Scabrously funny yet essentially gentle, as the main thing that it's probing is our collective ignorance.

Pellington, an award-winning music video director, has a good eye for setting scenes, although the movie falls a few times into a choppy video clip-to-video clip rut. [26 Oct 1997, p.04E]

Little more than an old-fashioned melodrama, but for some moviegoers that will be enough.

A bizarre buffet of buffoonery, brutality and beautiful landscapes.

It's the kind of movie that inspires word-of-mouth recommendations by speaking the international language of culture clash.

With its references to other properties in the Marvel universe and to classic tales of redemption, this no-surprises summer movie might appeal to those who've been bitten by radioactive spiders or the Shakespeare bug.

Reeves seems less blissed out than conked out, as if he had sustained a heavy blow from a loose surfboard. [27 May 1994, p.3H]

Weaving between freshness and formula, The Boys Are Back earns a gentle pat on the head.

There’s a sharp comedy to be made about America’s misadventures in Afghanistan. This isn’t it.

Bad Words is often very funny, thanks to Bateman’s brick-wall malevolence and screenwriter Andrew Dodge’s inventively rude dialogue.

Snark is not art. In the evolutionary spectrum of cinema, Natural Selection is like the duck-billed platypus, pretending to be warm-blooded but more than a little fowl.

Perry manages to pull it off here, coming off completely likable and real, never insufferable and fake.

On the whole, Flesh and Bone is effectively clean and mean. [05 Nov 1993, p.10E]

The double deception of suppressed personality and repressed sexuality could have been the basis for a rewarding character study, but after Albert meets a kindred spirit and dares to dream of a happy ending, her denial and naivete become too much to swallow.

An eye-opening primer in cross-species similarity. We learn that apes are violent and territorial but also that they are capable of creativity and tenderness.

Fuqua is a proficient action director, and the boxing scenes deliver plenty of whomp. But the music-saturated scenes involving the media, the law and a turncoat friend played by Curtis (“50 Cent”) Jackson are trying to appeal to fans of “Empire,” not “Raging Bull.”

Burton delivers his most ambitious and engaging film since “Sweeney Todd” (2007). Although the story becomes increasingly complex as it goes along, the emotional payoff is more than worth it.

It's very inside baseball about the inner workings of a fashion event. That said, there's a delicious depiction of fashion as fantasy that's worth the price of admission.

It’s ultimately everything a modern horror movie should be.

It doesn’t help that the characters caught up in this fact-based melodrama aren’t particularly engaging. Or that Téchiné doesn’t seem to have much of a feel for the material.

Although it's stuffed with subplots, gadgets and bad guys, this tinny contraption is half-hearted.

Cars 2 is like a gorgeous sports car with a toxic tailpipe, a busted navigation system and a loud stereo that plays only commercials.

Toast is lovely to look at, evoking both the gray-green milieu of Midlands life and the sensuality of good food, but it's like a whipped topping with no base.

The movie is a little too long, and sinks briefly into the doldrums when it turns overly serious in the last half hour or so. But Little Big League recovers nicely, and the ending is terrific. This is one of the few recent movies that parents and children would enjoy together. [03 Jul 1994, p.16C]

Taylor-Johnson — who earned high praise for his performance in last year’s “Nocturnal Animals” — is riveting as a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A generally entertaining schmaltzy melodrama, as long as you are not overly reverent about traditional versions of the Arthurian legend and can get over William Nicholson's sometimes clumsy dialogue. [07 Jul 1995, p.3E]

The multiple cameras that shadow Anker and his novice partner provide unprecedented images. But they also raise unintended questions about the vanishing frontier.

Doesn't rise to classic status, but it's an intriguing mood piece.

So stupid and hateful, it needs to have a stake driven through its heart before it can spawn a franchise.

Mainstream moviemaking at its most proficient, with a zippy script, comfort-food casting and a breakout performance by a deserving star.

The real disappointment is that director Carroll Ballard delivers such powerful racing scenes and seascapes that you wish he could have done better on dry land. But you can't argue that Ballard doesn't deliver an original, often breathtaking, view of nature. [17 Sep 1992, p.4E]

Wrath of Man feels like a homecoming for director and star, and an evolution, too. With Statham in the lead, playing one of his classically taciturn and tactically lethal action heroes, Ritchie is as restrained and controlled as he’s been in years.

Spacey evokes memories of other movies in which he's played a shark, and it's inherently fascinating to hear Aniston talking dirty and to see Farrell with a combover, but nothing in the film is genuinely provocative.

The finale is heavy on CGI. But it never takes away from this respectable entry into the horror genre that values chills over kills.

Redford is an adequate director, and he keeps things moving at a moderate pace, passing up exits to more spectacular vistas or hotter issues.

Not Without My Daughter, based on the true story of Betty Mahmoody, presents a strong picture of the struggle of a mother and daughter trying to leave Iran together. The film succeeds very well in creating suspense over their situation without coating it with undue sentimentality. [12 Jan 1991, p.5D]

It's funny but (sorry, ladies) unrealistic that Jake continuously sneaks away from his young wife to canoodle with Jane. Baldwin is a blast, but the role requires him to indulge in indignities such as a naked webcam conversation.

A film that aims for the stars and may have found one here on earth.

The crescendo of two resonant careers makes the false notes of Unfinished Song forgivable.

Working from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Stephen Chin and Jason Smilovic, Phillips delivers a film that raises provocative questions about the economic imperatives of war while masquerading as a buddy comedy.

The Equalizer, loosely based on the TV series of the late ’80s, is a guilty-pleasure platform for Washington’s slow-cooked, kick-butt heroism.

The result is only half as hip as hoped. Yes, this Holmes is leaner and meaner, and Watson (Jude Law) is nearly his equal. But there’s still something fussy about the result, as if bobbies had broken up the party at 11:59.

Among the pleasures of "Ghosts of Mississippi" is the rare chance to see Goldberg, who is such a fine actress, in a serious role. [03 Jan 1997, p.E03]

A VERY Brady Sequel may be the world's first ecologically friendly movie, 90 minutes of recycled situations, dialogue and Day-Glo elevated from the small screen of the '70s to the big screen of today. It's a sunshine day where there is nothing new under the sun. It's also, in the Brady vernacular, far-out fun in a groovy kind of way. [23 Aug 1996, p.6E]

It's a pretty good movie. Ironically, the more even-handed treatment of the Japanese, although probably fairer, may have robbed the tale of some of the single-minded xenophobic nastiness that probably gave the book its trashy energy. [30 July 1993, p.3F]

It’s just sad to see the always interesting Farmiga wasted in such a hackneyed role.

In the infidelity drama Leaving, British reserve gets overtaken by French passion, and the subsequent events have the horrific momentum of a slow-motion car crash.

With its broad strokes, this invitation to an important discussion is hard to ignore, but the blood and honey on the table is an unpalatable mix.

Hearts and Souls is an only intermittently entertaining reworking of an ancient Hollywood formula. [13 Aug 1993, p.5F]

A Knight's Tale succeeds as light entertainment if not as historical record. [11 May 2001, p.F1]

Posse is an exciting, action-packed Western, and almost all of its social commentary is skillfully embedded in the gripping drama itself. [14 May 1993, p.3G]

As predictable as a 3-and-0 pitch down the middle, but when it’s baseball season, who wants dark clouds?

Amid other wedding movies crowding screens these days, not to mention Perry's "Madea's Big Happy Family," Jumping the Broom feels instantly familiar. And tired.

A well-crafted drama about the comforts and insecurities of family life.

Genius, like most films about the literary life, has trouble dramatizing what’s involved and making us care.

It may not be original, but Adam could leave a lump in your throat.

James makes for a charismatic hero, and former “Saturday Night Live” star Sudeikis is a revelation as the steadfast Snyder.

Notwithstanding the characters’ spiritual camaraderie, Salles’ emphasizes the hard physical labor and loneliness in Sal’s story, including the jittery rigors of the writing process. When he reaches a crossroads choice between down-and-out Dean and his own rising career, Sal senses that except for the words on a typewritten scroll, his life on the road is gone, real gone.

Winona Ryder, rather than Cher, is the real star of Mermaids, and her fine performance as a hormone-stunned teen-ager is the main reason to see this otherwise mildly entertaining, somewhat muddled comic melodrama. [14 Dec 1990, p.3F]

The kiddie audience will laugh a few times, but it would take an electron microscope to find an original idea or joke in this entire cartoonish movie.

After some overly talky revelations, the cornered writer/directors are forced to shatter their absurd shell game with a final act of violence that spoils the breezy, capering mood that prevailed for much of the movie.

It's a little black dress of a movie, an elegant hint of something sensual that is ultimately denied to us.

Diesel and Johnson are at their testosterone-charged best. Theron, who seems to be auditioning to become the next Bond villain, is ruthlessness personified.

Non-Stop: It is what it is.

This shrill caper is more like a blind date between fingernail and chalkboard.

The Arrival is no Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it does provide a solid second choice at the multiplex. [31 May 1996, p.5E]

What really sets The Man From U.N.C.L.E. apart is its refusal to pander to short attention spans. This is a movie whose charm sneaks up on you, like a spy in the night.

Minions is product, pure and simple. Little kids will love it, but grown-ups will feel like they’re being held hostage in a Fisher-Price test laboratory.

What it lacks is the human element. Charlie is more of a rat than a rascal, and instead of working hard to build and operate his robots, he's literally going through the motions.

Although Steadman’s artwork seems like sloppy pen-and-ink caricature, there’s a method to the madness.

On a minute-to-minute level, it's an engaging mystery, the kind that rewards our participation with eye candy and adrenaline shots. But when we pull back for an overview, we see that it's flat and that pieces are missing.

Depp shows again that he truly understands Thompson by delivering a nuanced performance that is remarkably different, but subliminally similar, from the wonderfully outrageous turn he provided in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

So friction-free that it slips from memory before the credits fade.

The script could use a few more laughs, but all in all Doc Hollywood is a pleasant if unexceptional summer movie. [02 Aug 1991, p.3F]

His (Eastwood) first boring film.

The man is bound to special effects as if they were Siamese twins, and while fancy stuff helped a lot in Who Killed Roger Rabbit? and all the Back to the Future movies, it doesn't do much for Death Becomes Her. But Zemeckis insists on emphasizing them over script or cleverness or even acting, and he hammers a viewer into surrender, rather than excitement. [04 Aug 1992, p.4D]

SHAG has a good cast with a lot of interesting family connections, but unfortunately it doesn't have much of a script, and Zelda Barron's direction lacks zip. The result is a ''teen-age girls coming of age'' flick that is considerably less successful than ''Mystic Pizza,'' ''Dirty Dancing'' or ''My American Cousin,'' the three good little films that pretty much established this post-feminist genre. [25 July 1989, p.3D]

The multiplexes are full of films that promise little more than a forgettable good time. The Man Who Knew Infinity is just as entertaining, but far more substantial.

Newcomer Anna Chlumsky shines in My Girl, a movie sure to hit the same sort of high note among pre-teen girls that Home Alone hit among pre-teen boys. [27 Nov 1991, p.3F]

Its mean-spiritedness, stupidity and squandering of talent is uniquely Hollywood.

It's possible to make a successful comedy about stalking, or virtually any other subject. But you probably need a lighter touch than young director Ben Stiller (Reality Bites) exhibits in this occasionally funny, sometimes grim movie. [14 June 1996, p.3E]

The acting is quite good, and Marshall keeps suspense as high as possible, considering we all know the eventual conclusion. [15 Jan 1993, p.3E]

IF you can accept the notion of a sympathetic character who is also a hit man - in other words, if you went along with the game in "Pulp Fiction" and "Bulletproof Heart" - you should enjoy 2 Days in the Valley, a fast-moving, sometimes violent, sometimes sexy, sometimes surprisingly funny story of crime and romance in the San Fernando Valley. [27 Sept 1996, p.3E]

Although their latest film is not without a certain charm, it quickly wears out its welcome.

Black Rain is a brilliant visual tour de force wrapped around a fair suspense plot. The result is a movie that is so exciting to look at that you tend to forget that the story is rather hackneyed, except for the setting. [26 Sep 1989, p.3D]

Here most of the punishment is inflicted on the audience, which gets nailed to a cross of boredom.

The movie is best enjoyed as a minor-key operatic, not a coherent story. While Law bellows blasphemous poetry, his director orchestrates a noirish light show with a cockeyed rhythm.

Given the mood of so many of today's movies, it might be a pleasure to see an old-fashioned love story. But I think movie-goers have changed, and the peculiar coincidences, the large plot holes and the absurdity of so much of the story line combine to make the story more silly than sentimental, more ridiculous than riveting, more foolish than fulfilling, more maudlin than anything else. [21 Oct 1994, p.3G]

One of the best adult suspense films of the year. [28 Sept 1990, p.3F]

It’s amusing fluff, but from an Oscar-winning dramatist, this return to comedy is a bit of a letdown.

While Walt and El Grupo is less than a penetrating analysis, it's more than a Mickey Mouse advertisement.

'Back to the Future Part III is somewhat overlong and a little slow in getting started, but on the whole it provides an entertaining and emotionally satisfying conclusion to a memorable series. [25 May 1990, p.3F]

Like an acquaintance couple's baby pictures, Friends With Kids induces coos but isn't as cute as they think.

A soulless, overblown bore.

It's eerie rather than wondrous.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee sees the '60s through a rose-colored telephoto lens, but his sympathetic spirit extends the generous message of the hippie era like a passed joint.

It's pure speculation on the filmmakers' part that Gaelic pagans were adorned with bones, blue mud and Mohawks, but the fire-dancing spectacle is a welcome respite from the beefcake of the journey scenes.

Superior filmmaking. Yes, it runs almost three hours - but you've probably seen 90-minute films that felt a lot longer.