It’s a manic movie in a familiarly corporate kind of way that provides kids with a computer-generated candy rush. The movie’s own business imperatives occasionally show through like a leaky diaper.

Even if the book’s story has been told and the movie’s format has been done before, a movie that reminds us to be imaginative — and that delivers some imaginative visuals to boot — can’t really get old.

The film’s off-kilter schizophrenia gives it a madcap appeal. While Fleischer seems to have a darker, moodier film in mind, Hardy has the good sense to steer Venom in a more over-the-top direction, even if the movie around him can’t catch up.

What’s never quite fleshed out here is why this all should resonate with us — or how these haphazard moments, albeit compelling, weave together in the cohesive way the filmmakers seem to promise.

Most of Mann’s toolkit is here — slick and moody camerawork, a poetic surrounding and heightened use of music, even the car porn of “Miami Vice.” But Ferrari — despite Mann’s leaning on Italian opera — fails to ignite.

Productions of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull almost always tip too far into farce or wade too deeply into tragedy, unable to sustain the play’s elusive balancing act. Michael Mayer’s lush and lively big-screen adaption is unfortunately no exception.

The plot is incoherent and jumpy and the dialogue weak. Scriptwriter Tedi Sarafian makes the same mistake his brother Doran made in his movie "Gunmen." It's all effects and nonstop action, as if that can cover for one-dimensional characters. [30 March 1995]

It’s not surprising that “Folie à Deux” originated in concept as a stage show. It’s stuck in place, with only Phoenix’s dazzling contortions to marvel at.

This seems designed to be a minor Marvel – a fun enough, inoffensive, largely forgettable steppingstone — a get-to-know-them brick on a path only Kevin Feige has the blueprints for.

With handsome period craft, “Munich — Edge of War” makes for a watchable, engrossing historical thriller with fictional characters situated like spies around political leaders at a profoundly tense, and ultimately woefully misjudged, moment in time.

It seems the filmmaker just can't decide where he wants to go with this movie. It's far too predictable and just not scary enough to be a chilling thriller. It's not clever or sophisticated enough to be campy. It's far too insipid to be taken as a thoughtful psychological drama. And it lacks the smooth, compelling or joyful ride expected of pure entertainment. [06 Aug 1992]

Campbell and Crane get along about as well as a mosquito and a can of Raid. Unfortunately, their abrasive relationship has none of the delicious repartee of a Tracy and Hepburn, or a Grant and Dunne and only serves to slow down the plot. [05 Feb 1992]

For all the hype behind these three characters meeting, and the years it took to get it off the ground, Glass is one big anti-climax.

This predictable family drama leads up to an equally predictable battle of goliaths who fight with one arm only. Over the Top boasts one distinction: it is the first major movie about arm-wrestling. Don't look for a cycle to follow. [23 Mar 1987]

How jokes this offensive can make it to the screen in 2019 is beyond comprehension and a bit of a shame, considering that this has so much else going for it including a delightful late-game appearance by the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, who looks fantastic, by the way.

The script by Jake Crane and Jonathan A. H. Stewart is a slow-burning affair that will have audiences tugging at the leash.

If any narrative thread holds the movie together, it’s each character dealing with their own version of anxiety, fear and stage fright as performers. While a laudable message for a kids movie, it’s drowned out by the movie’s commercialized blare.

Ultimately “Day One” could have been set around any old apocalypse. Tethering it to the rules of “A Quiet Place,” a smart premise whose novelty is impossible to recreate let alone build a world upon, just holds it back.

As much as Neeson might seem to have the special set of skills required to play Marlowe, his detective feels hollow and maybe a little too tired.

As a B-movie with a couple of A-listers, “The Rip” will probably go down as a minor and flawed genre exercise. But even in their lesser efforts, the sincerity of Damon and Affleck’s buddy routine remains winning.

Figgis' uneven pacing and reliance on blood and guts makes this a difficult movie to watch. Still, his handling of the clash between the two cops makes Internal Affairs somewhat compelling but far less interesting than his Stormy Monday. And his ending for Internal Affairs is a cop-out and predictable. [03 Jan 1990]

As cinematography, Malcolm & Marie (shot by Marcell Rév) is great. As cinema, not so much.

The early scenes in this wacky place high in the mountains are the best part of “Ballerina” — they actually contain deft surprises and even a glimmer of humor, which is hardly something we expect in a John Wick film.

A well-cast and often entertaining but campy and sometimes obvious thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and James Norton.

The Meg is best when it acknowledges its derivativeness, just one more silly shark movie in an ocean full of them.

Dark Phoenix is a whiff. The most suspenseful thing that happened had nothing to do with the movie at all, but the theater’s fire alarm that went off during a review screening during the epic climax.

Good Fortune has its heart in the right place, but it lacks a spark and internal engine that might have made it more entertaining, and ultimately impactful.

Bird may go down as a rare miss for Arnold but you can still see the keenness of her eye and the nimbleness of her camera, with her regular cinematographer Robbie Ryan. And that’s true never so much as when the camera is on Adams, a talent, whose melancholy eyes say more than all the theatrics around her.