Diesel, of course, slots into the Fast and Furious films as neatly as a dip-stick. Not only does his name remind you of the stuff you pump into a car; when he opens his mouth, he actually sounds like a car. [3 June 2013, p.74]

The movie’s dramatic framework is bound up tightly and sealed off, and Haynes doesn’t puncture or fracture it to let in the wealth of details that the story implies—of art and money, power and presumption. The result is engaging and resonant—but it nonetheless feels incomplete, unfinished.

Most movies give so little that it seems almost barbarous to object to Bergman's not giving us more in Persona, but it is just because of the expressiveness and fascination of what we are given that the movie is so frustrating. There is, however, great intensity in many of the images.

The pictures seems dogged and methodical, though it is graced with a beautiful performance by Kotto.

Lucas shifts back and forth between this kind of original invention and a dependence on pompous dead-level dreck, a grade-B cheapness that he's obviously addicted to. [20 May 2002, p. 114]

Within its own terms the picture is sensitive and very well done, but it's also tiresomely fraudulent -- an idealization of a safe, shuttered existence, the good life according to M-G-M.

Frankly, who cares who assassinates whom?

There's so much going on you can't take your eyes off it, but none of it means anything.

Inside the stony exterior of The American beat some tired old ideas about innocence and redemption. How can you make an intellectual thriller and put a whore with a heart of gold in it?

The Butler is a lightweight, didactic movie, a kind of well-produced high-school entertainment.

If The Son lacks the grip of Zeller’s previous film, “The Father” (2020), it’s because the fable of Nicholas and Peter has the brittle feel of a setup.

It's a pity the film, directed by Fred Wilcox, didn't lift some of Shakespeare's dialogue: it's hard to believe you're in the heavens when the diction of the hero (Leslie Nielsen) and his spaceshipmates flattens you down to Kansas.

The elements are all there, and Mitchum, looking appropriately square-headed, tries hard and has some good scenes. But you get the impression that the dialogue is moving faster than the action.

Peter Sarsgaard, with an oozing voice and a wolfish smile, is a terrific creep, and Hank Azaria and Bobby Cannavale have fun overplaying porn-world figures, but the movie, at its center, remains unawakened.

It's nothing we haven't seen done better before (by Paul Greengrass in the recent "Bourne Ultimatum," for instance), but it's good enough as kinetic entertainment.

This movie, though perfectly pleasant, does not have a great script.

We don't get enough understanding of Stroud to become involved in how he is transformed over the years.

Who will stay with this film, and glorify it? Two sorts, I reckon: real revellers, randy for sensation, out of their heads; and, a block away, coffee-drinking Ph.D.s, musing on the cinema of alienation, too lost inside their heads to break for spring. [25 March 2013, p.108]

The movie is strange and muddled -- a disorganized epic -- but Day-Lewis, disporting himself with royal assurance, does what he can to hold it together. [23 & 30 December 2002, p. 166]

Despite some expert performances --the picture remains as confused as its hero; unlike him, it never does find its identity.

This new Star Trek is nonsense, no question ("Prepare the red matter!"), but at least it's not boggy nonsense, the way most of the other movies were, and it powers along, unheeding of its own absurdity, with a drive and a confidence that the producers of the original TV series might have smiled upon.

In short, there are moments, in this very uneven film with its lamination of the ancient and the monstrously new, when the spirit of Fellini hovers overhead like a naughty angel. [25 March 2013, p.109]

Although it's an agreeable movie, Caton-Jones's direction is too discreet -- too civilized -- to stir the viewer's blood.

Based on a script condensed from Robert Bolt's scripts for two projected films about the 1789 mutiny, this misshapen movie doesn't work as an epic -- it doesn't have the scope or the emotional surge of epic storytelling. It's certainly not boring, though.

One has to ask: does it allow for immersion? Even as we applaud the dramatic machinery, are we being kept emotionally at bay? [29 Oct. & 5 Nov. 2012, p.128]

A likable first feature by the director Taylor Hackford; it has verve and snap, despite a rickety script and a sloshy finish.

Gilliam has a cacophonous imagination; even the magical incongruities are often cancelled out by the incessant buzz of cleverness. It's far from a bad movie, but it doesn't quite click together, either. The director doesn't shape the material satisfyingly; this may be one of those rare pictures that suffers from a surfeit of good ideas.

This Gene Kelly-Frank Sinatra musical has an abundance of energy and spirit, and you may feel it could be wonderful if it weren't so stupidly wholesome.