Audiences will walk out with that good chiropractor feeling, the one that says, “Yes, I have been manipulated. I have been nothing but manipulated and pounded on for the past 90 minutes. And it was a very satisfying thing.”

For those who have seen the previous 'hood films, Don't Be a Menace isn't just funny. It's a relief. Things might be bad, the movie suggests, but they're not so bad you can't laugh.

Pool captures the crazed urgency of first love -- the feeling of a passion so fierce that even a disapproving society can't crush it.

Yet something's missing in director Mira Nair's treatment -- specifically, a point of view about the material, a compelling reason for this historical excavation beyond the fact that Reese Witherspoon makes a convincing Becky Sharp.

It's warm, spontaneous and heartfelt. Zeffirelli cared about his memories, and he's done justice to them.

A mishmash of a musical. The movie never gels -- despite Kline's nuanced performance, the stars' exquisite period clothes, designed by Armani, and, of course, Porter's great songs.

None of it works, except for some moody cinematography, the on-screen charisma of lead actor Brad Pitt, moussed to the max as Johnny Suede, and the sheer likability of a few of his co-stars. [05 Feb 1993]

The documentary could have used a little more excitement, but “Coastal” leaves us with a lingering notion that we’ve seen something special.

Palindromes isn't a wise movie, or a particularly true movie, but it's an honest one and a singular experience.

The most refreshing thing about the movie is having a more mature woman at the center of the action, and August knows not to overreach here. She is dryly funny, but also subtly affecting, and it’s a pleasure to watch her heart and mind slowly but surely open up to life’s possibilities.

It's a weird movie, in that spooky/sicko, deadpan way that Lynch's movies always are, and it's guaranteed to repel anyone who likes entertainment wrapped in tidy resolutions and optimistic fade- outs.

Miller pulls the various threads together at the end in a rush, like a college student dashing off the final pages of a term paper in the wee hours. But until then, she hops from one plotline to another, leaving the audience scratching their heads and waiting for another visit to the opera house.

Narrow Margin has a couple of moments of unabashed hokeyness and some predictable turns of plot, but considering that it's designed to do nothing more than provide escapist fare for 97 minutes, and that there are a dozen surprise twists, it hardly seems to matter. Like a train ride itself, you get into the swaying swing of things, and to hell with credibility. [21 Sep 1990, p.E3]

The humor is all over the place, veering from light to dark and from broad to subtle -- as if an "I Love Lucy" episode had been retooled by Woody Allen.

Amateur gives the impression of a sloppy first draft. It begins with a splash, meanders until it reaches feature length, then ends abruptly.

It’s not an exciting film, and it’s not a film with some wider social relevance. But it’s a film that’s wise about people in a way that’s rare. It also launches Dylan Penn, and someday that will matter.

Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, a senselessly adapted, ill-conceived, poorly acted mess of a film that's guaranteed to frustrate anyone who loves the play and to put everybody else to sleep. [18 Jan 1991]

There is no denying that every time Gyllenhaal steps into a frame she takes a sleeping movie and wakes it up.

May not be a very enjoyable movie, but at least the badness is in good taste.

Without peril, The Phantom can only get by on dazzle, and there's not quite enough of that to hold interest -- unless you're 8 years old and seeing dazzle for the first time.

The third and most uneven film adaptation in the series.

Landscape With Invisible Hand is a bizarre, off-kilter experience that shows us how we are destroying ourselves, no aliens necessary.

There’s plenty here to tickle the kids, and that’s what counts.

Burns presents two mildly amusing fellows wrestling with romance and expects the audience to see them as embodying universal dilemmas. At the very least, he wants us to take these guys as seriously as they take themselves.

It takes a little while, but Fatherhood eventually becomes exactly what you expected. It will make no converts, nor will it push away the faithful. It’s a Kevin Hart movie, after all.

The Hudsucker Proxy is the Coens' fifth feature in a decade, and you can see their tremendous artistic growth in every frame of the film. Classically composed, beautifully shot by Roger Deakins ("Barton Fink") and co-produced by legendary action-flick producer Joel Silver, Hudsucker has technique and visual invention to spare. [11 Mar 1994, p.C3]

The only problem with The Better Angels is that it’s not nimble enough to vary its strategy or to find ways for the character of young Abe (Braydon Denney) to grow over the course of the movie.

It has action sequences that will appeal to people looking for the usual pyrotechnics, but the core of the movie - and the source of the audience's interest - is emotion.

About American anti-Semitism, but it's not a typical genteel "cause" movie.

A romantic drama, a rare kind of film these days, even though romantic dramas were once a dominant genre in America.

At times, the sight of reserved English actors slapping, hugging and acting all Russian looks bizarre, though one casting choice is prime: Bob Hoskins has the ideal air of impish menace in the featured role of Khrushchev.

An appealing Hollywood satire.

It’s a slickly made piece of entertainment that’s a good time out at the movies.

When The Journey keeps its eyes on the road, it’s a nice little drive.

Columbus' schizoid approach works more often than not.

Yet the personalities of the actors are so appealing here and the direction by John Badham (''Stakeout,'' ''Saturday Night Fever'') so filled with inventive comic bits and details that Another Stakeout plays much better than you'd think. It's a consistently entertaining two- hours-or-so at the movies. [23 July 1993, p.C3]

This sometimes clever, outrageously gory and slickly violent horror comedy is more “John Wick” than Tod Browning, and that’s just the tip of its tonal confusion.

Free State of Jones is an extraordinarily ambitious film, and for that reason, it’s not perfect.

Everything about the idea of Mr. Popper's Penguins sounds lovely, and everything about the actual movie is ugly.

Doesn't accomplish its objective.

Beyond some network television-quality production values, the sequel to the 2015 film is completely satisfactory family entertainment. It's hard to imagine anyone putting "Goosebumps 2" on their end-of-year worst movie list. And not just because it's hard to imagine anyone even remembering this film beyond next Tuesday.

Something is wrong with A Good Woman: The lightning never strikes. It's never quite alive.

It looks spiffy. It has an attractive cast. Marcel Zyskind's cinematography seethes and shines. And it's a crock.

You want to like almost everyone in this film, but they're all undone by a weak script.

You should approach Resistance as a fact-based World War II movie and not think much about the Marceau connection. The truth is, even if young Marcel didn’t go on to become a major artist, this was a story worth telling.

A heartfelt tribute to both the player and the man.

Often is on the verge of spilling over into melodrama, but that doesn't bother me because life is the same way.

Tender Bar is a lovely movie — so long as it stays within a half mile radius of the bar. When it drifts from the bar, it collapses. When it goes back to the bar, it lifts a little. But it stays away too often to be called a success.

Headland works hard to reconcile the wild and the tame; if she never quite gets the balance right, ya gotta admire her bold juxtaposition of overdose-resuscitation gags with lessons on self-loathing and bulimia.

Small kids ought to love this entry, but die-hard Muppet fans are likely to find it tepid and uneventful -- a minor addition to the Muppet canon.

Overall, A Goofy Movie is an incoherent mess that jumps from one unlikely, brainless, crash-bang situation to another, with each element of a protracted father-son bonding story increasingly out of synch with the others.

As weird as it sounds.

In this new Conjuring, every scene of demonic possession, every demonic hallucination, and every underworld visit and visitation land with unsettling impact. These are, in a sense, action scenes, and they’re creepy, chilling and very well done.

So this is a good comedy, as bad as it can be and still be good, but good.

There is a great deal of movie-backlot sleight of hand that looks fine while you’re watching, but when you think about it comes off as mostly façade. In that way, at least, Rodriguez successfully links form to content.

Yes, Charli is playing a version of herself, but she does it well.

Tonal inconsistency is the iceberg that sinks The Pretty One. The film is a mashup of wacky comedy, romance and sorrowful elements that would tax a more seasoned filmmaker than first-time writer-director Jenée LaMarque.

Hollywood warhorse Norman Taurog directed Elvis eight times and had a knack for dragging decent performances from the boy. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

At 116 minutes, Five Feet Apart is too much of a just-OK thing. All the same, I want to see Haley Lu Richardson’s next movie.

Lyne has always gone the extra step, and Deep Water shows that he hasn’t lost his touch.

An ambitious attempt at cinematic poetry, and how much they have succeeded depends on how well you can sort out its surrealistic meanings.

Smith deserves a 21st century reassessment, but you won’t find it here.

Reynolds often seems lost for material, whether it’s the restrictions of the PG rating, or deficiencies created by the four screenwriters. By the halfway mark Pikachu might as well be in an “Alvin and the Chipmunks” sequel, resorting to bodily function jokes.

As the film meanders, the powerful moments barely outnumber the ridiculous. And another excellent performance from McAdams isn't quite good enough to mask the distractions.

A dynamic story, sprinkled with some interesting ideas about the preciousness of culture and how societies might rebuild themselves.

Australia shows all the signs of having been a labor of love for director Baz Luhrmann. One problem: It's his love, and the audience's labor.

The moments of action are interspersed with lengthy plot developments that are hard to follow.

O has one advantage over "Othello" -- since it's a new movie, not a classic, it has the power to surprise.

Its gently delivered theme and friendly images of nature (no lions eating antelopes here), this is a fine thing for families and school groups.

A silly, cross-cultural shoot-'em-up -- the sort of movie that will work for those with some time to kill (no pun intended).

Builds up comic force in its first half. But then it blows it, leaving the audience feeling unsatisfied.

An entertaining film that's true to its world.

Working on a microbudget, director Eddie O'Flaherty coaches solid performances from his small cast and makes the most of the handful of up-close, well-choreographed fight montages.

The Dark Half is another retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story, but King and Romero fail to work out the premise of the story. [23 Apr 1993, p.C3]

Dead-on hilarious.

At its warmhearted center, Beauty Shop is a workshop in how to walk around like Oprah with a feeling of confidence and entitlement.

It's as if there's a barrier between the viewer and the story that never comes down.

Gainsbourg is always going through a little more than she cares to tell the audience about, but the connection her character makes with Samba — real, complicated and not typical — is one of the movie’s highlights.

in addition to the quality of its dialogue, Levinson’s script is a testament to the value of talking and listening, past the point of discomfort, past the point it hurts.

Purists should have a field day enumerating the differences between the original "Astro Boy" and this high-gloss reimagining. Someone has to.

As a coming-of-age melodrama and high seas adventure, White Squall is fair.

Too raw for kids and too simplistic for adults.

More than the usual bad or even numbingly horrible movie. It's an amalgam of many of the modern cinema's worst tendencies and modern filmmaking's most unfortunate misconceptions.

A sexy, moody comedy that plays like a dreamy comic novel.

Nothing in her performance in the second two-thirds of the film hints at the shallows or depths that could allow Maggie to be a killer -- before or after. [19 March 1993, p.C1]

Taking place mostly over the course of a single day, it’s a smart and languorous film that finds time to luxuriate in conversations and to create a feeling for small-town American life.

Legend of the Guardians sounds as if it were scripted by a team of 11-year-old boys, with too much plot for its 91-minute running time, a script that steals liberally from "Star Wars" and some occasionally eye-roll-worthy weirdness.

Much of the honest dialogue has the same feel as John Hughes' and Cameron Crowe's movies during their best years, while there's a half-serious hipness that recalls the first eight episodes of "The O.C."

Has a smart mix of things going for it, including a self-effacing sense of humor.

Rote drama better suited for British television than theaters.

Aims to do nothing but please, and it accomplishes its modest aim with charm and intelligence.

Kim's masterly, poetic ending is the cherry on top in this anime, good for a rainy day or any day.

Perhaps this is a film that needs to be seen several times to fully understand the last 20 minutes. But in my book, that's not what a great ghost story should do.

This love letter to man's best friend will make dog fanciers roll over and do tricks. It's so warmhearted, you'll want to run out and hug the nearest big, sloppy mutt. And while you're watching it, have your handkerchief ready.

Can't Hardly Wait has freshness, comic invention and an engaging romantic spirit.

Essentially, “I.S.S.” is a fine movie for what it is, and the only reservation is what it is. It’s a cramped-space movie in which the stakes feel higher to the characters than they do for us.

Red Sparrow is a thoroughly entertaining movie that stays fresh and interesting for all of its two-hours-plus running time. But what kicks it into a higher level is that it’s a terrific vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence, one of the few movie stars who deserves one, who is a film star in the classic sense.

In a way, the new Carrie is almost too easy to enjoy. Everything discordant and all the nagging weirdness and strange feelings surrounding the original have been smoothed down, and what we're left with is a well-made, highly satisfying and not particularly deep high school revenge movie.