Lacks the perfect timing, luster and true vitality of its predecessors.

Filled with too many issues -- along with young motherhood, street gangs, city life, sex, peer pressure, grief and, oh yes, dancing, which is nearly lost in so many poorly written subplots.

A facile, feel-good fable that substitutes cliché for reality at nearly every turn.

The Book Thief renders a dark history in the most bland and inoffensive hues. Most of its success relies on our foreknowledge of history. Its own efforts are hollow, squandering a good cast on lazy writing.

Parents who want smart, harmless movies that don't condescend for their school-age kids -- a rare thing these days -- should be grateful for Nancy Drew.

It's not perfect or "Shining"-level inspired, but it's solid.

Allen's movies, even at their lowest, have usually boasted interesting musical scores, melding jazz, classical, and American standards. Irrational Man, though, uses The Ramsey Lewis Trio's "The 'In' Crowd," an already overexposed riff, so repetitively that I thought I was seeing the film with a temp soundtrack. The real Woody, whatever his flaws, would never have allowed this. I hope he comes back someday.

One of the most important things about Baby Boom, aside from being amusing all the way through, is that Diane Keaton gets her first chance to carry a comedy all by herself. [28 Oct 1987, p.E06]

It more or less plays like a five-episode arc of the series, which is a strength and a weakness.

There's enough realism to keep a soccer buff like me happy, but the film is aimed at the young at heart, and I think they'll love it.

A contrived and sentimental melodrama, the film takes a promising premise and crushes it with mind-numbing repetition, sophomoric conveniences, plastic acting and the worst score, perhaps, ever heard.

Sumptuous and beautiful and as silly as a sack of nose glasses.

Sobol, directing his second feature, should have been able to prod this story to life, especially considering the cast he was provided. But everything proceeds in such an orderly fashion, right through the ostensibly 'twist' ending, that maintaining interest is a serious challenge.

Despite its familiarity, Tale is well-staged and well-acted. Richardson makes Kate a real person, and her tale is suspenseful to the end. [16 Mar 1990, p.R07]

The delicacy of the film might frustrate some audiences. As if watching a listless young relative do nothing in particular with his or her life, you sometimes want to shake these folks by the shoulders and tell them to get in gear. But then you realize that life has many gears and that moving slowly and somewhat aimlessly is no sin.

There's handmade and then there's amateurish. This, alas, is the latter.

Eraser-dull.

They almost got it really right with Lucky Number Slevin, but they also almost got it horribly wrong.

The film has about five endings, each sillier than the next. Before it's over, the business end of that sniper rifle looks kind of inviting.

There’s quality throughout, but, visual verve aside, the enterprise is dull, heavy-handed and dispiriting.

A thriller that goes from pretty good to absolutely ludicrous in the time it takes one actor to recite about four sentences of dialogue.

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

Imaginary Heroes feels like an endless series of wakes, awkward cocktail conversations and teen house parties, which would be fine if Harris wrote less cartoony dialogue.

Moderately amusing.

It hasn't the flash and style of Fatal Attraction or Jagged Edge, but its contrived finale is better than those contrived finales. [21 Apr 1990, p.C08]

Nair, against all odds, has injected new life into this oft-filmed tale, handily re-creating the grimy look of early 19th-century London streets.

It just drones on and on, so repetitiously that you wonder if some of the reels have been shown twice. [7 Nov 1992]

Solondz, for reasons best discussed with a therapist, can find no good in people -- or at least none that he expresses in his films.