It seems director James Wan had one overarching goal in making “Aquaman.” His prime directive? Crush the audience into submission.

The picture is a hugely entertaining crowd-pleaser studded with laugh-out-loud moments from beginning to end.

It’s nuts. It’s fun.

The gore quotient is high in this one (lots and lots of exploding heads) and the one-liners flow freely. Bloody good fun, but not for the whole family. That R rating is well-earned.

Coerced jollity is the order of the day in the kingdom of trolldom in this animated kids movie from DreamWorks. And I do mean order.

At times it's laugh-out-loud funny. In this ode to the passing of childhood, circa 1962, screenwriter David Mickey Evans has partly succeeded in mythologizing something that everyone treasures: the proverbial perfect summer of youth. [7 Apr 1993]

Their performances lend the movie a touch of class, even if they can't make up for the superficial writing and Schumacher's anything-for-a-jolt direction.

It's as if a television sitcom director had tried to remake Robert Altman's Short Cuts, making sure that all the rough edges, ugly moments and untidy endings were removed. [22 Jan 1999]

Sky, despite its Hitchcockian beginning, is no thriller; instead, it’s a character study of a woman seeking a second act, and of a landscape that gradually transforms from foreign to welcoming.

Conversations about competing business strategies, which take up a great deal of The Current War, would seem to be a recipe for a dull movie. But the fervor and intelligence Cumberbatch and Shannon bring to their roles make for a gripping experience.

There is fun to be had here. Adults can appreciate the verbal byplay. For the kids, there’s frenzied noise, and those toys.

The new version amplifies and deepens all that is good in the original. The key is in the visuals. Photorealistic computer-generated imagery renders its African landscapes and animals with astonishing realism.

As a movie, The Good Liar is just so-so, but as a master class in performance and star quality, it’s a pleasure.

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.

In space, everyone can hear you yawn.

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.

Elba, always a powerful presence in whatever role he takes on, does the best he can in Beast, but the threadbare nature of the plotting and dialogue ultimately defeats him.

The casting is flawless - including a choice bit for Franken's former "SNL" colleague Julia Sweeney - and out of so much anguish Franken fashions an upbeat ending that feels genuinely well-earned. [12 Apr 1995, p.E4]

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.

Harrison is more interested in teasing than frightening an audience to death, but he still manages to deliver several strong jolts. So does the cast of first-rate actors, who obviously had a marvelous time turning themselves into goons, cannibals, gargoyles and ghouls. [04 May 1990, p.28]

Joe Bell is a tale of emotional redemption for a man who relearns what it means to “be a man,” and his moments of triumph are the quietest ones.

The fourth time is truly the charm in this long-running franchise.

The House of Seven Gables probably has the strongest reputation as a film, thanks mostly to the casting of George Sanders and Vincent Price, Lester Cole's serviceable script, Milton Krasner's moody cinematography and Frank Skinner's Oscar-nominated score. [21 May 1988]

If you can convince yourself that this movie has a reason to exist (I can't), then this big-screen recycling of the popular early-'70s TV series is not half bad. [17 Feb 1995, p.13]

Betrayals, narrow escapes and much battle action ensue in the course of the picture’s paint-by-numbers plotting.

It carries the stale odor of something that was stuck in a drawer long ago and could easily have gathered more dust. Worst of all, there's something inauthentic and phony about the way Gale and Zemeckis crank out racial taunts and four-letter-word dialogue. The result is a movie that isn't just a throwaway but borderline offensive. [26 Dec 1992, p.C7]

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]

If nothing else, this offbeat comedy delivers a handful of satisfying laughs and proves that four-year "Saturday Night Live" veteran Mike Myers can safely escape his "Wayne's World" alter ego. [30 July 1993, p.D12]