A particularly strong family drama, and the Icelandic setting helps, adding a touch of the exotic.

The emphasis here is less on cuteness and romance and more on the "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-style adventure.

That rare thing, an American romantic film that's not a comedy and that's more about love than sex.

Coming-of-age schmaltz fest.

Writer-director Michael Tully simultaneously pays tribute to his own 1980s childhood and the cliched movies he grew up watching, and the result is one of the most honestly dishonest movies you'll ever watch.

It's a disappointment to see the teen pop star hop in a tour bus. This is a boy who should be traveling across rainbows on the back of a unicorn.

Inside 10 minutes, at most 15, Be Kind Rewind reveals itself as an awful mess, and it only gets worse.

Fallen is not perfect, and eventually it even becomes frustrating. Threads remain loose, and the movie doesn't fully exploit its premise. Still, it would be churlish not to appreciate the ride.

It's really strange, and it's really subtitled.

Hook never reaches Nirvana. It doesn't grab the audience, fling it into another world and make people forget where they parked their cars. But it does leave the viewer with a glow, and along the way it has magical moments, even if it's not fully magical as a whole. [11 Dec. 1991, p.E1]

Significantly, this hyper-stylization of 300 is limited to its visuals. The performances are played straight, and this combination -- straight performances and stylized visuals -- produces an uncanny effect.

Wow, when Disney misses the "reimagining" mark, it really misses.

Features convincing, often soaring, performances by a savvy cast that must have gotten adrenaline shots administered by Stone himself.

Aside from being vile and repellent, it's mainly dull - old-fashioned in its shock tactics and culminating in a ho-hum climax.

An oddly structured tale about Francisco Goya and the Spain that he lived and worked in.

A menage a trois tale that aspires to the breezy screwball comedies of the 1930s -- but more often resembles a hip soap opera.

The plot twists in Little Secrets sustain the movie when it gets a bit too schmaltzy. This excess of cuteness and sentimentality won't be a flaw to moviegoers in the mood for it.

Builds into a shapeless riff on the existentialist misery of company.

Can be enjoyed if you don't mind a little manipulation.

A strange concoction, clever and self-knowing in the extreme and yet operating in primal ways that bypass wit. Something about it feels very modern.

In Water for Elephants, Waltz plays a circus owner and ringleader during the Great Depression, and when he's onscreen, every eye is on him, no matter who is talking.

Neither resting on formula nor audience goodwill, the “X-Men” series is going deeper and getting better as it goes along.

Despicable Me 4 is co-written by Mike White (“Migration”) and has a bit more wit and heart — not to mention a few more laughs — than the recent entries in the “Despicable” series.

The film depicts a treasure hunt, only in the sense that the movie has to have a running story. But it doesn't really trade on suspense or adventure, and in the few places Clooney pushes it that way, it doesn't feel right.

Won't go down as an action thriller for the record books, but it's a pretty good one for right now. First of all, the villain is a bank. How's that for timing?

Ringwald looks stunned most of the time and lacks the sparkle generally associated with a free and independent spirit. But then, so does the script. [22 Jun 1990, p.E3]

What makes this movie work is the charisma of Crudup and that Macy and Co. don’t dwell on the events that led up to the shooting. Rather, they use the son’s death as a launching for Sam’s journey into accepting the loss and getting on with his life.

Most of the bits and performances have a hard time making the transition from stage to screen.