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.