Until it lapses into a Rube Goldberg farce with a tacked-on, present-day epilogue, the movie is a wonderful reminder of why we've tried so hard to get major league baseball in Tampa Bay. [7 Apr 1993, p.5B]

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

Scott retains his sense of mood and tension. Despite the script's predictable and flawed nature, he elevates Someone To Watch Over Me to the point that it emerges as a surprisingly satisfying piece of filmed entertainment. [9 Oct 1987, p.3D]

Paramount prefers to think of Star Trek: Generations as the first of a new film series, rather than the seventh act of the old, but prior knowledge of the saga definitely is a necessity. It's a movie filled with punchlines that depend on the audience knowing the set-ups. [18 Nov. 1994, p.3]

Redford proves that at 75 he can still choose meaningful projects and deliver them with intelligence.

Everything was awesome in 2014's The Lego Movie, a high-wire risk paying off with a new look in computer animation based on Lego's interlocking design. The Lego Ninjago Movie hasn't abandoned that uniqueness but certainly reins it in.

There are strange, midnight movie pleasures found in Smith's movie.

A memorable doomsday drama. [28 Sep 2000, p.13W]

The two women seem genuinely comfortable with each other, and it shows in their unselfishness and timing in a film that moves from verbal humor to slapstick. [30 Jan 1987, p.4D]

Black's performance is the key to making The D-Train more than just another sophomoric bromance. The wild-eyed mania is still evident, but channeled through a filter of pity.

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.

A drab dream with squirmy-cuddly aliens, floating space bubbles and too many Rihanna musical interludes.

The 33 has a disappointing lack of depth for a movie about being trapped 2,400 feet below.

As a purely sensory experience at the movies you're hard-pressed to find anything more dazzling than the first 90 minutes of The Great Gatsby, when Luhrmann's riotous amusements make anything possible.

The Package has its shortcomings - notably its disjointed beginning and some implausible miscalculations by the conspirators toward the end - but it generally hums at a healthy clip with twinges of Big Brother paranoia. [25 Aug 1989, p.12]

It feels like a rush job, needing another draft or two for cohesion's sake, or for Allen to decide what sort of story he's telling.

The rest are hit-and-miss propositions with occasional flashes of wit, and a few standout performances. It's always good to see Judy Davis exchanging barbs with Allen, like when he boasts of having an IQ of 160.

Espinosa overcomes any shortcomings in originality and logic with one of the most satisfying finales in recent memory. First impressions are important but a clever last impression makes Life worthwhile.

Poor Thor. Dude can't even hold center stage in his own movie. He's the Asgardian god of stolen thunder, upstaged at each ab turn by Loki, malarkey and Odin's eyepatch.

The movie has its heart and humor in the right place, and there's no "Shame" in that.

Eastwood's unvarnished storytelling style, usually his strength as a filmmaker, is terribly out of place here. If ever a movie needed flashbacks, dream sequences, any attempt no matter how cliche to goose the narrative, it's this one.

Like The Flintstones and The Beverly Hillbillies before it, The Brady Bunch Movie is an amusing facsimile of a pop culture archetype. If only the script had been given such attention to detail. [17 Feb 1995, p.3]

As an actor, Meryl Streep is incapable of making false moves. That doesn't mean she's incapable of making false movies.

Mike Myers' first film excursion beyond Wayne's World feels like one of those boring, aimless Saturday Night Live sketches that typically ruin the final 10 minutes of each show. So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mess, from its cliched mistaken-identity premise to one-liners that sound "borrowed" from other comedians or school-yard jive sessions. Above all, this tedious comedy proves that, as a movie star, Myers should never be let out of that basement in Aurora, Ill., that he shares with Dana Carvey. [30 July 1993, p.11]

Sparkle may wind up as Ejogo's breakthrough but will forever be remembered as Houston's swan song, and a glimpse of what her next life chapter might have been. What a talent. What a waste.

Arau's style is an aphrodisiac at 24 frames per second. [11 Aug 1995, p.2B]

Extraordinary heroism deserves a less ordinary movie.

Gardens of Stone is not a great picture. But it is a good one, made by a visionary director who strives to address film as literature. This is an absorbing companion piece to Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which treats the war in allegorical terms. [12 May 1987, p.1D]