Not super, but not bad, the teen comedy, Superbad, is another comic dance across the hormonal minefield of late high school.

Hitchcock unspools at that deliciously silly juncture where biography meets fallacy. Translation: Any director who could crank out Psycho must be a crackpot himself.

Playing a blonde with her roots showing, Beckinsale seems up for a scrap, but the film gives her nothing to do but get clobbered.

The documentary is an inspiration to women – not just in the Middle East – who are determined to rise to the top of their professions, despite the odds being stacked against them.

Festival in Cannes is definitely Jaglomesque, but can't get that tricky balance right -- the result is a picture as charmingly insubstantial as the world it invokes.

Dujardin and Efira are both charming and beautiful, and the film glistens in its breezy cobblestoned scenery.

Popped in the oven and marked with a predictable P, The Family Stone is the Christmas cookie of Christmas movies -- this thing is so pat it should come with the recipe attached.

Reiner is no Oliver Stone, but he does stir things up by presenting Bobby Kennedy in the villain's role as a serious jerk and crafty underminer.

The combination of DiCaprio's soulful, self-effacing work in Scorsese's "The Departed," and this unexpectedly complex portrait in a simple-minded movie, make it the best year of his career since the big boat crash of 1997.

What the protagonists do is simply wrong, and their attempts to fix it are first tepid, then unpleasant.

The problems with Damon's character are the problem with the movie: It's about plot mechanics, not heart and soul.

All this is engrossing. Stylistically and visually, Villeneuve flashes his talent to draw us in. However, narratively and thematically, he seems to be cheating. [18 Dec 1998, p.D10]

The international cast manage to acquit themselves fine enough, with Jagger in particular having a ball as an energetic rapscallion.

Speaking of that deadly finale, it's easily the best part of the picture. Beautifully edited, shot in fluid slow-motion, scored to a traditional Irish ballad crooned in a child's tremulous voice, the violence of the climax is anthemic. The whole sequence is undeniably moving.

This is a movie that works well when it works, and lazes around the rest of the time.

No political tract, but it can be surprisingly bold.

No matter how obvious the set-up – what if men and women of the cloth were … rude and sexy??? – the cast gives every scene just enough of a deadpan spin to sell it, at least for the first hour. After the final 30 minutes come and go, including a frantic detour into witchcraft, you may seek out a convent of your own.

There are two ways to look at Tightrope: as a Clint Eastwood Hollywood vehicle, or as a world-class movie that deserves to be judged with the best. By the first standard, Tightrope is an exceptionally realized thriller; by the second, it is an interesting failure, a movie that loses its nerve and resolves its contradictions in the slam-bang heroics of formula moviemaking. [18 Aug 1984]

Women deserve better women's pictures -- men too.

Ultimately, Sliding Doors becomes a victim of its own cleverness, shutting down all that early promise.

Fables should be succinct, and Konchalovsky lets his run on too long.

A beautifully shot, well-acted, and worthy-to-a-fault Second World War survivor story that only intermittently achieves the kind of emotional impact for which it aims.

Whatever the narrative shortcomings, these characters have the warmth of antique painted storybooks, unlike the eerie plastic simulation of Pixar characters.

Shows promise, but needs more effort, and definitely doesn't play well with others. [7 Jun 1996, p.C2]

The Corruptor is visually lively and filled with gratuitous destruction. [12 Mar 1999]

Isn't quite funny enough to make it as a comedy, or touching enough to make it as a romance. It's a pleasant effort that doesn't hit any of its targets.

Disappointingly unique.

The tight-lipped, give-no-quarter Statham is impeccable as the pitiless yet honourable Parker (though fans of the books will no doubt quibble, especially over the British accent). On the other hand, Lopez, that pleasant sex pot, hasn't a hope of producing the tragic desperation of her down-on-her-luck character.

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.

Miss Tandy is so good, in fact, that when she leaves at the end of the first hour, the picture never quite recovers. The second hour is fine, but flat. [17 Dec 1982]

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]

At two hours, Instant Family is shorter than a Judd Apatow joint but far less funny or complex. It’s Sean Anders’s best movie.

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.

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.

With more superheroes, more action and more stuff blowing up than ever before, X-Men: The Last Stand has the climactic oomph that suggests a finale, though not the gravitas to suggest a resolution.

A beautifully shot, modest little fable about the misunderstandings between people.

The frantic pleasures of this film add up to what used to be considered good fun; good Saturday morning fun; good Saturday morning fun to eat pancakes and pour maple syrup by; good fun that, once the day begins, is good fun soon forgotten. It's a pity Flash Gordon can't be screened at the breakfast table. [6 Dec 1980, p.E7]

Just a guffaw here, a chuckle there, ho-hum, and that's all, folks. [27 Jan 1989]

A well-crafted, well-acted anomaly: a film good enough to raise its aim and our expectations but not to score a direct hit. So one leaves simultaneously pleased and disappointed, asking the right question - "What if?" - but for all the wrong reasons. [25 July 1981]

Oh, it's The Return, all right. To any masochist who's been pining for all those clichéd tropes associated with Russian cinema -- ponderous pacing and arcane symbolism shot through a lens darkly -- this will seem a welcome blast from the past.

It becomes clear that there’s just not enough meat on the bones of Craig’s film to justify all the dismemberment.

The music’s evolution and crisscrossing pollination is explained well – Mr. Tambourine Man inspired Rubber Soul which influenced Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Pepper’s – but why are we watching the randomly selected couch full of Cat Power, Regina Spektor and a catatonic Beck sift through old LPs?

In the slow coast down Notting Hill, we approach the blessed land of Nodding Off.

Like its predecessor, this is a basic bungalow of a flick, where low-maintenance superheroes take their ease and you can pay your (dis)respects painlessly enough. In short, okay to visit, wouldn't want to live there.

Mostly, Chandor, working with a screenplay co-authored by Zero Dark Thirty writer Mark Boal, engages in drive-by subversion, smoothly twisting his way through the obligatory genre steps until he arrives in the territory of a morally fraught neo-western: more The Treasure of the Sierra Madre than Sicario: Day of the Soldado.

Slick and slight.

Aesthetically, this isn't a great documentary, although, during the first half, there are great moments in it. But the latter part is scattered and frenzied, rather like an excited dog tearing off after too many rabbits at once -- a thematic hunt that's all chase and scant context.

Farrelly’s film is worth witnessing, especially given how it is now all but destined to dominate the awards conversation. But do yourself a favour: Each time your fellow moviegoers burst into applause, ask just who it is they’re clapping for.

Is it worth seeing? Yes. The ability to charm in the modern world is rare, and Ishtar does charm. Essentially, it's a teen film for adults, which is to say, it's mindless but not stupid good fun. And there are at least four times when the audience laughs out loud.

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]

Roughly-made but illuminating, the Iraq documentary In My Mother's Arms is a brief immersion into life in a Baghdad boys' orphanage.

First Snow is, above all else, one man's particular journey. Pearce is a valid and compelling guide but he can't carry the full load of the movie's excess baggage. For the movie to completely resonate it has to strike the spiritual-angst note through his performance. Pearce comes close but no ... well, you know.

So is the result just a case of life imitating pop art, or has the director shaped the footage to enhance the imitation?

What's wrong with The Color Purple - and nothing that's wrong with it keeps it from being a joy to watch - is what you'd expect of Spielberg: he chews on Alice Walker's hard edges until they're gummy. [21 Dec 1985]

Nothing in Common does not have flawless courage - Hanks is too pumped-up, his fun scenes too tidily choreographed - but it has a heart and a mind and decent intentions. For coming out of today's Hollywood with these intact, the film deserves a medal. [1 Aug 1996, p.D1]

Double Tap tries to emulate the exact feelings of its predecessor, but the stakes aren’t anywhere close to high enough to warrant any real touching moments.

Undercover Brother is very much a hero of our time. After all, the character began not in the 1970s, but three years ago as a cartoon on a Web site.

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

Next time, don’t ask indie directors who will work for cheap to tackle the King. I would’ve loved to see the Pet Sematary Lynne Ramsay would’ve made instead.

As other worlds reveal themselves, what started with a gripping premise slackens and goes limp.

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

It is riveting, deeply depressing stuff – and would be more engaging if co-directors David Darg and Price James had decided to explore the many similarities that movie-making and wrestling share, such as their devotion to putting on a highly fictional show.

It falls short of the original but surpasses its sequels.

Most of the cast (along with director Joe Mantello) have been recruited from the stage play, and they all do a fine job of trimming their performances for the screen.

So blatantly contrived it could be called The Fast and the Spurious, Crank has the small saving grace of being intentionally ridiculous. The action sequences are more notable for their outrageousness than their visceral power.

For all its treacly excesses of the post- "Full Monty" era, British comedy hasn't entirely lost its teeth yet.

The makers of Shattered Glass ignore this obvious give-and-take reality, and substitute the hoary myth that, save for the odd lying devil, the free press is a bastion of the gospel truth. Even here, then, the facts get shaped to fit the theme. Ironically, had they not, it would have made for a helluva better story.

The film is too long for the non-enthusiast. And we don’t learn much about the brothers’ personal lives – it’s as if they exist for the band and nothing else. But even if the music isn’t your thing, it’s hard not to admire the duo’s commitment to their creative impulses.

Despite the quick succession of sight gags director Hugh Wilson engineers in the film, Police Academy has it weak moments, particularly with Steve Guttenberg and Kim Cattrall in the leads. [23 Mar 1984]

If we don’t have it all figured out, the story is charismatic enough. It is told in a level-headed way which avoids the emotional high highs and low lows – which is, as one of the film’s gurus advises his followers, the way to do it.

Patel is not reinventing the wheel here, nor is he establishing a coherent visual language to build upon in future films, but Monkey Man is cleverly castigating and proud of its lineage – a digestible bit of mythmaking with knife work to boot.

Parents of young children should be warned: Here's a family-values film that won't be much fun for the whole family.

Time After Time is jolly good escapism. [01 Oct 1979]

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

There are too many moments in Ice Age when you find yourself thinking: less bonding and fewer anti-Darwinian life-lessons please; more of that anarchist Scrat.

He gets much of what he wants, but not all of it, and not all of the time - the film is just too eclectic on occasion, a bit jumpy in its tone and its pacing.

A slick and star-studded comedy trumpeting a glib libertarianism that talks a good game but is as woolly headed as the liberalism fixed in its sights.

At least Bell and Fisher make the most of their screen time, with each playing off each other like close friends simply thrilled for the opportunity to frolic in the film’s ridiculous fantasyland.

Edge of Seventeen is a gentle American coming-out and coming-of-age story set in 1984 in Sadusky, Ohio, and suffers slightly from a sugary after-school-special approach to its subject matter. [02 Jul 1999, p.C5]

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.

Never comes together as a persuasive whole. Instead of moral complexity, we get an overfamiliar pursuit tale and investigation story. Worse, the movie fails the first test of a thriller: It lacks any significant suspense.

Detective Pikachu is unrelentingly weird. Thankfully, unlike Mario Bros., it’s also breezily watchable, if slightly insubstantial beyond its strangeness.

The chance to say something new or revealing about school shooters is squandered, and all the urgent reality runs out.

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.

Fittingly, it’s finally a film about transience and continuity.

Despite some casting problems, director paints a convincing portrait of a frenzied world. [11 Dec 1987, p.D1]

A poet is not a pirate (except in his dreams), and, minus the gold in his teeth and kohl over his eyes and trinkets in his tresses, Depp is handicapped here -- for all his deft brushwork, he can only do so much with a flat character on a small canvas.

From my doddering perspective - rheumy with a view - Volume 3 puts plenty of cinema into the picture but leeches all the charm out of the tale.

Great pictures are seamless; in this one, you can not only see the seams but count the stitches.

Don't Move comes to seem as static as its title -- we just don't learn enough to compensate for feeling so little.

Surely the real story of Enron is that so many accountants, lawyers, bankers and politicians were willing to call a dog a duck in order to remain happy insiders in the world's biggest pyramid scheme.

Writing, casting and pacing are vital. Scary Movie 4 doesn't let any gag get stale. It's rapid-fire, hit-and-miss and hit-and-strike comedy.

Normally, such saccharine inspiration only manages to clog the heart, not warm it. But there's a true original in this den of clichés and her name is Keke Palmer.

It’s an intense and sharp opening that would impress Spielberg, if he could hear the dang thing. Nearly the entire movie is torpedoed by its cranked-to-11 sound mix, with a good chunk of dialogue drowned out by whirring airplanes and myriad explosions.

What becomes increasingly apparent is that Gordon-Levitt hasn’t exactly decided what Jon’s problem is, in a character that seems partly an expression of male wish fulfilment.

Underneath this clangy, pounding, speedy, thin, energetic confetti-shower of a movie is a collection of missed opportunities begging to be noticed.

Dick will probably lighten a general audience of some of the narrower cliches about the sordidness of a bought sexual transaction. [31 Oct 1986]

The film succeeds in showing how men with power can openly do essentially whatever they want as long as their company is successful, but it still left me wanting something more.