That's the allure of the genre. Succeed, and you're artful, thoughtful, and popular all at the same time. But fail, and you're the King of New York. As failures go, this is typical enough, smugly dividing the world into good gangsters and bad ones. [9 Nov 1990]

If the movie is essentially a study of a loving family, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries is hampered by extraneous scenes that are simply self-indulgent on the director's part.

Lohan, in her third lead role in a year, is a good reactive young actress, and London, Ont., native Rachel McAdams is excellently evil, a dose of poison in a pretty lacquered container.

What a fine, tender, delicate, funny, gender-bending-and-rebending performance this is.

This Hollywood movie about a gay man afflicted with AIDS is evocative, understated and ultimately deeply affecting. Hard-earned tears of truth. [22 Dec 1993, p.C1]

Like the stock market itself, there are peaks and valleys.

More manipulative, maudlin trash from the Disney-Pixar content farm.

A tough, effective, socially conscious melodrama in the old Warner Brothers tradition. [15 Feb 1982]

Sensual and scary, the movie is so visually textured you feel as though you're brushing against the screen.

I love the City of Light as much as any starry-eyed provincial, but Paris, je t'aime tries even my considerable patience.

It’s a sweeping story, but for those already enamoured with “the people’s tenor," Pavarotti is unlikely to offer any new insights into his life.

Surprisingly but fittingly, for a film about the life of a singer, the use of songs is generally elliptical.

The best of The Desolation of Smaug is saved for the last, when Bilbo goes to steal from the massive fire-breathing dragon, Smaug. The orange-eyed beast is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who, through a sludge of voice-altering electronics, seethes and preens between fiery exhalations; this scene is one of the few occasions in the film where anyone actually takes time to talk.

It's refreshing to see a movie tackling difficult ideas, even if, like the new Earth, it sometimes feels like the filmmakers have their heads up in the clouds.

Low on nuance and high on body count, the movie is primarily of interest to fans of Asian action spectacles and followers of the charismatic Chow Yun-fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), here cast as both a dandyish villain and his idiotic double.

Mid90s doesn't feel like a recreation of an era so much as a lost artifact of the time. There's one predictable and regrettable narrative beat toward the end, but otherwise Hill has crafted a debut that will last a lifetime.

George Huang's Swimming With Sharks purports to give us the goods on the big bad egos who run Hollywood, but it lacks both credibility and coherence. [06 May 1995]

More honourable than "amazing," the latest reboot of the Spider-man franchise brings Marvel Comics web-slinging super-hero down to earth, in a mostly satisfactory way.

This three-hour opus, bearing only the eponymous title of Nixon, is an intriguing ramble through the social psychology of man and country alike. Indeed, the simple dialectics that both animated and marred Stone's earlier work are redeemed here precisely because they're invested in a single, complex personality - consequently, this film is more character-driven than any of its predecessors. [20 Dec 1995, p.C1]

On the byways of any bustling metropolis, here is what the combination of bicycles + cars + pedestrians is certain to produce: (1) nasty accidents and (2) ferocious debates. More surprisingly, on the silver screen in Premium Rush, here is what the same combination fails to produce: a good action movie.

We learn a little about Jett’s activism, and hardly anything about her personal life.

Despite acting under the computer-generated encumbrances of that monkey tail and those centaur legs, Delphine Chanéac does something remarkable with Dren – she makes her a disturbingly sexy thing.

When Howard focuses on the head-scratching mechanics of the mission itself, Thirteen Lives excels – and its many claustrophobic underwater scenes likely play excellently inside the confines of a darkened theatre. But by the time we’re in pure rescue mode, it is almost too late. What should be the highest of high-stakes dramas arrives with a drippy thud.

Comes as a pleasure. It's a comic drama set in a Chicago hair salon where the characters are engaging and the story has a bustling richness.

Blissfully entertaining sequel to last year's Spy Kids, Rodriguez is once again just as good -- if not better -- than the gadgets at hand.

Triumphantly, Young’s work with her ever-changing (and aging) character succeeds in bringing a complicated and resilient character to life.

Elf is jolly but could have been jollier, funny but could have been funnier, charming but ... well, point made.

The movie makes for quite a hike. It's also, at times, a bit of a slog.

For such a mush-ball teen movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants carries a welcome amount of grown-up emotional truth.

Here’s a date movie that will neither cozily cheer you nor satisfyingly thrill you, but instead leave you scratching your head.

There is such a thing as being too reverential, and too many scenes – including one where a roomful of white abolitionists applaud Tubman – insist on Tubman’s greatness, instead of letting us discover it.

Though the stately pace can be frustrating, its anti-war stance ultimately feels modern and urgent.

The film is not significant, but it is principled and sweetly subversive. And, like high school, if you’re not careful, you might just learn something from it.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a fun enough distraction.

In a virtuoso turn, Tommy Lee Jones delivers an over-the-top performance, but it works for the obvious reason that everything about Cobb is oversized. Except for one commodity - there's not an ounce of sentimentality on the guy (nor in this film - it too is unlikely to please the crowd). [23 Dec 1994]

The problem with this spinoff is, like homework, you’d rather be doing something else with your time.

Disney and Pixar’s latest outing delivers on some frontiers, but puzzles on others.

Lack of sparkling teen chatter prevent this movie from being a slam dunk.

Earth Girls Are Easy is a 100-proof hoot, an intoxicatingly inventive movie that spins a fresh variation off a familiar theme. It's a high-octane frolic, pure and simple (but never simple-minded), a flick that owes more to ALF than to E.T., and far more to Busby Berkeley than to Rod Steiger. A wacky journey into the cinematic beyond, it defies every label but one: Fun, Fun, Fun. [12 May 1989]

Though Abrams doesn't possess a fraction of the visual pizzazz of the two previous MI directors, Brian De Palma or John Woo, his incarnation is, from a narrative perspective, better made.

This spoof's heart is genuinely warm.

The Return of the Living Dead, a parody of George A. Romero's unforgettably frightening Night of the Living Dead, is not for everybody, but it's one of the funniest films of its kind ever made. [16 Aug 1985]

Scrape off its grimy exterior, and it too is a fairy tale, but one with ambitions of realism, one that tries to co-exist in our world, one that pretends to be something it isn't. Frankie & Johnny ends up lost in limboland, stumbling onto a whole new genre - call it kitchen-sink unrealism. [11 Oct 1991]

Delicatessen is a carniverous sausage - lots of fat, a few meaty bits. [10 Apr 1992]

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is a bunch of bon mots in search of a larger theme. Happily, the mots are so very bon that the two hours breeze by quickly enough.

Never before have the demands of my inner man-child been so stirred, though, than while experiencing Deadpool 2, a movie that feels scribbled in pencil crayon, drenched in Jolt cola and coated with the dust of a thousand discarded bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

It’s a solid effort. There are guts here, just not quite enough glory.

The film as a whole, beautifully drawn and gracefully set into balletic motion, teaches a few welcome lessons regarding ecology and racial tolerance. [19 Nov 1988]

Turtletaub has some difficulty ending the film, which resolves itself with one too many closeups of Macdonald gazing out at the world, whether from a lakeshore or a train window, as both the script and its director struggle to figure out what happens next.

A film in which every single character is despicable, but some are more despicable than others, could have run into a sympathy problem. Yet thanks to J. Blakeson’s zippy direction and a chillier-than-thou lead performance from Rosamund Pike, the movie is immensely watchable. Just not especially memorable.

Unfortunately, the script is held together with something much less adhesive than, say, Amy Adams’s "American Hustle" blouse tape.

Pitch Perfect pitches itself between "Bridesmaids" and "Glee," which is to say it celebrates the low-down raunchiness of girls being girls among girls, while delivering a snap-crackle-and-pop music catharsis. Yes, folks, rock is dead, but long live showbiz.

Sea Of Love has got a lot of things going for it: it's got two strong lead performances; it's got some down-and-dirty dialogue and a few sexy scenes and a couple of yuks and a nifty title tune. What it ain't got is plot, and thus suspense, and thus thrills. [15 Sep 1989]

With strong performances in a scheme of both sensible updates and clever revivals, Mary Poppins Returns is as impressive as the 1964 version it joyfully recalls – except in one key area.

It all makes for an emotional send-off, with the reassuring familiarity of those heart-stirring strings cuing the final glimpse of the estate in silhouette at magic hour.

It’s glorious in some parts, stretches out your willingness to suspend disbelief in others. Nevertheless, a movie that leaves you with a Missy Elliott style grrrl power anthem as an earworm is totally worth a lazy summer afternoon sprawled in front of your TV – as you make mental notes to sign up your kids for musical theatre classes the minute you’re allowed.

Character development and plotting are rudimentary, though the tongue-in-cheek never gets dislodged while the body count rises.

This is a remake built on equal parts care and admiration, a love letter to all the sickos out there. It’s nothing to simply wash your hands of. Or flush away.

The important thing about Star Trek VI is that it is a good production of a better-than-average script. There are countless chuckle-lines, and the story takes several interesting twists and turns.

Yes, this is the fascinating stuff, a rare (in pop culture) look at the complex nature of the love-sex equation – when it's too direct, when it's too vague, when it breaks down completely.

Catfish shows that the need to dispel lies isn't nearly as important as how we respond when we finally uncover the truth.

After its promising opening, I Am Legend devolves into a generic zombie slaughterfest.

Odd but engaging film.

Short on wrenching passion, but never less than competent, Les Misérables is merely passable. It might have been titled Les Compétents. [01 May 1998, p.C4]

Well, the movie suffers slightly from that tendency -- the portrait shows definite signs of airbrushing. But it's rendered with enough intelligence, and performed with sufficient grace, to offer us an occasionally compelling, curiously upbeat look behind the lacquered image and into the complicated self.

In a movie world where every new release promises to be something you've never seen before, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs succeeds in being genuinely different -- even if you can't quite figure out exactly what it's supposed to be. [26 Sep 1997, p.E3]

Only Tudyk’s dry humour in the role of the tactless droid K-2S0 makes Edwards’s darkly reductivist approach occasionally seem smarter rather than lesser. In the end, this hardening of the franchise seems likely to alienate both the fans and the uninitiated.

An extraordinarily French story is flattened into conventional Euro-pudding nothingness. There is little here to surprise, less to even expect and still savour. The performers sometimes, but not always, outwit their material.

Director Amma Asante (Belle) is carving a niche for herself, making gorgeous-looking cinema from untold histories. Her best asset here is Oyelowo.

Tremors is never earth-shattering, but always competent. Modest in intention, fine in execution, it just wants to make a body smile, to stick a happy face on the monster movie. There are worse faults. [20 Jan 1990]

An experience that is sometimes unbearable and always riveting. [14 Oct 1988]

Though visually sumptuous and a bunch of fun early on, Edgar Wright’s take on sixties and seventies horror eventually devolves into unsatisfying spoof.

The pedigree is impressive and so is the start, but in the long run, White Men Can't Jump lives down to its title - it doesn't even get off the ground. [27 Mar 1992]

Unfortunately, as the phone battery wears down, the plot's theatrics heat up to pot-boiling degrees of incredulity – a senile mother, a vicious personnel director, even a coiled serpent, all vie to raise the ante. Talk about your bad day.

The pleasant surprise is Brosnan. Actually, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's seen "The Matador" or "After the Sunset." The former Remington Steele and James Bond is maturing nicely and choosing some complex scripts to show off his acting chops.

Yet another smoothly produced doc for the foodie set.

The plot gives Brest a structure on which to build a minor, gentle, subtle miracle; he uses the hackneyed plot as the foundation for a restrained monument to the dreams of the elderly. Going in Style has many of the simple but considerable virtues of Best Boy - the epiphanies may be diminutive, but they linger. [27 Dec 1979]

Yang’s deeply personal, imaginative work is very much its own creation, just as much as "The Farewell." Or any other movie whose producers knew that audiences are hungry for diverse stories. That representation matters as much as story and style and performance. All of which, by the way, Tigertail has in spades.

What they've created is a movie that, lacking any resonance, is a soulless clone of a more vibrant original. [04 Feb 1994]

Eddie Mensore has not made a masterpiece of the genre, but there’s a poignancy to his gritty calamity tale that makes Mine 9 worth watching.

This is a prequel superior to its predecessor – we’re not bored with board-game ghoulishness yet.

The Butler may be a sanctimonious cartoon, but it points to events in the civil rights struggle that were as grotesque and extraordinary as any fiction can invent.

Walks a line between didactic allegory and realistic drama.

Only after the Hollywood hypnotism wears off is it apparent that Rain Man, fundamentally an artsy sentimentalization of "The Odd Couple," is somewhat less than the sum of its perfect parts.

Despite Marber's sardonic wit and Nichols's intelligent direction, the film winds up in the ironic position of practising exactly what it preaches: Closer invites and even gains our intimacy, only to finish by driving us ever farther away.

There are pratfalls and car chases and explosions enough to please youngsters but the adult appeal of the Pink Panther series has disappeared. [24 July 1978]

Frankie Freako is designed to melt your brain. The only question is whether you might welcome such cerebral liquefaction or not.

In the Valley of Elah dearly wants to be the Iraq war's counterpart to "Coming Home," documenting the tragic domestic legacy of a misguided foreign conflict. Wants to be, but isn't.

Political thrillers with flawed heroes demand a different potion, one that mixes the grit of reality with the seeds of excitement until they reach a critical mass and explode. In that sense, for all its strengths and good intentions, The Debt owes a debt to the wrong genre – Birkenau wasn't fantasy; too often, this movie is.

Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick are perfectly caste as two naive waifs who stumble upon the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter after car trouble on a rainy night. The supporting cast is appropriately, well, let's say idiosyncratic, but for my money it's Tim Curry as the mad doctor who steals the show. Surely he stands as the most charismatic transsexual Transylvanian ever. [1 Dec 1990]

The film's broad attempts at humour are all mouldy bits from Hollywood films.

Luckily for us, the flawed but charming Mr. Malcolm’s List has Indian actress Freida Pinto as a winsome romantic lead, finally receiving her flowers in a perfectly matched role.

A drama with honourable intentions that feels like a bit of a fib.

The premise, nearly miraculous in its banality, is not failed by the execution, which unblushingly operates at the level of somnambulism. [13 July 1981]

All of this unfolds with such predictability, the title might as well be The Great Foregone Conclusion.

Puss in Boots is essentially non-stop dazzling action scenes loosely connected by a thin, predictable story of greed versus good.

Although the tale feels a bit slight – and yeah, I’m still aware we’re talking about a Bill & Ted movie – the affair is ultimately breezy, harmless fun.

Scarface is a B- movie with singularly silly psychological pretensions: its neo-primitivism is to the complex moral cosmos of Francis Coppola's "Godfather" saga as Disney is to Dickens. [09 Dec 1983]