The results are uneven. Almost any scene with Hawkes is alive and satisfyingly showy. You feel his absence when he isn’t there, though Joanna Cassidy, Crystal Reed and Robert Forster all have their moments.

Lohan was, and is, a charming and funny screen presence. And if you think this all has nothing to do with the movie, I’d say you’re wrong. This movie’s existence is predicated on our nostalgia for the original film and our parasocial relationship with Curtis and Lohan, as a duo. These feelings matter.

Interspersed with the overabundant slam-bang action sequences which up the silliness factor with their increasing improbability are heartfelt paeans to the bracing solidarity of Jaime’s family. Their sincerity is the picture’s best element.

Filmed during three separate trips to the Auschwitz site starting in 2010, the result is a movie so intensely personal that it amounts to an extended selfie.

The whale special effects, computer-generated of course, are genuinely spectacular.

As Finley manages a last unassuming gut punch, it strikes painfully true. It provides one final drop of mundane dread that reveals how the most comprehensively exploitative of systems can become terrifyingly normal. Good thing that’s only science fiction.

Ronan and Howle are tremendous in their performances, especially in the way they physically inhabit the characters, transforming from free and unabashed to tense and closed. The bedroom drama, which is almost theatrical in its setting, is riveting thanks to these two actors, and makes the film worthy of regard.

It’s a pretty picture and a sweet adventure, and sometimes that’s enough.

Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner is so crowded with characters and overlapping conversations and crammed-full rooms that it’s easy to miss the quiet at its center: the enigma that is Gary Hart.

This modest film’s heart is really in the mysteries of small moments.

Great dragon, dumb script. And pity the poor actors who have to deal with that situation. [31 May 1996]

Within this uncertain world, Lopéz-Gallego relishes such noir staples as fatalistic shadows, eruptive mayhem and terse, ironic dialogue. But he and his cinematographer, Jose David Montero, also carve out fresh visual territory.

The movie isn’t terrible, but too often it feels Hollywood-bland; a missed opportunity, served neat.

Eric Clapton, who wrote the blues-heavy score, told Oldman that the film was "like you throwing up over everyone." He meant that as a compliment. Whether you respond to this gritty, punishingly long and plotless film will depend largely on whether you agree. [13 Mar 1998]

Unfortunately, the highlights are sporadic. British co-directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel created the similarly ambitious "Max Headroom" TV series, but they lack the visionary gifts of Terry Gilliam, and so Super Mario Bros. remains more of a game than the awesome movie it's trying to be. Can anyone say that's surprising?

Cross occasionally lets their more promising moments go slack. The staging of a few scenes suggests home-movie limitations. But enthusiasm counts for a great deal in a project as ambitious and strange as Second Nature.

Allied runs out of steam before its overwrought ending. It’s as if the film, struggling under the weight of the classic epics it recalls, just gives up.

Watching Avalon is like leafing through someone else's family album. It undoubtedly means a great deal more to Levinson, because he can make the associations we can't. [19 Oct 1990, p.28]

What’s most memorable about Kedi are the individual, self-contained moments.

Gaup deftly keeps track of the major betrayals without making them seem too obvious.

The film’s light, sardonic approach is a tricky match with its subject matter: 9/11; power-crazed, empty-souled politicians; dark ambitions. It’s entertaining, sure, but a lot of us might not feel like laughing.

It’s a standard kiddie cartoon: noisy, colorful and forgettable.

A civilized summer entertainment that never quite transcends its genre. [7 Aug 1992, p.24]

In the end, it’s all about that little girl and how she responds to the lavish song-and-dance epic designed to praise Korea’s leader, the late Kim Jong-II. Under the Sun may seem slow and hollow at times, but her emotions appear to be quite spontaneous.

The film is an achievement in authentic world-building, but you can’t shake the feeling that what Mid90s does say isn’t perhaps what Hill intended it to.

This one will likely only appeal to fans of the genre who appreciate reverence and twists on this kind of material, but it’s bloody — if lightweight — fun for those who enjoy this kind of good old-fashioned romp in the woods.

The animation is smooth and occasionally quite expressive, the character voices are well-chosen, and the pacing (songs aside) is confident. For young moviegoers unfamiliar with the Camelot story, this could be an option. [15 May 1998]

Ultimately “Pérez” seems strangely underwhelming, like a lavish party that falls just a little flat.