By being judicious with CGI, Proyas gives the film's handful of disaster sequences great impact.

As a director, Hanks makes some nice choices (Larry Crowne lives in a very naturally integrated suburb, for one) but there's little in the film that doesn't feel made-for-TV.

Getting worked up about John Tucker Must Die is a bit like getting worked up about the taste of flan.

The movie is not so much horrible as it is drab -- from its lazy plotting to its uninspired yuks to its cop-out ending to its relentlessly yellow-brown sets. "Mad Money" does little more than take up space, and you will be two hours closer to the grave when you leave the theater.

War of the Buttons means well. But ultimately there's only marginally more edge to this treatment of World War II than there is to the average episode of "Hogan's Heroes."

Amusing, funny (intentionally and unintentionally -- it's dubbed, so many lines come out ludicrous) and, by the ending, exciting.

A nice take on the traditional maniac-meets-girl horror story. [18 Mar 1995, p.C08]

This is grim and violent but well-acted, cleverly made and full of suspense. [14 Sep 1990, p.F16]

There's almost nothing to Battleship beyond its grindingly dull, digitally rendered naval warfare.

The script is inane, and though Ferri has some funny moments, the acting is annoying or hopelessly bland.

The movie is simple fun.

It's often said that actors with distinctive vocal styles could compellingly read the phone book -- in this case, it would absolutely be a more entertaining hour-and-a-half.

For 100 minutes, I didn't think about anything else at all. And sometimes that small relief is the best thing a movie can give.

There are two solid sight gags and funny supporting work by Amy Poehler as a boozy publicist.

Awfully sloppy entertainment, built on a script with only a glancing acquaintance with logic, filled with uneven performances and staged with a near-amateur touch for comedy.

Possesses the open-ended, continual off-kilterness of Shepard theater.

How the mighty (De Niro and Hoffman) have fallen? More like how the mighty have pile-driven themselves into the solid mass of rock at the core of the Earth. . . .

One of the great things about international cinema is the way it can remind us of our common humanity. For instance, it's good to know that beautiful, rich people are selfish and miserable the world over. That's one of the few positives a viewer can take away from a film such as La Mujer de Mi Hermano.

If it works at all, fitfully, it's because of the precociously talented and in-control Moretz, who carries the film on her own small shoulders.

Cthulhu (kuh-THOO-loo) shows that you can't go home again. Seriously: Don't ever go home -- you'll be sorry.

Some will hate this film, but there's something delectably junky about it -- like a bright colored candy glistening from a gutter, you just have to look at it.

Do yourself a favor. Rent "My Bodyguard" instead.

It's a spectacle, all right -- but mostly just of a lot of people, some of whom should know better, making an utter ash of themselves.

Surprisingly entertaining.

It's exactly the film Jarmusch wanted to make, but it's also smug, excruciating, borderline pointless. You could call it a deliberate effort to invert the conventions of the thriller; you could also call it, more rightly, a self-deluded disaster.

The trouble is that the film forsakes one sort of energy for another, and the downshift is a drag.

Perhaps the most curious omission from the movie Grassroots is that there's no mention at all of the classic "Simpsons" episode "Marge vs. the Monorail."

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