Indeed, if it didn't rely so much on brawls and shootouts to interrupt a serviceable story line, this might have been a noteworthy screen addition to the Batman legacy. But the requisite outbursts of action are only secondary to the movie's nearly fatal shortcoming: the animation itself. [28 Dec 1993, p.E1]

Happy anniversary, Little Women, but I think I prefer you back in the 19th century; dreamy professors aside.

Forster gets decent performances from Lively and Clarke, but the overall impression “All I See” leaves is of a picture that fails to live up to its filmmaker’s ambitions.

While it’s often great fun to look at, “Crimes of Grindelwald” fails at what should be Rowling’s great strength: storytelling. Three more to go, and an infusion of magic is desperately needed.

It is routine but watchable fare (set in Portland, partially filmed in Olympia), steeped in movie tradition and executed with admirable craftsmanship . . . and enough naked Madonna to make everything else a trivial distraction. [15 Jan 1993, p.3]

Greta is a disappointment from Jordan, who’s made far better movies (“The Crying Game,” “The End of the Affair” and, more recently, the elegant vampire film “Byzantium”), but Huppert seizes hold of the film and chills it, in a way that’s both shiver-inducing and bracing.

There's not much to save this formulaic suspense film from seeming both ridiculous and predictable, but if you can get past the groaner dialogue and hysteria that follow the opening credits, the midsection of "Extreme Measures" does generate some tension. [27 Sept 1996]

Political satire is one of the trickiest of genres; this one, running out of steam and nerve, ultimately becomes a too-familiar example of another genre: the 93-minute movie that feels way, way too long.

Angel Has Fallen plays out exactly as you would expect from a potboiler of this type. No surprises here, other than that it exists at all. It’s the kind of movie one expects to be released at the shank end of summer. Time to turn the page to fall.

Similar to the scenario of the original picture, it’s a band of grizzled soldier types who battle the alien menaces. Missing, however, is a formidable leading-man presence in the Schwarzenegger mold.

Curiously though, director Michael Dougherty and his filmmaking team obscure the battle footage in darkness, smoke and downpours, making murky much of the imagery.

With all of Shults’ dark-night-of-the-soul mood manipulations, the film promises more than it delivers. Its buildups are impressive, but in the end its frights are mild.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers — busily splashing the film in crayon-colored light, vaguely sinister pop music and jittery camerawork — forgot to give Vee and Handsome Stranger (his name’s Ian) much personality.

The Goldfinch feels like a series of often-elegant moments, in service to a story that never quite comes into focus.

It’s somehow only fitting that with Scarlett Johansson in the lead role, Ghost in the Shell leaves you with the feeling that something has been lost in translation.

The script’s weaknesses are difficult to ignore.

Handsomer and funnier than the original, Young Guns II is still a mediocre brat-pack western. It lacks the attention-getting novelty of the first film. [01 Aug 1990, p.E1]

Neither the actress nor her director disgrace themselves, and Curtis does suggest a commitment to her character that goes above and beyond the limitations of the script, but they've both done more interesting work. [16 Mar 1990, p.26]

Slick, chummy and with a palatable message - Don't work too hard - Taking Care of Business is easy to swallow and just as easy to forget. [17 Aug 1990, p.24]

Daddy’s Home is a movie with a one-joke premise: Will Ferrell, he’s a pincushion of punishment. Make him screech. Watch him squirm.

Snatched is one of those movies that feels like a rough draft of itself. A few more rewrites, a few more laughs, a little (well, a lot) more attention, and maybe it would have been an amusing summer comedy.

So yes: Wow! Gasp! There are some really pretty pictures here. But wow! Gasp! The story is really pretty … stupid.

It's a pointless, $30 million mediocrity with a disengaged star-director at its center. [15 Jun 1990, p.3]

Yep, we’re in Tarantino territory for sure: way too self-indulgently long, and way, way overboard with that N-word.

Cage proves his versatility as the reluctant hero (designed by way of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character), bringing his comic timing and droll face into perfect pitch. His first scene with Connery is giddy fun. He steals the entire picture.

This is a picture whose subject, loudly and frequently proclaimed, is magic. But there is precious little of the genuine article to be found in it.

It’s not terrible, but it’s an elegantly filmed stumble.

After a sprightly credits sequence in which the animated Pink Panther takes over conducting duties for Henry Mancini, while helping Bobby McFerrin doodle with the Panther theme Mancini composed 30 years ago, it's mostly downhill. It's been 10 years since the last Panther installment, yet Edwards seems exhausted.