It’s infectious, the love Freaky Tales has for the Oakland, Calif., of the mid-1980s.

The movie ends up playing like a series of skits and one-liners, some of them pointed and funny, that strain to achieve structure, substance and a workable ending. Fortunately, Judy Davis and Peter Weller are Tolkin's stars, and they're capable of providing a center for almost anything. [23 Sept 1994, p.H3]

All Is True is handsomely mounted, filled with shadowed interiors underscoring the darkness of its story, the darkness artfully interrupted by candlelight and firelight. The movie’s impressive appearance notwithstanding, Shakespeare’s domestic problems do not a classic make.

Rampant silliness has its place. [5 Feb 1993, p.22]

Wonder Woman 1984 feels a bit perfunctory; just another massive superhero movie, with little fresh brought to the mix.

It’s the kind of movie that you watch with two simultaneous emotions: fascination, and the desire to leave immediately. I’m glad, mostly, that I didn’t give in to the second, but I’m still pondering exactly how Lanthimos pulled off the first.

The script may be a fantasy about late-19th-century American poverty, derived more from old movies than fresh observations. But at least Brooks doesn't sweep the subject under the rug, and just enough of his jokes sting. [26 July 1991, p.20]

Mercury Rising could have been a terrific movie with a little more gumption. [3 Apr 1998, p.G5]

If you were to subtract the strikingly mature and subtly nuanced performances of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Single White Female would be almost indistinguishable from the majority of half-baked, pseudo-psychological thrillers that Fatal Attraction brought into vogue. [14 Aug 1992, p.3]

While it’s still an enjoyable novelty to spend time during an action movie wondering where I could buy the hero’s boots, it’s no substitute for a good story.

“Scotty” the documentary, entertaining as it is, leaves its hero’s surface mostly unscratched; his life seems a story still not fully written.

That’s why we watch films like this, for that sensation of safely squirming from our comfortable seats — and for performances like McAvoy’s. With a smile like a demon elf — his teeth practically seem to be vibrating — and eyes that seem to pierce the house’s malevolent darkness, he’s wickedness personified. It’s a huge, pitched-to-the-balconies performance, and shivery fun to watch.

Does “Anna” deliver on its billing? Well, it does for a while. For its first half, the movie’s blend of earnest teen crooning and dismembered blood-geyser heads is pretty entertaining.

Overall, the film is sweet but often loses impact in its most serious moments by blasting a happy pop soundtrack.

Luckily, the dull spots don't last long. The comedic snowball that is Housesitter melts a bit as it rolls, but occasionally it smacks the bull's-eye. [12 June 1992, p.24]

For those who like their comedy so dark that it’s practically blackened, may I present The Roses.

For the most part the commerce of sequelizing yields only faint inspiration, and City Slickers II spends much of its time trying to conjure magic that's no longer there. [10 June 1994, p.E24]

Thanks to its two central performances, Chuck is a solid contender.

Despite excellent performances all around, that balance is off in this follow-up, which has more characters but is less character-driven.

It’s a daring premise, which makes Howard’s fluffy approach to the material all the more frustrating.

Taylor-Johnson’s agonized performance holds the audience’s attention, but his portrayal doesn’t really take the character anywhere.

The swift and suspenseful “Missing” plows through nearly two hours of shocking plot twists at a breakneck pace, and while it’s entertaining to be sure, it also takes on a somber tone as it reckons with grief, loss and intimate partner violence in a way that’s very real, backed up by headlines ripped from the news, and yes, those true crime series and TikToks that are so very compelling.

With its boyhood-to-manhood tropes (growing up means getting a girl’s attention and winning an idol’s respect), London Town can’t be taken too seriously. But it’s nice to see part of the Clash’s populist legacy in a fan’s journey.

Although it too often succumbs to the kind of whimsical sentimentality about the mentally ill that has afflicted movies from King of Hearts to The Fisher King, this filmed-in-Spokane comedy-drama is almost salvaged by its excellent cast. [16 Apr 1993, p.3]

Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (the latter also wrote the screenplay, both directed the original), it’s gorgeous-looking. It’s briskly paced. And it’s tuneful. Uh, about those tunes: They’re blaringly, oppressively, crushingly LOUD! With “Frozen” we got the rousing Oscar-winning “Let It Go.” With Frozen II, someone should have told the songwriters to tone it down.

While Poirot is always witty, few of the other characters are. Michael Green’s screenplay often feels weirdly detached, like we missed some crucial early scenes that tell us why we should care about these people. All that said, it’s no great hardship to watch Death on the Nile; it looks pretty, feels pleasantly old-school and is over within shouting distance of the two-hour mark.

Paris Can Wait isn’t exactly a feast, but it’s a snack worth having.

Earnest, well-acted and occasionally compelling, School Ties gets an A for effort and a C-plus for achievement. At best, it's like a well-mounted, feature-length afterschool special about prep-school anti-Semitism in the mid-1950s. With hate crimes on the rise, it's unfortunately timely now, and its heart is always in the right place. At worst, it's a single-minded exploration of the subject, with too many aspects left untouched. [18 Sept 1992, p.26]

Crowded, cornball and too busy for its short running time, The Hollars nevertheless generates a few moments of grace and reflection.

The script by sports-movie veteran Ron Shelton is an understandable but rather monotonous attempt to deal with the differences between hard truth and media-created mirages.

mother!, for this viewer, felt long and punishing; artful yet self-sabotaging, eventually crumbling. I never looked away — but I never want to see it again.

Fascinating at certain moments, especially when Lewis is exploring his character’s grief and bitterness, it still feels like a work in progress.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is reasonably clever and reasonably diverting.

The wedding of strong actors with a solid script is what makes Plus One worthy of saying “I do” to enjoying it.

In the end, Captain America: Brave New World is enjoyable enough for what it is: a proper introduction of Sam as Captain America. Unfortunately, it’s a rather bumpy flight along the way.

It’s disarmingly spirited, especially when its teen star, Markees Christmas, is sharing the screen with Craig Robinson.

It all works quite well as glossy entertainment, but ultimately The Bodyguard satisfies only if you don't think about it too much. [25 Nov 1992, p.D3]

You know what you're in for, and you get what you want (especially those die-hards who read ALL of the end credits), but you'll also get the feeling that you've seen it all before. [18 Mar 1994, p.D3]

It has some great laughs and real screwball energy. It also has its heart in the right place, with Emilio Estevez's environmental concerns figuring prominently in the plot. [24 Aug 1990, p.28]

Although Stella is intelligently made and generally well-acted, there were plenty of dry eyes at a packed preview screening earlier this week. [2 Feb 1990, p.25]

Vikander doesn’t have much to play, script-wise, but she makes a tough, appealing action star.

Pali Road — an engrossing psychological thriller with a trapped damsel’s very sanity on the line — demonstrates how an enigmatic story can unabashedly overflow with disorienting puzzles and perverse twists, all for the sake of blurring the line between reality and illusion.

Brother Nature at least enjoys moments of deep-end mania from Killam and Moynihan.

Sommers is so busy spinning his camera, crowding the soundtrack with animal noises and piling on the cheesy visual effects that he can't stop for a reflective moment or a character-revealing touch.

Directed by Smoczynska, The Silent Twins feels like an art exhibit to be installed on a continuous loop on a TV inside a cage in a museum. There’s a barrier that holds the audience at a distance so that watching this film feels like studying an invasive social experiment that places the Gibbons twins on display — like caged parrots asked to sing.

It just feels like a pretty idea that didn’t get fully developed; an origin story that we didn’t need.

Cézanne et Moi sounds more fascinating than it actually is; essentially, it’s just under two hours of exquisitely art-directed conversation, little of which is especially compelling.

It’s odd that Guadagnino clearly wanted to make a movie that people would talk about, but doesn’t seem quite sure of what he wanted it to say.

Ultimately, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is never quite as much fun as you expect it to be, particularly when Pike isn’t on screen. Despite a character intoning that we all “need magic more than ever,” this movie didn’t have enough of it.

While Eddie the Eagle feels formulaic and overstuffed with weirdly random scenes...it’s still a charmer.

Some of this is fun, some of it is extraneous, and by the end of Muppets From Space it's hard to tell the difference. [14 July 1999, p.E3]

Snowtime! is by turns ribald (there’s a flatulent dog), boisterous (there’s charging through the snow with wooden swords wildly waved), tender (there’s a boy grieving quietly for a father killed in a real war) and, yes, tragic.

Rolling Papers is an instructive and fun film that will keep you giggling — high or straight.

So there’s not a single surprise along the way. But there is the comfort of familiarity operating in the movie’s favor. And it’s fun.

While Phoenix is always more than watchable (his scary-Fred-Astaire dance moves, born from Arthur’s habit of watching old movies with his mother, are both mesmerizing and disturbing), “Joker” really has nowhere to go. Its characters are one-note cartoony, but fun is the last thing on this movie’s mind; it’s all despair, from its opening scenes on downward.

Isle of Dogs is full of delightful touches, but it’s not Anderson’s best. Nice fur, though.

An enjoyably nutty more-is-more family holiday extravaganza.

The camera is fixated on the face of Alice, the lead character in The Girl in the Book. And no wonder. There’s a lot going on there.

There is an elemental majesty to sailing that Ballard and his daring crew have magically transferred to the screen, and the consummate skills of the racing crews are a marvel to behold. Still, it's clear that the magic of Wind is in the wind itself, and not always in the movie that blows around it. [11 Sep 1992, p.22]

If you want to see a Conan the Barbarian-ish Vikesploitation movie, this one is more immersive but less action-packed than you might want. If you want to see a medieval art film, watch last year’s “The Green Knight.” If you want to watch a great Robert Eggers movie, go stream “The Witch.”

It’s cheesy, but director Jaume Collet-Serra knows his genre thrills and builds layers of suspense and dread, along with some hypnotically beautiful aerial ocean shots.

Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12”) can’t quite find that magical balance that Walls hits, and tilts the story too far toward sentiment.

Ruffalo, as a character more polished and reserved than he usually plays, is compelling as ever; he’s able to convey the sense of time passing, with the case weighing down on him more heavily as years slip by.

Unfortunately, it’s so ambitious that it’s constantly straining to find a focus.

If you've already seen the preview trailer, you've probably seen the funniest gags anyway. [09 Aug 1991, p.22]

Loosely based on the experiences of Kazan's uncle, the script meanders and the inexperienced Giallelis isn't always up to the task of carrying the picture, but there are many moving moments. [07 Jul 1994, p.E3]

Spanish director Jorge Grau's take on "Night of the Living Dead" is set in the English countryside and starts off slowly but has a tense last half. [27 Oct 2000]

Perhaps in an effort to tell a PG story about an all-ages storyteller, Te Ata lacks vitality, pulling its punches and sometimes resorting to a cheesy shorthand. (A scene featuring Greene’s reservation leader and a racist senator is especially cheap.) Despite that, Te Ata lingers in the memory as a tale of an artist’s promise — and fulfillment.

Unfortunately, director George P. Cosmatos, who took over when Jarre was fired as director, emphasizes action over character. [25 Dec 1993, p.C2]

In the hands of lesser actors I shudder to think of what a slog The Mountain Between Us might be, with its endless catastrophes and near-deaths and melodramatic declarations. But Winslet — who gets her own superhero moment near the end — and Elba are so likable and charismatic together, they just about sell it.

This Wuthering Heights is a mess, but an occasionally irresistible one.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is a cerebral film that barters in riddles. It’s a cautionary fairy tale about wishful thinking. It’s a flawed, but intoxicating kaleidoscope of stories. If only the film's ending were as strong as its beginning and middle.

Those fascinated by the art of animation will find much to ponder here — the hand-drawn brush strokes, the lush colors, the way just a few quickly sketched lines suddenly take vivid life.

It’s a promising but uneven debut, not quite worthy of its star.

This Night and the City is alive and kicking, and Winkler's got a lot of interesting physical and behavioral detail packed into his frame. But by walking the fence between comedy and desperation, this film denies the hellish certainty of the original, rendering itself harmless and weak in the process.

Because these actors are Weisz, on whose beautiful face emotions flicker like fireflies, and Shannon, whose faintly mournful expressions imply a profound story not yet told, the film is never less than interesting.

Bell can sculpt a funny moment to polished realization, but deprive it of oxygen at the same time. It’s not until late in the film’s third act that a different feeling emerges, a looser hand that provides room for characters to be more warm and human than pieces in a constricted design.

The Great Wall defies any expectations — it’s absolutely bonkers wild.

Compared with Weerasethakul’s acclaimed features, it feels cobbled together and improvised, which for the most part it was.

Director Raman Hui mixes martial-arts fights and slapstick comedy (lots of mugging by Jing) into a whimsical, fast-paced monster mash.

There are lots of ideas rattling around in it — about artificial intelligence, about racism, about American aggression on the world stage, about the future of humanity. And rattle and clang they do. And also clunk. The various elements are not well integrated.

It's the kind of movie that one quickly forgets after the credits roll. But for 90 painlessly engaging minutes, "Mikey" makes for pretty good company. [4 June 1993, p.20]

[Ip Man] is the calm at the center of a storm of kung-fu combat sequences, and Yen plays him with grace and serenity.

Yesterday offers no answers or explanations. It presents its idea and runs — and you either buy it or you don’t.

Back from the time when Scream director Wes Craven still made real horror. A family on vacation with a trailer is irritating enough. But then their ride breaks down in the desert, and there's a clash of family values with a family of inbred cannibals. During the struggle for survival, it gets hard to tell who the real savages are. [27 Oct 2003, p.E1]

Part 2 is undeniably lively and very obviously pitched to young kids. It’s colorful but not especially distinctive.

The script isn’t great, but the plot turns and visuals can be striking, and Jess Weixler has fun as the bad-girl sister Ben finds.

What you've got here is nothing more (or less) than a smartly recast 90-minute episode of the old show, and that, as longtime fans of the Hillbillies will tell you, can be more fun than a swim in the ce-ment pond. [15 Oct 1993, p.D18]

The action is fierce, kinetic and basically nonstop in “Fire and Ash.” The ending sequence goes on a bit too long (as does the movie in general, at 195 minutes), but it’s all generally entertaining, if you forgive the fact that the spectacle replaces the story for the most part.

Although its lofty ambitions as a "social comedy" are never fully realized, Amos & Andrew is a refreshingly intelligent, character-driven comedy that attempts to tackle a timely and serious issue - racism - and still manages to be consistently funny. [05 Mar 1993, p.24]

If Brooks could have mustered up a screenplay half as good as “Broadcast News,” this movie would have been a delight; instead, it disappears into agreeable blandness and earnest platitudes. It’s not at all unpleasant spending two hours with Ella and her family and colleagues, but it leaves you feeling a little nostalgic for what it could have been.

Strange Days presents itself as an original vision, yet many of its ideas about the perils of virtual reality were more intriguingly explored in several early-1980s thrillers, among them David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" and Douglas Trumbull's "Brainstorm." [13 Oct 1995, p.F1]

Unfortunately, Martin is the only perfection in the movie, which is plagued by a screenplay by Andy Breckman (Arthur 2) that slows down the pace by telegraphing every formulaic development. [29 Mar 1996, p.F6]

It is, by any rational measure, an absolute mess....But we should all know by now that Lynch cannot be judged by "rational measures," and if you're a "Peaks" aficionado who can easily shift into Lynch's gear, Fire Walk With Me will cast an undeniable spell.

Should you be looking for narrative cohesion, look elsewhere. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is bananas, in its high-end way — bananas wrapped in gorgeous Colleen Atwood costumes, and performed by actors who are clearly having a ball.

The movie gets lost in its focus on flash and speed, and forgets about the man — and the fine, quiet actor — at its center.

The footage captured is breathtaking for its access and intimacy to these incredible creatures.

Perhaps Downsizing needed to be downsized a bit; as it is, it’s an intriguing concept that slips away.