While the student travails explored here are time worn and insipid, Croghan looks at them from a fresh perspective and with humor. The combination makes this debut film more than just another been there, done that experience. [25 Apr 1997, p.03E]

As a melodrama, Brothers is passable entertainment. But the film squanders the opportunity to meaningfully portray the impact of war on American lives.

It’s true that not much happens — except cinema at its finest.

THUNDERHEART, a murder mystery set amid the American Indian movement on Sioux reservations in the 1970s, has its heart in the right place. But except for a few scenes, the thunder is missing. [7 Apr 1992, p.2D]

James Bond might as well be any of a dozen movie cops. For whatever reason, writers Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum have given us a hero without the suavity, the urbanity, the sophistication of the James Bond who set these particular movies apart. And when Bond is just another hero, the result is just another action movie. It's sometimes exciting, but it misses all the lovely touches that previous films in the series have provided. [14 July 1989, p.3E]

At nearly three hours long, "An Unexpected Journey" has moments when the caravan seems both overstuffed and out of balance, but it's such a scenic trip that only a stubborn homebody could complain.

The Tree might have suffered from too much symbolism if not for writer-director Julie Bertuccelli's deft touch and Gainsbourg's appealing performance.

One has to wonder why the film was even made if it had to be so disastrously compromised. Chekhov would be appalled.

Hotel Artemis is neither a sequel nor a remake, but a film of considerable originality. And that makes it a rarity at the multiplex.

Even more than its predecessors in the "Star Wars" series, Return of the Jedi is about incredible special effects and astonishingly effective costumes and makeup. The characters and dialogue get lost somewhere between the bug-eyed monsters and the exploding spaceships, but it is all so much fun it probably really does not matter a whole lot.

It's intellectual snack food, satisfying for a little while but always leaving you hungry for more.

Fading Gigolo is like two different movies on an awkward blind date at a jazz club. While Allen charms us with a parody of “Broadway Danny Rose,” Turturro is off-key in his lounge-lizard riff on “The Piano.”

This meta movie even has fun with faulty translations between French and English. To paraphrase Gemma as she conjugates verbs on the treadmill, “J’ai adorée.”

As a man committed to reinventing himself, Damon is terrific. And Johansson brings to Kelly just the right blend of spunkiness and hard-won maturity.

This is not a great movie - sometimes, soaring orchestral music tries to evoke emotions that don't quite rise out of the drama itself - but it is a good, kind-spirited one that should please both parents and children. [14 July 1995, p.3E]

Stone isn't for everyone. But for all its shortcomings, it is courageously original.

This topsy-turvy flick is fitfully funny, but more often it's just odd, like the first draft of a "Twilight Zone" episode that's missing its moral.

Writers Barry Berman and Leslie McNeil and director Jeremiah Chechik tell the story with tenderness and humor. And - miracle of miracles, in this day of endless endings - when the story is over, the movie is over, too. [16 Apr 1993, p.3G]

There's a fascinating story here for a bolder filmmaker, but after so much meandering it's a relief that "All Good Things" must come to an end.

Even as Bard, filmmaker Milos Forman and Ferrara himself bemoan the changes, the lobby is filled with fine art -- and guests who aren't likely to harm you.

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.