Director Wes Ball doesn't have much experience with actors, but for once that's a plus; his background is in animation and art direction, and the design of the maze (brutal slabs of concrete and steel) and the attacks by the spiders ("Predator"-like clicks, then stabbing violence) make the movie gruesomely watchable.

Only a shadow -- if an agreeable and harmless one -- of its predecessor film.

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

But if it's going to be diet Pixar, at least it's action-packed diet Pixar -- with overwhelming, detail-choked production design that occasionally had my jaw lowering like a forklift.

It's inoffensive and shiny and competent and kids will dig it, and I can already barely remember a single thing that happened.

The characters devolve into boring narcissists. And the movie devolves into a broad-brush dark satire of emergency bureaucracy that feels a lot sillier than the post-9/11 panic attack of the first half-hour.

While it's an effective memoriam for the well-meaning Germans whose lives were ruined by Hitler's mad dream, the refusal of Generation War to focus on any other sort of German makes it both dramatically and historically suspect.

A sometimes very funny movie made by very funny people.

Despite the film's claim to be an anatomy of a pop culture craze, it's deeply parochial and has an opportunistic feel at its core.

The romance is unexpectedly chaste, and the violence muted. [07 Jul 1995, p.23]

It's the sort of sophomoric exercise that will be appreciated chiefly by viewers already convinced they love it even before they've bought their tickets.

The Killer Elite is possibly Bloody Sam's worst film, and the martial-arts-themed actioner is must-see material only for the director's completists, despite a cast that includes James Caan and Robert Duvall. [17 Jun 2005, p.43]

If you've a mind to see a classic fairy tale rendered as an action movie, and if you want to see a sizeable handful of fine English actors have grand fun playing grizzled dwarves, there are worse ways to spend two hours than in the company of Snow White and the Huntsman.

As it goes on and on and on, Coach Carter becomes more patience-testing than soul-stirring, proving that you can overdose on good intentions as easily as you can on evil substances.

Binoche is her usual dependable self, bringing passion and fury to a familiar, but still compelling, character.

Overall, there's a patchwork quality to the movie, as if a batch of half-finished short stories were filmed before their time.

Neeson used his newfound box-office clout to get A Walk Among the Tombstones made, and he's the best reason to see it.

Rather like a four-hour episode of "Today": painless enough, leavening superficiality with substance, allowing you to watch and still do the laundry without missing anything vital.

Traveller does pass the time painlessly, and it isn't aggressively stupid or hateful, like about half the movies Hollywood makes nowadays. But someone must have stolen its engine - this film has no narrative drive. [p May 1997]

For the most part, The Last Kiss engages and pleases with its shaggy earnestness.

For all its handsome decor, tasteful restraint and old-fashioned look-and-feel, is a stiff, lacking tension, sizzle, drama, energy, appeal and, finally, purpose.

Not much in The Man From Elysian Fields resembles life on Earth, but there are a few moments with Jagger that feel desperate and human -- stuff from another movie entirely, in other words.

Basically "Before Sunrise" for middle-aged people, only with less interesting conversations and a more formulaic construction.

The movie is strongest when it stays with Bateman and Spacey, who play greatest-hits remixes of their best-loved performances.

The visual design of Mama is effective, at least in small, quick doses. But those are about all the positives for this example of why a solid audition reel doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to churn out a feature.

As far as the company Redford keeps, I liked it better when he hung out with Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack, but those days are long gone.

A bloodless film that aims for wry but leaves you merely asking "why?"

So what will happen? Sadly, some overacting and a bad "And Justice For All"-style speech at the end.