Takes its viewers on a bouncing high-wire act between intense violence and sugar-sweet tenderness, with some light-hearted comedy along the way.

For all the carnality on offer here, Mitchell and his cast seem ambivalent about sex.

The film sustains some suspense and brooding atmosphere for its first half, but eventually the clichés of character and dialogue drag it struggling to ground.

This is not a film to easily swoon over, but mournfully contemplate.

A frustratingly toothless film whose heart is in the right place even if its head isn't.

Dreadful as the subject matter is, the authenticity of the performances and the skill of Schleinzer's filmmaking are difficult to deny in this portrait of a monster as the bland guy next door.

Water's kinky view of the world has simply been overtaken (hell, swallowed up) by the sheer warp of reality. [13 Apr 1994]

Once the big twist kicks in, there’s plenty of gritty fun to be had, but patience is a hard-won virtue in genre filmmaking.

The Schlondorff version of The Tin Drum is never more than an intelligent reduction and simplification of an enormous and complex work of art. [26 Apr 1980]

Kids certainly won’t learn anything here, but they’re not likely to mistake it for entertainment, either.

Perhaps it is inevitable as three foreign directors train their lenses on that unique island culture of the East that all three are propelled by fantasy or science fiction, and suggest more alienation from Tokyo than affection for the great city.

Show tunes meet "Shaun of the Dead" in the delightfully gruesome Scottish horror-musical Anna and the Apocalypse.

While Rhys Ifans chews scenery as a scruff-faced foreign correspondent, Knightley plays it taut and believable, and, as we know, nobody walks on cobblestones better than she. The end result is a professionally made film that is whistle-blowingly relevant, starring an excellent actress who successfully comes in from her Pride & Prejudice past.

No one can dismiss 16 Blocks as a mere formula flick -- it's a mere two or three formula flicks all fighting for top billing.

Since life's infidelities have a way of ending on a messy note, it becomes art's responsibility to impose order upon the mess, to give it an aesthetically convincing shape. And that's exactly where Lyne falls short.

Thrown into exalted company, Zellweger easily holds her own in the film's most difficult role.

This is amusing, and even poignant in the final moments.

An ambitious, if uneven, experimental sci-fi romance that is less a thought-provoker than a dazzling juggling act.

With Monsters, Edwards transcends the special-effects auteur label, creating a memorable sci-fi story in which the hero and heroine are true equals in the adventure. How's that for an alien concept?

The homages that Edwards and his co-writer Chris Weitz make are honest, and instead of stealing the best ideas of other films, The Creator uses them as the source code to create a next-generation story that is pure, foot-on-the-gas entertainment.

The specifics of Hill's movie - and despite its straining for universality, it is all specifics - come approximately a decade too late; in the wake of Who'll Stop the Rain and Apocalypse Now (and even that great B-movie anti-war movie, The Big Red One), it sinks like an insignificant stone. [24 Oct 1981]

It's an enjoyable film, carried along by the perennial strength of the story... But it won't have the staying power of the original.

Observant and funny and thoughtful too, powered exclusively by vérité footage without a word of narration, Babies is William Blake’s Infant Joy brought to rich cinematic life.

The most amazing thing about this amazing movie may be that in the end it communicates the large uncertainties and small hopes of a twisted, inarticulate adolescent boy perfectly, and wordlessly. [14 Oct 1983]

Don't Talk to Irene feels rote and re-hashed, despite the strength of its central character and the ungainly charm of McLeod's performance. Watching Mills' film, one wishes it were as weird and wonderful as Irene herself. It's almost as if the writer/director doesn't realize how rare his own creation is.

Waydowntown may not be perfect, but it is perfectly astute in the target it selects and in the questions it raises.

The movie isn't painfully bad, something to be "fully experienced"; it's just tediously bad, something to be fully forgotten.

Comes close to collapsing under the weight of drawn-out scenes and an earnest story that piles on minor themes and subplots, but the energy and visual kick of the band numbers saves the day.

Out of Time is severely out of whack, and the problem isn't hard to locate: It's all that flab in the thriller. It's a suspense flick so pillowy soft that the star gets bumped from the centre of the frame and the comic relief sneaks in to swipe the picture.

A welcome rarity: an amiable film comedy that leaves you feeling good as opposed to feeling for your wallet.

Misha and the Wolves is as much a documentary as it is a wrestling match: filmmaker versus subject, truth versus fiction. Ultimately, the viewer comes out the winner.

Benefits from one standout performance: Timothy Olyphant ( Deadwood ) plays the part of Nick with ingratiating comic relish.

Producer Joseph Levine has spared no expense but achieved very little in this $25- million all-star extravaganza. [16 Nov 1977]

The movie manages a couple of popcorn-spitting-funny jokes for each biographical decade the film covers, though typically it's no better than moderately clever.

What's fun about Benson Lee's documentary Planet B-Boy isn't just the amazingly athletic displays of B-boys he puts on screen, but the film's sense of cultural discovery.

Normally, this would be an easy way to undercut a documentary, but the powerful filmmaking duo of Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker somehow turn Wise’s quest into a compelling and noble tale, no matter what your thoughts are on the views presented.

Fuqua is reliable in his continued ability to craft tense and measured films for broad audiences looking for complicated tales of morality.

As a captivating bauble, a tribute to a romantic legend, Don Juan DeMarco shines. But as an exercise in performing artistry, a gift from a living legend and an heir apparent, it positively glitters.

Entertaining and informative documentary on how native people have been portrayed on-screen over the years and how these portrayals have shaped native self-perception and non-native prejudice.

It makes for intriguing and often gripping viewing, but delivers a more confounding experience than is necessary. Still, the director knows how to break those bones real good.

What it is, is a delicious black-widow mystery, in which the deep-gazing actress Rachel Weisz rocks the veil.

What began as quick and engaging, Hollywood craft at its most proficient, ends as dull and predictable, Hollywood product back in formulaic mode.

Never amounts to anything more than its title’s shallow descriptors.

It’s perfect popcorn fare: the story of a creative genius against the playfulness of a Lego landscape mixed with a boppy tune.

A lean, stripped-down and unapologetically cinematic take on Shakespeare's work, an adaptation designed at each turn to diminish the mechanics of the comedy and to explore the depths of the pathos.

Perhaps fittingly, the directors’ big foray into Hollywood is saved by the star power of the two industry legends headlining the film. Bening and Foster are absolute delights from beginning to end.

Fosse carries the movie to its conclusion steadily and superlatively, with a directness that is devastating and with a depth of insight that ameliorates, if only slightly, the ghastliness of the carefully choreographed images. [10 Nov 1983]

The movie espouses a kind of Unitarian ecumenical egalitarianism that has about as much to do with medieval times as quantum physics. No one should be offended except -- of course -- those who like movies that excite the mind as well as the pulse.

Cumberbatch excels once again at breathing life into a sorrowful genius.

The charm of the movie's first 20 minutes soon turns shrill and manic, as invention is piled upon invention.

As her adversary, the ghastly Irving, Timothy Spall is excellent, creating a man of great insecurities hidden behind blustering self-confidence. The actor is happily willing to manufacture a thoroughly oily and dislikeable figure as he and Jackson successfully balance their villain on the knife edge of caricature.

If you ever doubted the power and scope of silent film, watch The Way Home. The narrative arc is as broad as any chattering feature, the emotional depth is greater than most, and it's all achieved with virtually no dialogue.

In classic B-movie style, The Dark Hours was created in a fever, written in two weeks and hurriedly shot in 16 mm (blown into a crisp 35 mm print). Nevertheless, the film provides evidence of talent everywhere.

If the downbeat plot is depressingly familiar, it’s partly salvaged by the quality of the performances.

If you appreciate a writer/director and actor who swing for the fences and chase after big questions (Are we cogs in the machine of the universe? If so, can we alter our fate? Or is everything super random?), this has a dreamlike beauty that may catch you in its spell.

Although it works well as an encore, the likelihood is that this thing isn’t over until the Fat Amy zings again.

Not everything works that well. Despite a uniformly solid cast - the likes of Eli Wallach, Danny Aiello, Christopher Walken, even Robert De Niro (a co-producer) all appear - the script gets away from Primus in the last act, when the satire does a slow dissolve into farce. [13 Nov 1992]

So where the hypocrisy, didacticism and inaction of previous popes righteously roused our anger and indignation, Francis stands as a palliative cure-all for anti-papal sentiment. Likewise, Wenders’s documentary seems to yearn to excite the viewer’s passion, to ignite a desire to take meaningful action against the very real social problems the Pope so clearly diagnoses.

William Smith, who plays Lucky Lonnie, a drag-strip racer in David Cronenberg's Fast Company, is a personification of country singer Waylon Jennings' voice: powerful and rich and funky and gentle. He doesn't hold Fast Company together - a vise the size of Paraguay couldn't hold Fast Company together - but his presence gives the movie an entirely undeserved distinction. [03 Oct 1979]

This sort of flick can be fun, and there are moments here when it is, when a suddenly shifting perspective tosses us for a dizzying loop. Then again, there's such a thing as too much fun and too many moments -- at over two hours, this particular game meanders on way past its welcome.

Very well crafted and superbly acted. Whatever you may think of the idea, its execution is admirable.

Understandably, a script so obsessed with the dark doings of plot has little time left over for the study of character, and, thus, we never really get to know these people.

Atomic Blonde is bold, brazen and frequently bonkers. But it’s also killer.

Unfortunately, Hart and her co-writer/husband Jordan Horowitz don’t have much more to offer than a different perspective – and no POV shift can compensate for a film that looks otherwise so familiar in its twists and turns.

Nevertheless, Vitus's cool intelligence, knotty narrative and precise performances make it a pleasure to watch even when it sends mixed messages about the true nature of its protagonist.

Dialogue isn't Morais's strength, and it's only when the actors stop trading “Just give me a chance” chestnuts that the film really takes off. The deftly shot dance sequences are entirely satisfying, thrillingly choreographed by Hihat (most famous for her work with Missy Elliott) to music by the likes of Lil Mama and Toronto's Tha Smugglaz.

The results are generally refreshing. Much of the film takes place inside a theatre, as if to suggest the shenanigans of the Saint Petersburg aristocracy were a form of public entertainment.

Spader, the actor who rose to prominence in sex, lies and videotape, is excellent at delineating the erosion of Michael's conventionally celestial ethics, while Lowe, the actor who rose to prominence in the home version of sex, lies and videotape, is equally good at delineating the solidity of Alex's unconventionally sulphuric sadism. Sadistic or not, Alex knows how to give good time. So does Bad Influence. [12 Mar 1990]

Watchable as ever.

What's so distressing about Michelle Pfeiffer taking a mooning calf for a lover, though, is that it robs her of the quality that has always made her such an interesting actress.

It's a tired formula moviegoers know well, but in the case of Friends With Benefits, it works.

Despite Auteuil's performance, it's a rather listless amble down the middle of the road, where the thematic ironies are too obvious and the sexual politics too smug.

Watching this is a feature-length exercise in frustration - comedy that promises to be amusingly black stays uniformly grey; sentiment that looks to be credibly bittersweet winds up badly soured. We're constantly tantalized and perpetually disappointed, but don't despair - there's one terrific bonus...Toni Collette.

The cheery result is enough to renew one's faith in Uncle Walt and the boys - a family picture that transcends the cliche, a light-bright romp where the sentiment isn't cheap and where the action isn't childish. Now there's a novelty item for you. [27 June 1989]

A creepy, smartly written and very entertaining low-budget chiller.

A screwball comedy about the abortion issue? First-time writer-director Alexander Payne gives it a college try.

It might be called "It's Kind of a Thin Movie."

The film is a level-headed look at artists who promoted joy but lost their own.

A bit thin on plot, but an unequivocal technical tour de force.

Entertaining but manipulative.

Whitewash is a small but sparkling gem on ice.

By the time The Hunter jettisons its narrative ballast altogether and embraces its elemental appeal, it's too late. The near-mythic grandeur of its final scenes is less a welcome payoff then a suggestion of the truly striking film that might have been; it's ironic that a movie about a man who sets traps for a living would itself end up ensnared by formula.

The Eyes of My Mother is not for the easily queasy. It is a stark, dreadful vision – but one that is fascinatingly executed, with a compelling central performance from Kika Magalhaes as a matter-of-fact monster.

You don't have to go to the barricades for Hooper's film to appreciate it for what it is – a productive experiment, an epic-scaled weepie, an exercise in sincere kitsch, and, perhaps too easily dismissed, a rare modern movie about the wretched poor, a traditional subject of interest at this time of year.

Funnier than any movie called Hot Tub Time Machine has a right to be. And how funny is that? Not very, but a little, occasionally – just enough.

The kind of movie that kids used to flock to on Saturday afternoons in the forties and fifties.

Will Ferrell is a scream, no doubt about it. And Anchorman contains some of his best work. But, Knights of Columbus! Wouldn't it be great if TV-based comedians weren't afraid of making movies that were funnier than they are?

Rising above its flaws, Internal Affairs converts a genre flick into a generic study, an examination of the mean streets that even the healthiest mind travels, those dark alleys where our force is sometimes overworked and always understaffed, the places where we, too, must police ourselves. [13 Jan 1990]

No matter how strange it gets, or how distorted for political gain or refined for religious purposes, its essence is hard to pin down, even after a 2 1/2 -hour search.

Finally, by tethering his story’s uneasiness to the rock that is Bautista, Shyamalan delivers a star vehicle built for two. It isn’t quite right to say that the director and his star deserve each other – more like they need one another. Just as we do. To the end of the world, fellas.

The Summit is a mixture of the inventive and the misguided in its attempt to recreate the circumstances of the August, 2008, disaster on the world’s second-highest mountain, K2, when 11 climbers were killed.

Writer Tesich, previously responsible for Four Friends and Breaking Away, serves Irving's material straight up - the adaptation is thorough and four-square and seemingly unconscious of the bizarre nature of Garp's odyssey through modern mores. The strategy works. [23 July 1982]

Rocky Balboa scores a split decision: A familiar start, some flat-footed middle rounds and a solid, flailing finish. And since Stallone has promised to throw in the towel on the franchise, we'll add an extra half star in honour of his diligence in the gym.

The movie blows, me hearties, but don't you dare miss it...Why? Johnny Depp, that's why...This has gotta rank among the weirdest performances in the zany annals of the silver screen.

There’s something to be said for a movie that manages to baffle and dazzle in equal measure. If Daffy Duck had taken up political and media theory, his brain might look like this.

It's hard to say how much the talking-head segments are based on the actors' real-life eating experiences, but they save the film by displaying a depth of emotion, candour and ironic good humour that - unlike many of the scenes in Eating - appears to be genuinely felt. [12 Jul 1991]

Just when you think it's going to rollick, this lazy movie rolls over and plays dead When Honeymoon's ends, it's not a moment too soon. [28 Aug 1992]

It is as much a gusty dissection of colonialism as it is a gut-spilling splatter-thon.