Co-directed by James D. Stern (who made another NBA promotional documentary, "Michael Jordan to the Max") and Adam Del Deo, the story of the Americanization of Yao is determinedly upbeat.

A glum meditation on isolation and romantic malaise.

Catch a Fire paints the period with a double-sided brush that gives yesterday its due and puts today on notice.

Save for some halfway inventive touches, such as a meta-turn that evokes Chuck Jones’s surrealist Merrie Melodies short Duck Amuck, Sponge Out of Water coasts on its 3-D CGI shtick, sacrificing the giddy whimsy that recommends the SpongeBob series for more boringly Hollywood whiz-bang action.

If Ocean's Thirteen were compared to a gem, it would have to be considered something of a flashy fraud: Initially impressive for cut and colour, it lacks either clarity or weight.

As for true-love Charles, he would ascend to the Prime Minister's office, and then rise again to even greater heights: They named the tea after him. Indeed, that may be the smartest way to see this flick, curled up on your sofa with a cup of Earl Grey -- just make sure it's as decaffeinated as what you're watching.

New Order might go down as the most uncomfortable watch of the year. Sadistic and ugly and crushingly depressing. But also demanding of your engagement. The reward? A master-class in high-anxiety cinema, and enough fodder for a thousand uncomfortable conversations.

Taken as a psychological parable, Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst is thoughtful and provocative. Taken as a political parable, it is gallingly reactionary, but it is also right, in more than one sense of the word. [28 Oct 1988]

There is a strange emotional detachment to Felix van Groeningen’s adaptation, which renders the tale needlessly cold.

Michael Keaton’s go-for-broke performance is such a possessed work of splatter comedy that he almost proves right the producers who have been advocating for this nostalgia-play cash grab for decades.

The film's biggest flaw -- aside from the lapses of credibility, which are almost obligatory in escapist summer movies -- is that it flies on and on until its power to hold us simply peters out.

Hikari’s work is well-meaning, and Kayama delivers an affecting, but not affected, performance that almost holds the story together. Eventually, though, the film loses confidence in itself.

The picture is slightly too long, there are some special effects (especially during a storm at sea) that don't come off, and Vangelis's electronic moans on the soundtrack are sporadically anachronistic, but The Bounty is otherwise a spectacularly sustained piece of epic filmmaking. [04 May 1984]

Unfortunately, the team led by producer Ron Howard and directed by Matthew O'Callaghan has jettisoned much of the charm of the original books along with that politically touchy storyline.

Canadian director Guy Maddin is an artist supreme - he steals with a liberal flourish and with enough sheer imagination that his previous films (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Archangel) are often described as boldly original. Careful, his latest offering, is no exception - it's an honours graduate from the same school of dusted-off originality. [10 Oct 1992]

Henry & June, a portrait of two pioneers in prose, accomplishes its own kind of pioneering on screen and not merely because it's unapologetically erotic: it effortlessly pairs that oddest of all couples, sexual desire and cerebral activity. It is, as a friend commented in a phrase Nin and Miller would have loved, "an erection for the mind." [05 Oct 1990]

Hansen-Love’s ability to evoke the unspoken remains in full play as she returns to themes of young love and emotional crisis, but much of the film is in English and both dialogue and delivery feel stilted. Meanwhile, it’s never clear why being the object of a youthful crush might be a good cure for PTSD.

It’s Thompson who carries the film, both literally – she’s rarely off-screen – and emotionally.

It is the platonic ideal of big, smart-dumb B-movie filmmaking – and, like Kong himself, it must be seen to be believed.

This is the brand of sentimentality that comes with a high concentration of saccharine and every taste of bitterness safely removed.

Excellent in flashes, unintentionally absurd and lead-footed at other moments, the movie stumbles under the weight of its own grandiose intentions.

Myers's sheer fertility of invention is of a different order, and even if he misses as often as he hits, he's definitely a swinger.

As a moviegoer, I have to say that that broader success isn’t earned here. You are much better off getting the Season 1 DVD to understand why many of us invested emotionally and financially in this tiny, annoying blonde, whose sparky banter is just a counterweight to her vertigo in a world forever upside down.

The Doors is excessive, unsubtle, emotionally brutal and stylistically sadistic, but that's exactly right for the dark side of the sixties Morrison and his band embodied. [01 Mar 1991]

For once, the gimmick is a perfect reflection of the characters.

Didn't we just see this movie? Over in Britain, big bad governments may be outsourcing his job and rendering him redundant, but never fear -- the plucky working-class hero has definitely found a steady gig on the silver screen.

There is not much more you could ask of a Canadian thriller, even if the director lets the Thailand-set portions of the film devolve slightly into clichéd Brokedown Palace territory.

Too distanced to be called compassionate - the term can imply condescension - Working Girls is provocative, honest and disturbing. [15 May 1987]

It is, to be sure, a Jaws ripoff, but it has enough sidelong wit and head-on scares to guarantee its revival as a classic cult item long after more expensive, ambitious efforts like Altered States have been forgotten. [13 Apr 1981]

Although director Taylor Hackford ("An Officer and a Gentleman") handles the usually cumbersome flashbacks with impressive delicacy, he can't stop the narrative from sinking under its own melodramatic weight.

It's difficult to give a damn about this collection of whiners, autocrats and philanderers. [4 Aug 1995]

The soundtrack is effective and overt – from the badass rock blare of Billy Squire, Bad Company and AC/DC to the atmosphere compositions of the indie musician Julia Holter to the riveting nu-blues of Willis Earl Beal. The camera work is slick, too; tricky sound-editing notions are pulled off with aplomb.

There's plenty of humour in Comedian but not a lot of happiness -- apparently, the sad clown is a cliché for good reason.

Though rich in visual style, the movie is unbalanced in performances and script, ranging, from scene to scene, from go-for-baroque grandeur to strident excess.

Actress Helen Buday is coolly persuasive in the seesaw role of an unbalanced housewife who jerks from despair to anger.

Ultimately, the film becomes a love letter to Hall, and that's what saves it. She's such a beautiful, prickly, intelligent, singular presence that you root for Anna, no matter how many questionable choices she and the film make.

Robert Downey Jr., the kid who holds his own against James Woods in "True Believer", gives Chances Are what charm it has, but there's no saving this mystical romantic mess. It's fitting that the sexy and funny Downey has been cast as a soul trapped in another body - in Chances Are, he's imprisoned in a sitcom that's all situation and no comedy. [10 March 1989]

Knives has just enough expensive style, steamy sex, and wild plot contrivances to hold your attention.

Wise Guys is never more than a nice time, but it's never less than that either, and because the timing of the jokes is so bang-on, it makes you wish De Palma would get away from the blood bag more often. [23 Apr 1986, p.C5]

Meghie’s films don’t conform to conventional plot structure; her approach is more musical, more fluid. As a result, her rhythms are sometimes a little off, as the plot wanders down this or that detour. On the plus side, she makes time for naturalistic conversations.

A surprisingly large portion of the picture is given over to a gritty and unexpectedly moving examination of a senseless but understandable feud between two wrongheaded, sincere people making all the wrong moves. [21 Oct 1983]

For all its cinematic assets, Maverick seems a less charming vessel than the show I watched at my daddy's knee.

Director Scott, flashy, fluid and at his best in the steely-blue claustrophic battle-training scenes, immerses the viewer in the process.

For fans of horror maestros John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon, nothing fills a void like good, old eighties-fashioned gore. Which is what we get from the writer-director team of Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, unabashed fans of Reagan-era blood, slash and goo.

There is so much going on in this film, much of it so rich in detail, that you wonder how better the original material might work as a television series.

An animated sequel that, despite not achieving the inspired lunacy of the first movie where Gru literally steals the moon, is smartly calculated to deliver squeals to kids and amusement to accompanying adults.

In Drowning by Numbers, there is a strange character called Smut, a precocious boy genius fascinated by sex and obsessed with death: his avocation is the compulsive cataloguing of dead animals. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover feels as if it could been made by that child. [31 March 1990]

Inevitably, the one ingredient that does remain constant are the performances -- once again, there aren't any (the lone exception is Gloria Foster's mommy Oracle, although, even here, the shine is off the joke). Of course, for the hyperactive principals, this gig isn't about acting -- it's about athleticism, which suits Keanu Reeves's talents just fine.

With his elegant bio-doc Oscar Peterson: Black + White, director Barry Avrich discreetly (perhaps too discreetly) sniffs around the question of Peterson’s legacy and whether he truly received the respect he deserved in his lifetime.

With all due respect to Japanese animation fans and pop-culture enthusiasts, life may be just too short to plunge into the busy world of Cowboy Bebop.

As unabashedly idiotic movie comedies go, Ted goes fairly well.

As it glides along from one pretty picture to the next, Visitors starts to feel less like a singular artistic gesture than a compendium of quasi-experimental film clichés.

The movie remains an embodiment of Spielberg's commercially cunning brand of clankingly retro filmmaking, despite the wit and charm brought to their Spiel-speak dialogue by the talented young performers, The Goonies is less a movie than an entertainment machine. [7 Jun 1985, p.E1]

The whole project labours towards an importance it never earns. In Beautiful Boy, the themes are vast but the picture is small, and the ensuing emptiness is what the characters are meant to feel – not us.

A late summer treat. And in case you are wondering, yes, there is mumbling.

Though Radcliffe occasionally seems too stiffly callow to be completely convincing in this grown-up role, the movie is a proficient thriller with a potential appeal beyond the star's fan-girl audience.

Coixet occasionally overplays her hand – a dropped headscarf, a sudden death – as does a constipated Bill Nighy in the role of the reclusive widower who is Florence’s one ally, but overall, the film is stealthily impressive.

Neither outrageous nor subtle as a religious satire, but here's the good news for modern viewers: With it's unusual Christian backdrop, this is one of the most intriguing rite-of-passage teen comedies in a long time.

Alison Klayman’s documentary about the making of Jagged Little Pill should be as raw as its source material, but plays it incredibly safe instead.

What enlivens My Scientology is Theroux himself: watching him stumble from one idea to the next, interact with intense actors pulling their best Tom Cruise grins, butt heads with Rathbun, bicker with church insiders and throw their own idiotic lingo back in their faces.

An engaging and surprisingly sharp allegory about high-school hierarchies and adolescent growing pains.

In 5 x 2, the 2 are terrific; it's the 5 that needs work.

Edel's Last Exit generates visceral voltage, but the nation illuminated is the pre-unification West Germany of a mere moment ago, not the United States of 40 years gone by. [04 May 1990]

A lot more cutting would have made this movie much funnier – but it should have taken place in the editing room, not on the screen.

Free Guy is here, it repeatedly reminds us, to have a good time, not a long-franchise time. But there is something so overwhelmingly corporate and safe about the thing that you can see the glimmer of a brand-new cinematic universe in every twinkle of Reynolds’ dreamy hazel eyes.

It’s high quality sweetness, as carefully prepped and prettily presented as any of the meals, cocktails and home decorating binges partaken of our quartet of love-locked converts to the way of the heart.

Although Tom Stoppard's script lifts Ballard's spare dialogue directly from the page, the context in which it is placed is kitsch. [11 Dec 1987]

It’s a profoundly weird film but hypnotic nonetheless.

A comedy should provoke more than smiles. Should have characters instead of show-offs. Although often charming, Micmacs seems so pleased with itself that it hardly needs an audience.

These are not easy people to understand, nor to watch unravel, but they are urgent, complicated, captivating characters.

Some of the special effects are chilling, but Fright Night lacks depth, wit and humor, and hence is neither absorbing, intelligent, nor funny. [08 Aug 1985]

It is all such gloriously smart stupidity that you cannot help but applaud everyone involved for sticking the landing.

A successful hoax is annoying for everyone except the hoaxster. No one enjoys being the credulous, unsuspecting dupe of a wise---joke -- personally I loathe it.

Typically, this sort of film is an earnest tear-jerker with moments of levity. Instead, what we have here is a raucous rib-tickler with occasional pauses for a little dramatic relief.

Overall, it’s a film that is not great but just fine. Its biggest limitations are the ones it places on its own characters.

The movie, which banks on the popularity of the rest of the series rather than concern itself with details such as motive, doesn’t add up to much. Annabelle: Creation is a series of slowly opened doors and close-ups of a truly ugly doll whose makeup must have been done in the dark by a deranged artist similarly possessed.

There's a generosity of spirit to Stuck on You that is a pleasure, even when the movie is slipshod.

The worst side effect of Hall’s thin and sizzle-free script is that it encourages Johnson and Penn to go overboard in a bid to compensate.

The film is sometimes funny and occasionally smart yet never quite what it wants to be – funny and smart at the same time.

Dragnet is twice blessed and once cursed. It boasts a nifty comic premise and a terrific lead performance, two virtues that might well have combined to make a great sketch on a good television show - SCTV comes quickly to mind. Yet, as a feature-length movie, the thing slowly degenerates into a one-note joke. A neatly produced and nicely sustained note, to be sure, but monotonous nonetheless. [27 June 1987]

The best gal wrestlers had their signature moves: Ida May Martinez, with her flying drop kick; Ella Waldek, with the "short-arm scissor lift." Filmmaker Leitman, for all her good work, is in need of a close-out manoeuvre of her own.

It's one helluva movie that makes Ashley Judd look ugly and demented, while turning Harry Connick Jr. into the most frightening screen thug since Ben Kingsley in "Sexy Beast."

Originally titled Eight for Silver, the film from British writer-director Sean Ellis is brooding, uneasy and fog-filled, with an apprehensive soundscape. Werewolf mythology mixes with biblical allusions and ideas on payments for the sins of elders.

It's a good film. But its exotic allure may lead some to mistake it for a great one.

The movie – a messy and frequently bloody blend of Shakespeare’s Henriad plays, but devoid of their language, scope and, well, drama – is forgettable.

It is a lot, and Ascher only has so many stylistic tricks up his sleeve – including a unique, if eventually exhausting, spin on talking-head Zoom footage – to delay the sheer weight of his subject matter from crushing his film into multiverse-ready dust.

Director Karyn Kusama shifts dexterously between the present and the past, unspooling a satisfyingly twisted piece of storytelling by writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, who succeed in making both plots gripping. Kudos to Kidman for taking on an ugly role (both physically and morally) and for giving both versions of the character a convincing hardness.

With Corbett's laidback persona nicely countering Vardalos's authorial performance, the picture radiates a pure affability that's awfully attractive. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a very slim movie that succeeds on its own modest terms without pretense or apology.

The performers are powerless to bring life to this moribund courtroom drama...a snoozer.

For the most part he (Haney) lets the people and images of Coal River Valley speak for themselves – and that's what gives The Last Mountain its eloquent power.

A movie deeply immersed in movie lore, and the more seasoned the swimmer the richer the experience.

Ultimately, the viewing experience is like watching a snake swallow its own tail -- that once-menacing serpent is now a clown act, all yuks and no venom.

That may be your lump of coal, but it seems a precious gift to me.

The lead actors are both marvellous.... Yet the film’s most impressive performance might come from director Dominic Cooke, who has delivered an assured, wistful debut.

O'Toole's performance transforms a mundane movie into one of the most scintillating, enjoyable comedies of the year. [01 Oct 1982]

At times, Warriors sacrifices dramatic nuance for scale, but even its most rousing passages are tempered by a sense of loss. Rather than simply enshrining its underdog heroes' efforts, it considers their cost.

The most remarkable element is surely the way Egoyan has seamlessly integrated footage from previous COC productions, that he shot himself at the time, into his new film to give it the breadth of a genuine stage performance.

The ideal: It hopes to be a suspenseful political yarn carrying a lofty message of peace and understanding. The reality: It's just a flabby thriller that gets completely lost in translation.