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."