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.