The film, bleeding its central character of all shades but black and darkest gray, fails as both biographical chronicle and filmed narrative.

A charming small-town comedy, thanks to the playfully romantic lead actors.

Looks great, sounds great -- what's the problem? Everything else.

As the film builds toward a ludicrous finale, it poses a question: Foster is a far better actor than Charles Bronson, and Jordan a much better director than Michael Winner, so why is The Brave One so much less satisfying than "Death Wish"?

While Wolf Creek has clunky moments, when you want to slap the idiot prey until they wake up, the movie embraces a minimalism that feels refreshingly old-school in a field of slasher films drunk on self-referential wisecracks and narrative tricks. And Jarrat's jolly-creepy performance might place Mick in the pantheon of great movie killers.

You can almost feel Depp restraining himself from saying "Tell me more about Hunter," again and again, but his enthusiasm and appreciation are real, and that's a pretty good reason for this movie to exist.

It works as designed.

King is good enough that you can't help but root for her. But frankly, I can't imagine paying full ticket price plus concessions for that privilege.

Strip off the superfluities, and it's a chamber play about people with nothing in common talking about what, at their core, they have in common. A film meant to remind us of our shared humanity mainly unites us in frustration with its thick, gummy progress.

It isn't a lack of realism or philosophical consistency that rankles most, though, but rather the anticlimactic story and uninteresting characters that make this Hereafter not very sweet at all.

For all its superfluous and self-conscious moments, the picture is a draining kick.

Schumacher's depictions of street life are cartoonishly ludicrous and riddled with cliches -- a pair of garish hookers, for instance, can't be excused simply because one is played with engaging vigor by Paula Jai Parker.

For a certain brand of film geek, the best news about The Ladykillers is that it isn't a Tom Hanks movie. It's a Coen brothers movie.

In the end, the battle scenes are elegant and compelling and there are some fine moments when O'Toole, as Priam, summons his inner Lawrence of Arabia and makes us believe that we're actually watching a tragic altercation that brought down great men descended from gods.

Leaves you exhausted and even bored.

A moderately enchanting, sometimes thought-provoking corrective to the flaws in the story that inspired it.

Bottle Shock never quite connects. And considering the more recent transformation of Napa, the movie's triumphant ending rings a bit false.

The film sort of loses its touch when it gets "dramatic" toward the end -- it's the type of flick where the sky gets overcast when everyone is sad -- but it's hard to argue with the movie's general good spirits.

The plot, as hinted, goes strictly by the "How April Got Her Groove Back" book, but it must be said that the performances push it a notch above pedestrian.

With Paul Rudd as the would-be mocker and Steve Carell as the mockee, and all manner of new supporting characters and plot lines thrown in, and much less energy, delight, wit, humor and fun than the original was able to muster without any evident strain. There's the occasional bubble, I confess, but almost no delight.

If you've seen more films in your life than you have fingers, much of it will be forgotten by the time you floss the last popcorn skin from between your teeth.

For the most part it's a completely ordinary, completely familiar, professionally executed film. Nothing truly awful, but nothing unexpected, either.

What Alive does show is engrossing, a virtually unique experience re-created thrillingly and surely as faithfully as we can stand. [15 Jan 1993, p.13]

Not to be mistaken for a serious treatment of religious fervor or clerical corruption, The Monk is instead a knowingly over-the-top bit of gothic nuttiness.

An inspirational, and mostly entertaining, saga, Joy is a Horatio Alger story for the 21st century — but who reads those anymore?

In drama, tone, character and examination of the social issues tormenting these kids, Wassup Rockers is . . . taxing.

Pure, light entertainment.

While Mr. Bean's Holiday is hardly a memorable vacation, Atkinson proves an agreeably silly tour guide.