Don't waste time by drawing comparisons between Romero's black-and-white original and Savini's spoofy vision. Romero's work, shocking at the time mostly because of its extreme gore and bleak finale, seems dated and narrow when viewed now. Savini's Night of the Living Dead, with its phosphorescent colors and loopy, frenetic pacing, is vastly more entertaining. [19 Oct 1990, p.12]

Somehow, the loose ends fit together, as rag-tag plucky as Eddie himself. What Eddie the Eagle has that last week's more historically accurate Race didn't is charm to spare, especially in Egerton's performance.

The first half is nothing but silly setups for a stretch run that admittedly has its moments of wacky pandemonium, just not enough.

The final 20 minutes at the Radio City Music Hall extravaganza are fairly tense, in highly improbable ways designed to rouse send-off cheers.

Blue Steel is a horror movie masquerading as a cop thriller. It's a compelling, preposterous mixture of Fatal Attraction and Halloween, about a rookie cop who becomes romantically involved with a psycho killer. [16 Mar 1990, p.7]

The payoffs are big, even though heavy-handed direction by Lumet (Prince of the City, The Morning After) and a smart but sometimes soggy script by Vincent Patrick threaten to weigh the actors down. [19 Dec 1989, p.5D]

The Magnificent Seven had me smiling throughout, tapping into Saturday matinee memories without seeming entirely old-fashioned.

Eddie Murphy is offensive. Eddie is pompous and arrogant. Eddie is a narcissist. Eddie is a wiseguy. Eddie is a trash-mouth. Is Eddie funny? Yes. Very. [23 Dec 1987, p.1D]

Bran Nue Dae is a strange change from the usual multiplex fare, and that's nearly enough to make it wonderful.

Rarely has a children's picture been so stagnant, so bereft of passion. [18 Dec 1987, p.8]

Dream Team might strike some viewers as insensitive, particularly after the care that was accorded persons with psychological disorders in Rain Man. But crass fun is a major component in Dream Team's tasteless charm. In fact, what this movie needs is less taste and lower regard for standard plot formulas. [07 Apr 1989, p.6]

Sinister is basically a collection of bogus snuff films linked by standard haunted house tricks - everything creaking and slamming, with the power conveniently shut off.

DuVernay finds herself in the unenviable position of being both the right and wrong person for an important job. A Wrinkle in Time is gratifying for what it is, a step forward for creative women of color, and so disappointing for what it turns out to be.

Frankel's movie is as refreshing as a walk in the woods and surprising as a chance encounter with the best that nature can offer.

The sermons are subtle, raising the film's chances of crossing over to secular audiences. Soul Surfer is so clean that it squeaks, but sometimes that's a nice change of pace.

Though the movie version of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale isn't as powerful as its source material, there are enough stark, unnerving images here to give the effort an Orwellian potency all its own. [17 Mar 1990, p.1D]

A distinct lack of merriment marks each frame of this film, with Scott determined to erase all fond memories of past Robin Hoods.

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]

Hands down and body parts floating, the most irresistibly sick movie in years is Piranha 3D, which should be retitled Piranha 3D, Double-D and C for all the topless cuties director Alexandre Aja feeds the fish and audience.

It only took four years for New Jack Cinema to devolve into the same old cliches of the 'hood, and only 86 minutes for the first family of def comedy to blow them away. [14 Jan 1996, p.2B]

Narrow Margin cares more about characters than pyrotechnics or double-digit body counts. Its emphasis is on relationships, dramatic situations and settings, and how these combine to create a deeply satisfying yarn. [21 Sep 1990, p.6]

Hysteria is a one-joke movie, but when a joke is told this well, it doesn't matter.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ends on a perfectly appropriate note, recapturing a childish sense of wonder and an earnest approach to Lewis' religious allegory.

Penguins of Madagascar is fun while it lasts, and then mostly forgettable except for whatever shake-your-head lunacy sticks.

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.

There is still Spider-Man's personal turmoil, crises of romance and loyalty, that Webb occasionally holds a few beats too long. Yet the performances ring true, with arresting chemistry where it counts.

Another Stakeout eventually crumbles under the weight of its own stupidity. Badham and Kouf are compelled to shove the comedy aside for an overly violent shootout finish that leaves as many bodies as unanswered questions about the case. An overblown pyrotechnic sequence that destroys a house from a handful of angles is too familiar to be exciting. [23 July 1993, p.9]

Cher rips through this material, dragging the audience behind her. It's because of her that Suspect is so intoxicating and that the lapses in Roth's script are practically forgotten in the excitement. [23 Oct 1987, p.1D]

Anyone visiting Free State of Jones merely hoping to learn more about an interesting anti-slavery rebellion will likely come away sated, but those looking for an exciting, vital piece of filmmaking will have to wait for another opportunity.

Anyone of any age can get a kick out of watching penguins slide down the spiraled interior of the Guggenheim Museum, or seeing how one of these flightless birds manages to buck nature.

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]

If not for a few choice performance moments and a couple of peppy montages, Wanderlust would be cinematic compost, recycled and thoroughly smelly.

It's just another example of technology intruding upon storytelling, that's been happening since kinetoscopes cranked one frame at a time.

Overboard is predictable, yet charming. Russell exudes a natural earthiness that lends itself to this type of material. Hawn plays gamely along. While Overboard recalls director Marshall's (Nothing in Common) sitcom days, the movie is shot with the sort of graininess that can never be mistaken for television. It could look a lot better. [18 Dec 1987, p.7]

Benji the Hunted lacks the charm of the previous films, and although the production values are excellent, the film makers are saying, "We did it for the money." What else is new? Film makers named Stallone, Norris and Schwarzenegger do it all the time. There is no reason not to expect it of Benji's owners. [19 June 1987, p.3D]

The Hollars plays like a Zach Braff cast-off, with its strenuous quirks and strummy musical interludes.

I’m stunned by where this movie dares to go with a star like Lawrence (and female co-stars) at a time like this, nearly as much as I’m impressed by Red Sparrow’s total investment in such trashy, grindhouse affairs while maintaining a veneer of high-toned quality. Blood lust and carnality at its classiest. Guilty pleasures as charged.

Give the Olympic ice skating fantasy The Cutting Edge a so-so score of 5.2 on technical merit and a low 4.6 for artistic interpretation. This Rocky romance movie is lovely to watch and difficult to swallow. [27 March 1992, p.8]

Niccol fashioned an uninspired and downright dull sci-fi gimmick and doesn't even explain how it happened.

Our Brand Is Crisis shows flashes of insight cribbed from reality, nibbling the edges of satire without ever taking a big bite.

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]

White House Down is nearly enough fun to be a bad movie that's a good time. But it always finds some way of being a drag, belching exposition and weak humor when action's all we need, then carrying the action to exhausting lengths.

This 1984 movie starring Daryl Hannah and Aidan Quinn is simply perfect. It's gritty. It doesn't stoop to being overly predictable. And it just makes your heart swoon a little.

Paul Haggis is positive that withholding information while John makes "A Beautiful Mind" flow charts and deals with bad dudes will keep it interesting. Haggis is wrong.

The problem is this sporadically funny farce takes 40 minutes to snap into gear and then it struggles to maintain momentum. [12 June 1992, p.5]

Murder on the Orient Express is prestige gone off the rails, a tony chunk of nothing that doesn’t beg the question whodunnit as much as why?

Punchline, a movie about the pain and sacrifices of being a comic, is a lot less pretty and less believeable than it should be. It's also a lot more manipulative.[7 Oct 1988, p.8]

Like the live action Beauty and the Beast, its best impressions come from imitating the source, lifting visuals and dialogue to deja vu effect.

What makes Central Intelligence appealing in appalling times is volcanic chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.

A tidy terror flick, and refreshing with its intention to make viewers gasp rather than gag.

There's no disputing Streep's brilliance, which this time feels more calculated than usual, in a movie demanding only an impersonation.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is the sort of movie that would give sequels a bad name, if they didn't already have one. [16 July 1995, p.2B]

On the plus side, Scott's plagues are cool. But it's a long slog to crocodile rocking, pestilence and Proactiv-proof sores.

No Man's Land takes the showroom approach. It doesn't get its hands dirty. It embellishes what you'd see if you stood in the waiting room of a Porsche dealership and peered into the service bay. A little more grease is in order. [23 Oct 1987, p.3D]

What ultimately is so distressing about The Last Boy Scout is that, despite its loathsome attitude, it is an outstanding action thriller. It sets its sights a hair above the gutter and hits bullseye every time. [13 Dec 1991, p.5]

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]

Hook is so enormous, so cumbersome, that it resembles a complex machine inching its way across the resplendent three-moon Neverland landscape. It's a brilliant technical achievement, but it hasn't much of a soul. [11 Dec. 1991, p.3D]

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.

It's about time that another Scream flick came along to gouge the new cliches out of their sockets. Scream 4 does it in grandly Guignol style.

Reese Witherspoon can do a lot of things as an actor but playing a damaged-goods Depression era dame isn't one of them.

X-Men: Apocalypse is sprawling to a fault, in both geography and characters to be given something to do.

Mostly it's hamstrung by an abundance of reverence and dialogue sounding like an art studies syllabus when it isn't rehashing war movie tropes.

Alda's accomplishment is to bring humorous reality to this predictable but charming movie about a young woman named Betsy Hopper (Molly Ringwald), who has been encouraged to lead an independent life by her parents until it comes time for her traditional wedding.

John Hillcoat's Triple 9 is doubly disappointing, wasting talent and our time with underworld cliches previously covered in other movies that ultimately didn't matter. This cynical slice of lowlife will join them soon enough.

From its treacly theme song to its final, hackneyed image, Shirley Valentine misses the mark. The second half is considerably brighter than the opening sequences, but that is faint praise, indeed. [22 Sept 1989, p.7]

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]

Movies don't come any brawnier than Safe House, and all that chaotic mayhem eventually beats the plot to a pulp.

It's all bathetic enough for Labor Day to be subtitled The Prisons of Madison County.

As viscerally exciting as Padilha's RoboCop can be, the movie is elevated by serious considerations of the ethics of using robots as guardians (shades of drones), commercialism, playing God with science, and what being human is about.

Even as Touching Home finds those moments, it's easier to appreciate the stars' dedication to a grass roots project than the project itself.

Beautiful Creatures gives supernatural teenage romance a good name, or at least a better one than the entire "Twilight Saga" offered.

The Intern is a movie outmoded in style and strangely retro-sexist in spirit.

Donaldson mimics the original shot-for-shot in some sequences, adding sordid violence that would have been too extreme even for Peckinpah. What's needed is a fast Getaway. This is merely Donaldson, Hill and glamorous stars spinning their wheels. [11 Feb 1994, p.6B]

Like its heroine, The Age of Adaline is afraid of its emotions, and stuck flat-footed in time.

This movie misses its mark, never becoming the suburban satire promised on the poster. It doesn't offend, it bores. Most people, even diehard John Candy fans, will want to wait for the video release. It shouldn't be a very long wait at all. [18 Aug 1989, p.12]

Reynolds can't sustain the movie's pacing, nor can he blend the disparate elements of this sweeping epic. Yet, there are touches that make Robin Hood enormously entertaining. The battles with flaming arrows, catapults and a forest city of catwalks and tree houses under siege are masterfully recorded. [14 June 1991, p.6]

A Walk in the Woods is a trifle compared to 2014's Wild, which tracked a similar real-life journey toward self-discovery in richer detail. But darned if Redford's easy charm and Nolte's gravelly lack of it aren't enticing throughout.

What truly makes The Neon Demon frustrating is Refn's undeniable talent for arresting images. His color schemes and framing make each second fascinating to observe, even when the dialogue is stultifying.

After such a revolutionary acting career, Andy Serkis should be expected to make an equally inventive directing debut. Breathe is anything but that.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a downgrade from the first, doing lots of thing wrong that 2012's sleeper hit did right.

Borrowing liberally from Arthur and A Fish Called Wanda, the Little Lady ekes out a few good chuckles at its climax by combining slapstick with broad satire of British manners. [21 Nov 1990, p.1D]

It's a nice pairing of singular personalities deserving better material, or a shorter leash on the improv.

How to Be Single isn't doing anything that some flop probably starring Katherine Heigl hasn't done before. This appealing cast at times works wonders with what they're being asked to play.

Even when The Net goes off-line, Bullock's captivating presence is a screen saver. [28 July 1995, p.6]

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]

Jack the Giant Slayer is merely cable TV fodder waiting to happen and not worth a hill of beans, magic or otherwise.

Valerian displays reckless imagination and zero personality.

It's an out-of-control movie from an out-of-touch director/screenwriter; too frenzied to make sense, and too awful to tear your eyes away. [01 Dec 1995, p.12]

Extreme Prejudice is an exceptionally bad movie, despite a powerful introduction in the tradition of Hill's bloodiest ventures, Southern Comfort, The Long Riders and 48 HRS. [24 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Romantic charm and racy humor in a neatly arranged package anyone can appreciate.

Kids will probably enjoy all the nonsense, and even attending adults have one consolation: There are worse things to sit through. Just rent Howard the Duck if you don't believe it. [31 Mar 1990, p.1D]

Snitch is grittily streetwise, and until its last 20 minutes fairly credible compared to other movies "inspired by" true stories.

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]

The film is rescued, somewhat, by the fact that it is well-acted, and the performers keep the histrionics to a minimum. Barrymore a decade after playing the incorrigibly cute Gertie in E.T. The Extraterrestrial does strong work playing an icily conniving teen sexpot. [30 May 1992, p.2D]

Rough Night wouldn't be fresh or funny no matter what gender it's written about or for.

Ben Affleck is Agent Double-OCD in The Accountant, an effortlessly dumb thriller barely more entertaining than an audit.

Director Bridges coaxes nothing from his smooth-faced star, which is surprising in view of his previous films - Urban Cowboy, The China Syndrome, The Paper Chase - all of which had strong leads (John Travolta, Jane Fonda, Timothy Bottoms). Bright Lights, Big City is certainly an improvement over Bridges' last film, Perfect, but this material requires more intensity than Fox can muster. [5 Apr 1988, p.1D]

As far as unnecessary movies go, Predators is a pip.