It's a mixed blessing.

Scream 3 also has wit and intelligence, but at their core the Scream movies are still slasher films and this one is no exception.

Passably entertaining.

There isn't a spark in the familiar emotional situation or a reason to care how these amiably bland characters end up.

There are some ingratiating moments in "Heart and Souls," but the comedy is mostly a misfire - derivative and emotionally calculated and never as cute or funny as it wants to be. [13 Aug 1993]

The film is a strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness.

Well-intentioned but not very well directed, it makes for a better psychological profile than a film.

The film's one saving grace is Ledger (Mel Gibson's son in "The Patriot").

The movie never gets off the ground. Kaufman's script is never especially clever and often is rather pretentious.

It may not be art, but A Dirty Shame is shameless fun.

The film probably should have been a comedy. It would be a lot more cathartic - and a lot more entertaining - to laugh at the grim modern world of Falling Down than it is to have a heavy-handed filmmaker rub our faces in the hopelessness of it all. [26 Feb 1993, p.14]

A very good movie could probably be made about the black experience in the Old West, but Mario Van Peebles' Posse is not it.[14 May 1993]

When the spectacle turns ridiculous, the movie just becomes another big-screen video game.

Stylistically, Religulous is very much like a Michael Moore documentary, in that most of the scenes have a comic structure, end with a punch line and are designed to make Maher-the-interviewer look sane and rational while his subject comes off as a complete fool.

In place of the dysfunctional family Christmas story we've come to expect for the holidays, The Family Stone gives us a cheerfully uncensored, generic counterculture clan and tosses a tightly wound control freak into the center of their holiday celebration.

And Mackenize Astin (brother of Sean, son of John Astin and Patty Duke) is so likable in this part that his modest success here may represent the advent of a new acting dynasty in Hollywood. [14 Jan 1994]

It's an elegant nail-biter.

Completely -- and quite cleverly -- contrived, a cascade of stupid mistakes and miscommunication stirred into a visceral stew of gooey blisters and flaying layers of bloody flesh.

Hodges cuts the film like a diamond, but it's just an exercise in cut glass, an impressive surface that only looks tough.

Penn has overwritten the dialogue and, though the filmed-in-Nebraska movie has a certain gritty authenticity, it rings vaguely false. You sense he has no knowledge of the '60s, Midwestern angst or smalltown life. [04 Oct 1991]

These self-involved studs manage to make ready, anonymous sex look rather dull.

The casting clicks; the visuals have leaped right out of Dave Gibbons' original panels; the action is brutal, stylish and well-staged, and -- with most of the major characters, themes and symbolism are retained in an abbreviated form -- the 2 1/2-hour film makes an enjoyably esoteric Cliff's Notes version of the book.

It's no earthshaker, but the indie film is refreshingly different from the current movie norm, it's won more than 15 awards on the festival circuit, and war-movie aficionados will find it well worth the journey.

A movie you've seen many times before, but the setting is different, its characters are well drawn and it delivers its uplifting message with succinctness, sincerity and skill.

An excellent documentary equal parts extreme sports and social anthropology.

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.

For all its other virtues, the supporting casting is lackluster, the script never quite kicks into place as a sports movie and Clooney the director seems to lack the touch that might have set the proceedings on fire as a zany ensemble comedy.

The most totally appealing and seemingly heartfelt performance of (DeVito's) career.

If you can forgive some plot artifice and gloss, there's a seductively intuitive and resonant theme resting at the core of Jeremy Podeswa's haunting new film.

It's naturalistic, briskly paced and never overreverential. It's not a bit stagy, yet it manages to be dazzling theater.

The film's deliberately overblown cartoonishness and its gleefully pandering adolescent cruelty never blend into the enjoyable style of, say, a good spaghetti western (Rodriguez's acknowledged model), or even a bad Quentin Tarantino movie.

The messy emotions and illogic of human nature defines this drama.

The movie works like a clock. A few minor quibbles aside (the casting of Hitler, for instance), Valkyrie is a highly intelligent and deeply engrossing historical drama and, frame for frame, the year's most suspenseful nail-biter.

Driving Lessons was written by director Jeremy Brock as a vehicle for Grint and Walters, who appeared together in the Harry Potter movies. They make a terrific screen couple. Walters is alternately zany and poignant, with Grint the perfect foil, a bemused, confused innocent who only wants to do good.

It pales in comparison to its two classic predecessors, and also just generally feels like one too many trips to the well.

It rolls in waves over the sedentary crowd until there's not a single soul left who's not keeping the beat.

What Jeffs -- and Paltrow -- do capture is the shroud of tragedy that hovered over Plath.

It's pure romantic fantasy, almost too cute and naively innocent for its own good. Jeff Balsmeyer, a former storyboard artist making his directorial debut, stumbles through the clumsy establishing scenes, but his playful direction smoothes out as the characters settle in.

Mostly it's tedious as we watch the photogenic but emotionally blank Chatagny bounce between anonymous sexual encounters.

With The Brave One, Jodie Foster and director Neil Jordan shift the genre to the murky left, where right and wrong are not so black and white. In doing so, they have taken away the very thing that makes a vigilante movie work.

John Jarratt is perfectly creepy as the outback loner gone psychotic survivalist who gets his kicks from the systematic degradation and torture of hapless victims. And make no mistake, the ordeal is excruciating.

Contrary to its title, Virtual JFK is less a counter-history of the Vietnam years than a tribute to John F. Kennedy's stubborn resistance to a military that pressured him to go to war on six occasions during his short presidency.

It's nicely crafted, respectably acted and often quite compelling in a low-key way, but it doesn't have the kind of flair, impact or resonance we've come to expect from the director.

"Clouds" fills its exteriors with the glory of the Utah mountains and its interiors with the work of the late Hopi artist, Dan Lomahaftewa -- a pleasing combination that gives the film its own special visual style and magic.

It's an unpleasant experience, and a long one, that gets more morose and melodramatic as it goes along.

The film ultimately has no contrast and we can't figure out whom to like or dislike.

Good-natured and fun, the Austin Powers silliness of the era shines through, and Coppola family art director Dean Tavoularis ("Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather" trilogy) makes the film -- and its kitschy film-within-the-film -- look consistently terrific.

It's an interesting experiment that doesn't quite work.

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

Not only have they (Coen Brothers) stripped it of all its wit and charm, they've loaded it down with the kind of race-baiting and bathroom humor they've always avoided in the past.

An exhilarating piece of epic filmmaking that it pulls you in, sweeps you up and works very much as its own thing.

Loses focus of whom the film is honoring.

There's an unconvincing warm, fuzzy happy ending, in which recognition is treated as cure and understanding heals all. But, until then, Phoebe in Wonderland is an involving and empathetic drama of mothers and daughters.

There are a handful of laughs, and maybe three solid scenes. Otherwise, it's an unfunny, relatively charmless, ultimately grueling excuse for a comedy that often plays like a 105-minute public service ad on why it's not a good idea to have children. [20 Dec 1996]

Bland and completely uninspiring.

While Hunt's directing debut is promising, if understated, it's her performance as schoolteacher April Epner that impresses the audience.

Too bad they didn't skip the gags and one-liners, along with the songs, and go the distance in making this an authentic dinosaur world.

It's just never as gripping as it needs to be.

Throughout the film, music is used to define character and place. Two metal bands, Moral Decay and South Central Riot Squad, dominate the soundtrack whenever the gang is on the move.

If you're not a die-hard "Bean" fan, this is probably no place for you. But it's mercifully short (87 minutes), the French scenery is pleasant, a handful of the routines are hilarious and -- with its G rating -- you can definitely bring the kids.

Seems a much more even-handed and thoughtful take on the man than anyone might have expected.

Fukada captures the stubborn individualism of a girl who embraces an unpopular lifestyle.

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

Those who want something to really sink their teeth into should head home on a rainy day, put on some goth anthems and reread the books.

No doubt about it, the movie is morbidly fascinating. Moreover, Cusack gives a delicate and agreeably world-weary performance.

An acid movie flashback a la Oliver Stone.

As a matter of fact, so much of Pacific Heights is laughable, and the film is so preposterous as a premise and so clumsily directed and lacking in suspense, that it plays like a parody of a Hitchcock thriller. Or did I miss the point and this was Schlesinger's intention all along? [28 Sept 1990]

A satisfyingly nasty piece of work so black and cruel it's often more sick than funny.

As well made, entertaining and seductive a showcase for Hanks as it is, the movie doesn't have a magical impact and doesn't stay with you. And while you're watching it, there's always some slight annoyance, inconsistency or motivational-lapse to slap your face in almost every scene.

Its overall impact is soothing and reassuring without being overtly manipulative, propagandistic or flag-waving.

Ayala gives Joan a fiery, full-blooded passion and Aranda challenges Pedro Almodovar in the arena of self-destructive love, obsessive passion and sweaty cinematic sex. It's the lustiest costume drama in years.

It's endlessly confusing.

From the floating particles of dirt that open the film to the final image of a man and woman on a beach, Yes insists that we live with our mistakes since there is no escaping them.

It's an enjoyable period romance. Yet, ultimately, the unique magic of Austen so beautifully caught in 1996's "Emma" is missing.

A foreign film feel despite its strong American cast.

It becomes simply another banal gang film so familiar and predictable you have to wonder why so much potential is wasted on such a confused dramatic mess.

It's more intelligent than most Hollywood movies you'll find in the heat of summer, and its saving grace is the quality of its acting, including Jackson's uncompromising turn as the old fighter, and delicious bits by David Paymer and Alan Alda as veteran editors.

Despite Clement's best efforts to make Jarrod a deadpan oddball nerd, it becomes apparent early on that excessive teenage eccentricity and terminal self-delusion isn't quite as cute in the adult male and absent father.

An excruciatingly awful thriller.

The characters are uniformly repulsive, the cliche-ridden script builds no real tension or psychological interest, and the bottom line is that Lee's innovative but ultimately tedious and even ludicrous MTV-style visuals add absolutely nothing to the story dynamics.

Starts slowly, takes a turn for the better for a couple of reels and then, not having much to say or anywhere to go, flatlines into something akin to "American Idol."

It's hard to recall another time when the cross-purposes of two collaborating filmmakers of a major film has been quite so evident, or when the theme of the movie itself has been so totally schizophrenic -- half populist outrage, half Nazi.

It's by far the most inspirational sports movie to come along in many a month.

Herman's intentions are admirable, but his results are unsettling in the worst ways.

Comes across as a fairly weak retooling.

Wanders off on story tangents that can't be called anything other than bizarre, but nevertheless oddly engages.

Blanchett is, warts-and-all, letter perfect.

For all of its minor pleasures, this encore lacks the depth of its conviction.

It may be emblematic of new-millennium Hollywood that this movie has turned out to be one more emotionless, brainless, overproduced action film.

Such an air of dumbness hovers over the movie, and it's all played so broadly that nothing about it is remotely believable.

Movies about gurus generally fail to capture the charisma of their subjects. French director Jan Kounen's documentary on Amma, India's hugging saint, who allegedly has given restorative embraces to more than 45 million supplicants, is no exception.

It's colorful and determinedly kooky, with "Kung Fu" references and an H.R. Pufnstuf interlude between performances.

Garbarski recovers from the melodrama with a final image that is so sweet, so simple and so understated that one is tempted to say it is perfect.

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.

It's not the direction that feels flaccid in this film. Surprisingly, it's the stories themselves, which provide a bit of a giggle but little else.

But the movie goes absolutely nowhere. It allows us to be a fly on the wall to a whirlwind of gossip, confessions and intimate moments. But when the ending comes, it's an epic letdown. It's just so much Oprah-esque eye candy, without a point of view, or a plot.

Wilson's shtick actually works better with Stiller than it did with either of his former partners, Jackie Chan and Eddie Murphy.

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.