A dry and moody piece built on closely-observed characters, not on thrills or an unraveling plot.

Restoration, as I say, has its flaws. The lessons it wants to teach us may be too obvious. And the production's appealing lack of solemnity has the downside of seeming, at times, like superficiality. [26 Jan 1996, p.18]

As uneven as it is, Life as We Know It still goes down like comic comfort food, especially for anybody who's ever dealt with parenthood.

A transgressive blend of stoner comedy, horny teenager movie and "Blair Witch" reality riff, this no-budget romp through teen New Orleans crosses the line and erases that line in a hell-bent pursuit of hell-bound laughs. And yeah, it's often funny as all get out.

Entirely too literal, but it still manages to be a literally hair-raising piece of modern-style old school Gothic horror.

The unfailing sweetness of Paul Rudd's lead performance makes what could have been another raunchy and rude R-rated farce a bracing change of pace in a summer of aggressive comedies about aggressive people, from "Bad Teachers" to "Horrible Bosses."

For all the impressive (but not dazzling) effects, the scattered jokes and stentorian acting (especially from the Olympians), there’s not much here that will stick with you after the popcorn’s gone. But as any ancient Greek could tell you, that’s sort of the point.

A perfectly pleasant but fluffy, inconsequential romantic comedy.

Casino Royale is just swell when Bond is busting up bathrooms in Prague, busting up embassies in Madagascar and busting a move in Nassau. But when he gets to, well, Casino Royale (here, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro), the film goes utterly flat.

Director Michael Chapman, an experienced cinematographer, is skilled in conveying ideas through pictures -- quite an advantage in a movie about people who aren't especially verbal. And Chapman's cinematographer, Jan De Bont, has a varied palette that responds to the visual demands of a world in transition.

The big problem is the script by 24-year-old Jeffrey Abrams (Taking Care of Business), which is clearly intended as a parable about how a self-centered overachiever and his disintegrating family are redeemed by suffering and sacrifice. What it's really about, however, is how those people are turned into a '50s sitcom family - complete with puppy dog, spunky adolescent, devoted mom and dim-but-well-meaning dad.

The comedy - it's too cautious, really, to be called a satire - just sort of tap-dances along, hitting all the usual marks without ever straining too hard.

Three Amigos will never get any prizes for excitement or originality, but if there were an award for friendliness, this movie would at least be in the running.

Easily the best thing about Shag: The Movie is its soundtrack, which combines newer music with such golden oldies as ''Easier Said Than Done,'' ''Up on the Roof'' and the ever-weird ''Alley Oop.'' These tunes (some of which are performed by the 15-member Voltage Brothers) do a lot to keep the mood light and to cover the lapses in the narrative, of which, you can be sure, there are more than a few.

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

Emilio Estevez (Stakeout, the Young Guns movies) isn't exactly Michael J. Fox, but he qualifies as a sympathetic hero, and Rene Russo (Major League) is fine - if a bit bland - as his girlfriend. Besides, the real fun is in the supporting cast. Mick Jagger plays a sort of bounty hunter, and although he has only about 2 1/2 expressions, they're good ones. Jerry Hall, who appears very briefly, plays a newswoman with only one expression: You've seen it before, and it is plenty. [21 Jan 1982, p.D1]

She's the One has fewer rough edges than The Brothers McMullen, but it also has fewer of the weird little nooks and crannies of personality that were the best things about Burns' debut film.

As in the sketches, the Coneheads are humorously outrageous, but somehow they don't seem quite as humorously outrageous as they did 20 years ago. [23 July 1993, p.6]

The latest 007 extravaganza has enough plot developments, double-entendres, emotional underpinnings and, of course, Bond girls, action scenes and explosions to furnish at least a couple of Bondfests, with plenty left over for an episode of Nash Bridges.

The bottom line is that The Crow is a somewhat-better-than-average exploitation flick that has received an extra shot of hype from the untimely and dramatic demise of its star performer.

What's surprising about Not Without My Daughter (which was adapted from a book that Betty Mahmoody wrote with William Hoffer) is how effective it is despite its obvious shortcomings. As a conventional thriller along the lines of, say, a Mission: Impossible episode, the movie actually manages to be borderline entertaining. [11 Jan 1991, p.9]

In Howard the Duck, the special effects -- and the Muppety duck jokes -- command so much attention that it's easy to overlook the movie makers' clever narrative touches. It's rather fitting, for example, that Howard is shown to be almost as much of a misfit on the duck world as he is on Earth. And there's a sometimes-touching, sometimes-hilarious Fay Wray-King Kong relationship established between Howard and a sexy, baby-faced rock singer named Beverly (Lea Thompson). The main reason the relationship is so intriguing is that Thompson always keeps you guessing about her character's true feelings for the cantankerous bird. It's hard to fault the tongue-in-bill high spirits of a movie like Howard the Duck.

Basically, it's like a standard TV cop show with better-than-average acting and a few brief scenes of violence that would be too extreme to pass network standards...The word that comes to mind is generic.

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]

Where Fargo was cool and wryly detached, the zany new film is aggressively antic - more like parts of their Barton Fink or The Hudsucker Proxy. On occasion, in fact, the Coens' anything-goes approach can begin to get on your nerves. [6 March 1998, p.17]

The movie may have been so structured to offer whites in the audience a central white figure with whom to identify. But it's the ultimate irony that moviemakers who want to call attention to the historical accomplishments of blacks feel that they can only do so if the hero of their film is white. [12 Jan 1990, p.6]

Spike Lee's ambitious, occasionally brilliant new film about an interracial relationship might have been a masterpiece if only it had been integrated. Thematically integrated, that is. The cast of Jungle Fever is racially integrated, but there's so little holding the diverse elements of the movie together that Lee could have called it Jumble Fever.

Director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men) and his screenwriters have nimbly constructed a movie around young Culkin in such a way as to almost conceal the boy's shortcomings - or, at least, to divert us from them for surprisingly long stretches of time. [21 Dec 1994, p.E1]