This is a perfectly pleasant, entertaining and often witty romp with engaging performances.

Though it's not worth doing cartwheels over, Flipped is a pleasantly nostalgic and well-intentioned family movie featuring strong performances by its young actors.

A blanket indictment like this has to be either satirically trenchant or a roundhouse punch to the gut. Tom Matthews' script takes a mushy middle ground, and the result seems less mad than just a bit addled or hacked off. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]

'Burbs is a messy mix of Gremlins, Neighbors, Rear Window and Arsenic and Old Lace. [17 Feb 1989, p.6D]

A badly constructed, blood-spattered caper that comes unglued early on.

Rascals is as painful as a grade-school play without your kid in it. The end-credit outtakes at least indicate Spheeris suffered through it as well. [05 Aug 1994, p.4D]

Even by today's standards, some scenes are jaw-dropping in their bloodshed. To that end, Lurie accomplishes some of what Peckinpah evoked 40 years ago.

Give Binder credit for addressing racial divides even if not as profoundly as one would hope.

Like a lava lamp turned on high, Joe Versus the Volcano glows with originality. Go bask in it. [9 Mar 1990, p.4D]

Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.

The ending stinks.

One has to wonder about the mind-set of a middle-aged filmmaker who repeatedly seeks out material about amoral and promiscuous teenagers with little to say.

Rather than being a fascinating exploration of a much more constrained time in our social history, the film simply feels anachronistic.

The name is a tipoff: Club Dread is dreadful.

So fluidly visual that only a deathbed finale can flag its pace, it's the first Panavision music video to run 21/4 hours, the monotony finally sapping its staying power. [23 Dec 1996 Pg.01.D]

The dialogue is clichéd and laughable. It's a film far more concerned with style - architectural, vehicular and wardrobe-related - than substance.

If not for Sienna Miller's engaging portrayal of Edie Sedgwick, Factory Girl would have little to offer.

Woody, please: Go back to the European locales that so energized you of late.

Why would a distributor suddenly yank an animated family film from its intended wide December opening until mid-January? Could it be that the advance word of mouth wasn't very good-winked?

Harrison Ford has obviously enrolled in the Al Pacino School of Old Man Acting. He yells, sputters and glowers his way through the ultra-ordinary and well-intentioned Extraordinary Measures.

Seems like a work in progress.

It’s a rather impressive feat to bury Tom Holland’s considerable charisma, though that is one of the few aspects where his new film “Uncharted” actually succeeds.

The Chamber merits some respect for daring to be gloomy, for facing the capital punishment issue head-on and for the quality of Gene Hackman's performance. [11 October 1996, p.1D]

There will always be an audience for the escapist rewards this type of movie always dangles.

It's never enough of a grabber to keep the mind from wandering to the romance it apparently sparked.

Mediocre terrorist melodrama turned even punier by real-life events, and that's before we scratch our heads at its lead-actor choice.

Moore and Ford rise above the hackneyed story, infusing the proceedings with their own chemistry and appeal. If only the adults responsible for this film could learn how to deal.

The movie, though, is more of the same: another current comedy with want-to-see elements that fails to deliver the goods. [01 Jul 1992]