Mustang could easily have been a pure heartbreaker, but it isn’t. It is surprisingly nuanced and even something of an adventure tale about a fight for freedom and identity.

The character is manipulative, unsympathetic and quite depraved, but Caine plays him with such wicked glee that it's impossible to resist watching and vicariously enjoying his descent into corruption. [23 Mar 1990, p.26]

Do I think we need more reheated IP that uses our collective nostalgia as catnip to cover up the fact that we didn’t actually care that much about the original film? Nah, of course not. But if you’re gonna make it, make it well, make it fun and make it stand on its own two narrative feet. This update pulls that off, and with a bloody high body count to boot.

In the vast canon of King-derived movies, “Tower” belongs in the upper ranks.

An ordinary house cat and a basement spider become ferocious adversaries of tiny Grant Williams in director Jack Arnold's vision of an upside-down world. [31 Oct 2010, p.H6]

“Turn off your brain, and let your heart do da talking,” advised Rocky, and he was right. This franchise just might go on forever, and my heart kind of hopes that it does.

The flowers in Flowers are touchstones, reminders of a person, but more significantly of the conflicted feelings shared by the three main women in the picture.

The Fall Guy isn’t a perfect movie; it’s longer and a bit more self-aware than it needs to be, and not every joke lands. But it has that rare quality in a big-studio film: a sense of fun.

Everybody involved seems to be having a blast making this latest “SpongeBob” a funny, fast-paced pleasure.

Its evocation of a specific place, California’s Coachella Valley, is indelible.

Feig, who’s made a specialty of stories featuring unlikely female duos, knows exactly what he’s doing here in the classy-B-movie genre, and “The Housemaid” ticks along like oatmeal-toned clockwork — a little scary, a little silly and very popcorn-appropriate.

The logistics of this outdoor adventure may not be entirely convincing, but the characters usually are. That's a rarity in this kind of picture, and Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin rise to the challenge with some of the best work they've done in a long time. [26 Sep 1997]

This is the movie that Steven Spielberg's Money Pit should have been. The mind-blowing ending makes it a must-see. [31 Oct 1999]

Filmed in Oregon and Montana by a first-rate crew, The River Wild puts you in the hot seat of its white-water climax, and through a combination of deft camera work, snappy editing and genuine derring-do, the stellar cast is right there with you. Even when you know it's filmmaking trickery, you'll wish you'd brought a wet suit. [30 Sep 1994, p.H3]

Schepisi may not have found the perfect screen equivalent for John le Carre's world of romance and deception. But his mixed success is certainly a treat for the eye. [21 Dec 1990, p.24]

The fun here is in the little moments the actors find, and in the way that Waititi, within the massive machine that is a studio superhero movie, brings out a looseness and playfulness in the performances.

Akira offers moments as eerily powerful as anything I've seen in animation. (Highlights include the kiddies bringing toy animals to sinister marauding life, and Tetsuo's nightmares of disintegration.) Unfortunately, those moments are badly undermined by a weak script, a facile scenario and some wretchedly screechy voice-acting. [11 Jan 1990, p.G4]

Gordon-Levitt carries the movie, and without flash or overt dramatics, overshadows everyone else in it.

The style is busy, Affleck laying a heavy hand on the ’80s references and music cues, Robert Richardson’s cinematography mimicking the amateurish style of someone with a brand-new camcorder. But the pace flies, and the actors make the film wildly engaging.

Oleanna the movie remains faithful to the charged 1992 play in Mamet's original Off Broadway production. It features outstanding performances by a pair of expert actors. And Andrzej Sekula's beautiful cinematography firmly inserts their encounters into the musty, hallowed interiors of an Ivy League college. [04 Nov 1994, p.i34]

Call me a sucker for white-trash humor, but it's mercilessly funny. [19 Sep 2003]

Sometimes too many ideas collide into each other — a zippy back-and-forth structure in the screenplay gets abandoned, and the pacing in the final act feels off — but Birds of Prey is never boring and often great fun.

It’s all quite wistfully romantic, and mostly winningly so, despite the sometimes wise-way-beyond-their-years dialogue and not always plausible plot.

A charming, moving and over-too-soon portrait of a country, and of what it means to have a longer than expected life.

Sometimes, miscasting can be very interesting, in the hands of an actor who knows what she’s doing — and Kidman is definitely that. Here, she creates a nuanced and believable version of Ball (and of “Lucy,” the character Ball played on her sitcom “I Love Lucy,” though we don’t see much of her), meticulously introducing us to a serious, thoughtful woman obsessed with the details of comedy, who understood what it meant to have power at a time when few women did.

Adams, six Academy Award nominations later, still sings and dances like a Technicolor dream, and this time around she gets to have some fun as not only the ultra-sweet Giselle, whose voice sounds like butterflies and sunrises, but an evil alter ego.

Ridley is the picture’s real find. Her Rey is fearless, forceful, resourceful, and with a hidden side to her personality that slowly manifests itself and will surely be more deeply explored in the sequels.

An outrageously dark comedy that defies death, laughs at funerals, and lends a whole new meaning to the phrase maintaining one's appearance. [31 July 1992, p.3]