Though an uneven, often confused, mixed bag -- the movie gradually comes together to be a fairly hilarious inside-Hollywood farce.

Has a certain morbid fascination, but it has no real bite, and finally seems so contrived and pointless it borders on being out-and-out exploitation.

Yet for a film so affectingly steeped in loss, resignation and the ghosts of memory, the revelation that pulls it all together, while satisfying and even touching, lacks emotional resonance.

A thoughtful and often evocative drama of identity and assimilation, but she leaves Nazneen so cocooned in her protective shell of disconnection that we can't connect emotionally.

Much of the film is funny and alive.

The film is genuinely good-natured and kids -- particularly the ones who actually do this sort of stuff to worms -- will enjoy it and may even take the movie's loose morals to heart.

[Jarmusch] seems...to introduce gratuitous bloodshed that is out of sync with the engaging, offbeat tempo and dark, comedic moral fable that has come before.

The movie is frequently hilarious, and, for a first feature, Cundieff has done a remarkably accomplished job of directing. Without trying very hard, it also manages to lay out some of the absurdity of the white-hating-paranoid/macho sensibility of rap culture. [17 Jun 1994]

While the animation is only so-so, Mamoru is a good storyteller with a firm grasp on both the story and characters.

For all it's warmth and wonder, it carries little more power than a storybook fable.

It almost completely falls apart in a tortuous third act and ultimately leaves us feeling strangely empty and dissatisfied.

The film comes to life when Cohen is on screen.

It's grim, humorless, uncompromisingly hard-edged, and marred by a handful of scenes that are clumsily staged and acted. And yet the film has an honesty and sincerity that is magnificently embodied in the always believable performance of star Plummer. [07 Nov 1992]

An eye-opener for those unfamiliar with the tribulations many immigrants endure on their road to American citizenship. And yes, it is also a fairy tale, but not all fairy tales are for children.

Like a family visit during the holidays. Tensions run high, not everyone is likable but being there's an uneasy comfort because everything is so familiar.

A comic, loving, affectionate glimpse of the '80s, its music and fashions, and most of all at that hard-to-find thing called true friendship.

Clearly, this film is less than a suspense masterpiece. Its violence is often gratuitous.

The movie is flawed and doesn't completely come off as a convincing biography, but its heart is in the right place, it has moments of poignancy and power, and it makes a pleasant change of pace for a genre that essentially has become a cry of despair.

The exception is Matt Dillon, who goes all-out to be arrogant and despicable. Indeed, building on his scary performance earlier this year in "Crash," he's shaping up to be quite the movie villain: definitely someone you love to hate.

As exasperating as it is conventionally satisfying.

As near as I can tell, it's the smallest-scale, lowest-budget, most experimental film Friedkin has ever made, as well as the most thoroughly unpleasant and off-putting -- though it builds a grisly, masochistic fascination as it powers along.

Deepened by the socioeconomic undercurrent that suggests the lengths to which workers are forced to prostitute themselves to survive corporate downsizing.

Unfortunately can't transcend its theatrical roots and the actors, good as they are, seem like they're grandstanding.

Ferrera walks this fine line between the real and the fairy tale – she's the only one in the film who doesn't seem to equate a good performance with a lot of blinking – and it's fun to watch her outside the confines of her TV character.

Comes across as a fairly weak retooling.

Here and there an inspired shot makes the film come alive, and at least three of its sequences had me positioned well on the edge of my seat.

The good news is that Kidman's the best thing in this rather subdued film: sexy, coy and even a bit funny. The bad news is that the movie itself is unlikely to register very long on anyone's radar.

What saves the film is the chemistry between the two leads.

Part treasure hunt, part disturbia.

Is it too much to ask that the fictional scenes have at least some of the complexity and unpredictability of the real-life theater?

Lurches toward an offbeat honesty but it also very nearly crashes in its quirkiness.

Holmes ably handles the starring role, but the handsome Bratt doesn't have enough material to cement his film career. The supporting cast is strong.

Although the film is entertaining, its cleverness is not enough to cover its shortcomings.

Ultimately successful at what it sets out to do, even if it's not as much fun along the way as the original.

Never quite transcends its origins as a high-concept action thriller, but the clean professionalism of Donner's direction, the low-key turn by Willis and the street-level heroics make it a satisfying piece of genre filmmaking.

First-time director Fisher Stevens has a flair for dialogue comedy, the film operates nicely off the element of surprise, and the large cast is solid -- especially Marisa Tomei, who in an extended cameo as a merry dominatrix rarely has been more convincing.

Even if you know or care little about the sport, it's a fascinating saga.

The cast is uniformly non-French, and restrained to the point of rigor mortis. Dunst is the movie's strongest and weakest element. Her natural charm carries us through the scenery, at the same time her distinct Americanness rings false in every scene.

Gripping in parts, tedious in others, the film works best when the action is brisk.

There is a certain poignancy to a film that metaphorically examines the stages of a woman's life through each character.

Loaded down with credibility problems.

A slick and entertaining package.

But the director hired for the job was Hopkins, who was responsible for two of the worst action movies of recent years - "Predator 2" and "Blown Away." And sadly, he has chosen to play the material as "Jaws" with Paws - a jump-out-at-you horror movie, and not an especially competent or thrilling one at that. [11 Oct 1996]

This isn't the Bollywood blast of color and song or the brassy razzle-dazzle of "Chicago," but a quieter, sweeter approach that works against the chaotic comedy while humanizing the characters.

The insistent crosscutting suggests there is something powerful between the two stories, but apart from vague connections of jealousy, emotional tension and conversations that constantly dance around the real issues, they don't resonate across the years.

Whatever else it does, it absolutely convinces us that the life of most women during this supposedly enlightened period of Renaissance history was little better than slavery, and the only level playing field in the war of the sexes was the courtesan's bedroom. [27 Feb 1998]

Wahlberg is effective in the role and carries the movie nicely.

Salva spins a backwoods serial killer setup into something really scary.

Less a story than a film of emotional textures, this is a study in stasis.

A real showcase for Penn, who seems to positively delight in playing a slimy, hateful character that most stars would not go near.

The cast is as likable as it is improbable (especially Nivola, who all but steals the movie as the charmingly decadent rocker).

While it's being sold as "an effervescent comedy," Happy-Go-Lucky is nothing of the sort. It's rather grim, the laughs are few.

The film never earns the irony of the title or offers anything profound in its observations of fractured family dynamics in an atmosphere of lingering resentment, but Allen and Costner enrich and elevate the film and give the growth of their characters a hard-earned gravitas.

Despite its shortcomings as objective reporting, Power Trip offers a glimpse into a sputtering culture that, after decades of communist rule, has little chance of survival in the modern world.

In the end, dark comedy drives the film, but it's overwhelmed by a desire to be liked, really liked.

A slight but wise comedy about the loneliness that makes all men brothers.

The film is lovely to look at -- so overflowing with lavish furniture, jewelry and interiors that it's almost like a visit to Paris' Musée des Arts Décoratifs. If you're a fan of such things, "Pettigrew" is worth seeing solely for its sets.

It's often helplessly hilarious in its adolescent gross-out way, yet the cast periodically invests the film with sweetness.

A credible action spectacular.

Robinson makes these characters breathe, and they bring the film to life.

The film is uniformly well cast, directed (by Alejandro Agresti, who also plays Valentin's father) with a certain flair and a good eye for the nuances of Buenos Aires. I found it light, agreeably short (86 minutes) and mostly quite enjoyable.

Quite long and violent enough to have made several critics squirm in their seats during a recent press screening.

He's (Affleck) vaguely likable, but he's outshone by his co-stars and never particularly believable in his role.

Despite a consistent tone of all-out absurdity, it's a very demanding movie, and its goofiness is never inspired or laugh-out-loud funny enough to carry us along on its leap of imagination.

There's nothing sophisticated or inventive about it, but Cube has fun with his characters and first-time director Marcus Raboy drives the film with enough momentum and energy to make the gags flow together almost like a real story. That's enough to carry it through another Friday.

Some of the writing is very smart, its strain of show-business satire is dead-on and often hilarious, and some of the performances have an insanity and intensity reminiscent of "Dr. Strangelove."

Develops its own unique charm.

As imaginatively as some of them are staged, the action scenes are never authentically gripping. This seems to be the hidden handicap of our new digital filmmaking era in which all big action sequences are generated in the computer and look vaguely like cartoons.

It's a bold proposition, and the resulting film has some powerful moments and strong performances, but it fails to be an involving or satisfying drama, and it's not half as effective as the book in creating outrage over what junk food is doing to us.

I'd like to think it's all a joke, that far from a dream this is actually Linklater's idea of a nightmare.

It's not the dance but the kids' passion, and the boisterous support of their friends and family in the audience, that makes the contest so entertaining.

Swicord has enough savvy to conjure up a terrific cast that compensates for her rote direction.

It takes a strong stomach to sit through its two-plus hours of non-stop brutality (much of it involving very small children).

A shapeless comedy that is enjoyable to watch and often clever with its barbs -- and doesn't have very much to say.

Verbinski, Depp and company just want to make it the best ride you've had all summer. If that's all you demand of a frothy summer blockbuster, then this delivers the goods.

In the end, this could be the year's most sharply defined love-it-or-hate-it movie.

Often as stillborn in pace as it is conceptually compelling.

At its best, The Good Girl is a refreshingly adult take on adultery, where the dark humor and offbeat fringe characters don't get in the way of the consequences or the quiet declarations of devotion slipped between the words.

In no way is this a serious movie. Still, it's hard to resist.

A well-made but harrowing and extremely downbeat coming-of-age drama.

The lack of irony, let alone ambiguity, in an upside world in which mobsters are the underdogs, should sink the film, but Lumet's laid-back professionalism and Diesel's big-hearted performance give it an affable buoyancy.

How She Move is the latest urban music drama from MTV Films, and it manages to give a familiar story a vivid jolt of character.

Very surprisingly, Meryl Streep is not wonderful as Schreiber's scheming, incestuously possessive mother. She gobbles up all the scenery but, for whatever reason, she's just not half as chilling a portrait of demented mother love as the original's Angela Lansbury.

For all its somber heaviness and reverential gravity, it never quite pulls all the elements and themes together.

What Spottiswoode lacks in subtlety and restraint, he balances with a heartfelt passion for the material.

The result is a movie that washes down without much thinking or introspection, provides some laughs and a tear or two, and dishes up a little something to mull over with its messages about friendship and loyalty in the face of naked ambition.

As good as it is in places, Without Limits fails to be a totally satisfying biography or a riveting competition drama. It never communicates a clear vision of its hero's existential mind-set or makes a clear case for his unique contribution to his sport. It's hard to even know, from the evidence in the film, whether its title is ironic. [09 Oct 1998]

It's only half of a good comedy. After a delicious opening and setup, the movie really doesn't go anywhere very interesting, and doesn't come close to any epiphanies about the subject at hand, even in subtext.

Bound to seem, at best, a kind of CliffsNotes guide to the novel's highlights, especially if the casting is not all that inspired.

The film is an audience-pleaser, but very calculated and far from Curtis' best work: His script will go to any lengths to be cute, and his direction tends to be overly broad. In the end, he wears us out with the sheer volume of witty and endearing characters.

While its execution is fine, the movie is almost shockingly vapid.

Crash can't rise from the ashes of its pessimism.

A pretty dreadful affair -- ludicrous as history and a veritable gallery of visual cliches.

This may sound like a satiric comedy, and its intriguing setup carries a faintly comedic tone, but the movie becomes more straight-faced as it moves along and ends up being a fairly serious examination on the nature of, and necessity for, faith.

Provided you don't take it seriously, it makes for an addictively entertaining diversion that's as hard to stop watching as the books are to stop reading.

Zack and Miri is funny, and Rogen is a natural as Smith's alter-ego, spewing profane dialogue like he was born to it.

Likely to provide many points of identification for many women.

It has moments of effectiveness, some of the performances -- especially Whitaker and Robert Ri'chard -- are moving.