It's a triumph of streamlined design, but TRON: Legacy never enters the fourth dimension where it's worth a plugged nickel to humans.

A solid sci-fi/horror hybrid, but this iceman doesn't deliver enough to chew on.

This thriller about the game-changing website Wikileaks is as smart about cyberspace as “The Social Network,” but there’s a glitch when it shifts the focus from felonious leaders to the misdemeanors of the man who exposed them.

Helped by dozens of throw-away sight gags, and almost every minor comedian who has ever appeared on the seminal television comedy series, Coneheads is surprisingly funny. [23 July 1993, p.3F]

There's some laughing gas left in the cupboard, but this series may require an infusion of new blood to last until "American Funeral."

Neither a comprehensive guide nor consistently good, but because the theme is romance, most of these small bites of the Big Apple are easy to digest.

Pine and the always-watchable Banks make the best of a bad screenplay, but People Like Us gives us nothing that we can relate to.

Terminator Salvation is a tale told idiotically, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

With this unfunny fourth installment, the "Ice Age" franchise has skidded so far into kiddie land that adults who tread there risk extinction.

Tests the loyalty of fans that may expect his work to be extreme, but not to such an extent.

Mars Needs Moms is dark for a Disney movie.

The movie looks like it was made for broadcast television, the place where words and pictures go to die.

As the climactic scenes approach, the audience must find a way through a number of large plot holes and suspend disbelief, but The Vanishing remains a strong, entertaining movie. [05 Feb 1993, p.3G]

Texasville is much less memorable than The Last Picture Show, but it is well worth seeing, particularly if you loved the original movie and are curious about what happened to the people in it. There are some slow spots, but not too many. And there are more laughs than tears, although, as country music fans know, it is often hard to tell the difference. [28 Oct 1990, p.6C]

Made in America is at its best when the one-liners are thick and fast, and when comedy rules. There's a lot of staring into space that substitutes for acting when the going gets tougher, and while the ending milks all possible emotion out of an audience, there still is something heartwarming about it. [28 May 1993, p.3E]

A remarkably cold re-telling of a tale that, when we encountered it before, was shattering in its emotional impact. [16 Mar 1990, p.3F]

Superb actors and the best special effects money can buy can only go so far when you have a second-rate script sprinkled with unintentional laugh lines. [07 July 1995, p.3E]

Delivers a story that feels more like a footnote to history than a neglected chapter. But the cast is first-rate, notably Neeson in the title role. “Mark Felt” benefits mightily from his very particular set of acting skills.

The movie has some outstanding moments. Rock's performance and writing show that he appreciates rap music and its place in the culture, but he is not so respectful that he is incapable of skewering it. The movie's failings show up in the last half hour. Tamra Davis, known for directing many top music videos, lapses into predictability. The edge in the first part of the film goes dull by picture's end. And the story, written by Rock, Nelson George and Robert LoCash, becomes needlessly complicated, then meanders to a conclusion. [17 Mar 1993, p.3F]

As much Fosse as Fellini. It’s a shadow of a shadow, refracted through a fun-house mirror. For all the noise and color, it feels like an exercise and not a natural expression.

30 Minutes or Less could have been a guilty pleasure, but the crusty caper is half baked.

Even by the sloppy, soulless standards of hit man movies, The Mechanic is a mess.

Inspired by a true story, Gold is a major disappointment — a film of admirable ambition but woefully underwhelming execution.

Struggles heroically, but unsuccessfully, to strike a balance between whimsy and pathos.

Based on true events, 7 Days in Entebbe pulls off the difficult trick of making terrorism boring.

A competent but hardly exhilarating crime flick that is definitely not for the squeamish. [07 Oct 1994, p.3G]

Still, it’s worth seeing for Affleck’s charismatic performance and for its vision of America as a land of greed, violence and political expediency that some moviegoers will find all too familiar.

Christmas Vacation reminds me of a golden retriever I used to know: dumb and sloppy but kind of likable as long as you don't expect any new tricks. [1 Dec 1989, p.3F]

Exorcist III asks for the dark recesses of your imagination. It's not an intense stomach-churner, but is more menacing to the mind of the beholder. [18 Aug 1990, p.1D]

Despite playing with a stacked deck, The Judge is guilty of exceeding expectations.

Ready to Wear is loads of fun, witty and audacious, but you have to be on your toes to follow a serpentine script (by Altman and Barbara Shulgasser) that cleverly interweaves 10 or 12 plot lines. [24 Dec 1994, p.3F]

In the end, The Predator is a killer when it comes to action. But, when it comes to the script, it’s just dead on arrival.

Penn and de Niro are wonderful as the changelings, trying to adjust to a community of goodness after one of badness. They speak English with an accent as thick as an elephant's hide and they make faces that communicate far beyond words. They work well under the direction of Neil Jordan, who steers the movie on its fine course between comedy and drama. [17 Dec 1989, p.7]

As in the first "Sherlock Holmes" movie, there are plenty of pratfalls and bare-knuckle brawls but no sleuthing for us to share.

The result is more like a long commercial than a cohesive movie, and the omissions are glaring.

One man’s mirth is another man’s poison, this critic can only consult his belly as the barometer. On a gut level, Ted 2 is a funny film.

What saves the movie from taking a nose-dive is the confident performance of Helena Bonham Carter and some genuinely funny scenes involving her character. She plays Jane, a smart, feisty, rebellious young woman who is confined to a wheelchair because she is dying of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). [22 Jan. 1999, p.E3]

What about those who haven’t read the book? Divergent, the movie, still offers a smart, spunky, sympathetic heroine, a hunky love interest and a sobering if rather obvious message about the value of being true to oneself rather than mindlessly conforming.

Highly enjoyable while you’re watching it, but it’s not particularly memorable.

In trying to lift this lame schtick, De Niro, Douglas, Freeman and Kline are stand-up guys, but Last Vegas is a case of erectile dysfunction.

In its cross-cultural breadth, director Ridley Scott’s smart and violent film merits comparison to Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic,” but the dialogue delivered by the stellar cast is incomparably McCarthy’s.

PRESUMABLY this zombie flick is supposed to be funny, since it's about as scary as "Little Women." [18 Jan 1995, p.6F]

Director Melanie Mayron (Melissa of thirtysomething) has created a relatively winsome movie specifically targeted to a long-neglected group of youngsters. That said, Baby-sitters isn't great stuff, and adults might find themselves annoyed at the obvious plot holes and questions. [18 Aug 1995, p.3E]

Without the kindling of character development, Planes: Fire and Rescue is no smoldering success, but if Disney’s flight plan is to share Pixar’s airspace, it’s getting warmer.

This true-ish story adds a romantic subplot to the prosecution of Japanese war criminals by American general Douglas MacArthur, but neither the love nor the war are completely baked.

Director Roar Uthaug (“The Wave”) delivers a state-of-the-art popcorn flick that’s at its best when the focus is on the spunky Lara rather than the special effects.

The script is standard sports movie fare without much subtext — in the mouth of anyone other than Harbour, some of these motivational lines would be real clangers, but he sells the material with his rugged soulfulness, and there’s true chemistry between him and Madekwe, as the unlikely sports star and his demanding coach.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man' is a generally entertaining bit of nonsense, a slick blend of suspense, comedy and special effects. [28 Feb 1992, p.3F]

Ronald Bass' predictable screenplay gives Roberts no brains at all, which is an injustice. [08 Feb 1991, p.3F]

This is a brutal and stupid movie.

Imagine if the "Godfather" saga had been told from the point of view of Talia Shire's character. The perspective of a don's daughter could produce a compelling movie, but The Sicilian Girl isn't it.

The movie is generally entertaining, although toward the end director Arne Glimcher and a couple of screenwriters try so hard to make everything fit neatly together in a formulaic package that they end up losing credibility. [17 Feb 1995, p.7E]

Under Wincer's intelligent direction it is a feel-good family adventure pitting man's bravery and humanity against the vicissitudes of nature and the inhumanity of war. [28 Jul 1995, p.3E]

Whether true or a hoax, I'm Still Here represents real risk-taking that I can only applaud.

A taut psychological thriller, just as tense for those who already know its conclusion.

One Day fails to make us care about the young couple at its center.

Admission is one film you may not want to get into.

Araki does manage to make the movie interesting and somehow, believable. He taps so effectively into the culture of teens with nothing to do that the subsequent action - the hyper-violence and the gore - isn't so hard to accept. [22 Nov 1995, p.7E]

I Feel Pretty takes a while to get going, but it eventually finds its groove and proves to be an amusing showcase for Schumer’s talents.

Winslet deftly balances spunkiness and vulnerability, and Elba (still fondly remembered as a surprisingly erudite criminal on HBO’s “The Wire”) exudes brooding masculinity.

Count Black Nativity as a more noble than notable effort.

Nothing in the film is particularly memorable either, including the music that changes Bodi’s life.

First Kid is filled with slapstick and predictable jokes. The kids in the preview audience seemed to enjoy it, despite the commendable fact that it generally avoids bathroom humor and age-inappropriate gags about children's sexuality. [30 Aug 1996, p.3E]

The CGI effects are a familiar sort and so is the heroic-quest motif. The principal virtue in this modest entertainment is that the young characters act like real teenagers.

The biography Chaplin, directed by Richard Attenborough, may not qualify as a completely successful film, but there are enough good moments about the great entertainer to make it worth watching. [12 Jan 1993, p.4D]

Would have benefited from the kind of objectivity that Bass -- as Sar's well-heeled sponsor -- was hardly in a position to deliver.

Red 2 is not just a bad movie, it’s bad karma. And the target audience of adult moviegoers who respect the names in its once-vital cast have a bull’s-eye on their collective cranium.

The special effects remain good, but the jokes are creaky, the sentiments are forced and the pop-historical lessons are obligatory.

An oddly uninvolving adventure story.

You ought to have a movie that's both smart and sexy. But Jennifer's Body is neither. Most damning of all, it's not scary.

Brazenly funny in its own right - until it turns into a goody two-shoes.

It's a worn-out show-business fairy tale piggybacking on a nonexistent trend.

If you haven't seen a wasting disease in real life, you might think Restless is romantic. If you have, you might diagnose it as terminally cute.

A superficial glimpse at the man who symbolizes some of the most heroic and shameful aspects of Western heritage. Depardieu is fine as the explorer, and Weaver, Armand Assante and Fernando Rey are solid in support. But the writing never surpasses average and the exchanges on the above-mentioned issues come off sounding like a junior-high debate class or, worse yet, 15-second sound bites from political candidates. [09 Oct 1992, p.3G]

A generally entertaining Western with some striking images, Young Guns II is significantly better than the original Young Guns. [02 Aug 1990, p.4E]

If you’re interested in Williams and his music, this film is better than nothing — but not by much.

The tone of Nine Months bounces back and forth between farce and sentimentality, and it doesn't always bounce true - the final screaming scene in a new-moon crazed hospital delivery room, for example, goes on way too long. And yet, when it is funny, which is fairly often, Nine Months is very funny. Occasionally, it's hilarious. [14 July 1995, p.3E]

Stallone starring in a comedy? Absolutely. Furthermore, it's a terrific comedy. Oscar is a fast-moving, highly stylized, very entertaining farce that is played as a combination of comic opera (complete with numerous soundtrack references to The Barber of Seville) and Depression-era zany comedy. [26 Apr 1991, p.3F]

In its last act, Max is reminiscent of Rin Tin Tin and Lassie serials, with a frosting of freshly minted multiculturalism.

Reaching for meaning in The Nun II is as fruitful as a wander down a dark and dusty old hall. You’ll find things that go bump in the night but not much else underneath all the doom and gloom.

Written, directed and acted by Hollywood pros, Heaven Is For Real is a polished little movie with a hopeful message, but when it literalizes the divine mysteries, it opens the door to a Doubting Thomas.

The only edge in the movie is represented by Russell Brand, who actually lived the lifestyle, but he's muzzled by a bad Liverpool accent and a gay subplot that's as insincere as the swaggering anthems by fatuous hacks like Foreigner, Starship and Journey.

Kids are too smart to fall for it, and any grown-up who thinks that The Odd Life of Timothy Green is funny or heartwarming has a head made out of cabbage.

Candy breaks out of his goofball mold and delivers a solid performance as a lonely Chicago cop who can't pull loose from his domineering mother. The major flaw in Only the Lonely is that the mother (Maureen O'Hara) is such a vicious, whining, manipulative bigot that it is hard to care about her when the inevitable turnabout comes, or see why Candy doesn't just pull out his service revolver and blow her away. [24 May 1991, p.3F]

What's finest about Everybody's Fine is to watch a good fella groping hopefully toward old age.

The new Clint Eastwood movie, Pink Cadillac, might approach mediocrity if it were about half an hour shorter. At almost two hours, it is, to paraphrase a line in the movie, Snooze City. [26 May 1989, p.3F]

What enriches the recipe is that no one is quite as cagey as they seem. Colin is officially thuggish, but he's a blinkered romantic. Archie is a mama's boy, Meredith is gay, Mal is impotent, and Peanut wears dentures.

Director Mike Figgis waited about an hour and 48 minutes too long to decide to make this a comedy. [8 Oct 1993, p.3E]

The diabolical sadist of the team was director Joe Carnahan.

In Secret is so stifled, it makes “Les Misérables” look like “Amélie.”

The Thing Called Love, Phoenix' final movie, should not be used as a memorial to his career; "Stand By Me," "Running on Empty" and "My Own Private Idaho" are much better examples of his talent, which was considerable. [12 Nov 1993, p.3G]

It's classic sitcom shtick, and The Dilemma is a painful reminder that director Ron Howard was trained in television.

Like the fairground ride for which it’s named, Wonder Wheel is entertaining but not enlightening.

Working from a screenplay by Ed Solomon, director Jon M. Chu is more craftsman than poet, but the charismatic ensemble cast engages in the trickery with style.

Overreaching fits of melodrama, occasionally stilted dialogue, and performances by Gooding Jr. and Howard that are mostly a series of serious faces can't keep the shiny Red Tails from taking flight.

While the movie is funnier than the book, the drawback of this modernized version is that it loses the timeless quality of the story on the page.