A sequel that delivers more heart than laughs, and is, if anything, more visually dazzling than the 2008 original film.

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.

Allen's sensibility is so engaging, his perspective so intelligent and his cast so resourceful that the sum of the movie's parts is greater than its whole. You might say that Alice is like Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters crossed with Gremlins - or like a lesser version of the filmmaker's wonderful comic fantasy of 1985, The Purple Rose of Cairo. [25 Jan 1991, p.4]

Animated musicals are only as good as their songs, and this one isn't on a par with "Beauty and the Beast" or even "The Princess and the Frog."

Director Walter Hill and screenwriter Ken Friedman invite you to anticipate everything that happens in their story. As each event takes place as expected, you experience the grim satisfaction of seeing fate fulfilled. [13 Apr 1990, p.10]

Bad politics sometimes makes for good movies, and the harsh, politically incorrect truth about Basic Instinct is that it's a tantalizing, suspensefully correct thriller.

The film may be a collection of little moments that don't add up, but on a moment-by-moment basis, it isn't hard to take. [22 Jun 1990, p.6]

Even lacking the laughs and romance, he (Emmerich) has delivered an entertaining eye-roller of alternative history.

If anything saves Untamed Heart from itself, it's Tomei's performance which, if nothing else, proves that her terrific turn in My Cousin Vinny was no fluke. She's a star on the rise, and even in a formula flick that is something to see. [12 Feb 1993, p.20]

Singles - a seriocomedy about the twentysomething singles scene in Seattle - doesn't do a whole lot to locate this lost generation on the socio-cultural map. But it's fairly enjoyable most of the time, anyway. [21 Sept 1992, p.D2]

Doc Hollywood is the rare film that actually improves as it develops. What begins as an all-too-standard fish-out-of-water comedy eventually grows into something more. [02 Aug 1991, p.4]

We get little sense of his interior life, what was going on in his head as school, girlfriends and music were competing for his attention and music was winning out. His drive is suggested, but never really felt in the performance.

The film is more overwhelming than uplifting.

Caine is magnificent. This is not some laughable Stallone-boxing-at-60 exercise in vanity. He's an old man playing an old man, but one who lived through experiences that both scarred him for life and prepared him for his final test.

Perhaps the best thing about this movie isn't any individual performance or scene but the mere fact of its existence. At a time when so many films strain to be either tragically hip on the one hand or distressingly saccharine on the other, a movie like Down in the Delta is a genuine rarity. [25 Dec 1998, p.19]

One reason that this movie works as well as it does is that everyone takes everything completely seriously. The world of the Addams family may be amusing to us, but to them it's just life. [22 Nov 1991, p.16]

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

It's a gritty, almost ugly to look at film, and Cianfrance isn't shy about including a random blast of unwarranted shaky footage.

It’s a darned entertaining way to get a handle on a sport that can seem like a bunch of cars doing circles for a crowd that seems most interested in seeing that next epic wreck.

Its chilling third act suggests that sooner or later, even these riders on the Islamic short bus are going to get one right. And that won't be funny at all.

A dark and brawny version of the Robin Hood legend that anchors itself in English history and loses some of the merriment in the process.

The ending smacks of Hollywood rewriting of history. But The Devil's Double shows the political consequences of Uday's misdeeds, the delicate negotiations that keep the people with grievances in line. And Dominic Cooper delivers a career-making performance.

There is a sweet, simple tale at the center of this overstuffed epic. And sometimes, its romanticism manages to shine through all the picture-book pomp. [07 Jul 1995, p.17]

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]

True to the intent of the Christian apologist Lewis' novels, there are lessons to be learned, many of them delivered by the chivalrous mouse, Reepicheep, voiced with a plummy verve by Simon Pegg.

Sweet and sunny (Lots of English language pop tunes) and laugh-out-loud silly and well worth seeing before Hollywood remakes it with somebody like Matthew McConaughey in the title role.

It's a farce with sexual come-ons and actual sex - the Boy Scout Tim's first encounter with a hooker and a crack pipe - but Cedar Rapids never loses track of the humanity of its characters.