What the film does have going for it is a ghostly atmosphere that leads to a few surprising developments, including some color effects and a charmingly off-the-wall musical number.

There’s such a thing as something being too personal. James White is that thing.

Arty examination of the nature of reality in Swinging London. [20 Feb 2004, p.H23]

Pushing three hours, American Honey feels every bit its length, often luxuriating in extended scenes inside the van, pot smoke swirling and hip-hop thumping. Like most of the film, these scenes are vividly rendered but increasingly repetitive and aimless.

With all of Shults’ dark-night-of-the-soul mood manipulations, the film promises more than it delivers. Its buildups are impressive, but in the end its frights are mild.

This “Naked Gun” tries hard, but the magic simply isn’t there.

Parker uses such broad strokes that he can't tease the necessary charm out of his actor. The band's backstage spats are too extreme to be convincing and as a joke they get old fast. [13 Sep 1991, p.24]

If you want a quick diversion, take a trip to Fire Island — but don’t go looking for something that will last.

I don’t know about you, but this particular time in history does not seem like the moment for a movie that will leave you a) miserable and b) wondering why nobody in Gotham City seems to have heard of light bulbs. Your mileage may vary, but for me — who loved both the Tim Burton and the Christopher Nolan “Batman” universes — this one feels like an earnest but bloated misfire.

It’s a decent action movie that wears its influences on its sleeves. Some feel like intentional homages; others feed into the aforementioned identity crisis.

There’s a lot going on here, which leads to a whole lot of gassy exposition to explain it all.... Think of it as torture by blah-blah.

It’s not terrible, but it’s an elegantly filmed stumble.

Much of this is amiable in the moment, but the movie lumbers from set piece to set piece with only the barest of plausible connecting threads. The film’s sense of physical comedy is woeful, relying more on the suggestion of humor than competent blocking or editing.

Zentropa seems like the work of a precocious child who's been given too many expensive toys. [10 Jul 1992, p.24]

Action scenes are so chaotically edited it’s often difficult to figure out who’s bashing and crashing into whom.

Bacon’s performance as well as Finn’s detailed craft manage to hold tension, and the audience’s attention, for the hour and 55 minute runtime of this horror curio, which is as opaque and somewhat silly as the smiles that drive it.

Good intentions are famous for paving the road to hell, but more often they just lead to well-meaning tedium.

Yep, we’re in Tarantino territory for sure: way too self-indulgently long, and way, way overboard with that N-word.

It may take more than Caro Diario for Americans to acquire the Moretti taste. [21 Oct 1994, p.H42]

It's a pointless, $30 million mediocrity with a disengaged star-director at its center. [15 Jun 1990, p.3]

So yes: Wow! Gasp! There are some really pretty pictures here. But wow! Gasp! The story is really pretty … stupid.

The casting was spot-on in “Dollhouse”; here it seems haphazard.

For his live-action debut, Knight slips into Bay boomboom mode.

The movie relies rather too heavily on McAdams’ charm, sort of like a limp cheeseburger that’s saved by some really good bacon. But hey, sometimes a fast-food cheeseburger satisfies, more or less.

King of New York may have its moments. But with the standard in gangster films so high right now ("GoodFellas," "The Krays," "Miller's Crossing"), there's no real way to recommend it. [12 Jan 1991, p.C3]

Indeed, if it didn't rely so much on brawls and shootouts to interrupt a serviceable story line, this might have been a noteworthy screen addition to the Batman legacy. But the requisite outbursts of action are only secondary to the movie's nearly fatal shortcoming: the animation itself. [28 Dec 1993, p.E1]

Cruise and company wanted to make American Made a fun and often funny ride, but there’s something oddly joyless about the whole enterprise. Its overweening cynicism leaves a curdled aftertaste.

Unfortunately as festivities in the building turn violent and/or orgiastic, Wheatley keeps resorting to high-speed montages rather than slyly crafted scenes.

In Rudolph's own scripts there's usually a foundation of whimsy that somehow balances out his acid-edged commentary on human follies. Here, there's only a standard murder-mystery plot that cheats on its ending and an East Coast locale where funny accents and hairdos are the real victims. [19 Apr 1991, p.25]

The uneasy marriage of clunky psychodrama and overwrought special effects along with the fact that none of these characters are particularly likable make Strange World a chore to sit through.

In the midst of all the mayhem it’s sometimes hard to stay awake.

The script by Liu Zhenyun becomes ponderous and redundant, kept on oxygen by its lead actress’s complex performance as a child-woman with enigmatic wisdom.

As usual, the majority of gags are strictly hit or miss, but they don't stop until the movie's completely over, so here's a fair warning: If you're one of the few who still doesn't know secret of "The Crying Game," don't watch the "Part Deux" end credits. [21 May 1993, p.23]

Ultimately, the film’s unwillingness to go deeper makes it fall flat.

You don’t really watch Suspiria, you endure it.

Freighted with symbolism and beautifully mounted, Youth is dreamlike and at the same time stultifying.

The problem with Miles Ahead isn’t the playful, broad license it takes with Davis’ story, but that it’s so silly.

Nadja is a one-way ticket to a visual paradise that unearths nothing more substantial than splendid Gothic atmosphere. In opting for artiness, it strands its cast in lifelessness, an anemic exercise in desperate need of a blood transfusion. [15 Sept 1995, p.F5]

You know, there was a time when “Guardians of the Galaxy” was fun. That time was 2014, when the first picture came out... Now here’s “Vol. III.” And it’s no fun at all.

The emphasis here is on the splashy spectacle with those insider-knowledge elements jammed together in a frenetic hodgepodge.

The picture is essentially a brief for Wise’s case. And as such, it’s as dry and uncinematic as a dusty legal document.

There's so much blood, sweat and craziness that you stop laughing with first-time screenwriter Harry Bean's script and begin laughing at it. Long before it reaches the fever pitch of a hysterical finale, you may also find yourself looking at your watch. [12 Jan 1990, p.21]

You can see why McAvoy was drawn to the role — it’s as if he’s playing every character in a very populated if not particularly well-scripted play — and he demonstrates a shellacked creepiness that’s effective. But Shyamalan can’t find much else that’s new or appealing in this overlong girls-in-peril exercise.

The irony and meaninglessness of the violence rankles, especially when Ulysses is presented as such a nice guy who is prone to de-escalation and community care in his day-to-day work.

Despite all of the personalized Wenders touches, it ultimately resembles many a top-heavy, star-laden, special-effects-driven production from the major-studio assembly lines.

Hughes’ handling of the material is unfailingly serious but the picture’s tendency to stray into the ridiculous robs it of the majesty the director so clearly hoped to achieve.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 gives us a lot to look at, and Hathaway and Blunt in particular are a pleasure (they have a scene together, late in the film, that’s almost worth the ticket price right there), but it’s flat Champagne: maybe worth drinking in a pinch, but unsatisfying.

Its take-no-prisoners pacing [takes] it up a notch from the average low-budget shoot ’em up.

By the time the big reveal comes along, it’s almost beside the point. The audience, so numbed by the gore, is likely to barely care who indeed did it.

Good fun, and all that, but its flawed central performance ultimately makes “Solo” a distinct disappointment.

Depp, who has never looked so angelic, is covering familiar ground here, playing another Gilbert Grape type who's involved with an older woman. [9 Sept 1994, p.H34]

In the central role, Miles Teller is impressively bulked up, but there’s a flatness in his performance. It’s a dogged, rather than an inspired, portrayal. The best work is done by Aaron Eckhart, who plays Vinnie’s trainer, Kevin Rooney.

Ultimately, her run and Roseanne for President! meet the same fate: not quite entertaining enough to qualify as comedy, nor quite thoughtful enough to take seriously.

The script, attributed to four writers, is based on stories of cats who roamed the Warners back lot, begging for food among the discarded sets of "Casablanca" and "East of Eden." Imagine any storyline designed around that studio legend and you're likely to come up with a more auspicious plot than the one this team has created. [26 Mar 1997]

By the time Donner crowds his climactic poker game with a bevy of veteran Western character actors, decades of movie tradition have been reduced to window dressing, and Maverick leaves you hungry for the real thing.

There’s nothing special about any of this, but as a generic thrill machine, Plane certainly delivers the goods.

Neither Spader nor Amick can get past the generic nature of the characters they're playing, nor can they make up for Kazan's timid approach to their supposedly steamy love scenes. The nude Spader is so carefully draped and arranged that he could be posing for a soft-core parody, while Amick resorts to doing an impersonation of a haughty 1940s glamour queen. [6 May 1994, p.D31]

There are moments now and then that register, particularly early in the movie when we meet the regulars on the musical-impersonator circuit.

Rose resorts too easily to the easy jolt, the gratuitous release of anxiety and, finally, the reliance on graphic bloodletting and pointless shocks (such as the ominously unsettling Todd kissing Madsen with a mouthful of bees), sacrificing whatever substance the story started out with. [17 Oct 1992, p.C5]

It's hard to enjoy the same joke told a hundred times over. After so many gags about the burial of live cats or putting baby Pubert on a guillotine, it's clear that the movie has little else on its mind. It's enough to make Charles Addams turn in his . . . well, you get the idea. [19 Nov 1993, p.D3]

This is a picture whose subject, loudly and frequently proclaimed, is magic. But there is precious little of the genuine article to be found in it.

Trimmed from 164 to 140 minutes after playing the international festival circuit, "Faraway, So Close!" is not without its enticing qualities, and if nothing else it will provoke some interesting coffehouse discussion. But when held to the light of its predecessor, one can't help but think it's pointlessly redundant. [23 Dec 1993, p.E5]

The satisfaction of a cozy mystery doesn’t always come exclusively from a complex puzzle solved; it also comes from justice done and, ideally, comeuppance savored. Despite being beautifully made, this tepid, moralizing story denies us any of those pleasures. Rude.

The first-rate cast — right down to that infant, who displays Streep-like instincts for the camera — toils mightily. But sadly, they’re trapped in what becomes a sort of A-list Nicholas Sparks melodrama Down Under.

Motherless Brooklyn is lovely to look at — the cast, in addition to their acting talents, all look great in ’50s styles — and I enjoyed the noir-y jazz of the dialogue. (“Everybody looks like everybody to me,” a bartender tells Lionel, who’s looking for someone in the shadows of a club.) But it’s easily half an hour longer than it needs to be, and it’s full of moments that don’t go anywhere.

For most of its length, Stillwater goes along as a meticulous examination of its central characters. And then suddenly near the end it jumps the tracks.

Themes exploring redemption and forgiveness fall flat because it’s impossible to empathize with these characters. Mostly, this is an exercise in style; a slick tribute to righteous trash that promises a lot more fun than it actually delivers.

Beatty directed and wrote the script, but from a man who made the weighty epic “Reds” and the corrosively funny “Bulworth,” Rules Don’t Apply feels curiously weightless and as forgettable as its title.

This flick isn’t a masterpiece, not even a vulgar one, but it’s cheeky and entertaining enough in its giddy hyperviolence, thanks almost entirely to the star turn of Josh Hartnett, who has proved in his recent renaissance that he’s especially great in bozo mode.

Like so many small-screen-to-big-screen efforts, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie isn’t really a movie, just a stretched-out TV episode with a parade of cameos and boatloads of Champagne.

The film doesn’t have much to say about its central questions, and its ending feels inevitable but also unearned.

Even Deutch’s charming radiance (she never entirely sells Sam’s nasty side) can’t quite get us through the slog of this plot.

Rather than using the extended running time to dig deep into these characters, director Andy Muschietti, who also directed the original, piles on the frights in a manner that builds to an ending drenched in hysteria.

The entire film feels like an exercise in dashing expectations, for both our heroine and the audience.

Seagal's "best" movie to date, handled with slick blandness by director Andrew Davis (reteaming with Seagal after the star's 1988 debut in "Above the Law). It's depraved and bloodthirsty stuff, which of course means that audiences will flock to this junk (to borrow a line from bone-snappin' Steve) like puppets in some sick play. [09 Oct 1992, p.22]

Unfortunately, the filmmakers — busily splashing the film in crayon-colored light, vaguely sinister pop music and jittery camerawork — forgot to give Vee and Handsome Stranger (his name’s Ian) much personality.

Political satire is one of the trickiest of genres; this one, running out of steam and nerve, ultimately becomes a too-familiar example of another genre: the 93-minute movie that feels way, way too long.

There's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the material and the approach that the filmmakers take, and much that doesn't get covered in this short, 80-minute primer.

Cage proves his versatility as the reluctant hero (designed by way of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character), bringing his comic timing and droll face into perfect pitch. His first scene with Connery is giddy fun. He steals the entire picture.

The Wedding Guest is a thriller without thrills.

Director Scott Cooper really lays it on thick. He brings no modulation to the horror elements in his frightfest. Everything is gloom, gloom, gloom. And doom.

Strange movie. And despite the presence of Tina Fey playing its lead character, a cable-TV reporter named Kim Baker, it’s not a funny one.

You get a sense [Eli Roth]'s struggling to rein in his penchant for gory frights, and for that reason “Clock” feels like a movie at war with itself.

Unfortunately, Kevin Anderson, the former Steppenwolf actor who was so impressive re-creating his stage role in Alan Pakula's film of "Orphans" and impersonating Bobby Kennedy in "Hoffa," can do absolutely nothing with the braying, sexist yuppie who rents the apartment out to Broderick and Sciorra. [1 May 1993, p.C9]

Woodley and Claflin make an attractive pair, but they’re not particularly convincing playing people deeply, deeply in love. There’s something lacking in the conviction department there.

The cast is a likable bunch, and I can see how Tag might go down nicely with a couple of beers beforehand; it’s definitely funny in spots, in a we’re-making-this-up-as-we-go-along sort of way.

It’s all big action. Big colorful visuals. Outsized vocal performances.

You wish Perkins would have shown up with his red pencil during the screenwriting stage, when he might have done some good.

Unrelentingly bleak, somewhat pretentious and rather too long, Sean Penn's feature debut as writer-director nevertheless shows some promise. [04 Oct 1991, p.28]

There's not much to save this formulaic suspense film from seeming both ridiculous and predictable, but if you can get past the groaner dialogue and hysteria that follow the opening credits, the midsection of "Extreme Measures" does generate some tension. [27 Sept 1996]

French Exit isn’t without its pleasures; but you watch it dreaming of the movie it might have been.

The plot tries too hard to incorporate elements that drift toward melodrama.

The movie jerks tears shamelessly, it smugly mocks the political and fashion trends of the early 1970s, its characters make no sense at all, and it even makes fun of senility. [27 Nov 1991, p.C1]

The film is a loving tribute from a son to a father figure, but perhaps Deen is too close to the story to have much perspective on it. We’ve seen this story before and Brave the Dark doesn’t shed new light.

The script’s weaknesses are difficult to ignore.

Ultimately there's more guilt than pleasure to be found in The Craft. [03 May 1996]

The plot’s a mess, the run time is overlong and ultimately the movie feels like a slew of good actors trapped in a gorgeous place, wearing beautiful clothes and gazing at the impossibly blue water.

With the dour drudgery of “Last Rites,” it has never been more clear that it’s time to move on from their story, even as the memories of better installments linger.