Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is supposed to promote healing, but as they say in New York: close, but no cigar.

An ambitious movie, but ultimately there’s too much “artificial” and not enough “intelligence.”

Third Person doesn’t lack for ambition, and it’s nice to see Neeson in the kind of role that he excelled at before he morphed into an action star.

Austenland is as frustrating as a blind date with Almost Mr. Right. It’s impossible not to fixate on how close this was to being a lot of fun.

Further proof that likable actors have to take an occasional sick day.

It doesn’t help that Weisz and Claflin have zero chemistry, and both come across as miscast. She lacks the aura of mystery that her character requires, and he’s woefully low on the charisma required of a romantic hero.

The Glimmer Man starts out like Seven, but pretty soon it dwindles into nothing. [09 Oct 1996, p.5D]

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]

Based on true events, 7 Days in Entebbe pulls off the difficult trick of making terrorism boring.

The elements never quite combine into a cohesive compound, and a lot of the dialogue - particularly Calamity Jane's - might have worked on the page, or even on the stage, but has a phony theatricality when uttered by people with cameras in their faces. [01 Dec 1995, p.3E]

Strives to be entertaining, but for much of its run time it is so emotionally uninvolving that even the smallest children might find themselves bored.

Fans of the franchise will greet Les Misérables as a feast for the senses, but the rest of us are left with crumbs.

John Avildsen directs from Robert Mark Kamen's elementary script with the simple understanding of the ancient battle between good and evil where the victor is never doubted - for long. [03 July 1989, p.3D]

Yet if you’re old enough to read this and you find yourself at a screening, try thinking about the munchkins who worked so hard on the psychedelic scenery.

The film is constructed from four flimsy vignettes that are artlessly overlapped.

Megamind falls flat.

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

Squeezes plenty of color and noise from a thin concept, then runs with it until non-fanatics can’t keep up.

The derivative script and skimpy effects don’t convey either the power or the problems of being a young witch.

A faithful remake of RoboCop would be timely. Instead, the producers of this new version have retreated back to the lab, concocting a creaky hybrid of “Frankenstein” and “Call of Duty.”

This shrill caper is more like a blind date between fingernail and chalkboard.

CLICHE - in words, music and pictures - soars to new heights in A Walk in the Clouds. [11 Aug 1995, p.3E]

Hallstrom (“Chocolat”) makes the mishmash palatable, and romance mainstay Duhamel provides some sweet-and-salty charm, but there’s not much they can do with Sparks’ canned dialogue and Hough’s undercooked acting.

More scenic than scary.

Count Black Nativity as a more noble than notable effort.

The man is bound to special effects as if they were Siamese twins, and while fancy stuff helped a lot in Who Killed Roger Rabbit? and all the Back to the Future movies, it doesn't do much for Death Becomes Her. But Zemeckis insists on emphasizing them over script or cleverness or even acting, and he hammers a viewer into surrender, rather than excitement. [04 Aug 1992, p.4D]

Closed Circuit is not a tense thriller about the new era of surveillance — it's a tepid thriller about the old notion that no leader can be trusted.

Terminator Salvation is a tale told idiotically, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.