There's an easy familiarity and charm in the creased, middle-aged faces of Nimoy, Shatner and DeForest Kelly (the perpetually irascible Dr. McCoy), all of whom now play their parts with an ever-present twinkle. Their behavior rarely has anything to do with the motives provided by the plot; rather, they wear their characters like old habits, as they boldly go where they've always gone before. [26 Nov. 1986, p.C5]

It is a film that skips the huge dance numbers but not the dewy closeups; a film that can countenance premarital sex and doesn’t end in a wedding, but dissolves into melodrama nonetheless.

A movie about a robot policeman given a childlike conscience, Chappie is one of those incongruous Franken-films that’s simultaneously bombastically brutal and treacly. Like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial crossed with Transformers, or RoboCop starring Jar Jar Binks, it’s a recipe guaranteed to produce aesthetic indigestion.

Hatchet is further evidence of the decline of Western civilization.

As the film progresses and positions itself closer and closer to visualizing what Adrian might look like, it also becomes more cartoonish. Adrian comes to be rendered almost as if he were a comic-book villain, which severely undermines the weight of the story.

At two hours and 34 minutes, CC2C is too much by a half: too much dancing and fighting and too much footage of the Great Wall of China. It does, however, have a vulgar energy and many of the jokes work.

While Mindhunters aspires to be a psychological thriller, it's really just mindless entertainment.

Richard Curtis, the writer of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Love, Actually," goes off-shore and out of his depth with Pirate Radio .

Although director John Berry equips him with a bottle at every opportunity in an effort to recreate the bumbling but lovable charm of Matthau's performance, Curtis is never a sympathetic character. Curtis is by nature far too slick and suave a character ever to be a lovable curmudgeon. [04 July 1978]

The problem is not so much Satrapi’s theatrical approach to the subject, which veers wildly from the overwrought to the dramatically compelling, as it is Jack Thorne’s abysmal script, full of clunky exposition about isolating elements, curing cancer and refusing sexism.

The movie has a sharper and more acerbic screenplay than you normally find in bargain-basement, D-list teen comedies.

By the film’s end, one can’t help thinking that the story would be better served by a well-researched documentary on the real-life MFAA division (monuments, fine arts and archives.)

Departures is, well … a nice film. It breaks no new ground, offers no audacious insights or rude revelations.

But just as Anzac troops had quite a go of it in Gallipoli, Crowe (who also stars as the doggedly bereaved father and exceptional well-digger here) is in tough with critic-historians aghast at The Water Diviner’s pro-Turkish slant.

Three years in the making, seems fussed over and, occasionally, a little dull.

If the plot thins, the performances don't. Brad Pitt's lank-haired loony, Juliette Lewis's crippled innocent, David Duchovny's well-meaning hypocrite, Michelle Forbes' black-clad shutterbug - each is a deeply etched portrait that fulfills its early promise. [24 Sep 1993]

Haven't they created a movie that is ultimately a soulless clone of a vibrant original and, thus, a splendidly dull example of the very forces it warns us against – the forces of grey and passion-sapping conformity.

It's her first action flick, and Meryl Streep ends up with a watered-down script: the metaphoric journey is without resonance and the actual journey is without thrills. The River Wild is awfully tame. [30 Sep 1994]

Just enough laughs to make up for predictable plot. [1 Oct 1991]

The relationship between reporter and subject is always a tricky one, but in Resurrecting the Champ it's downright delusional.

The new heist movie Takers is surprisingly okay.

Distinctly middling, London-set romance.

Despite the 3-D gadgetry, there's a musty odour to the script.

The Legend of Billie Jean is a ridiculous caper that borrows a snippet of the sublime only to make itself more ridiculous. [20 July 1985]

In the recent "Half Nelson," a similarly themed classroom pic, liberalism struggled to balance its lingering hopes with its systemic despair. That film was pure fiction, yet felt absolutely true. This one is apparent fact, yet seems abjectly false.

An excessively brutal adventure comic book is exactly what it has set out to be - a medieval Heavy Metal. [14 May 1982]

When Queen of the Damned knows it's ridiculous, it's moderately entertaining fun; when it tries to be serious, it's truly ridiculous.

This time the script makes scant metaphoric use of the mall. In fact, metaphors are generally in short supply here. Scares too.

Is there any doubt Evans' Captain America will do exactly what the character created 70 years ago by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did in the comics – kick Nazi butt? The real surprise will come next year, when we get to see how the super-square Captain adapts to 21st-century life.

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

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

While Atkinson’s intentions are good, his methods are shaky, resulting in a surface-skimming film that raises issues without ever approaching a solution. What’s worse is his shaky narrative framing and rookie pacing, all of which undermine what is a deadly serious issue deserving of a polished and powerful dissection.

The one surprise, in a product purposely designed not to surprise, is the performance of Connie Stevens as Yvette Mason, the good-looking but aging and overweeningly vain "fun" teacher every high school student has run across ("I love your hair, Miss Mason," cracks one of the coeds, "all 300 pounds of it"). Somehow, Miss Stevens pulls a character out of cotton candy. [11 June 1982]

The Invisible isn't the formulaic horror film that the studio is selling it as but surely it wasn't supposed to be an accidental comedy either.

But there's still Murray, who drives the idea further than it has any right to go. He energizes the loony schtick of the opening scenes. [17 May 1991]

Occasionally engaging but very chaotic movie.

What you're smelling is Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" without the pathos and the punch, or John Updike's "Rabbit Redux" minus the insight and the style.

Luckily for the viewer, Ferrell is an irresistible presence. His occasional moments of unwarranted weirdness are the only thing that makes this otherwise pedestrian movie bearable (let alone interesting) to watch.

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]

There's probably a good film to be made about the judgmental world of figure skating, but The Cutting Edge isn't it. Nor does it try to be. Instead, it's the sort of movie that aims low - somewhere in the region of competent pulp - and pretty much hits the mark. [31 March 1992]

A low-budget American horror film that's already established itself as a fan favourite, Malevolence flaunts all the trappings of an old-school slasher flick.

Formula sequel right down to its zany subtitle -- Armed and Fabulous. Bullock deserves better. We deserve better. Rev up that '57 Chevy.

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

Perry's methods are never subtle, but no contemporary filmmaker works harder to make sure ribs are tickled and tears are jerked.

Had Crossing Over chosen to tell one of them well, rather than seven badly, it would have made for a fine movie. Instead, all we get is a mess of good liberal intentions loosely anchored to a mass of pure Hollywood hokum.

Farrell looks so stymied we feel for the guy -- and when the door closes on A Home at the End of the World, that's the only feeling in town.

Really, Young Victoria is just a lot of costumes in fond search of some drama. And finding precious little.

Hoffman’s role is an important one, but not a big one. He’s not called upon to bring a lot to the table, and, as a pro, doesn’t muscle up his part.

For this Disney remake of a saccharine 1951 baseball comedy, the targeted age group has been lowered to around nine. That means plenty of mustard-squirting slapstick and not very much of the beauty and drama of the actual game [15 July 1994]

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

Unfortunately, this reverent and old-fashioned biopic is a prime example of the kind of inspirational movie that is, itself, uninspired.

Grown-ups will find it painful to watch a clearly embarrassed Arnett go through the motions, muttering his lines as he internally wonders why he never became the next Kevin Costner.

If you can ignore an ending ripped straight from the AA playbook, there’s minor fun to be had along the way.

The terror sequences (not only animals but monsoons and earthquakes and quicksand) are scary until they get monotonous: after a while, you have a sense you're watching a clip reel from every Hollywood disaster flick ever made.

Pakula's screenplay looks to bulldoze a clear path through the narrative thickets, but this stuff is impenetrable - meant to be complicated, it's just confusing.

Part police procedural, part supernatural thriller, part lesson in metaphysics and all neo-noir, Carol Morley’s Out of Blue never gels into a convincing whole.

In fashioning a creation myth for Peter Pan, director Joe Wright and writer Jason Fuchs have produced such a thin story that they reduce, rather than amplify, J.M. Barrie’s famous characters.

The follow-up to Three Men and a Baby offers more of the same. Mixed in among the cliches and stereotypes, there's a genial chuckle or two to be found Laughs that are strictly low-cal. [24 Nov 1990]

The Rock is just typical big American dumb fun.

This is the stage experience documented on film, from the perspective of someone sitting front row centre watching actors pitching for the back rows of the balcony.

As directed by Robert Zemeckis from a script he co-wrote with Christopher Browne, the film limps through its first two acts, putting in time until the big moment.

An absurdist comedy such as The End, with the tone teetering from slapstick to sorrow, is quite another matter, requiring a sophistication Reynolds simply doesn't have. [27 May 1978]

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.

From time to time, as Alexandre Desplat's insistent score surged yet again while the characters rushed by, I found myself wanting the movie to slow down. Some of these images are too beautiful to disappear so quickly.

Isn't really a dull film so much as an oddly quaint one that seems to find a comfortable perspective about drastic circumstances.

The characters don't stay still long enough for the audience to worry about them. The high-priced actors (Freeman is especially wasted) are so much flotsam in the big water-tank action scenes.

The greatest story ever has finally been told. Or, if you prefer, the damn thing has come to its merciful end.

Unlike the first movie, where aspects of the video game were more seamlessly integrated into the plot, Sonic 2 relies more on generic themes such as friendship and loyalty, as well as what makes a hero.

The principle suspense is wondering when the suspense is going to start, as you scan the darkly-lit screen looking for any hint of imminent horror.

Contains fascinating footage – material from the 1980s that looks to be the work of angry, ancient Norse warriors. There is, however, almost no perspective here. Perhaps the filmmakers succumbed to a condition associated with a city east of Oslo – the Stockholm Syndrome.

There’s one big problem: Anne doesn’t drive her own journey. She spends scene after scene passively letting Jacques tell her what to do, eat and think. And there’s no detouring around that.

All that starring talent isn’t exactly wasted here; it’s just diluted, watered down enough to demote “really funny” to sort of funny, now and then, here and there, some of the time. Hey, it’s the movie biz.

This Altman-esque drama about the rise and fast fall of the 1988 presidential hopeful has a lot on its mind – morality in public office, the state of journalism, the often paradoxical nature of running a campaign based on lies – but spends too little energy dissecting those thoughts.

White Palace starts out raw and realistic, fraught with danger, but soon metamorphoses into a soft and sugary romance. A gulp of vinegar and a Kool-Aid chaser. [19 Oct 1990]

Perhaps I’ve seen one too many movies in which men who need to grow up have to wreak havoc on other people’s lives to do it. And this is that one too many.

Piranha 3DD is overcrowded and pointlessly mean. The stunt casting of David Hasselhoff playing himself, riffing off his infamous 2007 drunken home video, gets in the way of the storyline.

The script (by Robert Reneau) is snappier than the movie deserves, and supplies a dose of wise-guy humor to director Craig R. Baxley's idiot version of James Bond Gets Down in Motown. [15 Feb 1988]

It's the same package with new wrapping.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and others float around one another for an intense but spark-free 103 minutes, their characters barely sketched.

Though inspired by a real incident, the movie is an opportunistic political allegory about an economy that's out of control and industries that are weakened by layoffs, under-staffing and corporate callousness.

Think of Sleepover as a girl gang movie with training wheels.

Certainly not a stinker. Yet despite its squeaky-clean appearance, this family flick has a pervasive and decidedly stale aroma.

Despite rare glimmers of triumph – even hope – and classic underdog moments of jubilation (it does, occasionally, adopt the tone of a great sports film), I, Tonya is exhausting to watch.

Directed by Brian Percival, best known for his work on "Downton Abbey," the film has the similar quality of a well-appointed historical soap opera.

Jake Speed is slower than a dying bullet, its tongue so firmly in its cheek that it can't enunciate a single sentence pleasingly. [30 May 1986, p.C5]

Unforgettable presents a surprisingly conservative view of mental illness, one that would feel more at home in the pearl-clutching milieu of Leave it to Beaver rather than modern day SoCal.

The drama is memorable but often feels grimly unpleasant rather than moving. And, as always, it’s frustrating to see Montreal cast as some anonymous and unilingual North American city.

Judged by the usual aesthetic standards – Project X sucks. It's just another lame movie. Yet apply a different standard, the mores of our time, and you get a different verdict: Suddenly, it's a perfectly lame movie that speaks intriguingly to the way we live now.

Lovely Molly is determined to remain ambiguous, but the title says it all. Good-Lookin' Joanie just wouldn't have the same ominous ring to it.

The movie stands or falls with Newman, and it does neither: it coasts. His acting in the second half is safe and self-assured, while his acting in the first - watch for his announcement of his erupting integrity - is not only shy of good, it's downright bad. It would be ironic but predictable if he were to win an Oscar for his weakest performance in years. [17 Dec 1982]

Begins audaciously but goes to extremes to assert conventional wisdom about grownup life, that what is called "normal" is about just holding on.

A movie that tries to do to real estate what Fatal Attraction did to adultery. It fails - the script isn't half as convincing or the suspense nearly as taut, but the aim is the same. [28 Sept 1990]

The movie is a competent formula kid flick stuffed to the dimples with movie deja vu, a sop to those Hollywood-bashing politicians who want old-fashioned family values on their celluloid. [17 Nov 1995]

There are melancholic bits later in the film that work – and reward anyone who sticks by the whimsical “time flies” structure.

It's kind of fun but the twists and turns are all too familiar.

Young male earthlings should like everything about Race to Witch Mountain. Just make sure you race your caffeinated charges to the washrooms right after the movie to defuel so there won't be any accidents on the space shuttle home.

So it's puffed up with lots of extraneous stuff – Super fun for the kids but for grown-ups? Just fluff.

The narrative, cobbled together from various Pooh stories by an army of writers, is held together reasonably well by John Cleese's soothing narration.