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.