Watching the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by E. Annie Proulx on the big screen is like being on an ocean liner stuck on a glacier.

Not only is this comedy no Bull Durham, it's just plain bull. [7 Apr 1989, p.6D]

It's all very slight and only sporadically amusing, and it makes Allen's "Celebrity" from last year look even more underrated than it already is.

Shyamalan's style is so exaggerated, with its long pauses and exacting rhythms of sound- vs.- silence, that it easily can engender eye-rolling and snickers.

Works best as a ponderous metaphor for life's uncertainties. As a lighthearted comedy, the force, alas, is not with it. [19 March 1999, Life, p.13E]

To cut Noe a break, it does become evident that he has a viable narrative concept. Told backward, á la "Memento."

SpongeBob barely rates as OK when compared with "The Incredibles."

Isn't tough to take as long as you've paid a matinee price.

It does survive its 40-minute test drive before turning into a lemon.

With heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is.

Can't quite figure out what it wants to be. At times it strains to be a stately period drama about 16th-century political intrigue. Then it devolves into soap opera muck and emerges as a rather tame bodice ripper.

Savages comes off as director Oliver Stone trying to rekindle his "Natural Born Killers" mojo from 1994. But when the bigger-name stars show up here in cartoonish roles, things feel more silly than gritty.

Premonition is both dreary and absurd, suffering from a lack of intrinsic logic and terrible pacing, a one-two punch that kills off any chance of entertainment value.

Spike Lee deserved a vacation after putting himself through the grueling emotions of Clockers, but Girl 6 is too flimsy to excuse even as cinematic R&R. Frenetic but lazily conceived, it's like one of those puny low-budget toss-offs Brian De Palma used to spring on us when he thought nobody was looking. [22 Mar 1996, p.4D]

The saga is an undeniably heartwarming one about perseverance, hard work, and pride in community. And who could criticize that?

Predictably, the derivative title here is a jumping-off point for another derivative slasher-revenge pic. [17 October 1997, p.5D]

Stinting on story, dialogue or character development, Bay leaves us with little more than destruction and a hollow, clanking spectacle.

It saves its clunkiest scene for the finale. No fair telling, but the key words are "political," "propaganda," "outdoors" and "orphans."

Unfortunately, it's not one-tenth as interesting as what you can see at home during a nightly cable surf as U.S. war policy is debated.

There's nothing very wise about The Brothers Solomon. It's a moderately funny premise in search of some real laughs.

A terrorist thriller that isn't so much suspenseful as overbearing. Though it aspires to be an intriguing political cautionary tale, the movie is mostly about the feverish and jarringly choreographed chase scenes.

At least the horror premise here has a hook - a house can spread its curse like a plague to adversely affect all who enter.

But all the devices and upgrades do little to bring the poetry's meaning into clearer and more relevant focus for today's audiences.

Even so, the film's incest theme seems more symbolic than literal in what is, at heart, a comedy about escaping the womb; throwaway gags are wicked enough throughout to keep the taboo plot twist from knocking this hit-and-miss black comedy off the track. [26 Jul 1994 Pg. 08.D]

Snipes gives a looser, cooler performance this time around, though emotionally, it's closer to dead than undead. Blade II is for the horror faithful only; others will be grasping their crucifixes.

With tangy Fisher equaling the leads in a sometimes scene-stealing role as Moore's mom, the actors emerge unscathed. Brosnan's part, in fact, is among the actor's most convincing non-Bond characters.

You don't get the sense that too many enthusiasts are hanging up wanted posters for the ho-hum-ish U.S. Marshals. [6 March 1998, pg. 04.D]

Fossilized script spoils effects.