The entertaining work by Spacey and Pepper is a good thing because the film has problems, including an utter lack of subtlety.

Blood Brothers explores compelling, often heart-wrenching moments; and if there’s a flaw, it’s in how little time the film devotes to the aftermath of that tragic rift.

Lacks the finesse of other puzzle films.

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.

Go in with low expectations and you might be pleasantly surprised.

There's some amusement in watching Michael Cera play an unalloyed jerk, but in the main this trifling film shuffles by with a few low-key jokes and observations, building to an abrupt moment of seriousness.

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.

Little White Lies is never boring, always watchable, always reasonably rewarding. It's just that, when it's over, 2 1/2 hours seems too big an investment for just pretty good.

Stomp the Yard, at nearly two hours, has a decent story, a good subject and a horrible plot.

Too self-indulgent.

The Color Purple now has been a movie, a Broadway show, a revived Broadway show and movie musical when it always should have been a TV miniseries.

Mouse Hunt is inane, antic cinema in the extreme. But even if half the gags don't quite work, the other half are inspired.

Has compelling stretches, but the film's formal concerns overwhelm the storytelling.

Intermittently entertaining.

The showcasing of Basinger's body becomes ludicrous. Twice she is shown taking a shower. In another scene she lounges in some very nice designer underwear -- white satin, very becoming. She ends up looking foolish, constantly having to undress in this feminist role. [11 Feb 1994, p.C1]

Less a story than a series of complicated slapstick bits.

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.

Eventually the concept buckles under the heavy blockbuster treatment, becoming a monotonous, repetitive spectacle of endless shipboard sword fights and pirate ghosts in the moonlight.

The result is more lyrical than frightening - and there are some misses mixed in with the hits - but it's well worth checking out.

Like Someone in Love is best suited to viewers already familiar with this extraordinary filmmaker's better work.

The curious thing about this new Cinderella is that every old and familiar element is done beautifully.

Perrier's Bounty puts on a pretty good show: fast, foul, corny, strange.

If the movie packs a weaker punch than the original, it has less to do with the action sequences than the script (by Edmond Wong, son of Raymond, who wrote the first), a flimsy affair with subpar villains.

It commits the only crime that can be committed against Shakespeare: It makes him boring.

An innocuous, fluffy little nothing of an almost-pleasant movie.

Douglas does his best acting while watching and reacting to what he sees on screen. If this ends up being his cinematic swan song, it will not have been a bad way to go.

Neeson also does a good job tracing his character’s cognitive deterioration over the course of the movie. As such, Memory is like a hybrid, mixing serious sections with Neeson’s usual action stuff. Call it a little bit of this and a little bit of that, or not enough of this and not enough of that.

While recognizably Ceylan's work, is more of a genre piece - a noirish suspense film - and less successful.