This schlocky period piece doesn't do the pioneering Northern Californians justice. The script is overwritten to the point of parody.

The main problem with "Pretty in Pink" today is simply that the entire section involving Jon Cryer, as Ringwald's pompadour-wearing best friend, is excruciating to watch. It must have been equally excruciating to perform. Basically, any time Cryer is onscreen, the story ceases to advance. He is there as comic relief only - or comic filler - but there's nothing funny about either the role or the performance. Still, there's a really good, perceptive 50-minute teenage story buried in this 96-minute movie. And a pretty good time capsule, besides.

It’s nothing groundbreaking, just good-humored bloody action directed at a frenetic pace, clocking in at about an hour and a half. Sometimes you need a little bit of fun, and Boss Level delivers.

Oversaturated with sweetness and light.

The new movie shrieks of motherhood - raising hot-button issues like biological clocks running down, the rights of birth mothers and whether to adopt or give artificial insemination a shot.

While pacing and believability issues in The Pale Blue Eye cannot be overlooked, this finely made period mystery’s virtues should still be savored.

Esrick spent 10 years on the film, and the result is a comprehensive portrait.

At least we get Pacino and Hunter. We may not understand why this story appealed to them, except for the fact that it gave them a chance to work together.

Math buffs will appreciate the inclusion of a brief and witty anecdote they may already know involving Ramanujan and the number 1,729. Well done.

The best thing in the movie is Peter MacNicol as Dana's boss at the museum, a slippery character with an incomprehensible accent. [16 Jun 1989, p. E1]

It’s hard to make a two-plus-hour chase movie like this compelling, but Wright gives it a go by peppering the cast with brief appearances by characters far more interesting who help Ben along his way.

Hard to hate, but if you actually want to love it, you've got to force yourself. [27 Nov 1991, p.E1]

Dinner for Schmucks is lumbering, inconsistent and about 20 minutes too long, but it's funny. It's funny from the beginning, and it stays funny, even as it beats scenes to death and overstays its welcome.

A labyrinthine brain twister.

For all the eyepopping splendor and in-your-face reality, this film leaves the viewer unsatisfied and feeling a little cheated out of compelling drama.

There's something in Ned Kelly' that's lost in the translation from Australia to America, and the overly emotional film score is just a symptom.

The Cable Guy doesn't know when to pull the plug. Much of the film plays like a personal boob tube with Carrey trapped inside, determined to act his way out in a mugging freak show. He's a disturbing mixture of psychopath and pathetically misguided lonely soul.

Although the film doesn't live up to complexities of the human issues -- nor the awesome tragedy -- that must have been faced in real life, what you feel watching it is a mixture of horror, moral self-examination, a tinge of inspiration, and -- let's face it on these winter nights -- you feel cold. [15 Jan 1993, p.C1]

2 Days in the Valley is skillfully made. The beginning introduces a handful of disparate characters. It juggles their stories and then deftly starts bringing them together through some surprising and unexpected turns.

Joy never completely loses its way. But it almost does, and it never quite arrives.

It's just not enough to say that The Three Stooges is the death of comedy. Rather, it's the death, burial, putrefaction and decomposition of comedy. It is where comedy, once alive, ends up as dust blowing in the wind, like something out of a really bad Kansas song.

The main appeal of Summerland, a considerable one, is that it allows Gemma Arterton to hold the screen for a nearly unbroken 90 minutes. It showcases her in a variety of modes and moods and provide some huge acting moments that make us recognize that, somewhere along the line, Arterton has become a powerhouse.

The result is a well-intentioned mess -- a dishonest fantasy that begins with promise and gets more frustrating with every scene.

For Kline's performance alone, The Extra Man is well worth seeing.

The movie is reasonably entertaining, though it helps to be 6 years old.

Only intermittently funny.

In the end, W. makes up in immediacy what it lacks in objectivity.

The message is muddled.