This is the picture the Belgian actor has been waiting for, the step up in class that has seemed inevitable since his breakthrough in ''Bloodsport'' six years ago. ''Nowhere to Run'' is not just a boy movie. Women can enjoy it, too, and Van Damme's boyish good looks and gentlemanly manner -- gentlemanly, except when he's smashing heads -- won't hurt. [16 Jan 1993, p.C3]

In White Chicks, the gross-out humor is minimal, no character comes off too badly and lessons are learned. Oh Wayanses, where are thy teeth?

It’s a good sci-fi action movie, too. Far be it from me to give this movie the kiss of death by making it seem too serious for its core audience. Chappie is everything it has to be — but it’s everything it should be, too.

The most notable thing about Hop is its technical perfection. It puts live action and animation into the same frame so seamlessly that the filmmakers might easily not get credit for it.

Even with a script that doesn’t provide much behavioral variety and goes in many wrong directions, Bullock commands the screen with little more than closed lips and wary stares.

Rarely do two lines go by without Fellowes changing something, always for the worse.

Britney Vs Spears often feels just as exploitative as the case it portrays.

After a month, no one will talk about this movie, ever again. Still, with a picture like this, there's really only one question: Is it any fun? Yes. Lots. Definitely.

Metro, the new Eddie Murphy cop picture made in San Francisco that opens today, goes beyond cliched: It's shameless. The relationships, plot turns -- even the action sequences -- are trite and uninspired. Murphy is fresh, as usual, but "Metro" is not.

Never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content.

In its second half, Outlander falls apart completely, becoming nothing but a violent, mindless monster movie along the lines of "Alien vs. Predator."

Too bad the plotting is jumbled, and the characters too numerous and undifferentiated.

Friedkin is steeped in gore, like some cinematic Macbeth, and it's obscuring his artistic vision.

Lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

What is meant to be brave comes off as gimmicky and immature.

Here Today is a weird case — not mediocre, not lukewarm, but genuinely bad and good, cringe-worthy and moving. Take this as a recommendation, and a warning.

Mostly succeeds in unmasking the flaws of fetishizing skin-deep beauty.

Even at her most nihilistic, Cameron Diaz is about as menacing as a boozy college cheerleader.

Come Away is an idea that never takes flight.

There's an appeal here, for sure, but if you're not 8 years old you may never figure it out.

Josh Brolin plays the leader of the gangster squad as a kind of dedicated dunce, which is appropriate considering their clumsy antics. Ryan Gosling has more nuance as his right-hand man, but Emma Stone is completely out of her element as a slinky film noir heroine, a walking anachronism.

It tries too hard, but at least it's trying.

In the humor department, Fatman’s is a scattershot but often clever affair thanks to the film’s director brothers, Ian and Eshom Nelms. Their last feature, the eccentric desert noir “Small Town Crime,” worked positive human connections into a dark, violent framework, so that seems to be a theme dear to the Tulare County-raised siblings.

A nonstop action picture with a fair amount of laughs, car chases and exploding buildings. [15 May 1992]

Vantage Point has nothing going on. There's no artistic, philosophical or even jolly entertainment reason for adopting this strategy. It's just arbitrary, a gimmick.

In a movie as hackneyed and as dull as Evolution, the small favors of Duchovny's performance stand out.

A useless film in every possible way.

This is how bad Table 19 gets: At a certain point in the movie, there is absolutely no reason that any of the characters would remain at the wedding or anywhere near it. So the movie devises a false reason to keep them in the general vicinity.