Mythology has rarely been so preachy in a tedious Hollywood style.

Based on Elizabeth Brundage’s 2016 novel All Things Cease to Appear, Things Heard & Seen is a slow burn, and it spends a fair amount of time strewing elements of other ghostly tales throughout the premises. But then it takes a turn, those elements gel, and the characters come into sharper focus.

Directed by first-time film maker C.M. Talkington, Love & a .45 is a low-rent variation on Natural Born Killers -- ragged, raunchy, a bit bratty but not altogether worthless.

Mighty Macs further distinguishes itself by, for once, giving a fair shake to nuns, who are treated with respect both in the performance of Ellen Burstyn, as the mother superior, and of Marley Shelton, who plays the assistant coach. It's about time.

In thematic terms, Cassandra's Dream could be looked at as a rebuttal to "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

The success of Chloe is largely due to the contribution of screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson.

It’s hard to dislike a film where almost every character, no matter how small, brings something to the screen, and because of that, Wilson World is worth inhabiting for a few hours.

It’s a good sign for the intelligence of your science fiction movie, when it’s easy to imagine the story working as a stage play with just two actors.

So chalk Escape Plan up as a pretty good action movie given an extra edge by the intelligent use of its two main actors.

A visual masterpiece that powerfully explores male cruelty, too.

The film is filled with lovely images (Kim studied painting in France), and ultimately becomes, against all expectations, quite moving.

A lot of frivolous but genuine laughs.

Some jokes work, some don't and, frankly, I can't remember either, but it leaves a sweet aftertaste. Slight, but sweet.

Given his built-in appeal, Perry has the opportunity to broaden the subject matter of so-called black movies. He takes a stab at it in "Girls," but he could do so much better.

Worth the effort.

Karyo -- a big star in France but little known in this country -- has Steve Martin's knack for keeping his dignity while doing outrageous slapstick.

An important new documentary that cites countless examples of self-censorship, under-reporting of serious issues, and -- worse than this -- deliberate neglect and outright conflicts of interest.

As the man who made the monster and now has to live with it, Pacino's a blast.

Depictions of an aide talking about her hospital vigil and her words of comfort to a distraught Laura Bush are creepy and exploitative -- and borderline disgusting.

The result is that most of the picture plays out as a series of scenes in which our hero sits there, gets angry and loses all his money.

Something kicks in about two thirds in, and Far and Away becomes exhilarating. [22 May 1992]

Turns it into a 90-minute infomercial, with nary a revelation in sight.

The results are comical and unexpected -- and just a bit eerie.

Blanchett's performance is Soderbergh's biggest mistake. He either encourages or permits her to play Lena as a Greta Garbo caricature, which is mildly amusing if you're interested in Garbo, but if you're interested in Lena and The Good German, you're out of luck.

A better- than-average children's film, dolled up with some high-priced art direction and extraordinary special effects.

Henry's Crime has three charismatic actors - Reeves, Vera Farmiga and James Caan - in search of a decent script, and what they find, instead, are a handful of good scenes and lots of room to build their respective characters.

A curiously downbeat, rather cold work without much passion or science that portrays a woman whose life was brimming with both.

There’s nothing wrong with stretching audience credibility, but, to quote another movie that dabbles in the highly improbable, these things must be done delicately.

There's something to be said for a formula picture done almost to perfection. In 2012, Emmerich gives you everything you expect, but gives it to you bigger.

Sure, some of the window dressing and plot peculiarities are different this time, but there are no real surprises.

Scores big as a study of small-town life where characters collide and are forced to get along for the good of the community.

Dreary.

Celebrates the craft of acting both in its story and in fine performances.

The filmmakers throw in an extended flatulence routine and enough graphic references to female anatomy to make "The Vagina Monologues" blush.

Whatever their differences, love is this family’s language, and that’s undeniable throughout “Road Between Us.”

Out to Sea has an emotional pull that is much stronger because it is so unexpected. You come for the laughs and find yourself wiping away tears.

Don’t Look Up might be the funniest movie of 2021. It’s the most depressing too, and that odd combination makes for a one-of-a-kind experience. Writer-director Adam McKay gives you over two hours of laughs while convincing you that the world is coming to an end.

A documentary in search of a story.

Though it's only 72 minutes, by the time it's over, you'll be ready for it to end. Still, as a glimpse of the Arab world right before the Arab Spring, this documentary may be of some lasting interest.

Raymond & Ray aims for the kind of gentle, offbeat wistfulness of a “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Sunshine Cleaning,” but with uncomfortable awkwardness instead of eccentric ingenuity.

The 3-D 1D movie is aimless, seemingly deceptive and spreads a poor message: that it's OK to act extremely immature, as long as you have millions of blind followers who think it's cute.

A mess of a movie, veering constantly toward the laughable when it isn't being offensive. Its only claim to fame is that it's the last movie featuring the late Tupac Shakur.

Pleasant, light-hearted fun that's soft, not edgy, but lest you think it's a Spanish "Birdcage," consider that Forque's nymphomaniac, who gives way to her urges "in the worst moments, and with the least appropriate people," seduces her son's fiancee by "accident."

An unexpected pleasure that’s heartfelt at times and humorous throughout. Yes, the plot is ridiculous and often coarse. Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, a condom stuck to a women’s jacket is played for laughs. But it’s a very steep uphill climb from there.

This sequel is also goofy, also eye-popping - see it in Imax 3-D if you really want to fry your optic nerve - and also weakly scripted. And yet the sheer size of the thing works against it: The effects are absolutely spectacular, but they blow the goofy-cheesy quotient straight through the roof.

One of those go-out-for-coffee-afterward-and-talk-about-it movies, and those are always welcome.

Burns has a hard time finding a central idea, some overall point that isn't borrowed or trite. Or both.

This movie knows how to entertain.

Although Lounguine has a lot to say about Russia's struggle in its transition to global capitalism, his film is strangely uninvolving, lacking dramatic sweep.

Tends to be lugubrious.

It's an imperfect facsimile, guilty of borrowing too many ideas from the earlier film, and then executing them with differing results.

Not entirely successful or appealing - not exactly a delightful evening in the company of scintillating characters - but interesting all the same.

Clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes, it seems intended to have been a crime epic in the vein of Michael Mann’s “Heat,” about two men of talent and spirit who happen to be on opposite sides of the law. And it’s sort of like that, if you can imagine a Michael Mann picture that has been set on fire and dropped from an airplane.

My Fellow Americans is one adjustment away from being a great movie. As it stands it's a pleasing but mediocre film, with a great cast, a great story and a misguided script.

I got tired of Coneheads early on, but I never really got tired of looking at those heads.

A solid bit of fun in the straight-arrow family entertainment genre, Richie Rich, starring Macaulay Culkin, doesn't pretend to be much more than pleasant matinee fodder.

At its best, it captures the last-days-of-Pompei feeling that was in the air at the time — a mix of frenetic celebration, paranoia and despair. But alas, the documentary soon derails into bogus history, specious arguments and a self-blinding variety of political bias.

American Reunion isn't a total wash. Its one saving grace is Eugene Levy as Jim's dad.

In the end, it’s hard to know whether to see the Iran of Desert Dancer in optimistic or pessimistic terms. Young people, especially, want to be free, but the other side has all the power. Having YouTube on your side certainly helps, but an army and some tanks can come in handy, too.

A well-constructed and genuinely tense thriller.

Your Place or Mine has a feeling of old and new about it. It’s an old-fashioned romantic comedy in that it depends almost entirely on the charm of its principal actors, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, yet it comes up with a new way of telling its story.

The Gray Man gets better as it goes along, and it contains a couple of action sequences that are as imaginative and well-crafted as any that you’ll see all year. So don’t dismiss it. Netflix it.

Gamely tries to capture a vast, twinkling cityscape with not one love story - but 11 little ones, a few of them overlapping.

Think of all the ways “Apartment 7A” could have slyly addressed these times, or, conversely, more fully explored the practices of the Castavets’ cult. Instead, it's just a retread, and that’s why it’s bad. The devil is in the details.

No matter how well made, well acted and well intentioned, Lying Dingbat Procrastinator movies are excruciating to watch. Case in point: People Like Us, a film hell-bent on dragging its protagonist (and, sadly, us) through the LDP narrative playbook.

While the film adopts a sometimes jaunty tone, the fact is that gerrymandering is bad news, assuming you believe that elections should mean something.

It almost works. We almost care about her. A whopper of a plot twist late in the game explains Pippa's transformation as some kind of self-flagellatory penance, but by that point it feels like an afterthought.

Shoot 'Em Up is not only the title of Hollywood's latest descent into nonsensical mayhem but pretty much sums up the entire inane plot as well.

An example of good, clean, incredibly brutal fun. [09 Oct 1990, p.E1]

It's never boring, but it lacks a cumulative impact.

The Miracle Club won’t rock your world, but it’s a nice movie. There’s always a place for nice movies.

Offers a quixotic array of characters and flashbacks that tests patience, but once the viewer understand the movie's cadence and rhythm, the story gets better and better until it builds into a crescendo that's emotional, dramatic and -- best of all, perhaps -- fitting.

Brown, is a good enough actor and director to keep the film afloat for long stretches.

A promising idea turns into nothing, and we're left with a painfully dull kids' picture.

Rotten, pretentious movie full of minimalist dialogue and self-consciously arty cinematography.

Shimizu can't quite pull everything together, trying to get off easy with a bargain-bin twist ending that most of the audience will see coming by the time the pile of corpses reaches double digits.

A dreary, distasteful exercise, "Off the Leash'' favors dogs over humans, framing canine high jinks with an ugly story of domestic abuse.

When Christian Bale allowed himself to play Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins," he was slumming - and to good effect. But with Terminator Salvation, this ostensibly serious actor takes up residence in the action ghetto, and it's not a good fit.

Digs up both laughs and chills from timeworn material.

Bohemian Rhapsody is probably what Freddie Mercury was aiming for all along, a big, splashy, half-true biopic in the Hollywood style. It’s a bit corny, but grand; a bit obvious, but entertaining, and inspiring almost in spite of itself.

The less-good stuff: the pirates, who are so blandly and predictably drawn that they sap all the personality out of Peter Dinklage (as an ugly ape skipper), which isn't easy. And the plot, which just barrels forward with very few surprises.

The Gladiator script by Lyle Kessler and Robert Mark Kamen has been thought out carefully, and only during the climactic fight does it seem contrived when it becomes a parable about corruption. Ultimately, the film was designed to stir up our juices, and it succeeds. [6 March 1992, p.D1]

More intelligent than most summer blockbusters and features at its center a thought-out and committed performance by Will Smith. But in the end it's merely ALMOST good.

From a narrative feature, we want drama and illumination, the truths that go beyond the plain facts. That’s where Mary Shelley comes up a bit short. It’s never less than competent and intelligent, and here and there it’s better than that.

The movie is too lethargic for its own good, and many of the events and minor characters don't quite ring true.

The movie is rich with music and more than a few moments of painful exaltation.

For 70 minutes, Antichrist is a rare exploration of pain, featuring two actors collaborating with each other in agonizing and intimate ways. It also contains some of the best work Gainsbourg has ever done on screen. And then - if I put it more gently I wouldn't really be saying it - director Lars von Trier loses his mind.

This movie borders on the ridiculous, but is pulled back by an aesthetic portrayal of the supernatural and by its stars.

It’s not like bad Tarantino. That would be too kind. It’s like an imitation of a bad imitation of Tarantino — violent, unfelt and witless, and straining to be funny.

More action directors should include scenes such as the Mercers' extended Thanksgiving dinner, which fleshes out the bond between the brothers without using too many words.

If you’re a millennial, odds are you’ll find “Y2K” amusing. But older and younger age groups will want to stick to their vinyl LPs and Tik Tok videos.

Sleuth"is that rare film that would have been better longer. You're not through looking at Caine and Law when the final credits roll.

An awkward script, a mannered style and the selection of hill-and-dale Petaluma as a stand-in for an Illinois small town all undermine the film.

Original enough to keep an audience guessing most of the way. It has a strong plot that takes surprising and satisfying turns, and there's never really a dull moment. This is the kind of movie that, once you start watching, you have to finish just to see how it turns out. [08 Oct 1991, p.E1]

Mars Needs Moms floats about 45 minutes' worth of story in an 88-minute ocean.

Curiously, the film seems to have no discernible point, and yet -- this is practically unique -- the absence of a point becomes, in itself, a form of narrative interest.

Cmera work can't do anything about the barrenness of the screenplay, nor the sense of fundamental insincerity at the core of the film. [03 Sep 1993]

Downhill is not a funny movie and wasn’t intended to be. It has moments of humor, but of the more uncomfortable variety, not the kind that provoke laughter, but cringing.