a difficult, uncompromising work whose best qualities are not likely to be appreciated by all filmgoers. But it is, quite simply, the most overwhelming film about ultimate freedom to reach us in years. [19 Oct 1990, p.12]

The Fly...will send cold chills down the spines of the most hardened horror addict. It's a dilly. [29 Aug 1958, p.9D]

The title’s a trite metaphor and the surprises are thin. But the sleepy scenery and charming performances – Stewart escapes her vampires and reminds everyone what the fuss used to be about – keep The Yellow Handkerchief from blowing it.

How bad is Something to Talk About? Well, it's not the worst movie I've seen this year, but it is the biggest waste of talent. [4 Aug 1995, p.18]

Movies like this one - with its spoofy jokes, vacant characters and indefensible plotting - do nothing to keep the western form alive. Deal me out of this con game.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is a serious film, but is it a great one? Not as far as I'm concerned. Overall, I'd say it's only pretty good, though parts of it are much better than that. [30 Apr 1990, p.D1]

An intricate and daft tale of love, family and revenge.

Davis and Spencer give faces and fully-fleshed out lives to women who must have been more than what they did for a living as The Help.

The leads are charmingly mismatched, but adorable enough to root for, as a couple. Forestier is a wildly uninhibited actress, sexy as all get out. She makes this girl dangerous, seemingly capable of anything.

But this movie is no more interested in Cleveland than it is, really, in baseball: It doesn't have the passion for the sport's curiosities that Bull Durham has, nor the feeling for the sport's heartbreak of Eight Men Out. Watching Major League may be better than watching no baseball at all. But its place in the annals of baseball-moviedom is bush league at best.

Crisp, compact and cryptic, The American is a standard-issue hit-man thriller tailor made for George Clooney.

Almost every shot is a postcard-perfect African vista, and every animal shown in majestic close-up.

Aside from Robert De Niro and his totally inappropriate performance, the cast is a mixed bag.

The magic in the film is in the actors. Only somebody who has stripped himself emotionally bare for the camera could achieve the level of performance that Goldwyn gets from every single SAG member on this set.

At a time when a lot of very silly and terribly dangerous things are being said about sexual harassment, Oleanna sheds a remarkable amount of light on one of the major issues facing us as we struggle, both women and men, to play out our new roles. [02 Dec 1994, p.20]

The Big Country is a sprawling western that is handsomely photographed by Franz Planer and meticulously directed by William Wyler. [02 Oct 1994, p.51]

But as useful as it is to chew on ideas that don't hew to climate change dogma, Cool It leaves big questions about Lomborg unanswered.

Romper Stomper offers an intriguing twist on most chase movies: In this one, you don't want the people who are being pursued to get away. [01 Oct 1993, p.20]

In Hero, Frears and Peoples send up the press and the public, but they stop short of debunking the notion of heroism itself. [02 Oct 1992, p.17]

The main difference between Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Hot Shots! is that almost half the jokes in Naked Gun 2 1/2 were at least slightly funny while in Hot Shots! less than a fifth are any good at all. [2 Aug 1991, p.C5]

Somehow, the new production fails to sustain the creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky and altogether ooky visual sweep that held the first film together.

The charm has aged right out of this silly stoner franchise.

A well-acted tale of an underdog's triumph that sorely lacks an underdog, it teeters between pleasantly generic film biography and rank manipulation.

Poitier's performance and Nelson's low-key direction carried this delightful vehicle, adapted to the screen by James Poe from William E. Barrett's eloquent novel. [14 Jan 2001, p.17]