Based loosely on a 2013 children’s book by Marla Frazee, Boss Baby has a convoluted plot, but young viewers will be amused by the slapstick humor, the action-packed chase scenes and the sheer ridiculousness of a cute baby barking out commands.

Perhaps it’s time for a moratorium on road movies. Despite its strenuous efforts to come across as quirky and original, Boundaries goes nowhere.

This broadside against sharia law lacks the finesse of an import, but it's effectively melodramatic.

Letters to Juliet has about half as much Shakespearean content as "Shakes the Clown" and even less sincerity.

It's hard to love and hard to hate.

Wide Awake is a children's movie that does not rely on special effects, computer-generated trickery, bathroom humor, slapstick violence or inappropriate adult situations to satisfy its audience. [03 Apr 1998, p.E7]

Prince of Persia is woven of recycled fibers, but by the slipping standards of summertime entertainment, it's a magic carpet ride.

Elles is provocative company, but it leaves us feeling hustled.

It would have been nice if Cowboys & Aliens had come come up with the right equation to balance originality and homage. But in the end, it all turned into trigonometry.

Like the first movie The Purge: Anarchy, is trash masking as social commentary, and its depiction of unrelenting, sanctioned violence can be hard to stomach.

The dragon is a wimp. The knight is a geek. The king is a jerk. And, unless you're 12 or younger, the story is a bore. [31 May 1996, p.3E]

This true story fills a needed niche, spotlighting women's basketball in the era before Title IX promoted equal treatment.

Egoyan doesn't flinch from exploring the dark side of curiosity. That includes dealing with sexuality in a way that might make some moviegoers uncomfortable.

Wilson isn’t a bad film, but it could have used less melodrama and a lot more insight.

A high-concept comedy that peddles some slapstick laughs and life lessons but little insight.

The father-daughter chemistry between Pullman and Ricci seems good. And the ghosts - who look sort of like the result of 24 double exposures a second - are engaging, courtesy of the computer and animation wizards at Industrial Light and Magic. [26 May 1995, p.7C]

Offbeat and unpredictable, Demolition takes a wrecking ball to audience expectations.

This long, ludicrous soap opera is also a mighty spectacle, a new standard in disengaged destruction.

WATCHING Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis is disconcerting, to say the least. Quaid mimics Lewis' piano playing in superior style, struts across the stage like the ''petty player'' of ''Macbeth,'' and shows all the right amount of arrogance, but his wide-eyed stare becomes extremely irritating. Great Balls of Fire, which looks at a small part of Lewis' life, offers a slightly uncomplimentary view, but it tends to trivialize his shortcomings, almost excuse them as boyish pranks. [30 June 1989, p.3E]

Spurlock teases the baby sitter contingent with a brief scene where a scientist discusses the neuro-chemical appeal of pop music, but thereafter the film is aimed squarely at face-value fans of the Pre-Fab Five.

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.