Eraser may lack the chameleon wizardry of the the "Terminator" duo, or the imperious mechanics of "True Lies", but the bang-for-the-buck ratio is high enough to appease even the thinnest wallet.

Like "Everest," Adrift is a movie throbbing with an audience’s anxiety – and yet it is not particularly dramatic.

As a motion picture, Fever Pitch is merely competent.

The bloody narrative has an oddly bloodless effect. But that's not surprising – not when a film is so eager to double as a lecture.

A film that is touching in a clumsy, boyish way that adults will understand and may even applaud.

To its credit, Heart and Souls aspires to being nothing more than a standard bauble of summer movie entertainment, funny a lot of the time, heart-warming some of the time, sad once or twice. And unless you see it in a sour mood, you will be entertained. [13 Aug 1993]

This much is inarguable: In the more than two flamboyant hours of Across the Universe, Julie Taymor doesn't cheat us for a single second.

Harsh Times opens with a deadly nightmare and ends with a vast bloodbath -- in between, things get a little gruesome.

Are any of his stunts funny? Yes, one scene is worthy of Borat and Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops.

In every way but one, A Knight's Tale is a bouncy pop song of a movie, the snappy/happy kind that puts a grin on your face and a tap to your toe, shifting the heart into high and the mind into neutral. [11 May 2001]

Human Nature's zigzag ingenuity wears out some time before the farce bounces slowly to an uneven conclusion. For all its highfalutin title and corkscrew narrative, the movie turns out to be not much more than a shaggy human tale.

The movie meanders on and on, like a bad sexual dream, until you finally wake up mumbling: Stella, please: leave that groove thang alone.

Waters's rude, lewd and occasionally nude extended skit takes a simple idea and beats it limp.

The Two Jakes itself is less tragic than petulant, mired in a self-pitying remembrance of things past. [10 Aug 1990]

FALLING Down is a nasty bit of business, a two-faced manipulator that condones what it pretends to condemn. Cluttered and often downright silly, it's not much of a movie, but it is a fascinating sign of the times - a litmus test for every prejudice and fear harboured by the white middle class in ailing, urban America. [26 Feb 1993, p.C6]

Dogs of War takes its title from Julius Caesar but its cue from Julia Child. Based on Frederick Forsyth's novel, the film is meant to be an intimate study of soldiers of fortune. But it ends only as a shallow, pseudo-elliptical lesson in how to whip up a frothy coup when time is pressing and the guests are about to arrive. [17 Feb 1981]

As returns go, Return To Paradise falls short of heavenly, but it does get to the stars -- at least three of them.

Posse wants to be a 'classic Western' but its definition of classic is consistently cliched. Yet it has such grace and such an abiding belief in its message that you can't help but smile approval. [14 May 1993]

Clearly, Costa-Gavras has lost none of his kinetic pacing or his cerebral way with thrills. Unfortunately, the script later gets corrupted itself by a sexual melodrama that lacks both sense and sultriness.

Where it falls short is that the film’s most compelling characters – Patel and Singh – are faintly unfinished and underexplored. It may well have worked better as pure documentary, and it will send many moviegoers on a mission to Google, where they will learn more about the real stars of the picture.

More rant than rollick, it's just ain't funny enough.

Jumping the Broom also benefits from a great soundtrack (Al Green, Aretha, El DeBarge, Curtis Mayfield).

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.

The fault in the film lies as much with Cretton’s script, which he co-wrote with Andrew Lanham, as it does with his direction.

Not nearly as smart as it should be.

It’s been not so much remade as restrained – tamed and dumbed-down and with any sharp political edges safely filed off.

In-jokes for horror-film fans abound (the dog is named Jason, the monster in the Friday the 13th series; a cafe is the Craven Inn - Wes Craven directed the first Nightmare on Elm Street), and it's possible that those fans will be satisfied with the expensive, surreal special effects unleashed by director Renny Harlin. Everyone else is apt to agree with the teen-ager who dismisses Freddy by saying, "We all got better things to dream about." [19 Aug 1988]

The dogs and the snow and the flag-waving and the choo-choos are all reduced to TV-sized portions. Just as well, I suppose - think of it as audio-visual aerobics, forced training for next month's big bout in our living-rooms. [14 Jan 1994]