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.

An ultimately unsatisfying allegory about war and whimsy, the new film has its attractions, but it's certainly no Aladdin. [18 Dec 1992, p.19]

If I had to guess, I'd say that the big white "snow" thing is a flimsy combination of cheap plaster, recycled Styrofoam and some poor soul's false hopes. Pretty much like the movie itself. [11 Dec 1998, p.22]

A Kiss Before Dying is low-level trash that works. It's far from ambitious, and even considered within the cheap-thriller category, this movie is nothing to make a fuss about. And yet the production is perfectly watchable. [03 May 1991, p.6]

Witty, warm, well-cast and often wickedly funny.

Well, Green Lantern isn't "Jonah Hex" bad. But it's silly enough to be part of the same "silliest Warner Brothers comic book summer movies of all time" conversation.

The trouble with The Change-Up is that it doesn't change-up enough of the formula to render this new.

What's unusual about Consenting Adults (which opens today) is that virtually everything is implausible. In fact, my bull detector hasn't beeped so much since the last time I went shopping for a new car. If I were to list everything that happens in the film that strains credulity, I'd be here until Woody and Mia get back together. Plus I'd make some of you angry by revealing too many secrets. [16 Oct 1992, p.19]

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 violent, clumsy, jokey, badly-plotted and miscast mess.

Woman of Straw, which was by no means a sparkling production or masterful mystery-thriller, did verge on Hitchcock territory. [30 Nov 2003, p.9]

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.

Watching The Bodyguard is like trying to have a telephone conversation when you have a bad connection. The guy on the other end keeps saying things that sound maddeningly incomplete....After a while, you want to hang up.

The script, by actor turned writer John Posey, has structural problems and motivational issues in between the cliches. And Cena, a few movies into his career, is still all presence and no acting.

In Sister Act 2, these energized musical numbers and the sparkling comedy work together in ways that are very hard to resist. And considering how terribly resistible (to me, at least) last year's Sister Act was, the sequel seems like a movie miracle. [10 Dec 1993]

A broad and formulaic culture-clash comedy built on fill-in-the-blank wedding comedy clichés.

Only Hopkins, readily referencing his bag of tricks, seems to get what to make of this "inspired by trues events (and a book by Matt Baglio)" hooey.

And for a while, anyway, the filmmakers capitalize on this irresistible premise, winning our complicity in their thriller's voyeuristic game with slick visuals and a delicious mood of anticipation. [22 May 1993, p.E1]

She (Parker) looks exhausted, first scene to last, and that fatigue spills off the screen onto us.

Navy Seals stands out among this summer's violence-oriented pictures as the only one that doesn't leave your brain feeling like mashed potatoes. There are plenty of exploding bombs in this picture, not to mention various other forms of destruction...But the action is orchestrated so sensitively that it's both aesthetically satisfying and emotionally resonant. There's a texture to the violence in Navy Seals that's completely absent in this summer's kaboom cartoons.

You would call Amos & Andrew a comedy of errors if it were actually funny. I suppose the precise term is an attempted comedy of errors - or maybe just a turkey. [05 Mar 1993, p.19]

If you get stuck at Striptease, my advice is to relax and try to enjoy its occasional pleasures.

It's a humorless movie of morphing zombies (they take on beastly attributes), phoned-in performances and trite dialogue.

A mild-mannered kids' comedy that makes for a pleasant-enough time killer.

The script piles the preposterous on top of the absurd and the film's thin charms dissipate, revealing the creaking movie star contraption underneath.

Lacks surprises.

The movie's central gimmick isn't enough, and when more supernatural twists that don't play by the movie's own fantasy rules kick in, it lost me.

Nobody has much that's funny to say or cool to do. Even the spy gadgets are lame.