Ting’s conceptually solid film is briskly paced, and its heart is in the right place. With a more fine-tuned screenplay, it could have been better than a serviceable movie.

Noe isn't a graceful filmmaker. He wants to traumatize his audience, barnstorm us, make us pay in anxiety and sweat and scorched nerves for the ugly truths he wants us to swallow.

Whatever your religious affiliation, you will come away thinking that if all this did actually happen, it probably happened something like this.

The fight scenes are lackluster and the plot is needlessly complicated. If you're making an action film that centers on fast cars and fast women, it's usually best to keep the rest of the story simple.

There’s a mystery at the heart of The Song of Names, but it isn’t much of a mystery, and once it’s solved, the movie loses what little interest it has. Though not exactly a Holocaust drama, the film is one in which the Holocaust figures tangentially, but crucially. Yet the movie’s overall effect is strangely inert.

Unfortunately, we've seen this before.

Glitters, but it's not pure gold.

Austin Powers sounded like a silly idea, but it turns out to be one of the best comedies of the year.

Goes Hitchcock one better by imagining what it would be like if the master had the advantage of digital technology.

North American viewers will have one advantage over their South American brethren — the capacity to be surprised. We knew how “Lincoln” was going to end, but The Liberator is a question mark all the way to the finish.

Don't fault Thirlby, who does as much as she can with the material. Krasinski is pretty good, and DeWitt and Ennenga are outstanding. The direction is decent, and the film is handsome. But it's finally frustrating, enigmatic in a way that suggests emptiness more than mystery.

Ari Gold’s The Song of Sway Lake is saturated with a kind of melancholy nostalgia, and viewers who can accept that will find other virtues as well in this flawed film. It’s a story of familial unhappiness passing down through generations, impressive before it begins to lose focus.

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

This film is the equivalent of your third or fourth favorite present on any given holiday. It will entertain a few children in the moment, satisfy a few adults who are barely paying attention, then quickly be forgotten.

Is Poison Ivy a total waste of time? Not really: there's a nice surprise in Barrymore's femme fatale performance, and more than a few pleasures from the gifted Sara Gilbert. Long may they act. [30 May 1992, p.C3]

It's amusing in a trashy sort of way.

Like most films in the genre, it's sweet, sincere and predictable.

Has a wicked sense of humor.

All in all, though, A Five Star Life (which was a hit in Italy) remains a hard film to dislike, and many will savor the fabulous locations where Irene arrives as a "mystery guest."

Finding Amanda is a minor movie for Broderick, but considering where it takes him, it's understandable why he took the role.

It’s a lovely children’s movie, which isn’t to say that every moment of it is splendid and enchanted, because that’s not the case. The experience of watching Dumbo is more like, “This is OK, this is all very pleasant” — and then suddenly, there are tears in your eyes, and not from allergy season.

It’s summer, weed is legal in California now and laughs are a scarce resource. You could do worse than Rough Night.

Cleaner is a good-not-great thriller in the “Die Hard” mold that gets an extra lift from Campbell’s skillful direction and from Ridley, who is slowly but surely showing herself to be a performer of wide range and appeal.

Yes, the two-minute trailers were an atrocious affront. But it turns out the other 91 minutes include thoughtful characters and some clever humor in between the pratfalls.

As presented in "What Just Happened?" the world of Hollywood looks like a very expensive, lethal version of high school, not fun to live in, but lots of fun from a safe distance.

A funny comedy, and sometimes an even better drama.

Tense and compelling, with the added charm of a mischievous spirit.

By playing the boob so brilliantly, Atkinson allows us the catharsis of recognizing our own incompetencies and lack of poise.