Thin Ice resides just slightly south of "Fargo."

To its credit, Celeste and Jesse Forever wants to be more than a formulaic farce. It succeeds to the extent that the neighbors keep up with Jones.

White Boy Rick is good enough, but you keep wanting it to be better.

With a deadly slow beginning and an unnecessary overload of special effects, this sequel is incredibly average, doubling the number of explosions and cinematic tricks, but cutting back on story, plot and characters. [24 May 2000, p.E4]

If you can take it, Unbroken will lift you like the classics of adventure cinema.

A full plate of tear-jerking drama is served here. And it’s even tastier than the first time around.

A semi-sweet but not all-that-satisfying Canadian import, set around a lesbian-run bookstore. [17 Sep 1999, p.E3]

Back when it was planned as an African-American "Ocean's Eleven," this project might have been edgy, but the script has been whitewashed into a generic caper comedy with pretensions of timeliness.

Slater is monosyllabic and mostly expressionless. When Tomei and Perez speak, they have nothing to say, as contrasted with the rapid-fire lines they had in their earlier films, lines that kept them interested and enthusiastic, so that their performances just glowed. Here, they're as dull as the dishwater in the diner, and so is the entire movie, tragic ending and all. [12 Feb 1993, p.3F]

Although this sober film spares us some of the grim, survivalist details, the harrowing adventure from a girl's perspective is so compelling that Julia's simultaneous sleuthing seems like an unnecessary distraction.

Whose story is this? There’s an old saying that history is written by the winners. The screenplay for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies must have been written by elves.

Taken as low comedy, Army of Darkness is fairly successful. The violence, although there is plenty of it, seems even more cartoonish and less gory than in the earlier movies. I have a feeling boys of about 11 or 12, with their normal penchant for bad puns and gross-out tactics, would be the most likely audience for this silliness, which often has the feel of an old "Tales From the Crypt" comic book. [19 Feb 1993, p.3G]

The larger-than-life actor is as emblematic of his country as Tom Hanks is of ours, and My Afternoons With Margueritte is his "Forrest Gump." Only better.

There simply aren’t enough female dirtbags in cinema, so Lawrence’s Maddie Barker — Uber driver, surly bartender and pissed-off Montauk townie — is a refreshing character.

J. Edgar is the kind of prestige production that apologists will call polished, but even the technical attributes are tinny. In the gay-geezers scenes, Hammer wears terrible old-age makeup, and the entire film is bathed in sepia tones as weak as its convictions.

In my old New Jersey public school, the first thing we learned was the smell of baloney.

If the world were really coming to an end, we'd spend it with Knightley and tell her tag-along friend that there's not enough food for a 50-year-old virgin.

Director David Fincher, making his feature film debut in strong style, keeps the action fast and furious, though the climactic scenes look an awful lot like the ending of ''Terminator 2.'' It may be just another sequel, but Alien 3 is better than most, and follows nicely after the first two. [22 May 1992, p.3G]

Colin Firth is an Academy Award winner, so perhaps his lack of chemistry with fellow honoree Nicole Kidman is a carefully laid clue that his middle-aged newlywed Eric Lomax is damaged goods. Yet to the drama’s detriment, Lomax is about as poisonous as a week-old crumpet.

Sing is like a medley of pop hits. You get a bunch of quick samples but long for the full song.

The premise is pure formula.

If you’re a fan of the “Taken” movies and tend to give action-hero Neeson the benefit of the doubt, our advice here is simple: Run away!

At the confluence of altered states and state-sanctioned violence, this drug-fueled thriller is Stone's most successfully provocative picture since "JFK."

Surviving Progress reiterates arguments made in movies such as "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Inside Job," it marshals minds such as Jane Goodall and Stephen Hawking, and it utilizes artful imagery reminiscent of films such as "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Up the Yangtze."

Rooted in empty materialism, but it never evokes the heady rush of a guilty pleasure or the precipitous payback of a thriller.

But even without world-class smarts or amusing mutations, the next generation of “Jurassic” is an enjoyable ride.

Fitfully, someone will say or do something very funny, but much of the time passes in a rather laborious way. This movie should have been a lot better than it is. [27 Nov 1994, p.9C]

It's a wholly successful sequel - audacious, entertaining and bracingly pertinent.