Intended as food for thought, but all we really get is a light snack -- the kind that's heavier in presentation than in substance.

Feels like a bloated mass of data without much coherence.

Truly strange, and often captivating.

Think of it as "Cheers" without the beer, or "Friends'" Central Perk with razors and sharper dialogue.

A movie of its kind and of its time -- functional, professional, slickly manufactured and slouching toward consciousness -- I, Robot is a perfect slave to mechanical convention.

Saddled with this hollow script, Stone pads with elaborate set pieces.

The director fumbles frequently, but at least he is confident enough in his uneven vision to push through all (warranted) doubts and deliver a story that is every bit awful as it is uncompromising.

Lacks the energy and vibrancy of the best films to come out of the city in the past few years.

There is also a parallel subplot following the fate of two Ukrainian girls caught in the sex-slave ring Kathy targets. This storyline isn't dramatically satisfying, but it does provide context and ensures the victims in this story are not portrayed simply as faces in the dark.

In a big, engrossing performance that is the film’s chief delight, the reliable Australian actress Toni Collette plays Milly.

More Than a Game is less than a movie.

Humanistic and anti-war, Memphis Belle is predictably uplifting, as is the wont of producer Puttnam, but not at the expense of good sense. These were fine kids, this exciting and intelligent film says, and it wasn't their fault society couldn't find anything better for them to do than kill or be killed. Memphis Belle is a dance of life tapped out on a tombstone. [12 Oct 1990]

Those Who Wish Me Dead is solid meat-and-potatoes fun – it knows its job, gets it done with minimal fuss and leaves its audiences full and satisfied.

This film’s charm – and it does have some – lies in the fun it has with Smith and Lawrence’s aging.

[A] soulful, fluently told, low-key comedy.

THE Lover is lyrical and sensuous, very pretty and strangely hollow. Deliberately hollow, I think - the flatness at the centre of this film is meant to correspond to the emptiness at the heart of its young protagonist. And the audience is supposed to fall into that void and hear its echo, feel the residual ache. Yet we don't - we're content to comprehend the theme without feeling it. Our emotions are spared, and, as a result, we watch the proceedings at a safe remove - appreciative yet detached, admiring yet unmoved. There's much to love about The Lover, but not enough to love passionately. [30 Oct 1992]

Exploiting a mere sliver of story from John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Ballerina concocts an especially dull origin story for an ancillary piece of Wickian lore.

The first 45 minutes of this film feel like far too much normal and not nearly enough para.

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to guess which gal became the wife, which gal should have become the wife and which gal is there just to play with our heads. It's exactly like that old shell game – mildly diverting, pea-sized and otherwise hollow.

Joker reveals itself as very expensive cosplay: effective at first glance, but at its seams superficial, disposable and dishonest.

The ensemble cast clicks, and the ribbon-tied ending is always in doubt.

Never as spectacular as it promises, often funnier than it intends, Clash of the Titans is a harmless diversion - neither bad enough to annoy nor good enough to admire. [15 June 1981]

This is a movie which makes its viewers feel ripped-off just for expending a snicker. Camp, satire, sci-fi all have their own rules, rigorous ones at that, but Night of the Comet violates even the codes of trash. Point of view shots point to the wrong views, the cutting is as blunt as stone and the way Eberhardt bleeds the sex appeal out of the sex is the film's only real vision of the end of the world. [16 Nov 1984]

A thoroughly pointless cash grab of a thing, this new Little Mermaid is one of the most uninspired films to slither out of Disney since the company started raiding its own vault.

Carmen is a wild and unrestrained attempt to empty its director’s entire brain onto the screen, and for that it deserves recognition. But the ultimate result slips too easily between heroic effort and hot mess.

I love this movie like a person. It pierced my heart the way certain paintings or pieces of music do. The way standing at the foot of a mountain does. The first time I saw it, I had to stay in my cinema seat for five minutes after it ended, to finish crying. The second time, I vowed to watch it more analytically, but ended up crying all over again.

Much like the heroes of this story, The Retreat manages to defy expectations. And while some gory clichés still abound, it makes for a gruesome, gritty thriller that lets its leads shine.

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