A strangely warm, affectionate look at bad behavior amid emotional damage and a stranglehold of identity issues.

It's all so visceral that it overwhelms the near-abstract story and smothers what passes for characters.

Director Martha Coolidge attempts to keep the film grounded in reality, but the movie flutters away from her control.

Has a good cast, a nicely sustained mood of paranoia and several genuinely creepy moments, but ultimately ends up being one more highly formulaic teen screamer.

It's a bright, swiftly paced story with some spirited humor.

It never quite adds up to anything. It's engaging enough while it's going on, but has little visceral impact or resonance.

It's never hugely engaging and it's instantly forgettable, but it has a certain goofy charm.

There are shocking facts and supportive images, but the film lacks investigative spirit.

Annoyingly shallow, filled with one-note characters, and not half as daring as it seems to think it is.

Anyone in the market for a bittersweet romantic comedy could do worse.

By the time we get to the unsurprising surprise ending, what seemed innovative and challenging in Taking Lives has lost its juice and reverted to formula form, and we leave the theater with that same old let-down feeling of having endured a ritual one more time.

While it displays precious little originality or ingenuity, A Guy Thing is less graceless than most of its ilk and benefits from a likable cast.

The movie is full of action and stunts, but after the gangbusters opening, it loses steam and imagination very quickly.

It's simply not a very good movie. Its story line is populated with so many characters and meaningless names that it's nearly impossible to follow, and its author's message doesn't amount to much more than a cry of despair.

Abigail Breslin, the preteen Oscar nominee for "Little Miss Sunshine" and the most effortless actress of her generation, plays the precocious little girl part without overdoing the precociousness.

Feels forced every step of the way. Ultimately it's the kind of under-inspired, overblown enterprise that gives Hollywood sequels a bad name.

I walked out of it feeling much the same way I did after "The Cat in the Hat" and "The Polar Express" -- jarred by its excess, undernourished by its lack of heart and bored by its lack of originality.

More silly than funny.

Its combination of maudlin sincerity, cruel slapstick, exotic romanticism and boogie-down dance sequences may befuddle more than it entertains.

So fluffy and sitcom shallow that it makes "Gidget Goes to Rome" and its other many predecessors in the young-American-girl-goes-to-Italy-and-falls-in-love genre look like high art.

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.

Writer-director Chris Columbus (Home Alone) never manages to make the mix of humor and pathos gel. The characters never seem as engaging as he wants them to be, the comedy is often forced, and scenes fall flat left and right. [24 May 1991]

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

Ultimately emotionally flat and eminently forgettable.

Once we realize just how deeply hateful these two are, Samuell's free-spirited, romping visuals start to feel imposed on the film as a shameless "me too" ripoff of another, better movie.

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

Not a bad movie, per se. It's just harmless and bland and dull and predictable, and sometimes that's worse than a bad movie.

The actors navigate tough characters through emotional mayhem with such intense determination it's a shame they're undercut by the intrusive voice-over.