The Express eventually reaches its triumph-of-the-human-spirit climax, but it yanks too hard on the heart strings during the long journey there.

It's clean and cheerful entertainment, blithely piggybacking on a beloved classic. No wonder Anderson washed his hands of this project - the filmmakers tampered with and trampled on his magic formula.

Epic piffle.

There's nothing hip or ironic about Poseidon, which makes Russell and Lucas the perfect leading men.

It's still a submarine movie, confined by the ship, the sea, and a convention-laden script.

Having unleashed Phoenix, Phillips doesn’t seem to know how to contain or couch the performance. At some point he seems to have surrendered, and when the movie is over you realize Arthur is its only substantial character.

DePalma's movie offers its own doctoring and processing, without delivering an ounce of real humanity - good or bad - in the bargain.

A sloppy, sentimental story line and pivotal plot turns that are only sketchily realized undermine the life-on-the-road misadventures.

Feels like the cinematic equivalent of the BP disaster in the gulf: It's a big-screen oil spill, a needless gushing of macho bluster and wild set pieces, and a waste of millions and millions of dollars.

At least an hour of Man of Steel's excessive running time is devoted to the sort of crash-and-burn, slamming-into-skyscrapers CG fight scenes that we've already seen in "The Avengers" and "Dark Knight," "Iron Man," and "Spider-Man." Man of Steel is just the same old same old.

Secret in Their Eyes is notable for its top-tier cast - Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are the leads - and for its utter lack of credulity and good sense.

Not a great film. Or particularly good. In fact, it's fairly bad as B-movies go.

He emerges stinking, and so, alas, does Fathers' Day. [9 May 1997, p.03]

In mood and in content is just SO 20th century.

Don't blame Kline. This most thoughtful of actors is trapped behind the lectern of a film that spouts contradictory lessons it can't reconcile.

At the film's inconclusive conclusion, the filmmakers strand Erica and Sean in the moral twilight.

The 3D effects are of a gimmicky 1956 vintage, with hands thrusting from the screen to give the illusion of reaching out and touching the audience.

As doggy movies go, this one gets two paws out of four.

Richie Rich has some fun with Richie's pampered life, and Culkin seems at ease with the role of a kid who has been isolated from his peers by money and celebrity - perhaps because it surely touches on feelings in his own young life. [21 Dec 1994, p.E01]

A rambling depiction of a junkie's descent into zombitude.

Harry Connick Jr. acquits himself best of the lot.

It's refreshing to see an actor tell his own story with some real honesty. Overall, however, Tab Hunter Confidential is too much like every other Hollywood True Story out there.

In truth, the only hazardous material to be found in Diana - the title role assumed bravely, if mistakenly, by Naomi Watts - is the screenplay.

Much as I gnashed my teeth during 27 Dresses, I genuinely enjoyed the warmth of Heigl's and Marsden's confident ease. While both might be a few minutes past their star-is-born moment, these troupers with more than 30 years of professional work between them have never shone so brightly. It may sound contradictory, but loved them, hated IT.

Doesn't take itself seriously, and that's a good thing.

Miami Vice, the movie, is an atmospheric muddle, as gorgeous and unintelligible as raven-haired stunner Gong Li.

The film is based on Ryne Douglas Peardon's novel Simple Simon, which I haven't read. I can only hope it's less exploitive of people with autism than Mercury Rising is. For all the filmmakers' apparent efforts to treat the issue with sensitivity (there are teachers and nurses who patiently explain to Willis the various symptoms, the behavioral patterns of autistic children), the issue has no place in a standard-issue Hollywood thriller. It feels like a gimmick, and a shameless one at that. [3 Apr 1998, p.03]

For all its mayhem, for all the smashing windows and kabooming fireballs, the grenade launchers and giant helicopters, A Good Day to Die Hard not only fails to top its predecessors, it also forgets the basic Die Hard rules.