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

Apted ("Gorillas in the Mist," "Coal Miner's Daughter") keeps things low-key and low-tech, which makes some of the cliched Bondisms a bit easier to swallow.

It has a dickens of a time telling a story.

Brimming with bittersweet wit and emotion and built with deceptively fluent craft.

Piquant, playful, and, in many ways, just as appealing as blockbusters such as "Pride and Prejudice."

An empathetic portrait of humanity on a house-by-house, heart-by-heart basis.

Dotted with real laughs and held together by some solid acting, but it's built of a fairly flaccid narrative and some really amateurish sequences.

In this film, shadowy seams of brutality, loss and grief are traced beneath bright layers of tree boughs, children's laughter and high, empty windows.

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

You'll forget it tomorrow, but it's fun while it lasts.

The Dardennes are talents, clearly. Watching Rosetta is like watching them flip you the bird.

The movie's atmosphere is moody and intense, bubbling like a caldron. Unfortunately, the broth turns out to be stone soup.

Earnest, smart, handsome, well-acted and made with mastery.

But this is pretty honest and true filmmaking, nonetheless; try as you might, you can't detect the leer of the satirist.

The Legend of 1900 is still fresh; like the dawning of a new age, it feels like an awakening.

So sloppily and unabashedly sentimental that it can make you laugh and cry at the same time -- and often at the same things.

Banderas' direction is a bit of everything and a lot of not much.

Although it tries continually to focus on the heart, it ultimately fails to ignite it.

American teens will respond to the directness of the issues here, as well as the film's brisk and risky tone.

Conveys an almost pulseless Nora Ephron style of homespun wisdom.

Witty, treasure-filled and nostalgic in the best sense.

The atmosphere of the movie is dense and unrelieved; it's a heavy role for such a little boy, and some people won't want to watch such a bleak, monster world.

Fight Club -- cue the blurb machine -- is a knockout.

Dissects the dicey question of fidelity with all the finesse of a Veg-O-Matic and leaves us with something closer to chopped liver than broken hearts.

A near-perfect movie.

Mostly it's inspiring: to think that a man of Antonioni's years and talents is still capable of producing such vital work.

A kick to the heart, and Swank is a marvel. Any problems in the storytelling are more than balanced by her wholly committed work.

One can only hope that the parties responsible for Bandits are brought to justice and someone can stop them before they film again.

The humor sizzles.

An ugly, stupid movie it turned out to be. Incoherent, arbitrary, hyperactive and dark enough to make you fear you've gone blind.

An all-hell-breaks-loose, panicky fever of a story, all of it drenched in grainy, color-saturated cinematography.

A carnival of stupid coincidences, paper-thin characterizations, and inept staging, lighting and montage.

Agreeably entertaining, peppered with rich laughs and very nice actorly touches.

Soggy.

The moments of accidental sweetness that emerge from these odd, ultra-lives are meltingly funny and touching.

More of a bunt than a home run.

Viewers looking for a big, political potboiler will be disappointed: Check your cloak and dagger at the door. But the film does have emotional fire.

Though excellent in many ways, American Beauty is, finally, an uneasy mix of assured technique and simplistic satire.

Whatever stinks in this theater, it isn't love.

A draggy affair livened occasionally by bursts of color or raw emotion, but just as often convoluted and hackneyed. It's a case of a film taking on, admirably, more than it can chew.

It romps along with infectious good humor but continually imparts a sense that underneath all the surreal frivolity lurks a scathing allegory of modern-day Balkan troubles.

Less and less a skillfully creepy B-movie and more and more a plea for ecumenical reform.

The standout is Baldwin, utterly convincing as a gruff cuss whose life has been forever stained by the death of his wife.

Terrible, unnamable enemies turn out to be uncompelling indeed.

You're looking for the mammoth home run, and the film is merely a bloop single.

Goes on too long and doesn't have much to say.

The tone of the film malingers somewhere between hyper-real comedy and thriller, but neither element really shines through.

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

Offers a lot of laughs, a heartwarming core.

The acting is so persuasive as to be transparent.

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

One of the best children's movies in years. Spunky, inventive and filled with life and wonder.

Sometimes verges on silliness.

Dick works best as a catalog of style: It's the story and the acting that are the window dressing.

Some truly memorable moments, but they come early and, as the film wears its way along, become increasingly hard to call to mind.

It breaks so sharply from the practice of contemporary horror film that it requires us to return to the most basic understanding of what it is to be frightened by a movie.

Distinct from others of its lowly stripe because of the credibly real-feeling performances by much of its youthful ensemble.

Parker jams South Park with so much comic "stuff" that the effect is dizzying, at least for those who haven't left the auditorium in a huff before the end.

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.

A pure, sweet romance that moves along with bouncy comedy and a touch of grown-up realism and rue.

There's not much of a spell to The Loss of Sexual Innocence, which is a shame, because anything this moody and pretty ought to be spellbinding. [16 Jul 1999]

Phantom may not be the best entry in the series, but it's the most technically accomplished, and it makes you as hungry for the next film as you've been for this one.

After Life is a thoroughly original, wholly realized work that leaves a profound and nagging bug in your brain for days after you've seen it: What in your life is worth holding on to? What one thing would you wish never to forget? It's a question as relevant to the lives we live each day as it is to our final moments. [24 Sept 1999, p.26]

Bounces along magnetically even when the storytelling goes a bit flat.

The Matrix slams you back in your chair, pops open your eyes and leaves your jaw hanging slack in amazement.

Foley is an actors' directors stuck here with a genre piece, and it shows: The action (save a killer car chase) is clumsily staged. Still, the story about corrupt police in New York's Chinatown has occasional moments of depth. [12 Mar 1999]

It's written almost without wit or romance, it's populated by bland actors, and it's photographed as if through a Jell-O mold. If this is adolescence, then senility can't come soon enough. [29 Jan 1999]

Searing, intense and unrelenting, Affliction moves to the deepest centers of experience and desire and brings its characters to unflinching life.

Like "Amadeus," Shakespeare in Love works splendidly as an appreciation of an artist in the heat of creation, and it breathes life into "Romeo and Juliet."

The story of a dead man (Keaton) who comes back to life as a snowman to befriend his troubled son (Cross) is played for laughs and tears despite its very creepy undertones. [11 Dec 1998, p.31]

A dark, violent film, it has undeniable visual power and sporadic moments of wit. There's quite a bit of fun, but it's not the cheery entertainment you might be hoping for from your favorite porker. [25 Nov 1998, p.D1]

The film, built around McKellen's magnificent performance, is a sleek and deceptively artful work, a bio-pic that manages to encompass the whole of a man's rich life by concentrating solely on the final months of it.

Feels as true as a documentary, as painful as a blow to the heart.

One of the greatest films about the civilian experience of war ever made anywhere.

May not be as successful as it is ambitious, but you could do worse than to spend a few hours there.

What makes The Last Days stand above the many similar films about the Holocaust and its survivors, though, is the fluidity with which Moll structures and passes through his material. In this, he's ably accompanied by Hans Zimmer's eloquent score and the crisp, simple photography of cinematographer Harris Done. [19 Feb 1999]

Even with this curiously limp resolution, I Stand Alone is unforgettable moviemaking, more muscular than anything seen since Jean-Luc Godard still had some spit and vinegar in him. It may not be palatable, but it's played with convincing fury. [08 Oct 1999]

The film moves with a jazzy, spacey rhythm and palpably evokes the Oregon 70s. Its a movie that makes you think and feel at once. [09 Oct 1998, p.24]

In the passion, violence and tough talk, it finds a beating heart and an evocative love story. [13 Nov 1998, p.28]

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

One of the best films ever made in this country, filled with our proudest national virtues, cognizant of our deeply rooted human weaknesses and frighteningly able to evoke emotions.

Edge of Seventeen has such a sweet heart that you wish it were more capably made and played. If you can forgive a great many little stumbles, you may succumb to its decency. But there's a lot to overlook. [17 Sep 1999]

The film isnt without bumps -- theres something rather gnomish and self-serving about its tolerance for grotesqueries and caricature -- but it presents us with a wholly rendered, largely credible world peppered with witty little moments and wryly chosen details. [19 Jun 1998, p.30]

Wild demonstrates that even a workaday movie can become something special when blessed with once-in-a-lifetime casting and a couple of dozen hilarious one-liners. [19 Jun 1998, p.32]

The film is shot (by Dan Lausten) with a credible creepiness, and it teems with clever touches. [17 Apr 1998]

Beauty plays like a costumed version of "Melrose Place" or "Dynasty." But despite the film's gaudy, trashy excesses, and despite the constant flash of flesh for the men in the audience, this one is really for the women. [06 Mar 1998, p.25]

Superbly acted in Cassavetes-style naturalism; but only for those who can take strong stuff. [06 Mar 1998, p.26]

A dull, clumsy copy of the original The Blues Brothers, this'll give you the blues, all right. [06 Feb 1998, p.24]

Go only if you're really, really willing to suspend disbelief. [16 Jan 1998, p.23]

You'll laugh and cry at the film, but you'll bridle, too, at Brooks' clumsy technique.

It's quite possible that Titanic is one of the greatest romantic epics ever filmed.

Would somebody please pull the plug on James Bond? It's not that Tomorrow Never Dies is inconceivably bad. What with dashing Pierce Brosnan cavorting as 007, nifty Michelle Yeoh playing chop-socky on bad guys' heads, and a nearly-sentient BMW in Bond's bag of tricks, it's got at least as much going for it as, oh, a good Steven Seagal film. [19 Dec 1997, p.19]

With its sweet soul and sharp mind, it's one of the most heartening films of the year.

It's possible to be dazzled by a movie and still not like it very much.

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]

Few films so thoroughly lose their way as The Edge. After developing an engrossing plot and mood, it goes frankly bonkers, and the intensity whistles out of it like air from a punctured tire. When it finally limps home -- at least 20 minutes too late -- you're left with a sour, treacly taste where once you had savored something almost exquisite. [26 Sep 1997, p.21]

Ultimately, it is nothing more than a souped-up, intermittently interesting take on some familiar material. [24 Oct 1997, p.22]

John Cassavetes walked a jagged knife-edge of improvised drama, a high-stakes game of chicken with the actors and with chance itself. But Nick Cassavetes plays it safer, sometimes reducing existential heroes to sentimental cartoons. Still, She's So Lovely has plenty of great stuff: original, realistic gunplay, fearlessly unglamorous acting and one excellently hairy hairpin turn in the story. [29 Aug 1997, p.23]