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.