Has a three-way split personality, which happily includes an action-packed middle to ease the pain of its early protracted exposition and later action so slow that you'll be asking "Gotta match?" to the person next to you.

Though the film offers a meticulously rendered Depression-era L.A., it's not in the same league as "Chinatown," for which Towne wrote an Oscar-winning script. Here, the characters seem shallow, their motivations murky.

Despite his cockney-accented verbosity, Brand does not convey the effortless conviviality that Dudley Moore did in the part.

This could be the start of an awful new genre: Nannies Gone Wild.

The film's mythology is a bit dodgy, and the dialogue is standard issue, but the over-the-top action sequences are occasionally fun, if gory. Ultimately, it's a formulaic, predictable take on a Hollywood staple: the vampire horror film.

The inspiring story of surfer and shark attack victim Bethany Hamilton deserves a better dramatization.

These are hardly damsels, but the distress will be felt by audiences watching the collection of non sequiturs, twee remarks and tangential vignettes that is Damsels in Distress.

The borderline Parenthood is either an iffy comedy with lots of compensations, or a good comedy with more irritating flaws than most movies manage to survive. Whichever, the "feel good'' infantry of summer-film escapists will probably love it. [2 Aug 1989, p.5D]

Maybe it's too much to ask that rationality and surprise accompany Heat's blood, bullets and busted-up cars. Red Heat is just lukewarm. [17 Jun 1988, p.1D]

This is impressive on costuming and hunk fronts (with Billy Dee Williams the key factor in both), while Diana Ross is better than OK in a performance whose Oscar nomination was probably a fait accompli. Otherwise, this lumpy 2 1/2-hour biopic of Billie Holiday hasn't improved since it was critically drubbed -- four other nominations or not -- as one of the most ponderous of all showbiz chronicles. [11 Nov 2005]

The material has enough meat to enable charitable viewers to drift in and out, but the result is too arch to conjure up much affection.

Freddy's Dead is fan fare, with little to offer those who aren't already Freddy freaks. [16 Sept 1991, p.5D]

Even with nifty giant bird Nimbly, flying dog-dragon Falkor and Tonto-like sidekick Atreyu along for the ride, Bastian seems to meander more than tumble into fun- filled adventures. For all its echoes of Oz, Fantasia is not much of a merry old land. [11 Feb 1991, p.4D]

As the girl fights and rivalry play out, flashes of wit are obscured by the plot's contrivances.

Abigail Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva are terrific. But the performances by the older actors are largely forgettable.

You're more likely to roll your eyes than swoon over this slow-moving and far-fetched love story.

Drab as it is, the movie is not impossible to endure -- in part because the concept has a timeless appeal.

The latest picture to give you the sense that Hollywood filmmakers simply plucked another old pop-tune title ripe for ripping off, then were shaken by the rude reality of coming up with a script to jerry-build around it.

If one of its points is to show that underused thirtyish actresses still are attractive, it succeeds with Leigh and Cates -- and Jennifer Beals, who also provides a flashback feeling playing Cummings' ex-squeeze.

While it's intriguing to learn about all the players involved in creating a fashion line, there's too much minutiae to keep the attention of those who are not obsessed with design trends.

Pretty hard to buy into at all.

A few bits are filler, albeit funny filler. But those who would rather laugh than cry at weddings ( will say "I do'' to Bride. [20 Dec 1991, p.1D]

Despite Murphy's campaigning, Gentleman deserves a veto. [04 Dec 1992]

Sex Drive does not fully satisfy our comic desires.

An hour into Earth and we're waiting for the film to end, not just the planet.

This follow-up seems so similar to the 1953 Disney classic that it makes one long for a geriatric Peter.

Monte Carlo is a wish-fulfillment fantasy. (What luck! The heiress' clothes fit all three girls like a glove!)

Movie stardom is seductive, but 50 Cent and his fans will be best served if he sticks to to his day job.