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

Funny and sweet enough to delight kids and inventive enough to satisfy adults.

Some of the segments are more successful than others, yet all of them have the haunting quality of a completely insignificant event that someone might remember years later. Night on Earth tries to stop the clock and cast a net over the whole mystery, and while the film never loses its humor, the wistfulness, yearning and deep affection at its heart is are unmistakable. [29 May 1992, p.D1]

The Jungle Book has been shaped into solid, not-quite-golden but effusive family-style entertainment with exotic settings, amusing animal characterizations, hair-raising adventures and a saccharine romantic theme that is played big but finally is the film's least interesting facet. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

Barbie is an impressive and original work of the imagination. Its story holds up most of the time and for most of the way, with the unifying through line being Barbie’s existential crisis.

Gladiator II coasts: never good, never terrible, always a little disappointing, with speeches that fall flat and gladiator battles that are like watching the World Series when your team isn’t in it.

Like “Nobody” and “Nobody 2”, “Normal” is a satisfyingly amusing, get-in and get-out (all three films are about 90 minutes) piece of violent mayhem.

Worth seeing just to admire how Argentine writer-director Marcos Carnevale avoids so much as a whiff of condescension.

Mamoru Oshii's direction deftly merges gritty realism with a dreamlike quality. The only problem is that the characters reel off their existential speeches with such harried deadpan that it's hard to tell whether the angst is serious or tongue-in-cheek.

Criminal depicts a compelling situation, made rich and entertaining through its extreme characters.

The Lunchbox is better as an experience than as a memory. When you're watching it, you can still believe it might actually be heading somewhere.

The overall tone is awed and laudatory, which may rub some viewers the wrong way. Willem Dafoe delivers narration taken from Robert Macfarlane’s “Mountains of the Mind,” which occasionally strays in the direction of the trite or overwrought.

Manages to be affectionate without drawing too deeply from a well of sugar and schmaltz.

Best of all, there's just the pleasure of seeing something that's both fantastic to the eye and emotionally dimensional. This is how to make action movies.

Can and should be appreciated as a work of delicate and unmistakable beauty.

Toback presents specific characters dealing with specific problems and, through their stories, somehow manages to take the temperature of the times.

Like many films that attempt to be inspiring, Heavyweights uses the sound track like a rubber hose to beat the audience into submission. The movie is so honest and good-natured that it's hard to stay mad at it for long. [18 Feb 1995, p.E1]

Indian director Shekhar Kapur, who returns to film after more than a decade, is known for “Bandit Queen” (1994) and “Elizabeth” (1998), so this may be considered among the acclaimed director’s lighter films. But the Academy Award-winner’s skillful steering of characters allows the movie to showcase a diverse milieu rather than become a narrow East versus West portrayal.

When the screenplay sticks to the tricky business of living - trying, then screwing up, then stumbling forward anyway - it hits its mark with confidence, and the big ensemble cast responds with tight little performances of affecting vulnerability.

It expertly capitalizes on the emotional associations Americans have with Pearl Harbor and renders the battle scenes with an excellence that goes beyond proficiency and into the realm of art.

Despite any weaknesses, the movie still does what Morris does best. It digs deep into the details of how some terrible idea was mismanaged in execution.

Instead of settling for a tour de force from McKellen, Soderbergh goes for something better — a fascinating give and take from start to finish.

Mamet finds an angle just new enough to be fresh.

The movie doesn't aspire to be art, merely to entertain adolescent girls, which is practically guaranteed by the luminous presence of Anne Hathaway.

The joy of discovery is at the heart of Penguin Highway, a delightful new anime that is about the mysteries of life, both scientific and personal. Oh, and it’s about penguins, too.

Look, I Know What You Did Last Summer is fun, recapturing a ’90s slasher film vibe. It’s no “Bring Her Back,” the Aussie horror chiller released around Memorial Day, but it’s not meant to be...But kids, if you ever run into trouble on the Fourth of July, just call 911 and file a police report. You’ll be OK.

Matches a dingy urban setting with a compelling situation and throws in an ensemble of interesting characters who become even more interesting under stress. This emphasis on character -- in a sense, the movie's underlying humanity -- is what especially links it to the 1970s.

Late in the picture, Sobieski has some line-readings that are so emotionally full, strange and truthful that really nothing more need be said.