A low-maintenance crowd-pleaser, but we've seen the entire film, in thematic snippets, before.

Often unsettlingly funny, though it ultimately recedes into a dark womb of despair.

I loved it...Without trying very hard, Farnsworth commands a unique and immensely appealing screen presence that could be called "a compilation of all the great western heroes of the movie past."

It assaults us with violence, brutality, sexual confusion and anarchy and has enough bruising, punishing humor to keep us laughing with relief.

A sloppily scripted film that contains a silly and superfluous subplot about a crooked cop.

Strikes a universal chord, no matter what rung of the popularity ladder we were on in high school.

A radically disturbing and memorable movie whose images don't easily fade or diminish in power.

For film buffs who want to see what's hot in Germany, Bandits is probably worth the price of a ticket. Those looking for action, drama, or rock 'n' roll may find the mix less than satisfying.

While adults may feel out of their league, there are a few jokes that will appeal to them.

A fresh, well-written comedy that doesn't lag, casts its actors against type and has a real love for its characters.

Disney seems intent upon overdosing audiences with the little guy proving himself against a seemingly superior force.

There's not an original idea rattling around in the empty-headed but gorgeous-to-behold period film.

So badly plotted and written that it rarely makes much sense, even with the elementary story line.

As entertaining as it is a viable, political message destined to make viewers rethink their stance on war.

Loaded down with credibility problems.

Isn't so emotionally powerful as the Oscar-winning "When We Were Kings" but which -- in its more intimate way -- still packs a punch.

Low-voltage and forgettable.

Williams' self-conscious and rather bland performance never comes close to bringing his character to life.

An enigmatic but gorgeous film.

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

Goes down like a cool glass of lemonade on a hot day.

In the end, the comedian makes the movie seem better than it really is.

Gorgeous re-creation of another time.

A delight and a surprise.

A dynamite comedy-drama that, unless it stiffs big-time at the box office, should be up for multi-Oscar nominations come February.

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

An awful, misanthropic, deadly unfunny and badly acted war-of-the-sexes travesty.

There's not an authentically scary moment in it.

It's a movie brimming with good intentions, solid production values and searing performances. However, it never quite clicks into place with any real satisfaction.

Outside of a smart performance by Shawn Hatosy as Tim Dunphy, there just isn't much that's enlightening or new in this intimate recollection.

Neither (Gooding nor Ulrich) has the distincitve spark of an action hero, and their Butch and Sundance repartee falls so consistently flat that you end up feeling a little embarrassed for them.

A straightforward, no-nonsense, agreeably old-fashioned historical action movie.

Somehow the elements do not add up to by anything especially memorable.

Clever, often hilarious, inside-Hollywood farce that makes the most of... a delightfully absurd premise.

A big dud.

A mess of incohesiveness and fragmented storytelling.

Not surprisingly, the best thing on the screen is Mirren.

Has a slight bite.

Brokedown Palace does have some plot implausibilities but Kaplan, manages to turn some hashed story lines into something substantial and emotionally affecting.

One terrific comedy that doesn't let up for an instant... a total hoot.

Truly raunchy but it's more sweetly stupid and silly than anything.

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.

Non-cultists should enjoy this engaging and well-acted retread -- a film that develops its own charm as it goes along.

Mystery Men must have seemed magically goofy on storyboards, but has somehow turned into unappealing mush by the time it made it to the screen.

An almost documentary reality and voyeuristic appeal.

An incomprehensible mess -- so boring and numbingly unworkable that it's hard to imagine what he could have been thinking.

More intelligent and thought-provoking than the usual dumb and dull-witted fare for children.

I haven't been so captivated, chilled and surprised by a movie in years.

A highly original, often hilarious, what-if farce about Watergate.

But the movie's vital signs improve remarkably in the second half, and especially in the last act. The proceedings suddenly pick up some screwball charm, the writing improves (with several truly inspired one-liners tossed in here and there) and the secondary characters begin to click.

Often as stillborn in pace as it is conceptually compelling.

So uninvolving as basic storytelling that it quickly becomes boring.

It lacks, despite the remarkable techno effects by wizard Stan Winston, originality and charisma.

The script starts repeating its best gags about halfway through, and the direction gets ever broader as it goes along until the film finally loses all effectiveness as satire.

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.

Whatever it is, it's totally Kubrickian: Its scenes have both an edge and an extraordinary visual perfection that could come from no other filmmaker.

As amateurish and fumbling as it is in every department, the sum total of the movie is pretty darn scary.

It’s a comedy, a romantic star vehicle, a thriller, a horror movie and a quasi-environmental parable that's calculated to appeal to all demographic groups. It's not enough of any one of these things to be particularly engaging.

A clumsy and incompetent thriller for nine-tenths of its length, but it has an ending so clever and that goes so wildly against expectations it almost exonerates the film.

Idiotic.

The movie is reminiscent of the films of Claude Sautet but it has a grittier, more youthful appeal. Still, it's just as nuanced and rich in all its messy revelation. [21 May 1999]

Lee's control and storytelling flair have never seemed more assured and there are moments so powerful and thrilling we feel we're in the hands of a master filmmaker at the peak of his powers.

The movie's problem is that it's a cartoon, offering no emotional involvement with its characters and no dramatic imperative.

Ok, I admit at first I was just laughing at the sheer gutsiness of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. But after 10 minutes, I was laughing at the script.

If not cinema magic, The Dinner Game is still a workable screwball comedy.

Though the cast is talented, the script is a mess. It's essentially a collision of missed opportunities.

It's a buoyant, often thrilling piece of animation that more or less does for the Central African rain forest what "The Lion King" did for the East African savanna.

So bloated, self-righteous and exploitative, it's hard to imagine anyone staying to the end, much less demanding a sequel.

The formula has rarely been done as well as it is in this goofy, audacious, visually stylized omnibus of what-ifs that operates on its own peculiar logic, and powers along with the force of a truck on the Autobahn.

Makes the translation with all its wit, incisive dialogue and eccentric characters intact, and then some.

The repulsive turn of events erased all my good memories of the first half, and makes the movie hard to recommend to a normal human being.

It's well-acted by a likable cast and is well-intended, but it misses: It doesn't come off as the powerful socio-environmental statement it wants to be.

A moody adventure story set in Alaska that resonates with envrionmental overtones and is filled with delicate character studies, but ends up being a terrific little genre thriller. [04 Jun 1999]

It's pure fluff, but as irresistible as cotton candy.

Directed with a Scorsese-ish flair by actor John Shea (who also plays a small part), the film is loaded with gritty atmosphere and touches of authenticity. [12 Jun 1998]

The film's deliberate pace, its constantly confusing structure, its thematic vagueness and its clumsy and often embarrassingly amateurish Garden of Eden sequences combine to make The Loss of Sexual Innocence at best, a tough sit; at worst, a self-consciously arty parable of a self-indulgent filmmaker. [30 Jun 1999]

Avoid the hype, just go enjoy the movie

Shakespeare's comical, all-too-human tale of lust, foreplay and wordplay is buried beneath bad taste.

Zeffirelli creates a lovely, perfectly composed and lyrical look at life under Mussolini's black-shirted fascist regime. But despite danger on every corner in Italy, there is a tinge of rose-colored sentiment that blurs the events yet lends to the making of an affecting dramatic period piece.

Numbingly predictable and repetitive non-stop action.

It is strangely paced (especially in the beginning), always confusing to follow, and extremely awkward as a romance.

Cronenberg is one of the cinema's true originals, and a trip to his spooky world is always a harrowing, thought-provoking experience.

Often distastefully juvenile.

Funny for 15 minutes and then fades into mean-spirited cruelty and stupidity.

Does have one saving grace, however. As Nick's long-suffering wife, Blanchett gives the movie some badly needed charisma, and its one point of sympathy -- even nobility.

It's an unenlightening film that proves youthful anarchy is just as dull as a midlife crisis, and sadly, as predictable, too.

Conceptually, the film is unique - it's a kind of nostalgia movie within a nostalgia movie. [16 Apr 1999]

Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat is so charismatic in his second Hollywood outing, The Corruptor, that he almost makes us forget that the movie itself is one of the more pretentious, muddled and incompetent action films to come along in some time. [12 Mar 1999]

The movie smacks of old-fashioned Hollywood phoniness. [22 Jan 1999]

It's a gut-wrenching emotional experience that you'll watch with tears in your eyes. [26 Mar 1999]

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]

Wilde (Fry, in a wonderful performance) comes off less as a sexual martyr than a man who foolishly lets his obsession for an unworthy young lover (Jude Law) lead him into big trouble that he might well have avoided. The only totally sympathetic character in the movie is Wilde's wife (Jennifer Ehle). [05 Jun 1998]

It's epic, sweeping, and genuinely engrossing for awhile, but then it stumbles. [07 Nov 1998]

The biggest failing of the film is that it's the lamest possible excuse for a whodunit. [17 Apr 1998]

Still, Kitano creates his own scary and compelling world in the film, and there's no denying his charisma as a star. Like Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood (two action icons to whom he's often compared), the 51-year-old actor holds the screen with seemingly no effort. He's as watchable as a tired old rattlesnake. [11 Sep 1998]

His film has a kind of lyrical and poetic beauty at the same time it's remarkably free of sentimentality and didacticism, and it tells its tale with the minimalist effectiveness of a first-rate short story. [3 July 1998]

His heart may be in the right place, but 25-year-old writer-director M. Night Shyamalan can't even begin to pull all these episodes together into anything that seems remotely special, or even makes any sense. [03 Apr 1998]

Just a silly mess of a movie in which no one is trying very hard to do anything but goof off. [6 March 1998]