This is a picture with a perfect sense of proportion: There's a mini-Hanks, a mini-Spacek and a mini-Kasdan in a mini-comedy that's minimally entertaining.

When Farva sees O'Hagan in civilian wear -- a denim jacket and blue jeans -- he asks his boss, "Where'd you get the Canadian tuxedo?" Such moments may not be as exciting as the sight of Homer Simpson at the CN Tower, but they'll do.

By throwing herself headfirst into scenes that a more cautious actress might beg off, Green earns herself a citation for valour – a Purple Heart in a movie that’s otherwise way too grim and grey for its own good.

Pearce pumps a surprising amount of levity into his one-liners – sure, it's still hot air, but at least the banter comes fully inflated.

John Carpenter, unable to decide what kind of movie he wants, alternates between his thriller-hardware mode (Escape from New York) and his touchy-feelie mode (Starman). The result is that adults may fall asleep in their seats during the dreary chase sequences, while children are going to holler "Ick!" and escape to the candy counters during the mushy stuff. [28 Feb 1992]

Varying the pace, altering the tone, Ruben definitely keeps us off balance. Not as good as it could be, a far sight better than it might have been, this is a movie that puts the lie to the computer's stern dictum: garbage in, passable entertainment out. [08 Feb 1991]

Ultimately, Just Cause is just middling. And that's a shame because, for two blistering acts, it promises to be a suspense thriller worthy of the name. [17 Feb 1995]

Operation Dumbo Drop is at times lost on four-year-olds, but it serves up what Disney summer flicks should - adrenalin and sugar. [28 Jul 1995]

Unlike Sacha Baron Cohen's rude semi-documentary satires (Borat, Bruno), I'm Still Here never finds a satiric justification for all this grotesque behaviour.

Whatever the locomotive power of the novel, this film adaptation only limps into the station.

This thing's got more plot than an Alliance convention. Unfortunately (to extend the comparison), not a whole lot of it makes a lick of common sense.

A contrived little comedy, Dummy definitely lives down to its name -- you can see the lips moving on this wooden thing.

Pretty limp, and works far better in theory than practice.

Though complete redemption of Brown's fiction may not be possible, Howard's new film at least represents an upgrade from a mortal to a venal movie sin.

Though Sandler's resemblance to a pro athlete is indiscernible, his mockery of authority and his penchant for buffoonery and slapstick violence make him more of an heir to Reynolds than might be expected.

The effort is admirable, the movie not so much, and yet, contrary to most pictures, it does improve towards the end. At least a little.

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

A solid, well-acted, and slightly predictable drama of morals whose novelty evaporates once you realize that the general beats of the story itself have been presented before, to far more haunting effect.

Stately, handsome and ferociously romantic, the new biopic of British high-fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, though there is some excellent tea drinking to be had.

Semi-wonderful at best.

Until the movie stumbles under the weight of its noble intentions and its tediously formulaic story, it delivers a few lively, well-shot dance sequences and some winning moments.

A first film from director Mark Palansky, written by sitcom veteran Leslie Caveny (Everybody Loves Raymond, Mad About You), and the two are obviously indebted to the fanciful imagination of Tim Burton.

The result is a picture curiously yet intriguingly at odds with itself: One moment is edgy, the next is not; the cast is terrific, the direction is not; here it’s satirically sharp, there it’s sloppily sentimental; now we’re happily engaged, then we’re cruelly dumped. Some films are electric – Admission settles for alternating current.

Given the predictable scenario, this picture needs passion, and all it gets is his workmanlike precision. What he's constructed is worthy enough, and certainly navigable, but you need more than the bricks of craft to build a road to paradise.

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

Coloured wall-to-fake-wall with cheap-looking CGI, the film looks like it was shot from inside the guts of a first-generation iPhone – there is an aesthetic emptiness to it all that is soul-crushing.

This latest entry in the White House genre is polished, but formulaic suspense.

Doomed to be cool, but not very deep. Some of this movie is grossly amusing while some of it is just plain gross. [24 Nov 1995]

Jolt is a perplexing mix-up of genre and intentions. From one scene to the next, I had no real understanding of where the film might go next – but instead of anticipating the unpredictable, I came to quickly dread the arbitrariness.

If you’re after an action-packed adventure film set against turn-of-the-century Canadian wilderness, you’ll likely come away disappointed. If you’re looking for a good ol’ yarn – the kind where bad guys sneer, good guys sigh and a big dog rescues everyone and finds its true self in the process? Jackpot!

Luckily, Pugh is captivating as Alice, enriching this otherwise rote thriller with as much turmoil and betrayal as she can. Styles does his best to keep pace but it’s hardly a fair ask.

Whatever glimmers of cleverness Martian Child offers, it all comes to Earth with a thud in the shamelessly manipulative climax.

I Feel Pretty paints the most garish and unflattering portrait of contemporary female culture.

In a film where two leads are alone on screen for almost the full running time, that is the true catastrophe. When at last Alex and Ben lock eyes, we should not be looking around them to see what the dog is up to.

The picture's broad outline may be fact, but everything inside gets painted in a deep shade of bogus.

A fantastic holiday toy that, amazingly enough, doesn't require batteries.

This mix of titillation and sentimentality can pass as family entertainment because 17 Again is so weightless, a succession of one-liners, sincere monologues and logical absurdities.

The weak plot means that the picture is governed totally by its gadgetry, the equivalent of those James Bond sequels that limp awkwardly from one showoff sequence to the next. [10 May 1991]

This one's just painful.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer should be a mess, but it's not. It's a mini-comic triumph, and although it's technically a teen movie, it's in the tiny genre of sophisticated, darkly funny teen films such as Heathers and Pump Up the Volume. [4 Aug 1992, p.C1]

May be well-trod territory, but worth a walk down the movie aisle.

The film is a technical wonder, especially the sound design. There's also an excellent incongruity at work: Happy faces drawn in blood, viscous killers in playful masks and cheesy eighties music as the soundtrack to savagery.

Stylistically, the sleek Slamdance, a beautiful yet ominous black lacquer box of a movie, is a U.S. approximation of Diva - every chic frame is aggressive and eye-catching. But it is also what Less Than Zero wanted to be, an expose of the emotional desert at the west end of the U.S. nation. [28 Dec 1987]

Throughout all this, Cage's lazy, dull performance – who knew there were so many ways to express smugness? – is enlivened only by poorly timed bursts of exuberance.

Mary Magdalene is ultimately an unnecessary cinematic resurrection.

When Dougherty is able to keep these intelligent-ish impulses at bay, King of the Monsters is stupendous stupidity.

In Hollywood, and perhaps beyond, there's nothing more predictable than a rebel with a cause. XXX pretends otherwise, but isn't really fooling anyone -- ultimately, this is a movie as generic as its title.

Though Shark Tale will make waves at the multiplexes and move a lot of plastic toys at Burger King, the movie lacks real heart. It feels like a cold-blooded, always moving, profit-making machine.

After seven trips made over four years, the production was about to wrap when the crew, aboard an icebreaker, encountered a polar bear mom and twin cubs that decided to hang around for a week – offering a rare opportunity to film the daily life of these notoriously camera-shy creatures.

This isn’t to say Scott doesn’t occassionally rely on classic scary-movie thrills – but, mostly, it concentrates on developing its intriguing narrative and believable characters.

Music, naturally, is a big part of this movie -- Disney has a soundtrack to sell -- with both Cyruses, Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts performing.

Both Speedman and Tyler deliver solid, nuanced performances as a couple caught at the most fragile moment in their relationship.

All dull thunder without a spark of illumination.

Simien is no doubt a talented storyteller – his work on Dear White People, both the film and Netflix series, is evidence enough. But his vision here is clouded by corporate obligations and a woefully weak script by Katie Dippold, who herself is much funnier in every one of her other projects.

Parents seeking comfort in death to stay close to a lost child, as in Don’t Look Now, or being emotionally exhausted providing care in impossible circumstances, as in The Exorcist, feel like items being checked off in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, not genuinely felt or grappled with.

None of this is funny enough to justify stealing 90 minutes of your viewing time.

If you have an appetite for well-made treacle, then Bella should go down a treat.

Writer Andy Breckman and director Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinnie ) don't even try to recapture or eclipse the past. Instead, they offer the movie a comfortable plug-in-and-play system for their well-known comic stars to be all that they can be. [29 Mar 1996]

The humour in Accepted is maddeningly safe.

Here is a truly unfunny comedy from Universal Studios, which seems determined to prove that Hollywood can be opportunistic and clueless at the same time.

Yes, the Empire may be crumbling, and the natives getting restless, but it's all happening with such lyrical loveliness - even the corpses look good. Consequently, when the rains in Before the Rains finally arrive, there's nothing to cleanse, no real dirt to wash away - not with history already so neatly packaged and polished to a dull shine.

Chaplin is a mediocre movie that you can't take your eyes off. Your wandering mind is telling you one thing: This is a standard check-list biography, the kind of glossy whitewash that treats a man's accomplishments like so many vegetables from the produce aisle - toss 'em in, tick 'em off, and move on. But those riveted eyes are saying something else entirely - they're watching Robert Downey, Jr. with rapt attention, marvelling at his every move, pondering his every gesture.

More ambitious, but also much harder to swallow than the average Hollywood hack effort, In the Cut is a muddle of thriller and art-house phantasmagoria.

The movie was partially shot in beautiful British Columbia. And Carrey brings a madcap mashup of his previous avatars to this turn as Dr. Robotnik.

It is all extraordinarily interminable, even if Yates and company had the good sense to swap out Johnny Depp for Mikkelsen this time around.

AT the end of the preview screening of Regarding Henry earlier this week, I sat with one tear welling in the corner of my left eye and a nagging feeling of annoyance at having been so shamelessly manipulated. [10 July 1991]

Fans of both Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should not be too bummed with the mild sedative that is A Good Year.

How many Oscar winners does it take to save the world? Red 2 gathers together a collection of lauded thespians – from A(nthony Hopkins) to (Catherine) Z(eta-Jones) – and leaves them to float on a sea of action-flick clichés.

Using Dass’s theory that one is only free once they become nobody, the film will undoubtedly resonate with anyone who exists on the same spiritual plane or hopes to transcend to it.

What's amazing is how far McConaughey carries this nonsense despite his total lack of chemistry with Parker and almost Zen-like indifference to his circumstances.

If Pee-Wee wasn't the most engaging physical comedian since Dick Van Dyke, it would be disastrous. As it is, the opening works well enough to have viewers completely hooked by the time he sets out on the road, like Huck Finn, with his clothes wrapped up in a handerchief on a stick. [10 Aug 1985, p.E9]

The mainstream prominence of pornography gets a shove forward with the teen comedy, The Girl Next Door, an improbably-not-terrible teen sex comedy.

At its best the movie is still innocent enough to slide past your guard, and inventive and lively enough to make the average Hollywood comedy seem to be on heavy tranquilizers.

The SFX set pieces are pretty lame, mostly involving a lot of weary running around and tense, ticking-clock urgency. What elevates Secret of the Tomb is the classicism of its humour.

Radwanski creates a visceral, impossible-to-ignore document of one man’s fraught reality. It is creative, bold and even dangerous filmmaking.

Pretty routine, pretty forgettable. Don't know how else to say this, so best to be frank: I'm just not that into He's Just Not That Into You.

Mostly feels as hackneyed as the first film felt fresh. It's a loud, puffed-up exercise in computer-generated heroics and battles that follows a pattern.

With its wry tone and mild emotional disturbances, In the Land of Women is less a chick flick than a chick flicker.

At the heart of the problem with this period piece is an absence of a riveting scene or a memorable slice of dialogue.

Bloody fun is here to be had.

One good thing B-grade trucker movies have is a quality we can call non-intellectual honesty. As a rule, they have no pretentions to do anything other than amuse the viewer. Peckinpah tries to do more and fails. [03 July 1978]

Non-existent direction, inane plot, inflated acting. [30 Sep 1987]

Bad Teacher should be a hoot. But it isn't. Love the theory here, hate the practice.

Lions for Lambs appears to have taken its inspiration from Al Gore's stolid "An Inconvenient Truth," using the stage lecture and Power Point presentation in lieu of dramatic momentum.

No clichés are avoided in the pleasant, if relentlessly adorable ensemble comedy Dog Days.

Both more and less of the same -- more of that hot-pink couture, a whole lot more of that diminutive doggie, less reason to laugh even if you're a tank-topped 16-year-old.

I like firemen just as much as the next red-blooded gal (they're big, strong, real-life heroes, what's not to like?) but something about Ladder 49, for all its slow-motion shots of burly guys in T-shirts sliding down poles and running into burning buildings with gushing hoses, made me seriously want to gag.

The countdown begins with the first negative integer — an amped-up score that overpowers the proceedings like a bad band at a high-school dance.

Falling in the pillowy cleavage between mildly awful and slightly entertaining, Burlesque is a clichéd rags-to-diva story that culminates in a series of Christina Aguilera videos.

The problem is that somewhere around the middle of the film, one begins to realize it probably isn’t going any place worthwhile.

Relentlessly twee as all this is, Wasikowska's warmth and Hopper's off-beat timing (he's the son of the late Dennis Hopper) are appealing to watch.

But hey, at least Zwick and company carve out some time for Tom Cruise to run, with Reacher dashing across a busy avenue for about 18 seconds or so. It’ll make for a great supercut one day.

The creators of Flyboys know no image too clichéd, no narrative convention too exhausted and no psychological motivation too pat that it can't do service.

Monster Hunter is all sorts of super-dumb fun. And though its middle section lags – there are only so many training montages audiences can handle – Anderson and his wife Jovovich prove that their long-running Resident Evil franchise was no fluke: this is a couple who know how to take the flimsiest of video games and turn them into self-knowing slices of cinematic ridiculousness.

An entertaining takeoff and a high-altitude ride eventually runs into some bumpy weather and a clumsy landing in Mike Newell's new comedy.

As in so many essentially childish movies, it's an actual child who's always the smartest pants in the room.

Maybe this stuff works on the page, in Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic novel, but Choke is awfully tough to digest on the screen.

While Williams isn’t quite as adept as Cody’s other all-star collaborators, her debut film is funny, cinematic and memorable.