So strained in its "charm" and "pluck" that you grow weary by minute 15, hoping that the teens whose lives it depicts will stop being so darn peppy or sweetly confused or irritatingly dramatic.

For what's essentially a bad movie, Street Kings is fairly tight and energetic.

The film is sugary, simplistic and riddled with cliches -- yet it still manages to absorb you in its story and even carry you with some of its emotions.

It's not as if empathetic peeks into the lives of America's poor white boys aren't valuable, and Hellion has nothing if not empathy for every one of its characters. But without a more original story or a distinctive visual presence, it's hard for it to rise above a crowded field.

Turns out this is a thoughtful, well-acted film that manages to view this most inconceivable of travesties through the eyes of child without being childish itself.

It's nice that Demme reveres the Hollywood classic, the French cinema and the glamour of his actors. But nice is all The Truth About Charlie is -- a nice mess.

Manages to tell the story in generally taut, credible fashion, rising frequently on the strength of a gallery of fine performances even when the screenwriting becomes ordinary and Schumacher's touch becomes, as so often, crude and obvious.

Legend offers two Hardys for the price of one but delivers less than a satisfying whole despite the efforts of its star(s).

If the two most gorgeous people in the world alternately bantering and making out isn't enough to compel the attention of the average American moviegoer, then we are truly doomed.

The Visit is not a head-scratcher, like so many of Shyamalan's movies. It's more of a shoulder-shrug. That's it? That's all you've got?

Three stories in one. This might be two stories too many.

The Hundred-Foot Journey fails to replicate the sensation of sharing a quality meal. Movies of this kind should leave you feeling hungry. Compare the Indian love story "The Lunchbox" from earlier this year. You'd swear you could smell the tandoori chicken while watching it.

In a world in which "Borat" is a global brand, there's certainly a place for Tenacious D -- who, after all, are merely the greatest band in the world: Just ask 'em.

Mixed messages are the order of the day in the conflicted British drama Irina Palm. At first blush, it seems like another entry in the saucy-but-safe Brit genre, a la "Calendar Girls," "Saving Grace" or "The Full Monty," but it turns out to be both more ambitious and less successful than those diversions.

Sometimes complicated, sometimes incredibly simple, the film explicates or fawns over the human condition with occasional charm and poignancy but too often it's just cloying.

Wahlberg's The Gambler is California Lite.

Written and edited by Sayles, "Casa" is certainly the artist's baby, but he crams too much into a relatively brief running time. Worse, though it should be longer, we're not especially unhappy that it isn't, for being around these women gets tedious.

What this alteration says about societal trends of the past three decades is open to debate, but the change is a tiny hint that earnest fidelity to the source was not a top priority.

The rhetorically stacked deck, and some unconvincing third-act plot twists, get in the way of this movie's efforts to reach the cinematic promised land of true greatness.

With its lackluster surfaces and thin core, his (Russell) film displays neither heart nor brains enough to earn its whimsy.

Overheated claptrap that takes an issue of vital national importance and turns it into an inept cartoon that emboldens the worst instincts in our national character.

As a chronicle of an extreme surfing subculture, Bra Boys is semi-fascinating. As a chronicle of rough-and-tumble street life, it's appallingly biased and self-glorifying.

There's plenty of blood and screaming and mayhem, and it's not particularly well-staged, shot or cut -- though I suppose actually caring about film craft denotes one as a spoilsport in this context.

They could have made a harder-hitting, more realistic film, but then no one would have gone to see it.

Surprisingly charming and well-acted.

This coming-of-age movie is the sweetest, frothiest fantasy in some time. [28 Jul 1995]

A painlessly light introduction to Bollywood moviemaking, but it far too often feels like run-of-the-mill Hollywood fare.

Though the film occasionally rises to moments of genuine emotion and wit, it slips appallingly into corniness and hokum before coming to an abrupt and unconvincing end.

A seedy little movie with little in the way of theme, purpose, energy or wit, 'R Xmas is the latest slice-of-death drama from that earnest maestro of grub, Abel Ferrara.

The film is as one-sided and overstacked as anything her prosecutors dreamed up. And the craft of the thing is so pedestrian as to crawl.

There simply isn't enough footage of their protagonist just being Bill Hicks the guy and not Bill Hicks the comic. Surely he had some interviews or other artifacts they could have used along with all the comedy routines.

The result is a modestly accomplished, modestly agreeable, altogether forgettable film.

Tusk is a step backward into an insular world. True, it will probably play well to gore fans, and that dedicated audience who already cheer everything Smith does.

Alas, the drama surrounding him (Caine) rarely rouses anything but yawns.

Though not terrible, and blessed with some nice performances, this Irish-eyes-are-smiling-despite-the-rain-and-nasty-nuns story is Hallmark Hall of Fame material.

The mix of psychic thriller and childhood memory movies is smooth, maybe too smooth. Neither becomes truly gripping, despite fine acting by Hopkins, Yelchin and Boorem.

The convoluted story is an excuse for comical tricks of the camera, fractures of chronology, acid punch lines and amusingly excessive performances. (In this latter category, Pitt, so deep into his character that you can smell him, wins the day gloriously.)

Some lovely photography and even Mezzogiorno's hot-blooded performance fail to keep Facing Windows from feeling fractured.

Could easily be seen as little more than a commercial for his (Jakes) life-changing influence. Call him the first of a new breed: the cinevangelist.

Judging by the beautiful photography of Salvatore Totino, Howard knows what a Western should look like. But the thrills suggested by the trailers, in which the picture is presented almost like a frightening supernatural horror story, are nowhere to be seen.

This is a movie that, off-putting as it can be at times, deserves to be seen and heard in a theater, if only to observe the reactions of others to the hilarious gutter talk coming out of Winslet's mouth.

More convincing are the performances from Jenkins and Allison Janney, as another of Jesse's old profs. Both these pros bring more depth to their supporting characters than either of the promising, but, alas, young, leads do to theirs.

Though serious, well-crafted and handsome, lacks most of the pungency of the epitome of the genre, "Lawrence of Arabia."

Sporadically funny, bland, talent-wasting junk.

Midler and Long are great together, and the dialogue is hilarious. [22 Nov 1987, p.11]

Making a movie with a sad-sack protagonist this hard to root for is like laying track for the main line express to nowhere. Watching it is like taking a ride so bumpy, with scenery so boring, that you end up hoping for a derailment. Either way, buying a ticket for The D Train is something to regret.

[Guterson] has crafted a near-masterpiece of understated humor and empathy, demonstrating that, despite Hollywood's usual indifference, it's possible to make authentic, funny, engaging films about characters over the age of 50 who are neither grizzled hit men nor sassy grandmas.

Singleton just may be challenging us to laugh at the film or with it and then feel extremely uneasy for doing so. If so, that's admirable; if not, he's made a very strange soap opera.

If you hold a perverse soft spot in your heart for straight-to-video underdog junk like "Ski School," you're going to love Dodgeball.

Silly, simple and sophomoric -- and also intermittently hilarious and, surprise of surprises, directed with unexpected craft.

The Joneses turns out to be a smart little comedy that tosses some sharp little darts at our consumer-driven culture.

They Live has such a clever idea, it's disappointing that scenarist Frank Armitage and director John Carpenter did so little with it. It's like a ``Twilight Zone'' tale inflated from 30 minutes to 90. Or like a film made from a rough draft. [9 Nov 1988, p.C06]

Home is like when someone gets you a birthday present by just clicking on an item from your Amazon wish list. It's well-made, suitable, and appreciated, but there wasn't really any thought put into it.

Surviving Picasso is tasteful, more expensive-looking than it really is, and not nearly as lengthy as it feels. [18 Oct 1996]

What happened in Chile really was a triumph of the human spirit, as cliched as it is to write that sentence. The miners deserved a better movie, but that's not how it works.

When the camera glides down a pier to settle for the first time on Gatsby's face, it's a movie-star moment of the sort we don't often get anymore, and there aren't many actors who could pull off Gatsby's mixture of confident charisma and pathetic vulnerability.

With little cohesion and no respect for the editing process, Old School often feels like someone threw film clips on the floor and strung them together willy-nilly.

There are moments of levity throughout the film, but it’s made with pedestrian craft and feels more like a set-up and a series of vignettes than a compelling yarn. Chiefly, it demonstrates just how accomplished the Coens are even when their films seem offhanded and easy.

Stage magicians often depend on sleight of hand to succeed at their art, but Woody Allen's new movie, Magic in the Moonlight, is just plain slight.

Director Ang Lee displays enormous verve and flair. He creates ingenious transitions between scenes, deploying split-screens in a clever variation on comic book panels and, as ever, drawing coolly impassioned performances from the cast.

Since the revelation of Wall Street's culpability for the 2008 economic crisis, though, the arc of Changez's transformation feels almost clichéd, despite Ahmed's earnest, effective performance.

A kid-meets-curmudgeon comedy that transcends its formulaic skeleton thanks both to the veteran actor's charm and a smarter-than-average screenplay.

The film isn't so much a demanding character study as it is a lot of pretty parts pushed together.

The movie is beautifully shot, and some of the scenes have a real exuberance, but it's also a blatantly manipulative piece of smarm.

Instead of a unique directorial style and a memorable soundtrack, we get a movie that, visually and aurally, pretty much goes by the book.

Might actually be the stupidest movie with good intentions that I've ever seen.

The characters are flat, too: Richard Gere plays your typical desperate, embittered war reporter; Terrence Howard is your typical cameraman/sidekick/narrator; and Jesse Eisenberg rounds out the standard-issue trio as your typical nervous rookie, in over his head.

Sometimes a movie can defy rational logic, yet still make sense emotionally in a way that pulls you through. Bee Season is one.

Even with nothing at stake emotionally, though, he conjures some real scares, and the finale is as much a head-scratcher as a heart-stopper -- in a good way.

The big battle in Thor: The Dark World is one of Marvel’s more genuinely rousing sequences. Once this movie gets warmed up, it’s warm through and through.

Buscemi shoots with a cloudy, melancholic air that suits the material and does nothing to prettify the setting. But you can't sense any of the surprising energy or subversive wit that characterizes his best performances.

Blumberg tries to split the difference and ends up with a movie that wants us to make us laugh and cry, but fails to do either.

Groove seems to be less about what it is chronicling than what its attempting to decipher.

At times an uneasy mix of cold-eyed neorealism and soft-headed sentimentality, but after its initial struggles it presents itself as a moving film, made with loving craft, a painterly eye and luscious language.

Among the things made vividly clear here is that Jeremy cannot act.

Don't go if "Star Wars" isn't your bag: You'll only resist and resent it. But if you're a fan, it's hard to see how you'd be disappointed. Me? I can't wait for May 2005. "Episode III": Hot diggity!

Once the quartet makes it big, things get predictable really fast. Eastwood seems to forget that audiences made The Jersey Boys a touring sensation because they love the songs, not because they want to see yet another "Behind the Music"-style tale of fame and fortune not being all they're cracked up to be.

The movie is slow, dreary, clumsily staged, and lacks a compelling lead.

The movie's a veritable Viggo-a-go-go.

Indeed, the film is altogether too much like Sayuri: trying to overwhelm with surface beauty and unspoken emotion, it never hits deeper than the skin.

A tiresome, didactic and, once the novelty of the graphics has worn off, charmless film.

Succeeds only in fits and starts.

Sorry. The sight of the 66-year-old Streep gyrating her way through "Wooly Bully" has a way of blocking out rational thought. It's frightening but temporary, like a bad dream. Or this movie.

Just when it seems like Axe Murderer is headed to the gas chamber reserved for bad comedies, something amazing happens: It gets funny. [30 July 1993, p.AE15]

Sometimes it's a delicate comedy-drama with Oscar-worthy performances and touches of "A Streetcar Named Desire." And sometimes it's a foul-mouthed "Candid Camera" full of poop jokes and starring Johnny Knoxville in old-man makeup.

It's breezy enough, though, as a romantic comedy. And the stakes at risk in it are more grown-up and weighty than those in most Hollywood fare. Like Allen himself, you could do worse.

Hilarious mixture of Greek tragedy and Aaron Spelling soap opera that spews nasty one-liners and winking '60 signifiers like a slot machine that's paying out.

Occasionally sloppy, with a finale so abrupt and incoherent that it feels like something is missing. But it's also pleasantly odd and truly funny, and it builds in strength as it goes along.

Crude both in form and content while at the same time capable of evoking explosions of shocked and, often, shamed laughter.

At once breezy and substantial, but it could have been more powerful if it were, paradoxically, sharper and blunter.

For the most part it's dull, bland and unsatisfying: a food-court version of home cooking.

So, be warned: You may not learn anything from this mild, unremarkable film, but you might be tempted to order the deluxe, four-volume “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” after watching it. I was, and I don’t regret it a bit.

Given its defiant adherence to cliche and avoidance of originality, Memories of Me should be boring, but the cast keeps it interesting, and many of the lines, fortunately, are amusing. [07 Oct 1988, p.F13]

What saves CSNY/Dejà Vu from its self-importance is the surprisingly lively, timely and timeless music. The only dicey onstage moments involve Stills' falling over or wheezing his way through "For What It's Worth."

Some might call this cheap, formulaic and manipulative, but then again, it still might make you cry.

A tug-of-war between a bracing vision of a truly infernal crime spree -- complete with engaging whodunit storytelling -- and a sometimes clumsy period drama.

The plot is straight off the shelf, the performances are television-caliber and the message of providing solace through deception is a little creepy. Then again, that formula resulted in record-breaking ticket sales for "Greek Wedding."

For all its flaws, though, Bobby is still moving. Not so much with its indifferent characters, but rather with the overall mood of a common hope crushed into shapeless grief. That painful historical moment is worth revisiting, as is the image of the man whose death occasioned it.