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.

The only surprise is that Garry Marshall didn't direct this jumbled, star-studded kibitz and rename it "Mothers Day."

Writer-director David E. Talbert, working from his novel, tackles each musical interlude, montage and mad dash to an airport like he's the first person ever to think of them.

Despite its overt feminism, Neighbors 2 makes the sorority unravel when its guiding man leaves. It's one of several mixed messages in the screenplay, possibly due to having five writers' fingerprints on it.

With each musical reprise and imitated frame, Condon continues a fight of comparisons he can't win. Either imitate a classic faithfully or leave out the songs and make your own version. Or just leave perfection alone.

Like Top Secret and other less inspired efforts made by Zucker, brother Jerry Zucker and pal Jim Abrahams, The Naked Gun 2 is consistently amusing without being outright funny. [28 June 1991, p.6]

There is a sweet gentility about Beth Henley's work as a playwright and a screenwriter, even though her best efforts stumble badly when they move from stage to screen. [16 May 1989, p.1D]

Kids isn't a cure, it's a symptom of mercenary moviemaking. Some will call it heroic, but that's just a smug synonym for exploitation. [25 Aug 1995, p.9]

As a cinematic effort, Atlas Shrugged: Part I is competent; in service to Ayn Rand's epic novel, it's less so.

Gold isn't a bad movie, just lifeless except for McConaughey.

Will Forte plays his pitifully deluded creation to the hilt in a penknife movie. There's a lot of material here that only occasionally succeeds on Forte's insanely focused performance.

Any resemblance between Allied and a much better movie on the subject isn't coincidental but unfortunate.

Brand is amusing, in a nutty "Get Him to the Greek" sort of way, while Moore delivered one of the funniest performances ever.

A stylish though formulaic whodunit that swathes old cliches in new wrapping. [6 Nov 1992, p.6]

What nags me about Battle Los Angeles is that Liebesman never realizes what he set up to happen after the fade-out.

Every fallen-star cliche director/co-writer Brett Haley employs goes down smoother with Elliott's baritone and unforced cool. He has deserved a spotlight role for years and now deserves a finer one.

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

Lewis' performance is a spectacle of ego and last-chance craft that could only be possible for a legend near the end.

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

Rules Don't Apply is affably mediocre, even tolerable between brief pleasures. The movie's lone constant amusement is Beatty's madcap portrayal of Hughes, keeping aloft his Spruce Goose of nonromantic not quite comedy.

A half-baked FBI drama in the 48 HRS.-Lethal Weapon buddy-buddy mode. [12 Feb 1988, p.7]

Dark Shadows manages in two hours what the TV show took six years to do: become irrelevant and remembered only for how sloppy it was.

The Boss Baby is a bun needing more time in the oven, some rethinking of what sort of animated comedy it wishes to be.

Hail, Caesar! is maddeningly hit-and-miss.

The fourth episode in a saga that didn't need a second, Age of Extinction, is 2 hours and 45 minutes of numbing dumb and dull end credits listing the artists cashing in. It is exactly what moviegoers who made this franchise thrive deserve.

When we-know-who finally gets what's coming, The Girl on the Train briefly reaches its campy feminist potential, after two hours of taking a transparent mystery too seriously.

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]

Despite another charismatic turn by Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood, Marshall gradually feels less like his movie.