Director Ben Lewin has crafted a biopic spy thriller, kind of, but the script has neither the character shadings to be a biopic nor the pacing and twist and turns to be a spy thriller.

Basically, this is a really good movie until the last part, where director and co-writer Darren Lynn Bousman ruins so much so fast that you'll wonder if his actions are deliberate -- or if the studio interfered.

The most shocking thing about Come Play, however, is that it has a pretty good ending after such a long, poorly paced slog through scary movie cliches.

The story doesn't quite pay off, characters are underwritten and the surprise ending is contrived and unconvincing.

It's a modest and mildly funny effort, with good scenes and touches of incisive satire, but it's not quite funny enough, and it's undermined by its camera technique.

Granted, you don't expect much from a movie like this: azure seas and honey-dripped sunsets, perhaps, a little titillation and a few wicked laughs. But Robert Steadman's photography lacks the imagination of Almendros' work on The Blue Lagoon, and the rare erotic moments are no match for the dumbness of Leslie Stevens' script. [03 Aug 1991, p.C3]

The history itself is the main appeal here.

The film never quite overcomes a slightly stodgy quality.

Eminently watchable, with enough majestic vistas and heroic derring-do to get by. It could have been so much more.

The fact that the movie has to entertain with digressions is an indication of more than looseness, but rather a shoddiness...Nothing connected with the job is of any interest at all.

Slick, overly deliberate and brimming with hammy performances...directed by Rob Reiner with glistening, uninspired competence. [11 Dec 1992]

Muniz, however, is hampered by Stripes' constant moping, which brings out the "Malcolm in the Middle'' star's whinier tendencies.

If you can still be entertained by a thriller that unabashedly borrows from others of its ilk and don't mind reading subtitles, you could do worse than District B13. It's over so fast, in a quick 85 minutes, there's scarcely time to get bored by the silly plot.

Benefits enormously from smart casting across the board.

Affecting at times, but finally feels overblown and heavy-handed.

This tale of a young rape victim further brutalized by officialdom never lives up to its potential.

Though Zack Snyder is known as an action director, he is a genuine artist and one of the most exciting and promising filmmakers to emerge in the past 10 years. His new movie, Sucker Punch - let's just say it - is a failure, but there's so much talent on that screen that the movie can't be dismissed as a waste of time.

Enola Holmes films are too concerned with chases, romance and flattering their target audience to even consider challenging anyone’s puzzle-solving abilities.

The film’s thoroughness is a virtue or a problem, depending on one’s point of view.

Even the interesting parts of A Lego Brickumentary aren’t that interesting, but are rather more like the best thing you might hear while being cornered by the most boring person at a party.

Curiously and unexpectedly, the movie brings on a suffocating feeling of constraint. It's a consequence of seeing characters with such terribly limited mobility.

A movie with lots of heart but no heartbeat.

It would help if the plot were more than just an outline with a few convenient turns.

The main thing to like about Stone Cold is that the movie is honest enough to have things go wrong -- so wrong, and in ways that are unexpected. [18 May 1991, p.C3]

Oristrell's comedic sense only seems to succeed in spurts, and he often burdens the proceedings with a theatrical and contrived air that undermines the humor.

An odd picture, a rumination on depression and self-discovery that's couched as an office comedy.

The ending is predictable to anybody who's followed the trajectory of outsourcing. Outsourced humanizes those affected by it - even if the story sounds familiar.

Burden is a film of integrity, with something even better than a social conscience. It has a social purpose. If you see it, you’ll learn something.