It's as slick and fun as summertime entertainment should be. Downey is still an arresting presence, glib to the nth degree and supremely confident that he's smarter than anyone else.

It's the nicest Mother's Day gift available at the movies this weekend.

Mother and Child is depressively interesting, with characters constantly ruining their best chances at happiness.

Somewhere, Wes Craven is laughing up his sleeve, and Robert Englund is grinning. It's nice to know that you're irreplaceable.

When the fadeout comes, viewers may feel as unsatisfied with the movie as these characters are with their lives.

Without previous knowledge of Andy Diggle's comics, The Losers looks like every other globetrotting gunpowder flick in which good guy bullets never miss and bad guy bullets never hit their targets.

Even stock characters -- Zoe's tirelessly supportive friends and relatives -- get style points for giving jobs to old pros Klein, Linda Lavin (Alice) and "Mr. C" himself, Tom Bosley. Of course, the babies are adorable.

Kick-Ass is a rabid puppy of a movie, energetically bounding off the screen and into your lap, where it proceeds to chew off your face.

Except for slipping on a third-act soapbox, The Joneses is a deft allegory of the greed and coveting that led to the recession. At times, you wonder if something like this scam could really happen, or does.

I seriously doubt that it happened this way, with such convenient strife and truncated solutions. The movie is about baseball but plays like T-ball, with each situation teed up for easy swings.

The movie grabbed me and wouldn't let go during a bravura set piece at a soccer game when Campanella's camera glides into the stadium, finds Benjamin's face in the crowd and doesn't stop moving (with only a couple of edits) for six breathtaking minutes.

Date Night is really just another example of what happens when funny sitcom stars are lumped together in a movie, believing that laughter exponentially increases with screen size.

Clash of the Titans redefines 3-D but in the wrong way; the movie is dull, dingy and, well, let's just say dull again.

The movie maintains its posture of mystery long after the solution is evident, and the best suggestion is to just smirk with the flow.

There's much more to the adventure, a deft balance of fantasy and teen angst that never loses its contemporary sense of humor.

None of these complaints would matter if The Bounty Hunter possessed even a smidgen of inspired comedy. It doesn't.

Rapace is a magnetic presence in a far-ranging mystery requiring such a solid character to orbit around.

Nothing much happens in Greenberg, yet Stiller and co-star Greta Gerwig make inconsequence tolerable with solid performances.

The Runaways isn't just about rock 'n' roll; it IS rock 'n' roll, as loud, sexy, sometimes sloppy and ultimately exhilarating as the music can be.

The only memorable aspect of She's Out of My League is Eve's performance. Not that it's good, but it does possess the hypnotic quality of a flicker ring.

Our Family Wedding should embarrass Whitaker and each of his co-stars, perhaps except Carlos Mencia, whose chief attribute as an actor is that he's a so-so standup comedian.

If he made The Ghost Writer under a pseudonym, it might be roundly hailed as the classy white-knuckler it is. But it's Polanski's name above the title, with his own ghosts haunting each frame.

The new, vastly improved Star Trek moves at warp speed through a marvelously reinvented sci-fi franchise, reverent to the past and firmly entrenched in the now.

Wolverine is a solid start to the ever-lengthening summer movie season, when all that matters is the bang and the bucks paid for it.

Quantum of Solace bends whatever rules 2006's Casino Royale didn't break, presenting more action in less time, with a world domination scheme based on natural resources rather than unnatural gadgets.

We've seen plenty of sword-and-sandal epics, full of robustly virile men fighting like real men against other men. But we've never seen those hyper-macho mechanics presented with the brutal beauty and thrilling finesse of 300, clearly the best film of 2007 so far.

Casino Royale mostly succeeds as an introduction to a badder Bond than ever.

The IMF workings are still complex, but without Brian DePalma's artistic indulgences (Part 1) and John Woo's poetic distractions (Part 2). Abrams cuts to the chase whenever the option arises, and the results don't leave much time to question logic or motive. [4 May 2006, p.6W]

Dawn of the Dead is very much its own movie, and a disturbing one at that. But it also realizes we're in the theater to have fun, either grotesquely or cleverly.

Pierce Brosnan is dashing and deadly, finally meeting the gold standard. And director Lee Tamahori detours from convention, taking the franchise up a notch in Die Another Day.

Woo directs Mission: Impossible 2 cautiously, as if still introducing himself to U.S. audiences despite Face-Off and Broken Arrow. Or maybe he has nothing left to say about the poetry of violence after such visual eloquence in his Chinese classics. [24 May 2000, p.1D]

Finally, a horror film that doesn't turn on the gore machine nor confuse dread with decibels. One of the most convincing members of the cast is the gloriously creaky old house that sets up the spooky action. [23 July 1999, p.03]

There hasn't been a great Muppet movie since the first one, in 1979. Muppets From Space is the most entertaining of five sequels since then, although it isn't anything special. Yet we can all appreciate the way it's packaged, with one adorably round eye on the kid market and the other focused on grown-ups buying the tickets. [14 July 1999, p.1D]

The movie is airy, predictable and ultimately inconsequential. Yet, there are moments in She's All That when the filmmakers create something close to artfulness, a rare trait in a teen-dream movie. It's a minor, reassuring cure for those Varsity Blues. [29 Jan 1999]

Robert Altman's tantalizing, multicharacter style is considerably dumbed down in Willard Carroll's imitative Playing by Heart. [22 Jan 1999, p.3]

Disney's remake of Mighty Joe Young has little to recommend except more realistic special effects than the 1949 original and a handful of kid-sized thrills. The movie feels designed only to pass some time in a theater, without much attention to anything except building the perfect cuddly beast. [25 Dec 1998, p.8]

Whatever she lacks in filmmaking expertise or originality is balanced by an unadorned sincerity in the melodrama she chose for a debut. Down in the Delta isn't a great movie, but it constantly touches your heart and involves you with its characters. [25 Dec 1998, p.5]

Jack Frost is loads of fun, with a warm, fuzzy message, a rare live-action movie that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. [11 Dec 1998, p.12]

Pig in the City is a blatant, heartless attempt to turn a surprise hit into a cash cow. That simply won't do, pig. [25 Nov 1998, p.1D]

The appeal of The Rugrats Movie sits squarely on the shoulders of its vast cast of characters, each of whom has one characteristic, but collectively sketch an amusing perspective of childhood. [20 Nov 1998, p.3]

Williams uses some interesting lighting effects and settings (including a subplot about the burgeoning heroin trade in Omaha, of all places). Yet, he has no idea of how to motivate actors or tie several scenes together with dramatic purpose to keep the movie from going belly-up. [06 Nov 1998, p.10]

The harrowing scenes of Stahl's drug abuse and strung-out aftermaths are dulled by Stiller's quips, while the laughs stick in our throats because of sheer embarrassment for Stahl's character. By trying to have it both ways, Veloz does full service to neither. [09 Oct 1998, p.8]

Disney always invites its artists to give a character tics that match the actor, but Warner Bros. didn't take that extra step toward quality. That's the difference between doing whatever it takes to get the job done properly, and simply doing as much as you can afford. [15 May 1998, p.3]

Stephen Fry's elegantly wry performance as Wilde ranks among the best acting of the year so far, elevating what could be a simple impersonation into the embodiment of a person too smart for his surroundings and too tempted by the ways of the flesh. [26 Jun 1998, p.10]

Wide Awake isn't going to be a box office smash, nor does it have the artistry that would make that fate a crying shame. It's a nice job performed with an interesting idea and a purity that is uncommon. That alone makes the movie worth a look. [03 Apr 1998, p.7]

Anything goes in The Big Lebowski, and you roll right along with it. [6 March 1998, p.3]

Above all else, Blues Brothers 2000 becomes an immensely appealing musical romp after the introductions are complete. [06 Feb 1998, p.8]

Fallen begins in unremarkable fashion and trails off from there, idling its way through bland psycho-religious violence and spooky lighting. [16 Jan 1998, p.8]

The only bright spot in Tomorrow Never Dies is watching Chinese action star Michelle Yeoh eventually get a chance to grab a couple of machine guns and start rocking the house. She's a dynamo who has held her own alongside Jackie Chan, so it's disappointing that Spottiswoode doesn't find more opportunities to let her kick some tail. [19 Dec 1997, p.8]

Gang Related isn't perfect; the plot does get a bit far-fetched at times, bordering on ironic overkill, and the last 10 minutes of bloody revenge is needlessly out-of-synch with the rest of the movie. You walk away from Kouf's movie not entirely happy about what it turned out to be, but overjoyed at what it is not. Sometimes, that's good enough.

Director Lee Tamahori (Mulholland Falls, Once Were Warriors) proceeds at an admirable pace through these jeopardies, yet always gives the impression that he's more concerned with the emotional violence boiling underneath a scene than the physical excitement. [26 Sep 1997, p.3]

Nick Cassavetes, like his father, works out his movies through the instincts of the actors, not the camera lens. It's a fitting, and occasionally fitful, eulogy to an unheralded legend. [29 Aug 1997, p.3]

Leave It to Beaver turns out to be a pleasant time-waster and a future video babysitter. [22 Aug 1997, p.8]

The biggest target, however, is O'Neal, whose monotone and slurred lines deaden each scene in which he speaks. He's trying so clumsily to do this acting gig right and keeps tripping over his size-22 feet by absurdly wiggling his eyebrows or forcing a joke. You get the impression that he doesn't know what his lines mean. Finally, we realize that acting is just one more thing that O'Neal can't do as well as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. [15 Aug 1997, p.6]

Whatever Career Girls lacks in polish or ambition, it compensates with three memorable performances and an unwavering filmmaker working on nobody's terms except his own. [5 Sep. 1997, p.3]

Out to Sea is nothing more than a puffed-up Love Boat episode sailing on risque gags that wouldn't be amusing at all if they weren't recited by old folks. [02 July 1997, p.1D]

Hercules isn't likely to be revered 30 years from now like other Disney classics, but it's smart, safe family entertainment. [27 June 1997, p.3]

The movie is unambitious and sweet and nothing more. Precisely what we expect from producer-director Ivan Reitman these days, after good-natured audacity got his career started with hits like Animal House and Stripes. [9 May 1997, p.5]

Hark's visual style occasionally strays from standard operating procedure with an arty camera effect or an odd angle. Those flashes of inspiration only serve to make the cliches - such as a coliseum showdown complete with land mines, snipers and a tiger - clunk a little louder. In the big game of entertainment, Double Team barely gets off the bench. [5 Apr 1997, p.2B]

Perhaps the most affecting thing about the urban romance love jones is that much of what it shows is so refreshingly ordinary. [14 Mar 1997, p.10]

Jungle 2 Jungle is a culture-clash comedy based upon a French film that was roundly panned when it flopped upon our shores last year. Dumb plot. Dumb jokes. The usual. [07 Mar 1997, p.08]

Metro is the kind of movie an actor makes when he's either coasting on a reputation or scrambling to recover one. The kind of movie that Murphy doesn't need to make after hitting big again with The Nutty Professor, and the kind we don't need to pay theater prices to see. [17 Jan 1997, p.9]

Reiner made another one of those stodgy courtroom pieces and forgot the first rule of a witness: Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. [03 Jan 1997, p.5]

Politicians get painted with a wide brush in My Fellow Americans, a minor comedy made somewhat special by the actors who play those combative commanders-in-chief. You'll rarely see two actors do more to make a passably fun screenplay work - and appear so effortless doing it - than Jack Lemmon and James Garner in this movie. [20 Dec 1996, p.3]

Safe is the operative word here, since One Fine Day wouldn't think of messing with its casting chemistry to take any comedic risks. Clooney is as benign here as he was dangerous in From Dusk Til Dawn. Somewhere in the middle, I bet he'll make a terrific Batman next summer. [20 Dec 1996, p.10]

Solid work from an actor long thought incapable of as much. [6 Dec 1996, p.5]

The makers of Jingle All the Way have the nerve to declare what the rest of us have only grumbled about: that the superficial reason for the Christmas season is found nestled in your wallet. Schwarzenegger's ho-ho heroics should have moviegoers gladly tapping into that source into the new year. [22 Nov 1996, p.3]

Jordan makes performing in front of a camera look as easy as everything else he has attempted in his storied life except baseball. Bugs Bunny and the gang are old pros at that. There are some genuine surprises in the special effects expertise on display. [15 Nov 1996, p.3]

Set It Off doesn't say anything especially original, but it says it loud and proud. [06 Nov 1996, p.1D]

Young, old, black, white or whatever: This is one Bus you can't afford to miss. [16 Oct 1996, p.1D]

2 Days in the Valley is a neatly folded piece of cinematic quirk.

Last Man Standing can't live up to its Japanese and Italian predecessors or even its title. [20 Sep 1996, p.5]

It's too easy to say that only fans of Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans should consider seeing Bulletproof, since it would be excruciating to anyone else. It's also unfair, because those fans would be better served to respectively watch "Happy Gilmore" or "The Last Boy Scout" another time than suffer through this latest - and possibly all-time worst - entry in the buddy-action-comedy genre. [7 Sept 1996, p.2B]

One of the best screen encores since Hollywood started depending on sequels to break even. It accomplishes what audiences should demand from a follow-up; familiar characters with a new slant to their exploits that makes us view them differently from before. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be around the Brady household, and we'll thank Sanford for that as soon as we finish snickering. [23 Aug 1996, p.5]

It all comes down to what Francis Fitzpatrick considers the division of life: those people who are miserable and those who are dissatisfied. She's the One has enough fine moments to keep an audience out of the first category. Fans of Burns' first film will fit squarely in the second.

John Frankenheimer weaves a tidy sense of dread until he reveals what should scare us in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Then the movie degenerates into the equivalent of a roadshow tour of Cats gone horribly wrong. [23 Aug 1996, p.8]

America's foremost smart aleck Dennis Miller adds grand giggles to familiar gore in Bordello of Blood. [17 August 1996, p.2B]

DeVito's pacing stunts the eventual triumphs and gives devotees of Dahl's book one more reason not to trust anyone past middle school. [03 Aug 1996, p.2B]

Simply put, Reeves doesn't seem bright enough to master all of the techno-blab he struggles to recite and pantomime in Andrew Davis' return to the thriller genre, Chain Reaction. [2 Aug 1996, p.3]

So many oddities are thrown in our faces that The Frighteners becomes measured by its occasional imaginative moments, rather than as a complete entertainment. [19 July 1996, p.5]

Multiplicity is a pleasant comedy, in the blandest sense of that adjective. It's what you call a billboard movie - a quick-pitch concept easily advertised with snappy star images, flat in its execution and merely a passing distraction to an audience. [17 July 1996, p.3D]

Victor Hugo's classic novel gets the Disney treatment and turns out more vibrant and emotion-packed than anyone might have guessed. [21 June 1996, p.7]

Is Carrey funny? Of course, because Stiller and the script allow him to be funny, at the expense of tension. [14 June 1996, p.3]

The plot, dealing with aliens infiltrating our world, still made as much sense as it possibly could, and the special effects guys really don't go to work until the last two reels. [31 May 1996, p.8]

Cohen and Pogue never get a firm grip on how they wish to play this movie. Myth or mirth? Terror or tease? Draco's fire-breathing aim is mercifully off the mark when buzz-bombing villages, but microwave-sharp when it comes to heating dinner. [31 May 1996, p.3]

Stealth is a key element of tension and, even though DePalma tosses his share of fireballs around, Mission: Impossible gets edgier when it gets quieter. The audience's rapt, empathetic silence while Hunt hangs there in peril proves how well the director does it. [24 May 1996, p.5]

Flipper is a nice movie, a safe movie for Saturday matinees, but it isn't very exciting or entertaining. [17 May 1996, p.5]

Although it's based on true incidents, Mulholland Falls never seems grounded in any semblance of realism. It's a theme park stageshow gone horribly wrong, with spasms of ultra-violence that distract us from the so-called mystery at hand, but never help us ignore those darn hats. [26 Apr 1996, p.3]

The Kids in the Hall might be impossible to like if they didn't pursue their constitutional right to offend with such whimsy and joy. Even in their darkest moments, the comedy doesn't seem mean-spirited, and there is a righteous undercurrent that hints the guys care about their targets more than one might think. [19 Apr 1996, p.3]

With these performances, Celtic Pride becomes nothing more than a three-corner comedy stall. [19 Apr 1996, p.9]

The Substitute is loud, dumb and sort of fun, but it'll be best viewed on your neighbor's cable TV, so you don't have to pay the bill. [19 Apr 1996, p.2B]

The mortal in me is increasingly certain I'll never live to see cinema's most astounding achievements. The kid in me is happy to be alive right now. [13 Apr 1996, p.5]

Lynn takes a familiar premise and makes it a small gem for 94 minutes, if not beyond. [30 Mar 1996, p.2B]

Chungking Express essentially tells two muted love stories set in a bustling locale, without fully involving the audience in either. [3 May 1996, p.5]

There came a time, during a screening of Eric Schaeffer's romantic comedy, when I knew exactly what would happen for the rest of the movie, and knew it wasn't going to get any better along the way. The depression was compounded when I realized If Lucy Fell had another hour to go. [8 March 1996, p.10]

Pacino, Cusack and Aiello are fascinating to observe, playing three sides of the same political coin, but the whole thing winds up as meaningless as a concession speech by Phil Gramm. [16 Feb 1996, p.5]

Hoffman's eye for detail isn't matched by his jolting way with a narrative, which an extra year's preparation and editing from its original planned release didn't help. One comes away with the suspicion that Restoration should have been a longer movie, and feeling somewhat relieved that it isn't. [02 Feb 1996, p.5]

There is some glint of acting potential in Farley's puffy face, but this movie doesn't mine it. Director Penelope Spheeris was well prepared for the maturity level here, after she directed The Little Rascals last year, yet seems content to place Farley and Spade in the same situations she crafted in Wayne's World. Farley would be wise to be more selective in his career, or else he'll wind up as a comic prop in insurance commercials. [4 Feb 1996, p.2B]