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

Taking on the sneeringly blase Alig may be a cagey career move for Culkin, but it's a disappointingly thin performance.

It comes out less like a spoof than a smart-aleck remake of "Meatballs," minus the energy of Bill Murray.

Quickly assumes the characteristics of a bad slasher movie.

A lively and lightweight comedy, the film finally connects with the real-life rush of playing music for a live audience.

There are a handful of funny moments, and the top end of the cast comes off rather well. Duchovny has some of that same easygoing likability that made Glenn Ford one of the biggest stars of the '50s.

A forgettable, patched-together clone of other ghostly romances.

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]

An inspiring story of pluck, but its politics fall flat.

It offers a handful of funny and touching moments and maintains a level of cuteness. But it's far from original, and its star chemistry doesn't exactly light up the screen.

It's a pretense of even-handedness. The true story has been reduced to a case for faith. It merely sacrifices all reason to get there.

So grim and humorless that the first half almost sinks into silliness.

Wenham and Porter make the film better than it should be.

The film is inherently calculated and cold, so smugly satisfied with itself and its surprise final trick that it seems to be running its own con to convince us the script's house of cards is actually substantial, original and slick.

Too hip to play it straight and too cool to resort to an actual story, Hartley turns the whole rambling spy game into a puzzle box where every certainty is thrown into doubt, every character has a hidden motive, and every clue is contradicted.

A perfectly competent, if undistinguished, action film that smoothes over all the most interesting bumps in the drama.

Favors pageantry over substance.

The casting is hit-and-miss. OutKast's Benjamin and "Troy's" Hedlund are weak, but Gibson is very appealing and the movie powers along on a strong lead performance by Wahlberg, who has never seemed more confident, commanding or scruffily charismatic.

It's flashy, it's often funny ...,and it resembles a movie so much that soon it demands something resembling motivation, character, a plot, anything to explain the seemingly arbitrary connections between the stunts and the skits.

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

For all the tough-minded talk and frank portraits of inner-city life, however, the film is not altogether convincing.

Rich with emotional turmoil and searing beauty, but it could have used a little more time in the editing room to make sense of it all.

It probably cost less than the catering budget of average Adam Sandler comedy and, in its own hit-and-miss scattershot fashion, it's about as funny. At least when it hits.

It's the chemistry between the women and the droll scene-stealing wit and wolfish pessimism of Anna Chancellor that makes this "Two Weddings and a Funeral" fun.

There's something flat and obscure about this well-acted stalker movie.

Doom may be by the numbers, with a roll call of colorful types systematically exterminated while The Rock entertains with cartoonish expressions and reactions (the closest the film comes to personality).

Though it's a star vehicle, Carrey seems only marginally interested in rehashing the role of sweet spaz, and so he almost feels miscast.

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.