The movie has workmanlike, uninspired direction from Thor Freudenthal (Hotel for Dogs), who gets an especially lovely performance from Capron.

Touching and inspiring.

There are no belly laughs here, only rueful chortles about the confederacy of chuckleheads that calls itself the entertainment industry.

The Trigger Effect asks some important questions about society's increasing reliance on technology (and how we take the high-tech infrastructure of daily life for granted), but the questions are wrapped in a bleak, humorless allegory about alienation and rage. [30 Aug 1996, p.03]

Too cute for its own good, Larry Crowne is nonetheless hard to dislike.

The tiny, intrepid rodent is so cute it's impossible not to ooh and aww, just looking at him. Which is a good thing, because you'll need something to get you through the long stretches of fairytale pastiche that make up this overwrought yarn.

Don't come to The Amazing-Spider-Man looking for originality.

Its purpose is to make the lives of the oppressed seem real by making their suffering real.

A modest and obviously heartfelt endeavor.

Like "Jumanji," Shorts runs out of momentum before it's half over. That leaves it treading slapstick and killing time until its strained and preposterous big finish.

Supremacy has thrills, but without Potente's presence, it loses its soul.

All the elements of Eggers' story are there; the emotional and psychological resonance is not.

Some of the most tasteless and un-PC comedy in the film is also the funniest - Farrelly Brothers-style humor that plays off the Bateman character's physical limitations.

Arnold's Wuthering Heights has its doom-laden moments of urgency and heartache, but vast swaths of the (longish) film just seem to meander across the muddy hills.

Its themes and performances didn't stay with me, as did those in "Out of Time." I think this is because, with the exception of Hackman, the actors' performances illuminate strategy rather than character.

Sweet-natured but overdone, over-long film.

The paper's motto is "All the News That's Fit to Print." But all that news doesn't necessarily fit neatly into a 90-minute doc.

The connection between the two time frames and stories (the contemporary one with the addition of screenwriters) is flimsy as a frayed rope bridge, forced as the stepsister's foot into Cinderella's glass slipper.

With visual nods to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and a fairly faithful adherence to the tenor and tone of the Korean scare genre, The Uninvited doesn't startle and shock so much as it lulls you into a series of unsettling, hallucinogenic set pieces.

With his sleepy, So-Cal inflections, Costner is an actor who summons urgency and drama with, well, I'm not sure exactly how he does what he does. He's the least dynamic of stars, but still, he is one.

My guess is that the film will appeal equally to broad-minded 10-year-olds and their grandparents.

At its best when it employs the conventions of romantic comedies to satirize them through the eyes of an anti-romantic wedding planner.

It is inspirational in characterizing how people from such diverse cultures share the same human and spiritual needs.

Despite a strong cast and a willingness to lampoon the fundamentals of fundamentalism, Saved! isn't as funny, or as wicked, as it should be.

Dramatically speaking, the movie version of The Notebook has a first act and a last act but lacks a transition. If it were a sandwich, it would be two slices of bread without filling.

Best of all, though, is Northam, whose sable hair and polished poise put one in mind of the young Cary Grant. In this no-sweat performance, he's an actor who conveys how restorative it is to think.

Brannaman is a fascinating character, but Buck is so tightly focused that only avid horse lovers will find it appealing.

Since the film does not include the testimony of U.S. military or neutral human-rights observers, it gives viewers no way to test the subjects' reliability as narrators.