When Bullock is on screen, Murder by Numbers is as far away as a sleepwalker's gaze. But when Schroeder focuses on the teenagers, the film is wide awake, eye-to-eye with adolescent angst and anomie.

Ultimately the voyage is so choppy and long (2 hours, 48 minutes) that into the third hour I found myself yawning, "Yo-ho-hum and a very sore bum."

A stylish, painterly picture that evokes classic horror films from the 1930s.

If the only measure of Fur's achievement was in how well it conjures the fairy-tale mood of Arbus' most memorable photos, then it is a modest success. But as a chronicle of the turning point in an artist's creative life, it falls flat on its viewfinder.

Relying on improv-y riffing and watch-them-coming-from-down-the-block-and-around-the-corner sight gags, The Campaign is intermittently amusing, but more often just interminable.

Although Solondz's view is omniscient, as a filmmaker here he condescends to his characters' innocence, ignorance and bigotry, making him guilty of the same narrative crimes.

It's also a case of art imitates life imitates art. If that makes it a tribute to a tribute to a classic, then it is no less enjoyable for that.

The Island could be read as a metaphor for societal ills (commercialization, conformity, pharmaceutical overkill) if it weren't so shamelessly dumb. And dumb it is.

Like Kevin's lucky fortune cookie, Lottery Ticket is a sweet treat with a substantive message.

Gretchen Mol stars as a 35-year-old virgin deflowered in lusty romance-novel fashion on a trip to Mexico. Her hunky lover-boy's name? Jesus Christ (played by Justin Theroux). The segment? "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain."

This sophomoric mix of the supernatural and screwball from Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) is diverting, cheesy fun, with Thurman's G-Girl as a droll combination of Superwoman and Uber Shrew.

Flat and predictable.

Despite lovely songs from k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt (written by Beauty and the Beast composer Alan Menken), this range is about as serene as a hen party.

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

There's a great movie out now about magicians, sleight-of-hand maestros, illusionists, card and coin tricksters. Now You See Me is not that movie.

The problem with Wide Awake, which was shot by ace cinematographer Adam Holender in rich, autumnal tones, with interiors full of inspirational shafts of light, is that there isn't a genuine moment, or character, in the whole thing. [27 Mar 1998, p.14]

Feels less like an epic drama about power and the power of love than an episode of a Masterpiece Theatre mini-series.

How bad is Prince of Persia? Whether or not director Mike Newell is to blame, the action sequences lack verve and scope.

Their apartments are chic, the architecture is impressive, the restaurants richly appointed. And yet, while the atmosphere and cinematography of director Leon Ichaso's grandly conceived movie evoke The Godfather series (as does its theme of brother vs. brother in a criminal underworld), Barry Michael Cooper's screenplay falls short of any such epic design. [25 Feb 1994, p.03]

Neither fish nor fowl (nor extraterrestrial), and that's a problem. Craig, handsomely craggy, plays it straight, and like Eastwood's Man With No Name, he doesn't have much to say.

Isn't a cheap knock-off but an equally effective, deliciously disturbing movie. It's bound to delight genre fans (and dismay critics, who attacked the first as heavy-handed and sloppy).

Simplistic and jingoistic. But it's also explosively fun.

The good news is that it sees what a jihad looks like from both sides. The bad news is that it's not a very good movie, with three fine performances and two great sequences.

While Grant is sublime, the "Godfather" spoof he's in sleeps with the fishes.

The trouble with Alfie - apart from the film's existence, and the wrongheaded idea of remaking a minor classic - is that not a soul is likable.

Leaves you in no doubt of where the talent is in what would otherwise be a throwaway picture.

If you can accept Dennis Quaid as a post-Arthurian knight and a dragon who looks like Sean Connery as well as talking like him, there is a certain loopy charm to their adventures. But the rest of Dragonheart, with evil kings and distressed damsels, is such a warmed-over borrowing from better fantasies that it undermines the film's modest strength. [31 May 1996, p.05]

In his peculiar, confused and grossly violent debut, Texas writer- director C.M. Talkington doesn't seem to know whether he is dumping on the road-movie genre (felony division) or celebrating it. [09 Jan 1995, p.D02]