They turn more of the story over to the comic relief, the dopey tow truck Tow Mater, and get a sillier, more kid-friendly movie out of it. Yes, Cars 2 is better than "Cars."

This new film version of Lord of the Flies is far from a disgrace. It may not hit a home run, but it doesn't strike out, either. [16 Mar 1990, p.5]

Matt Damon is an interesting, chatty choice to play Laboeuf.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, Ju Dou is photographed in rich, burnished colors. The shots are elegantly composed and the acting is similarly fine. [04 May 1991, p.E3]

It's rooting against grandma that drives this violent, hardhearted film, and waiting for the pride of lions she's created to devour her that gives Animal Kingdom its animal energy.

You have to remind yourself to breathe.

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.

Lumet's biggest mistake was probably in writing the screenplay himself. A filmmaker who trusts his impulses as much as Lumet does needs an objective presence to help clarify his thinking. But if Q&A raises more Q's than it can provide A's for, it's still pretty OK in my book. [02 May 1990, p.E1]

Misery is one of the best movies made from a Stephen King story. [30 Nov 1990, p.6]

As it turns out, the three men in Three Men and a Baby haven't got a clue about diapers -- or bottles or formula or anything concerning babies. They're bachelors -- New York yuppies -- who share a fantastic (and, undoubtedly, astronomically priced) apartment in Manhattan. How the lives of the threesome are changed by the new arrival is the crux of this good-natured comedy.

To answer the second-most pressing question first, the new movie is not as exhilarating as the original. To answer the most pressing question second, the new film is a lot of fun anyway. [22 Nov 1989, p.E1]

Extreme Measures is far from a classic. But it begins well and sustains its suspenseful tone for about two-thirds of its length...Grant's performance is one of the best things in the movie.

Half of a wonderful movie is nothing to sneeze at. A love affair that ends badly can still be an affair to remember. [21 Oct 1994, p.27]

Dalton shows a serious side that's been missing from the role since Sean Connery's earliest 007 days.

By putting Thompson together with Schwarzenegger, DeVito and the others, Reitman creates abundant opportunities for comedy. The situation is ripe with possibilities. [23 Nov 1994, p.E1]

Permanent Midnight might have been somewhat smoother if it had been framed by the talk-show sequences. The motel scenes with Kitty could have been dropped in favor of scenes that would have offered a deeper sense of Jerry's arrangement with his wife. But the movie touches something real. By the end of Permanent Midnight, you almost feel that you do know someone like Jerry Stahl. [25 Sep 1998, p.23]

Grimly realistic. [25 Feb 2001, p.17]

Hard as it is to justify Bond films on intellectual grounds, there's something invigorating -- and strangely reassuring -- about this sort of picture. It is comforting to feel that should a psychopath threaten the stability of the world, our hero will be ready to wipe the grin off his face and shove him into San Francisco Bay.

I had fun watching Drop Dead Fred, but I want to take special care not to raise expectations unrealistically by overpraising it. The movie is no comic masterpiece, but it is consistently amusing in a way that sometimes reminded me of a kiddie picture and at other times of a more sophisticated comedy.

An uproarious piece of fluff about a turn-of-the-century New York-to-Paris automobile race complete with a noble hero, a snarling villain and a spirited suffragette. The Great Race, while not in a league with Some Like It Hot, is deftly directed by Blake Edwards. [02 Apr 1995, p.75]

Kika is flamboyant and provocative. But the new film, which was partly inspired by the rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, is ultimately quite serious.

What really holds the movie together is Rachel Ward's exceptionally moving portrayal of Fay. [07 Sep 1990, p.7]

In the final analysis, the action-picture mechanics of the film are too limiting. No Mercy barely has a subject, much less a theme. Yet moments from the picture linger in the mind. If you don't leave the theater satisfied, you may at least be moved.

You gorehounds will enjoy this one. Forty-two dead bodies. Two motor-vehicle chases with one crash-and-burn and one crash-and-plunge. Neck-snapping. Fireballs. Arm-ripping. Skull-drilling. Terminal spanking. Flaming supporting actor. Brutal push-ups. Student cut in half. Puke-a-rama. Six fistfights. Attempted rape. Kung Fu. Junkie Fu. Robot Fu. Forklift Fu. [22 Nov 1991]

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is a delightful comedy about a playboy artist who is ordered to escort a judge's impressionable teen-age sister everywhere. [16 Jan 1990, p.4]

In the final analysis, the action-picture mechanics of the film are too limiting. No Mercy barely has a subject, much less a theme. Yet moments from the picture linger in the mind. If you don't leave the theater satisfied, you may at least be moved.

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]

when Mr. Jones is working, it's surprisingly enjoyable, partly because the cast is so entertaining. [9 Oct 1993]

This modern-day vampire movie is, to be sure, no masterpiece, but its suggestive narrative and dreamlike visual style are distinct improvements over those of such recent living-dead flicks as The Lost Boys and Vamp. And if Near Dark doesn't provide a complete answer to the ''necking'' question it raises, well, heck, it's an exploitation film, not an advice column.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is Allen's lightest, most inconsequential production in ages. It is, you might say, fun while it lasts but not a moment longer. [20 Aug 1993, p.17]

The film's flaws are at least as obvious as its strengths. But LaLoggia knows something of childhood's secrets, and has managed to get what he knows on the screen.

"Gattaca" director Andrew Niccol's sense of the zeitgeist is as on the money as ever with In Time, a sci-fi parable that plays like "Occupy Wall Street: The Movie."

This is still a most original take on the consequences of following your own "yellowbrickroad" when you don't know, for sure, that there's an Oz at the end of it.

The story isn't particularly organized. It's more a collection of scenes - than a coherent coming-of-age tale.

It's a sordid tale and, in Gibney's telling, a cautionary one.

This isn't "Up in the Air," and we're not dealing with this awful event on a metaphysical level. But there's truth in between the cliches.

Though A Perfect World may deserve to be attacked for its casual pacing and occasional clumsy staging, and for one or two less-than-fabulous performances, the darn thing kind of grew on me. [24 Nov 1993, p.E2]

All things considered, State of Grace is far from a must-see gangster film. But I guess it'll do until the next one comes along. [05 Oct 1990, p.8]

The Twilight Saga comes close to that sweet spot between swooning silliness and special effects slaughter with Eclipse.

There is little urgency to this spiraling disaster. Soderbergh has made a lot of noise this past year about quitting directing and taking up a less collaborative, more solitary pursuit - painting. This is an anti-social painter's movie. Millions are dying, but he doesn't care that much. So why should we?

Like a political cartoon, Bob Roberts can sometimes be so overtly political that the humor starts to fade. Toward the end, especially, the movie loses some of its force by forcing the issue too far. But Robbins shows so much energy, intelligence and audacity in his directorial debut that it isn't hard to forgive his excesses. [25 Sep 1992, p.18]

Though it only rarely reaches the level of gonzo farce that it might have been, "Diary" is still an agreeably drunken stagger through the novel Thompson based on his formative year as a writer.

Like those '70s movies it borrows from, there's a blast of tongue-in-cheek politics built around a "They messed with the WRONG Mexican" message. No, this may not go over in Arizona.

Like "Avatar," "Legacy" is a film too in love with its own good looks. And like the original "TRON," the sequel's a bit of a slog.

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

Moon delivers the popcorn in gigantic fist-fulls of fun.

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).

The Brady Bunch Movie is certainly watchable, which is a lot more than I had been expecting. [17 Feb 1995, p.19]

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.

Melodramatic, impulsive, painful, but never quite "totally unnecessary."

Not a neat and tidy thriller. It is a most engrossing one, commanding our attention even as the filmmaker tries to slip this or that hole in the plot past us.

Stuffed to the gills with Perry's mix of the sacred and the silly and a serious dose of self-help for the self-absorbed.

LW3 features a lot of violence but not nearly as much as there was in LW2. And Part 3 puts a greater emphasis on the relationships among the characters. [15 May 1992, p.18]

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.

It's a bit long to be as kid friendly as this educational and visually striking film is meant to be.

Best of all, the filmmakers took the time to give these hard men just the right things to say - not catchphrases, just lines that smell of blood and gunpowder every time Statham, Owen or DeNiro utter them.

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.

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

Brit hunk Alex Pettyfer has grown into a solid and quite interesting lead to build this potential sci-fi movie series around.

Never graduates to the uplifting tale it sets out to be.

The movie is a stupid, over-the-top comic-booky action picture with the occasional cheesy effect, oddball casting and an utterly predictable get-that-guy-before-he-gets-us plot, but Evans and a couple of his mates make it passable entertainment.

Though light enough in tone, packed with good messages and delivering a couple of lovely, touching moments, "Mars" still has that plastic look that made you wish you were seeing the REAL Tom Hanks in "Polar Express" or the REAL Jim Carrey in "A Christmas Carol."

Red has enough acting flourishes and incidental action pleasures to make it an adrenalin-jacked giggle, if not exactly the romp one so fervently expects.

Fortunately, director David Carson and screenwriters Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga (all of whom have served in the Star Trek universe) keep the longueurs to a minimum. Whenever you feel like beaming up (or is it out?), they switch scenes.

They're gonna say that it used to be a good movie, but then the Motion Picture Censor Board got on their case and gave it an X rating, and they had to take a chain saw to the movie, and what came out was different. They weenied out on us. They suckered us for five bucks. They profaned the name of the most revered horror movie in film history. And what makes it worse is that the director, Jeff Burr, evidently knew what he was doing. There are a few scenes in this flick that are as scary as anything I've ever seen. [02 Feb 1990, p.12]

Heard sets herself up as a Megan Fox with talent. And Cage? He delivers. Mock him for his bad choices if you will, but consider this. Who else could have made this work, or would even want to?

Though properly chilling when it’s supposed to be, it’s a film whose effects, script and performances keep it at arm’s length when it is supposed to be moving.

Taken on its own merits, this profile of "Buck" Brannaman is a pleasant and touching but somewhat superficial insight to the man and his methods.

This "Inception" meets "Made in Heaven" by way of "They Live" is also the screwiest movie Matt Damon has been in since, what, "Dogma?"

The players embrace this for the lark it is. Their pleasure in going this gonzo spills off the screen.

What this film from the director of "The Devil Wears Prada" does manage is a gentle amiability.

The finale to the Harry Potter saga is, like most of the films in the series, a bit of a slog. But it's a generally satisfying slog.

Hogancamp seems a pleasant, offbeat and intuitive fellow who probably takes all this less seriously than those who "discovered" him.

City Island is a light “family” romance that goes about as far as its novel location -- an island neighborhood tucked in the middle of New York City -- and a good cast can carry it.

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

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.

Chairman Mao wouldn't necessarily approve. And even today, China won't be showing Mao's Last Dancer.

Absurdly long, absurdly over the top and absurdly absurd, Five Five - still manages to be more fun than any movie with its outrageous carbon footprint has any right to be.

Eat Pray Love isn't a bad movie -- just a spiritually dead one, wearing and wearying.

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.'

Does well in capturing the cruelty of school life and the assorted "types" who inhabit schools there and here. But it's more twee than clever, more affectionate than romantic and more promising than satisfying.

It’s not one of Polanski’s masterpieces, but The Ghost Writer doesn’t dilute his reputation as a master of suspense.

The new Funeral, directed by social commentator-director Neil LaBute ("Lakeview Terrace") doesn’t improve on the original, which wasn’t exactly a classic despite its classic structure.

By all fair standards, Marked for Death should be the worst film of the year. It has a lame plot, horrible acting and some of the worst dialogue to come off a scriptwriter's page. The strange thing is, well, darn it, the film is entertaining - its action scenes lifting it from the pathetic to the passable. [12 Oct 1990, p.12]

It's almost kitschy - the way Stone injects himself into a couple of scenes, an eccentric Eli Wallach cameo, the inclusion of a Charlie Sheen moment that flat out winks at the audience.

A gorgeously animated combat fantasy - "The Lord of the Rings" meets "Happy Feet."

The matter-of-fact way everybody involved faces this supernatural horror drains most of the chills right out of it.

If Laugh at My Pain makes people take a second look at this perpetual third banana on the big screen, so much the better.

The story is kind of all over the place, scatterbrained without being madcap (This one feels tinkered with, reshoots, re-edits.).

The funny moments outnumber the warm ones. There's a touch of religion and plenty of melodrama, especially in the contrivances of a cluttered and drawn out third act.

Brewer gave the film a little Southern hip hop, and brought in real Southerners Quaid, Andie MacDowell and Ray McKinnon to further Southernize it.

If you're not on the Kids' wavelength, this could quickly become annoying. So, for that matter, could their offbeat sense of humor, which isn't just dark but gleefully dark. But if you like this sort of thing, it's fun hopping around with the troupe as their movie's geography gradually becomes clear. [21 Apr 1996, p.A2]

Dreamworks hired the directors of "Lilo & Stitch" to turn Cressida Cowell’s romp of a novel into an animated film and can’t be too surprised that they made, in essence, "Hiccup and Stitch."

A generic sports drama, it scores points for being that rare "faith based film" to show a little edge.

If it's not an unerringly faithful adaptation of Shakespeare's play, it still manages enough wit and charm to come off.

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.

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

Fey flirts and Carell kvetches, Walhberg goes shirtless and Liotta eats Italian. No surprises there. What really clicks is the couple at the core.