It doesn't leave you much to hold on to in a comedy about apathy that can't even muster the energy to care.

This well-meaning mistake gets lost in the metaphors.

The bogus Seattle setting creates an additional problem for local moviegoers. Because we know Seattle doesn't have a subway, giant FBI building or newspapers called Telegraph or Tribune, we're jarred out of the story so regularly that it leaves us slightly punch-drunk.

Be warned that what looks to be a family comedy pushes its PG-13 rating to the edge with blatant sexual references and creatively crude sexual metaphors.

Despite several touching scenes, the script comes perilously close to being maudlin and, while competent, Polley doesn't have the flair to make anything special out of her big role.

Surreal, vaguely amusing, European-made drama.

Much ado about very little because it takes no stand and gives little insight into the Chopper's psyche.

But too much of this movie is unstructured and stylistically haphazard. And by the time we get to its highly predictable conclusion, Gas Food Lodging is just one more formula coming-of-age drama. [28 Aug 1992]

The film lacks the nerve for any genuinely nasty fun or comic bite.

A series of Grand Guignol skits played for mean-spirited laughs.

Fails to generate the elementary visceral thrills we've come to expect from science-fiction thrillers, let alone a compelling human drama.

The second-class status of women in Korean society is a reminder of Confucianism's dark side. For all its pretty cinematic images and well-meaning bows to a vanishing literary tradition, this movie is a celebration of that dark side.

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 108-minute film of a two-minute song.

With Biggerstaff's breathless narration explaining every detail of the action, Cashback seems aimed at an audience that would rather be told a story than shown a movie.

A family-friendly comedy with some gut-shaking chuckles and a heartwarming message. Sadly, it's also a fine example of what happens when talented people settle for utter mediocrity.

DeVito definitely has a gift for absurd black humor that kicks in here and there, but Adam Resnick's script is slavishly mean-spirited.

The most dishonest thing about this ranting montage of a movie is its technique of panning between opposing viewpoints to simulate debate, when in fact each of the more than 35 celebrities was separately interviewed.

It plays like a big-budget, after-school special with a generous cast, who at times lift the material from its well-meaning clunkiness.

Despite picturesque episodes and nicely observed characters, the film lacks suspense.

A canny but hollow pastiche.

A tired tale that never comes to life.

Haskell comes off as a jerk -- but Mark somehow looks even worse: not just insincere but weak, vain and vindictive.

Like shave ice without the topping, this cinematic snow cone is as innocuous as it is flavorless.

Many will find Griffin profane, sexist and decidedly offensive. Many more will find his raunchy insights inspired, his body language hilarious and his gift for mimicry and caricature worth the entire show.

An uninvolving film.

The teen parties and sidekick silliness are time filler, and not very good filler either -- why even Bruce Willis shows up in a scene that has nothing to do with the story.

Its heart is in the right place and it resists the temptation to junk up the story, but Depp does nothing with his character and the movie has little of the unique wit or panache that would make it appealing to an older-than-10 audience.