After the almost incredible lack of depth of the first half-hour, the film begins to acquire a fascination because of its total superficiality--it becomes something resembling Minimal art.

Still, there is a time to stop quibbling, and to laud the fact that this movie was made at all. [24 June 2013, p.85]

The brilliance of Fin is that he reins in a lifetime of rage, and there is a determination in his eye, and in the line of his chin, that practiced moviegoers will, possibly to their surprise, identify as halfway to sexy--the world-weary smolder of the leading man. [6 October 2003, p. 138]

One of John Ford's most popular films--but fearfully Irish and green and hearty.

Certainly holds one's attention, but it's a strange and grim experience, ice-cold and borderline pointless. [28 October 2002, p. 119]

B-budget science-fiction and simple stuff, but with more consistency and logic than usual, and with some rather amusing trick photography.

Craig has the courage to present a hollow man, flooding the empty rooms where his better nature should be with brutality and threat. His smile is more frightening than his straight face, and he doesn’t bother with the throwaway quips that were meant to endear us to the other Bonds.

The filmmakers register their point, but I don’t think it’s entirely parochial to note that, two decades from now, the American and Japanese children will probably have many choices open to them (including living close to the land), while the Mongolian and Namibian children are more likely to be restricted in their choices to the soil that nurtured them.

The main problem with War for the Planet of the Apes is that, although it rouses and overwhelms, it ain’t much fun.

British director Michael Winterbottom has made his best and most driven picture to date. [22 September 2003, p. 202]

Jacques Audiard’s film, which lasts two and a half hours, maintains an unflagging urgency, stalling only when the double-dealing grows too dense.

The sense of period, of ungainly English pride, is funny and acute, but the movie mislays its sense of wit as the girls grow up.

Vincente Minnelli directed two of the best movies ever made on the subject of Hollywood filmmaking—“The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Two Weeks in Another Town.” But he made a third, “Goodbye Charlie,” from 1964...which is, in a way, the most daring and original of them all.

Spielberg’s panache and command are evident in every nook of this handsome film. Yet somehow it feels dutiful, and the duty weighs it down (more so, unexpectedly, than was the case with Lincoln, from 2012, which Kushner also wrote). Homage to one classic is paid in the strenuous bid to become another.

The picture seems to crumble... because the writer and director don't distinguish Loew's fantasies from his actual life... But with Cage in the role we certainly see the delusions at work. This daring kid starts over the top and just keeps going. He's airily amazing. [12 June 1989]

The weirdness of Truth — and, I fear, its involuntary comic value — arises from a disparity between the sparse and finicky minutiae of the narrative and the somewhat bouffant style of the presentation.

There are few thrills in this romantic comedy-thriller--it's no more than a pleasant minor diversion, but it does have a zingy air of sophistication.

After the Hunt will be derided as little more than an intellectual parlor trick, a flimsy house of cards. I wouldn’t disagree, but few directors build more luxurious houses than Guadagnino does, whatever the materials.

Despite clichéd depictions of Nazi atrocities, the movie persuasively evokes, with its wealth of details, the slender threads on which historical events—and historical truth—depend.

The result, though corny at times, treads close to madness and majesty alike, and nobody but Gibson could have made it.

In the person of Alec Guinness, Fagin the Viper, the corrupter of youth, has a sly, depraved charm.

Stewart chose the great Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo to play Bahari’s mother, but, with her tragic face and her magnificent contralto voice, she plays a tiny role as if she were in an amphitheatre.

Few movies this year will be more likely to molest your sleep.

The result is an unorthodox blend of courtroom drama and old-style weepie, and somehow it comes off. [23 Dec 1993]

Beauty and the Beast is delectably done; when it’s over, though, and when the spell is snapped, it melts away, like cotton candy on the tongue.

She's infuriating, but the movie, for all its morose impassivity, is beautiful and haunting.

Strange and off-putting, and hard-nosed types in the film business will no doubt dismiss it as a nothing. But, even if Bubble hasn't brought down the Bastille, the movie is far from nothing.

The movie feels not only like a trial but like a trial in absentia. [7 Oct 2002, p. 108]