This little serio-comedy contains absolutely nothing that warrants big-screen release. It's lit like TV, acted like TV and staged like TV.

A blending of international film sensibilities -- France meets Hollywood meets Hong Kong -- with a very cool anti-hero protagonist.

Disconnected and even disoriented, Assassination Tango is an atmosphere in search of a reason.

Eventually the movie wants to have things both ways: to approvingly entertain mainstream audiences with the glittering spectacle of space battles and to pay lip service to the notion of conscience.

How truly, madly, deeply mediocre is Indian Summer, the comedy-drama about adults returning to summer camp, released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures? So mediocre it makes the 1966 Disney scouts-in-the-woods comedy ``Follow Me, Boys'' look good. [26 Apr 1993, p.D05]

Even though it doesn't feel like an appropriate send-off, the lethargy of Star Trek: Nemesis is probably indication enough that the series should end here.

Handsomely photographed, artfully edited and acted with skill and conviction. It is also so stupid that you expect to see strings of drool dripping from the corner of the screen.

Now that cinema technology has made a live-action "The Lord of the Rings" possible, these versions are likely to be displaced. They'll retain a nostalgic charm, though, especially for those to whom they were the first peek into the fantastic world of Middle Earth. [24 Aug 2001]

Though filled with charm and led by three likable characters, the picture spreads its plot points and whimsy so thinly that we can never just relax.

Yes, the film jumps up and down on a high wire over the chasm separating Pretension and Art. But that's also a form of courage.

Watts is a champ for seeing this through now that she's actually famous.

When all is said and done, The Favor is just another comedy about comfortable yuppies wondering what they might have done differently, dipping a toe in adventure, then returning to the cocoon of yuppie comfort. [03 May 1994]

A movie adapted from a novel inspired by a person who probably never existed.

As with so many of his appearances, Franco manages to bring a jolt of energy to the film even while skewering its credibility.

It does assemble a compelling collage from the experiences of several real-life witnesses to the event and its aftermath.

John Carter is too wickedly strange not to recommend. Movies this expensive usually play it much safer.

If you find the film's xenophobic undercurrents distasteful, take solace in this: Taken was co-written and directed by the Frenchmen responsible for "District B13," so at least the xenophobia is imported.

The interesting ethical and moral issues of the situation are hashed out in courtroom scenes (with Joan Cusack as the judge!) that devolve into hysteria in jarring contrast to a sensitively handled death scene that soon follows.

Are Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay getting tired of their own shtick?

Romeo Is Bleeding has a core of such mean smugness that the genuine shock is that the picture got made at all. It isn't so much that the film is violent, misogynistic and hateful. It isn't even that it so often lapses into senselessness and laughable pretense. It's that a certain competence has been deployed in the service of such degrading and juvenile material, that a group of actors and filmmakers and financial backers all said ``yes'' to something that ought never to have happened. [4 Feb 1994, p.15]

I suspect audiences will divide sharply on the movie's wild tone shifts. I found them sort of fearless.

Always has the benefit of likable characters and actors. Dreyfuss, Hunter and Goodman are good. But several scenes seem needlessly slow, and the film as a whole would be better if it had been pared down from 120 to 90 minutes. At times it seems the title and the running time are one and the same. [22 Dec. 1989, p.R13]

True Story, made with obvious seriousness by talented professionals, never establishes itself.

Crowe is a commanding lead actor who could have made it into something special if he'd stayed out of his own way. Maybe he should have stayed home. You should.

Closed Circuit ultimately feels like a cynical attempt to capitalize on security-state anxieties while examining them in only the shallowest ways.

Spirited and saucy, Hit and Run is a small movie with big spirit, a Tarantino-ish sensibility, and a scattergun ethos that results in more hits than misses.

Freeheld isn't bad -- with that kind of source material and topline acting talent it almost couldn't be -- but it could have been much more than it is.

Eat Pray Love is magazine-spread self-help bullcorn with the highest possible production values, and I wasn't having any of it.

Good, but, sadly, not good enough. Well-acted, beautifully shot and splendidly costumed, it's superior to the original in its looks, but not as potent or meaningful in its story line.

(If) you're one of those killjoys who demands logic, coherence and a semblance of human life from a movie, this one will leave you cold.

It's a small-minded and jejune film, and it feels strangely out-of-date considering how loaded it is with right-here-right-now signifiers.

Also, it is almost squeaky clean. It's rated PG, but without about four seconds of toilet humor and five seconds of bra ogling, Bill and Ted might have faced an insurmountable challenge: the dreaded G rating. [20 Feb 1989, p.D06]

It all sort of plays out like "Law and Order: Spiritual Victims Unit," but the movie's stuffed (some might say overstuffed) with wonderfully staged moments and set pieces.

Hoffa might have been - should have been - at least ambiguous about its controversial hero. [25 Dec 1992]

Director Guillaume Canet, who previously teamed with Cluzet on the excellent thriller "Tell No One," capably handles the sprawling cast.

The romance is boring. Everything is blandly good-looking. The emotional beats are so programmed, you can predict the entrance of every single note of the Philip Glass dirge of a score. And the title means nothing beyond its double-entendre.

It sounds like, maybe, a cute Saturday Night Live skit, but as a serious drama, or even as an adventure melodrama -- well, it has plenty of humor, all the wrong kind. [15 May 1988, p.B06]

First-time director Jeff Baena struggles with framing, editing, tone and casting, leading to an unimpressive entry in the ever-burgeoning zombie comedy genre.

Funny and appalling, doting and possessive, petty and selfless, raunchy and righteous, Jeannie is the pivot of the charming, garish, somewhat overwritten Australian comedy Introducing the Dwights.

Dedication would've been better if it had stuck to its disreputable guns instead of going all mushy and predictable, and slathering an emo soundtrack over everything.

While this film has got a good head on its shoulders and a nicely made-up face, flawless it's not.

Joffe does a good job of making a complex project comprehensible to a mass audience with no memory of World War II. Moreover, he infuses drama into an often cerebral project by highlighting the tensions among the characters. [20 Oct 1989, p.E13]

Unfunny and misguided, Duplex deserves a wrecking crew.

Snipes, a better actor than Bruce Willis or Steven Seagal, is nevertheless not as effective here, a lack for which three screenwriters and director Kevin Hooks must share blame. The latter have packed in every cliche they could, ruthlessly jettisoning any original ideas. [10 Nov 1992, p.G06]

If the filmmakers had opted to play things closer to the vest, this could have been the clever "Pineapple Express"-meets-"The Bourne Identity" mashup it wants to be instead of the shallow, gratuitously violent exercise it actually is.

While it's focused on the people -- on men who never had mentors struggling to mentor themselves and each other -- the movie works as a smart B film.

It's dull and crude and silly and without a lick of quality.

Starts out dark, thrilling and inventive, then, regrettably, becomes sappy, mainstream and mundane.

The loudest, dumbest, slowest, least entertaining and most annoying by a very comfortable margin.

The film oddly mirrors "The Passion of the Christ," as a show trial leads inexorably toward an almost sadistically filmed public execution (it doesn't hurt that Jim Caviezel plays the reporter). Like that movie, it gets its point across with all the subtlety, sorry to say, of a rock upside the head.

The result is an uneasy mix of social-issue realism and escapist excitement that's ultimately disposable.

Fiction can sometimes be used to access a deeper truth than mere fact, but in this case all it does is obscure and confuse a fascinating life story.

Wrapping the whole thing in a sentimental ending turns it into a fraud. The Campaign might have been truly -- and appropriately -- scabrous in other hands; those of the "South Park" guys or Mike Judge, say. But director Jay Roach and writers Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy play it safe and down the middle. No actual political contributors or candidates need fear harm.

It's a handsome film, and made with verve, but too often the tone wobbles and far, far too many of its jokes hit with a splat.

The final third...is so overblown and anticlimactic that it finally gets you thinking about empty profundity and loose ends.

Yet another witless, listless outing by the alleged comic minds behind such dubious treats as "The State," "Stella" and "Wet Hot American Summer."

Super Ex does have a certain low-key, adult-contemporary charm. It's almost entirely because of Luke Wilson.

Those who don't go for horror films, period, won't go for this, but those who do will find this one of the more intelligent, better produced outings of late, with a good, continuing stream of sarcastic humor. [30 Oct 1987, p. E13]

A new political thriller, has an ending so egregiously stupid that not to reveal it would be a disservice to moviegoers.

Will best be enjoyed on DVD. You can pop it in for the kids and spend the next 90 minutes or so doing something else.

Poseidon '06 is spectacularly noisy, uninteresting and character-free.

Although the filmmakers reportedly worked with David Copperfield and other renowned real-life illusionists and tried to minimize the use of CGI, you're still left wondering how much of the magic is merely the kind Hollywood spits out by the terabyte.

The all-description storytelling leads to other problems, too, the worst being that "Boleyn" suffers from the same affliction as "The Golden Compass," where you're told about interesting stuff happening elsewhere in another movie you'd much rather be watching.

The movie's conceit grows a bit stale even with a short running time, and ultimately the whole thing feels more like an acting workshop than a full-fledged human story.

Ambitious attempt to make a "Godfather"-like epic about a black Harlem drug dealer starts well but loses focus. [25 Feb 1994, p.AE15]

The movie is plainly entertaining, with a terrific cast and a fast-moving story helping you overlook the dialogue's frequent failure to crackle.

Although at times ridiculous, Behind Enemy Lines nevertheless thrills, inspires.

Works as pure escapist entertainment, but it's on the cusp of being smarter -- making it all the more frustrating.

A lifeless, confused mess, peppered with laughs, yes, but illogically and crudely plotted and smothered in tonedeaf music cues.

While his star, Jude Law, is infectiously watchable, Shyer's version of the material is tone deaf and splotchy.

A light, old-fashioned, likable film that capitalizes on the personae of its three key performers and a sort of playfulness.

The film by writer-director C.M. Talkington answers a question no one in his right mind would want answered: What would happen if someone without a hint of Quentin Tarantino's talent made a Quentin Tarantino film? [07 Apr 1995, p.C06]

It's not Allen's weakest work, not by far. But its impact is shockingly superficial.

The ensuing love triangle culminates in a frankly loopy finale that tarnishes the film's earlier insights and ensures that it will be only remembered for some hot and heavy bedroom scenes.

The film never gets beyond Chapman's obsession with "Catcher in the Rye" and a few bits of "Taxi Driver" dialogue to show us anything we didn't already know.

The verdict? Could have been worse. Yes, it's a slightly hollow endorsement, but Guess Who is probably worth your matinee/pub-theater dollar.

It's a strange, uneven film, hilarious in moments and tin-eared in others, alternately subtle and hammer-handed, acid and dull, as schizophrenic as "Signs" and probably, like that film, best enjoyed in discrete chunks rather than as a whole that needs to be digested equally all at once.

Is it a worthwhile movie? Yes, for the most part.

If anyone could take a movie about a bunch of jerks who play poker and make it interesting, it should be Curtis Hanson. Or rather, it should have been.

Even 3-year-olds deserve better.

There's pleasure to be found in the resolute offbeatness of Henry's Crime. It's nearly as concerned with the play as it is with the heist (and with drawing parallels between the two).

This isn't at the same level of quality as Yen's "Ip Man 2," which played earlier this year and was one of the best martial arts movies in a long time. But it is entertaining, even if it does ask you to suspend boatloads of disbelief.

Although 2012 is what they call "critic-proof," it's not immune to analysis. It depicts a world where no one, man or God, has much say in what happens to the planet, and where the survival of one family outweighs the deaths of billions.

The humor sizzles.

A very depressing movie.

The problem is the obviousness with which the plot unfolds -- it's as if the filmmakers had a 14th-century audience in mind, one that had never seen a movie.

Fans of Franken's wittier print and broadcast work might smile. But I haven't seen this much smug, awkward laughter and bathos since, well, "Man of the Year."

Tupac may not have been Denzel Washington as an actor, but he deserved a better sendoff than this film, which, by the time the silly climax rolls around, is barely worthy of Wesley Snipes. [8 Oct 1997, p.D04]

It's a handsome film, and Bridges is back, but little has been done to deepen the story into a saga, and the leading man, Garrett Hedlund, rivals Bit for inexpressivity.

Though the acting in "Sidewalks" is uniformly fine, particularly among the female cast, it's hard to glimpse any meaningful vision, sly insights or cinematic flair.

Under the tight wraps provided by a veteran director and a generally clever script, he (Arnold) has, in The 6th Day, his best picture in many years.

Final Fantasy doesn't pop.

In retrospect, and with no disrespect meant, it may have been a mistake to entrust a story this polarizing to Bill Condon, the filmmaker who most recently made “Twilight: Breaking Dawn,” and “Dreamgirls.”

Scenes will wander from gross-out gag to sentimental schmaltz to pervy leer to cheap nostalgia within a 30-second span, utterly free of clear directorial guidance. Even worse, very little of it is remotely funny.

Rush gives everything he has and manages to make Oldman (such an obvious name) into more than an automaton. Not so Sylvia Hoeks, who struggles to make Claire any more alluring than oil dripped on canvas.

We have reached a point in history when an ordinary TV show is often as good as or even better than an ordinary movie. And movies don't come much more ordinary than The Sentinel.

Some of the performances -- Mitchell, Fischler and especially Lucas -- are lively, but Barr never gets under Kerouac's skin to show the pain of an artist who can't hold his life together. It's a tragedy, played entirely on the surface.

The movie is well-acted and a bit frustrating, but also a pleasant little surprise.