The French creators of the dance numbers take their work very seriously; they speak of it in terms that would have shamed George Balanchine. That they are sincere in their ideas, however, doesn't mean that they aren't provincial in their own way and long out of date; nor does it mean, to our astonishment, that their show isn't repetitive, solemn, and slightly boring.

Here, in short, is a self-regarding drama of self-loathing: hardly the most appetizing prospect. If it proves nonetheless to be stirringly watchable, we have Brendan Fraser to thank.

The movie is disjointed and, at times, unintentionally funny, but its ineptitude is so good-natured that it makes a charming alternative to the mind-numbing professionalism of American action movies. [23 Feb 1996]

At best, I Love You Phillip Morris may be hailed as a necessary step in Hollywood's fearful crawl toward sexual evenhandedness; the film upholds the constitutional right of every gay man to be as much of a liar, a crook, and a creep as the rest of us. Makes you proud.

There was always a dreaminess in his vision of the city, but now it feels as distant as the polished floors and the Deco furnishings of the Fred Astaire movies that Boris finds--of course--whenever he turns on the TV.

To be honest, del Toro has thrown too much into the mix. For no compelling reason, for instance, and to unresounding effect, the movie also happens to be a musical.

The allure of San Andreas rests entirely on the calibre of its pandemonium, savored, ideally, with a brawling audience on a Friday night. Indeed, it is the kind of movie that makes me want to campaign for the serving of alcohol in leading cinema chains — mandatory beer, I propose, with shots of Jim Beam to toast the dialogue.

Why, then, does the pulse of the narrative falter in the second half? Mainly because Van Sant has covered so much ground in the first, and there isn’t a great deal left to recount.

Is it any surprise that this disturbing brand of cinema was triggered by 9/11, a catastrophe that, despite the valor it called forth, and the wars that ensued, lies beyond redemption and revenge? Or that Hotel Mumbai, a well-staged model of the form, should leave you feeling fidgety and low? You can admire a film, reel at the horrors it unfolds, and still wind up asking yourself, helplessly, what it was all for.

This one is really only for Trekkies; others are likely to find it tolerable but yawny.

Huggins is brash and brisk, of course, with Moretti cleaving to an old-fashioned myth of the American interloper. But Turturro is slightly too broad for the occasion, relishing the outbursts of the spoiled star.

Directed by Bob Clark, this handsome Anglo-Canadian production features fine Whistler-like dockside scenes and many beautiful, ghoulish gothic-movie touches, but the modern political attitudes expressed by the writer, John Hopkins, misshape the picture.

Oppenheimer sacrifices much of its dramatic force to the importance of its subject, and to Nolan’s pride at having tackled it—which is to say, to his own self-importance.

So compelling are Nighy and Burke that I will watch them in anything, yet their spree, drenched in rich and hazy colors, doesn’t quite ring true.

The ambition is laudable, but Tim Miller’s movie, far from seeming reckless and loose-limbed, comes across as pathologically calculated, measuring out its nastiness to the last drop.

A Quiet Place Part II is filled with striking, clever details; it displays no sense whatsoever of the big picture. That failure is the difference between directing and just making a movie.

Hardy gave his heroine a symphonic range, and all an actress can do is pick out certain tones and strains — the fluted whimsy by which Bathsheba is occasionally stirred, or the brassiness of her anger. Julie Christie was the more accomplished flirt, and her beauty was composed of fire and air, whereas Mulligan relies more darkly on earth and water.

There are treasures in Knight of Cups. It’s worth seeing just for the underwater shots of dogs as they plunge, mouths laughingly agape, into a pool to grab a tennis ball.

The film loses its imaginative energy once it moves out of the ripe, sleazy carny milieu, and from the start the technique of the director, Edmund Goulding, is conventional, even a little stodgy. Still, the material, adapted from William Gresham's novel by Jules Furthman, is unusual and the cast first-rate.

Meryl Streep gives an immaculate, technically accomplished performance as Sarah Woodruff, the romantic mystery woman of John Fowles' novel, but she isn't mysterious. We're not fascinated by Sarah; she's so distanced from us that all we can do is observe how meticulous Streep -- and everything else about the movie -- is.

We are not not entertained.

Slamming different kinds of experience together, Lee tries to do with montage what he cannot do with dramatic logic.

I saw the film in IMAX, and a week later I’m still waiting for the safe return of my optic nerves, but it was the meagre emotional charge that shocked me most. Toward the end, as in many Spielberg movies, there are tears, but, for once, they feel unearned.

Poky but often charming.

Near the end, though, “Wicked” does surge to a kind of life.

The Final Year is stirring and saddening, but too well behaved by half; I wanted it to be a little less Steven Pinker and a little more Dwayne Johnson. I wanted the huge fight.

Makes a suitable staging post in Witherspoon's headlong career. She may want to forget it by Christmas, yet its cushioned slackness allows her to sharpen her grasp of a steely American type: the girl next door who will kill to get out of town. [30 Sept 2002, p. 145]

The movie, though a frantic treat for the retina, is also oddly inactive.