So emotionally overwhelming that its aesthetics seem almost beside the point.

A unique look behind the curtain, yes, but what's behind the curtain is almost unendurable. Just know that a bad guy got his comeuppance and you don't have to join the legion of his victims by watching it.

The quality that made her an ideal fan club president makes her an endearing, if unenlightening, interviewee.

It's an ending that may alienate some viewers, but will jolt others out of their comfort zones and into an appreciation of genuinely brave storytelling.

Juice is well done and sincere and the cast of newcomers is pretty good. As the story progresses, it leaves a realistic story and settings for routine chase melodrama. Its pacifist message is inarguable, but too obvious to be exciting. [17 Jan 1992, p.AE13]

Stick around for the credits, when the real Trumbo talks about the effect of the blacklist on his daughter. It's the real thing.

With all this raw material, it's a puzzlement and an annoyance that Parker feels so obligated to interpose fantastic elements and comic action sequences and other tacky touches. As a result, while this "Earnest" is lively fun, it never quite feels sufficiently important.

Though moving, Together needed more opera to send us where great music frequently goes -- nearly over the edge.

Surprisingly dreary kidnapping drama.

The film's structure is a reminder that being Pinteresque isn't the same as being written by Harold Pinter, and its lyrics prove that there's a big difference between something Sondheim-esque and the real deal.

Olivia Thirlby adds some humanity as the empath. And as the scarred queen of a drug cartel, Lena Headey chews the scenery, and some of her costars, with relish.

Ultimately, The Adjustment Bureau shifts from paranoid dystopia to a more hopeful tenor, and that weakens it slightly.

C.O.G. is probably of the most interest to Sedaris fans curious to see how the humorist’s unique tone translates to film (the answer is moderately well).

For gourmands who appreciate this sort of cinematic comfort food, though, The White Countess is a fitting finale for the producer.

What the picture doesn't do is make sense of the world it tries to depict, or even, truly, depict it. Biggie -- and, for that matter, Woolard -- deserved better.

There’s nothing approaching a unique take on the story.

It's got a big heart and high spirits on a low budget and actors who refuse to phone it in.

Chock-full of the sort of levity that leaves you feeling you've been beaten about the head with a lead pipe.

It's old-fashioned, sometimes accomplished, syrupy and, at its intermittent best, absorbing.

The film is built as a series of (possibly tall) tales that don't add up to a plot, a theme or a purpose.

For at least three-fourths of its running time, The Concert is predictable, soft-edged and unremarkable. Then the titular performance, of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, begins, and the music elicits the emotional response the rest of the film has been striving for the whole time. It's enough to almost make the whole thing worthwhile.

If the film takes too long to wrap itself up --and hints, predictably, at a sequel -- the funky soundtrack is fun and McCarthy's South Boston relations are a scream.

What Machete does have -- and what saves it from itself -- is comic bloodthirst, shameless vulgarity and the determination of Rodriguez and Maniquis to wink at their audience at every moment.

It isn't, finally, satisfying: It's too uneven, indulgent, fey.

Its an intriguing reimagining of a period that was moving rapidly. [21 Aug 1998]

Multiplex audiences can choose over the next few weeks between two starkly different views of the future. The remnants of humanity struggle for survival in the brutal world of "Mad Max: Fury Road," while Tomorrowland offers an optimistic retro-future paradise full of jetpacks and robots. Me, I'll take post-apocalyptic desert wasteland over soulless corporate utopia any day of the week.

Point Break is actually better than you would expect for about the first hour, then starts the long, slow slide into dumber and dumber dumbness. You can almost hear the IQ points dropping from the screen. [12 July 1991, p.E17]

The Belgian comedy The Iceberg might be a pale shadow of the films of the great French comedian Jacques Tati, but even that's enough to qualify it as an amusing, inventive effort.

There's nothing earth-shaking here, but a chance to see one of cinema's great movie stars in a tailor-made role that pleasantly subverts her icy image is always welcome.

If it's meant as a retort to anti-Semitic doctrine, it's far too episodic, anecdotal and lacking in specifics.

Christensen, who played the James Bond villain Mr. White in "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace," cuts a striking, white-haired figure as Segerstedt, whose principled tirades against Hitler ultimately earn him the enmity of his prime minster and even his king.

British-born director Justin Chadwick might not seem the most logical choice to bring Mandela’s life to the screen, but he handles the historical sweep and the intimate moments with equal steadiness.

while the conception of bear behavior is false and sentimental, the bears' performances are perfect, through a combination of training, staging and editing. [27 Oct 1989, p.F15]

Red isn't edifying, ennobling, or artful. It's just an utterly satisfying combination of big kicks, cheap thrills and real laughs.

It's an interesting effort (particularly for JFK conspiracy nuts), and Barry's cold-fish act makes the experience worthwhile.

All guts, no glory and, worse, bad story.

There's a touch of second-rate playwriting about it that imparts a flattened feel to the end of an otherwise crackerjack picture.

What's truly disheartening about Cellular is that just as logic has become a luxury in a thriller, so has anything resembling tension.

An absorbing film, acted with real force by all parties and directed with competence and assuredness if something less than inspiration.

The storyline would appear trite and the message muddled even to someone who'd never heard the name Mel Gibson.

A lyrical, exciting adrenaline rush.

Really, we'd rather just watch a good documentary about the subject. And as the camera flings around, we occasionally forget about what could help the teens and think more about what could help the director: How about a tripod?

The result is an overly long, overly cute film that is far too tickled with its own naughtiness. It truly is an instance of if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the film.

As usual, the genius is in the storytelling details that Gray musters and manipulates, the side trips and observations, the depth of his personal observations. His near hysteria is funny in itself, though when he tries for a one-liner, it almost inevitably falls flat. But that's not a problem: It's just Spalding.

Tokyo Pop is an amiable, ambling film mixing travelogue, romantic comedy and musical documentary. [20 Apr 1988, p.C08]

A diabolically well-made film about a 14-year-old girl who's raped by a pedophile who grooms her with online chats and sexts.

It recalls a kind of French farce that assumes its audiences want to see the rich suffer. [18 May 1991]

The surprisingly thoughtful third act both introduces complexity to its portrayal of the Afghan people, and subtly reminds us that, despite Luttrell's astonishing constitution and self-surgery skills, as well as the ultimate sacrifices made by his comrades in arms, it was all for naught.

The picture's strength is comedy -- but the love and crime stories too often drag, falter or just plain frustrate.

A handsome picture, with lots of nifty borrowings from the "Star Wars" galaxy, but it's never particularly compelling as a story or as a vehicle for emotions, and when it's over you have a feeling of still waiting for it to get started.

What could have been a complex portrait of a flawed man dealing with the perils of success ends up far less interesting.

There's nothing very serious to it, perhaps. But it takes its fun very seriously indeed and – after a long summer of big-budget extravaganzas -- ends up providing a small, end-of-season delight.

Although the Hollywood treatment intrudes at times, it's still a compelling film, richly filmed and deeply moving. [23 Dec 1994, p.12]

Well-intentioned but underdeveloped and self-satisfied, it feels at times like the ultimate movie for the millennial generation, or at least its stereotype.

First-time director Patricia Riggen uses parallel story lines to tell the mother's and son's tales...It's a storytelling technique that's meant to emphasize how mother and son are utterly unaware of the other's struggles, but instead it robs the plot of tension, making the inevitable reunion seem schmaltzy.

The stick-figure people in the script haven't the slightest chance of making an impression, and you're more excited at the prospect of the next big wave?

Agreeable and warm, is content for the most part merely to allude to complexity and darkness in the lives of its subjects.

Entertaining, well-acted and hopeful about a world in which sexual orientation isn't a big deal, Big Eden is a pretty picture -- it just tends to be a little too perfect and cute for its own good.

It's fun, albeit a little messy, under the frequently punchy direction of Peter Berg.

A basketball documentary where the climactic game looks like a Hong Kong wire-fu epic.

For the record, it's truly puzzling that this film has been rated PG-13; it's much stronger than that. The monsters of "Beowulf" have haunted human imagination for more than a millennium; the ones in this film will easily provoke a few nightmares.

[Murphy] makes a thrillingly flesh-and-blood creature of Kitten, with her yearning, her droll, self-deprecating wit, her breathless romanticism and her puckish vibrancy. It's easily the most fun bit of screen acting this year, and as rich and nuanced as the lead in any drama.

Spider-Man 3 is a likeable film -- Maguire's personality, or Raimi's channeled through him, is genuinely charming. But the tenor of the film is too often too muted, melancholy and enervated for something of its size.

Moves with terrific energy, alternating riveting action sequences with intimate material in a manner that's pure Woo.

Those who watch Unbroken, Angelina Jolie's movie about Zamperini's life, only have to suffer for a little more than two hours, but it's a cruel and unusually harsh punishment.

As so often happens, politics and religion add up to a double dose of self-righteousness.

The film equivalent of the blind date described as "really nice." It's neither bad nor good, just sort of earnest and well-meaning.

Doesn't demand much of the audience, sure, but it doesn't provide much, either. It's as if an all-star gang of would-be crooks got together to rip off...moviegoers.

It is Tomei's movie. The actress brings an energy and sincerity to her roles that takes them beyond whatever they were written to be and makes them almost unreasonably appealing. For all the improbabilities in Untamed Heart, the most improbable is that Caroline has a history of men running away from her. [15 Feb 1993, p.C06]

Sarah's story is harrowing and powerfully told, as she valiantly attempts to escape and return home with the key to free her brother. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner doesn't stint on depicting the indignities and violence inflicted even on children, and Mayance's performance is exceptionally strong.

The "Hobbit" trilogy started slowly and ended with a rush, heroes and villians fighting it out over a mountain of gold. What kid of any age can resist that?

Campbell is a whirlwind of action -- punching, kicking, pratfalling -- as well as a hilarious parody of a comic book hero. [12 March 1993, p.20]

A smart study of the identity-shredding inherent in so much dissatisfaction and relocation.

The title is too cutesy and clever, but it's about the only unsubtle aspect of this poignant, humble drama that'll probably get lost amid the multiplex bombast, but shouldn't.

The only thing that could make this movie more French would be a guillotine.

Perhaps a better moniker would have been "One Flew Over My Left Foot."

Daniel Day-Lewis may be one of our great actors, but he trips over a few Method-acting speed bumps in wife Rebecca Miller's third writer-director effort.

Sayles has always had a gift for female characters, and Go for Sisters features a couple of good ones.

An assured and gripping political drama filled with remarkable performances and razor-sharp writing and editing.

Eastwood never manages to bring the past to life, even as DiCaprio and company dive gamely into the material.

The film also has the original show's spirit and some of its old-fashioned charm.

Predictable, contrived, sappy and, ultimately, against all odds, remarkably fulfilling.

The tip-off that something different is afoot in Alien 3 comes right at the beginning. [22 May 1992, p.AE15]

The Railway Man wants to be two or three different movies wrapped up in one and ends up being a fairly mediocre version of each.

The movie's biggest charm is its unpredictable, offbeat tone.

Harris, crinkly and laser-eyed, has enough gravity to hang with Neeson. Their scenes together anchor a movie that gets away from itself at times and relies on the tired family-in-jeopardy final act.

This is a perfectly serviceable thriller. It's just not the New York family crime saga it clearly wants to be.

It works for the most part, though some scenes come off contrived or directed without flavor. But thanks to the likable, rough-hewn crew and Forster, the film flows along gruffly and with eloquence.

Delivers the oft-trod subject of boys' sexuality with intelligence and freshness.

A deeply weird film, accomplished, gripping, disorienting, icily adept and barking mad at once. It makes for invigorating viewing.

For long stretches, the film is just as funny as the first -- which is saying something, since the first is one of the funniest comedies of the decade, the only film in years to truly infiltrate our communal language and sense of humor.

Effectively thrilling.

Alas, the movie just isn't bouncy, fresh or funny enough. It's just not blonde enough.

Understands that extreme feelings bring out weird reactions. Tension and sadness will occasionally be interrupted by humor -- even slapstick.

At its best, Pearl Jam 20 makes a convincing argument that Nirvana wasn't the most iconic band to rise from the grunge scene. Ultimately, however, Crowe's fanboy treatment pushes it into a mosh pit of mediocrity.

Stone seems to take a little vicarious pleasure in making these relative lightweights squirm in fear and confusion.

This movie is a powerfully silly brain vacation. It's a by-the-numbers underdogs vs. bullies comedy.

Sometimes it's fun to put on costumes and wigs and just goof around.