The most surprising thing about The Rocker is how enjoyable it is.

Burger is so respectful of the trio that he never gets under their skin. Apart from the generosity of strangers who pay tribute to the soldiers with little acts of kindness, you get the same generic observations of any road movie.

Jackman, who stepped in after a cranky Russell Crowe walked away in a salary dispute, strikes just the right chord as a scruffy romantic hero.

Sensitive and vivid response to the tangled issues of teen violence, race and self-esteem.

Does its job colorfully and entertainingly, as long as you don't lean too hard on such niggling details as logic, legality and the laws of physics.

Mostly fun to watch, buoyed by some strong dialogue and performances by the supporting cast.

The script is full of brassy lines.

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.

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.

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

If they gave an Oscar for the most unnecessary movie of the year, the award for 1993 would have to go to "Point of No Return," the latest product of Hollywood's current mania for remaking successful recent foreign films. It's not that this movie is such an awful rehashing of "La Femme Nikita," Luc Besson's stylish French thriller that was the biggest foreign-language hit of 1990 in the United States. It's that the first movie had such high visibility and is still so fresh in our minds, and this Americanized version is so totally the same film (except for the ending, it's virtually scene for scene the same) that it seems like a criminal waste of $30 million. [19 March 1993]

A sports empowerment fantasy of the best kind.

Eight Legged Freaks is a B-movie-and-proud-of-it thrill ride, probably the best of its kind since "Tremors." It does just what a good creature feature is supposed to do: It entertains with laughs, gasps, gooey spectacle and a bemused sense of fun.

An innocuous, hit-and-miss affair.

Looks to be this season's family animal comedy.

Yes, you've seen this movie a hundred times before, and "The Cutting Edge" is even more annoying than most predictable sports movies because it was so obviously shot on the cheap: the overall production values are as low as any film released by a major studio this year. [27 March 1992]

The film's grueling training sequences have a perverse fascination, and, though he's nothing special here, Kutcher is probably the most appealing he has been in a big-screen role.

Flies coach instead of first class, despite a charismatic cast.

There's a real joy to this film, a love of the music and an appreciation of the band's eccentric humor.

At its best, it is self-effacing fun.But the cartoonish approach takes its toll: The random twists and contrived showdowns devolve into just so much abstract business, too silly to take seriously and too unmotivated to make sense.

Under De Palma's cool disconnection is an anger, and it's this anger that drives his act of political theater.

It's a handsome production, nicely shot by Elliot Davis on Italian and Moroccan locations, with a performance by Castle-Hughes ("Whale Rider") as the Virgin that's so pleasing and minimalist it could have been lifted from a fresco by Giotto.

A perfectly dreadful affair that makes no sense, has almost no good laughs and finally just sinks like a rock in a Beverly Hills swimming pool.

A furiously choreographed martial-arts spectacle wrapped in a fumbling narrative.

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.

While the film is technically polished and visually breathtaking, it lacks depth and becomes little more than a lawless fairy tale packed with pretty people.

Zellweger is a gifted comedienne and her wonky persona sparks here and there, but the humor is so broad that the film is a poor stage for her subtle comedic skills, and she's not photographed well: her face has to be lit just so or it tends to looks strangely distorted. McGregor is terrible casting.

Doesn't necessarily offer anything new to the male/female dynamic, but it refuses to let Coles off the hook with an easy epiphany and a painless happily ever after.