Wang's high regard for women is intact, plus a keen eye for period detail making the 19th century sequences lovely to observe. But it's nothing we haven't seen before.

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]

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.

At least This Means War is an equal opportunity misfire, with as much appeal for men as women, compared to a one-sided weeper like "The Vow."

Field's eager-to-please performance makes [Showalter's] shovelfuls of sugar go down easier.

That John Hughes; he's a riot. Who else would think of packaging such cool ideas in a popular comic strip script and shoving it down kids' throats? To be fair, Dennis the Menace has a few very funny moments, thanks mainly to Walter Matthau, who is picture-perfect as Mr. Wilson. Mason Gamble has the right cowlicked, wide-eyed look to pass for Hank Ketchem's cartoon creation. And to the movie's credit - considering the mayhem going on here - nobody gets killed. [25 June 1993, p.9]

The Homesman isn't as confident with balancing madness and dark humor as Jones' only previous directing job, 2005's border odyssey The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. This movie's switchback plotting ambles from crisis to comical, threatening to maintain a tone but not for long.

Robert John Burke, who replaces Peter Weller as RoboCop, gives the cyborg as much personality as his character's circuits allow. [08 Nov 1993, p.6B]

The redneck rust bucket is on screen so much that 3-D glasses should come with tetanus shots.

Everything is fine and fantastic while the children are allowed to play out their outlaw games with innocent abandon. It's when adults interfere that Into the West limps off into the sunset. [17 Sep 1993, p.8]

It's a one-note character that Bardem builds into a complex emotional chord, lessening the urge to dismiss Biutiful solely as an endurance test for viewers.

Vacation is a Gen X comedy franchise rebooted exactly how audiences can expect in 2015, bawdier and less likable than whatever classic inspires it.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is passionless window-shop cinema, each static tableau lovingly arranged for display and easy dusting. Its centerpiece is a mannequin, albeit played by Daniel Day-Lewis, whose gift for keeping anything interesting is seldom so necessary.

None of it is thrilling, but Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has a Saturday matinee goofiness that'll go well enough with air conditioning.

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

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]

The pleasures of Lovelace are in its casting choices, allowing a brio trio like Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria and Bobby Cannavale to sleaze up a pivotal scene, and an unrecognizable Sharon Stone to go full Jessica Lange as Linda's shamed mother.

Curled up at home with the lights off and DVD player running, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark might be passable fun. Spread over a movie screen, the film's modest ambition gets dwarfed by expectations, especially after paying for a ticket.

Heigl is a comely newcomer, displaying convincing pouts and snits in a role designed to appeal to independent adolescent girls and dirty old men. [4 Feb 1994, p.7]

Salt is a movie constantly painting itself into corners then tromping out with arbitrary twists and action distractions.

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.

It's just an exhausted idea coasting on the charm of its stars.

A Bad Moms Christmas is a comedy with better casting than jokes, a sequel sticking to the formula of using twice as much of whatever worked before.

Ultimately, the movie's energy rises and falls on the presence of Adam Driver as Wallace's libido-on-legs friend, who can make you believe sex can solve anything. Except this movie.

If anyone gets a career boost from The Expendables it will be Dolph Lundgren, playing a drug-addicted loose Howitzer booted from the team and flipping to the bad side.

It is well acted bunk, led by Hugh Jackman's righteous raging as the father of a missing girl, abducting a suspect (Paul Dano) to pummel and scald a confession from him. If only solving the case and ending this movie sooner was that simple.

Hiding Out is a hip movie. Hip but slow. It's an adult comedy hiding in an adolescent concept, burdened by humor that can be very knowing or nauseatingly sophomoric. [06 Nov 1987, p.3D]

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]