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.

Of all the stories in all the world to remake on the big screen, why “Snow White”?

This isn’t a bright tale of Winehouse’s rise to stardom. It’s a tragic story of a once-in-a-generation talent gone too soon.

Truth of Dare, like its star, wears you out as much as it entertains you. Brassy and jittery, it's a relief to escape once it's over. [17 May 1991, p.3]

Benjamin provides just the right balance of sincerity and snark to hold this dark action-comedy together. When combined with bloody good action choreography, the film mostly knocks any flaws aside.

Every once in a while a simple, formulaic plot is elevated by a good cast and energetic direction, and Sister Act is an irresistibly entertaining case in point. [29 May 1992, p.18]

There’s the old cliché that says, “so-and-so is such a great actor he could read the phone book (whatever that is; as I said, it’s an old cliché) and make it interesting.” That’s pretty much what Washington pulls off in EQ2.

Scott and Bosch deserve credit for honoring the moral complexities and consequences of Columbus's conquests, but in trying to cram so much into a lavishly mainstream film, they've lost the impact of an adventure that is perhaps best relived in documentaries. [09 Oct 1992, p.3]

The Kids' first movie is just all right. But there's enough good stuff in it to merit a sequel. [12 Apr 1996, p.F5]

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]

Avildsen does a good job with all of these actors, and his re-creation of 1930s/1940s South Africa on sets in Zimbabwe and Botswana is convincing; his handling of squalor in the townships is particularly detailed and vivid. It's the best work he's done since winning the Oscar for the first "Rocky." But because of the script's shortcomings the result is only half of a good movie. [27 March 1992, p.22]

Final Analysis has the most convoluted plot about dreams, heights, murder, infatuation, Freudian imagery and a duplicitous San Francisco blonde since Hitchcock's "Vertigo." It's the kind of whopper that keeps you watching not because it's good but because you can't wait to see what the filmmakers will throw at you next. As it turns out, there's not much they won't try. In fact, by the time this cracked thriller reaches its hysterical finale, it's obvious that anything goes. [7 Feb 1992, p.22]

This $80 million disaster epic takes us back to the simple, tacky pleasures of Irwin Allen's "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and "The Towering Inferno" (1974), although Allen's blockbusters had more of a feeling for character and mythic resonance than "Daylight" ever demonstrates. [6 Dec 1996]

Sequelitis has Vaughn in its grip. The follow-up to his 2014 hyperviolent, boundlessly inventive spy-movie sendup gives the impression it’s trying a little too hard to surpass its predecessor.

Entertaining but almost too ambitious for its own sake.

There are pleasures to be found in Renfield, particularly a stylish black-and-white sequence early on, and in Hoult’s wistfully debonair portrayal of a well-meaning chap trapped in a job he never applied for. But even with its brief running time, the movie runs out of steam too quickly, and Awkwafina’s character in particular seems like a first draft

An oddly overblown, semi-operatic adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s once-banned 1964 novel about life among the abused prostitutes, lonely sailors, lonelier drag queens, repressed homosexuals and gay-bashing pimps along the hellish waterfront district of Brooklyn in 1952. [11 May 1990, p.22]

The Killer is both disappointing and satisfying, with pleasure and competence to be had.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a pastiche of its predecessors, using this mosaic of tropes and formula familiarity as a shorthand to keep the film pared down to the basics of what exactly makes it tick: increasingly sadistic puzzles and a great cast of characters.

Book Club is very silly and feather-light, but let me say this: Spending time with this quartet is way more fun than reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Lights Out is an effective, tidy little chiller; basically the same sneak-up-in-the-dark scare over and over. But hey, as we’ve learned through decades of horror movies, that stuff works.