Ultimately, the movie doesn't make it, but there's enough going on to make it more arf than barf.

Bardem's soulful turn lends this haunting meditation a sense of hope and saves it from the contrived missteps it teeters toward.

After laughing at crudely funny scenes in The Dictator, there's a cringing sensation of guilt.

The stunts are as muscular and the film as handsome to look at as the hero who so ably pulls them off. But the story linking it all together is thin and weak.

Like an uneven album, the movie has some harmonious, authentically lilting moments and other off-putting ones.

With its fanciful razzle-dazzle, Rise of the Guardians is appealing, if slightly hectic, family fare.

The Midnight Sky doesn’t always have the smoothest storytelling, yet in Clooney’s capable directing hands, the film’s emotional core and human touch are never a waste of space.

Cheesy, campy B-movie fun, thanks mostly to the cadre of cobras and their ilk and also to Jackson (probably the only actor alive who could pull off this save-the-day bad ass movie role).

Lean on Me is surprisingly subdued (and very coolly photographed, too, by Victor Hammer). It may be that Avildsen was feeling disciplined - Clark's influence, perhaps. And, then, school board politics and students' testing skills aren't exactly juicy dramatic themes. [3 March 1989, p.4D]

Grimly claustrophobic movies can make viewers put up a shield, yet Tim Blake Nelson (who directed O) invests this unusual Holocaust drama with dramatic intensity that in no way cheapens its subject matter.

Hunt is coldly clinical rather than emotionally resonant; so is the measured ensemble work of a super cast. [2 Mar 1990, Life, p.1D]

Though this saga would be terrific to read about, it is dicey screen material that only a genius should touch. With no genius in sight, K-19 might be headed for meltdown.

It's a pleasure to watch such top-notch actors deliver Coward's sparkling wit.

Peña is a standout, and Longoria is a revelation as the vulnerable, pregnant Paulina. Hers is a decidedly un-glamorous part and Longoria compellingly fleshes out an under-written role.

Jojo Rabbit succeeds even with a high degree of difficulty, given the sensitivities of the subject matter, the emotional undercurrent of a mother’s devotion to her son and the breaking down of artificial walls to let love in. As much as it makes you laugh, Waititi’s must-watch effort is a warm hug of a movie that just so happens to have a lot of important things to say.

Despite appealing performances and kinetic football scenes, the storytelling is mostly conventional.

The huge contingent of girls -- and women with girlish fantasies -- who liked the first two movies will doubtless enjoy Eclipse. But this third go-round won't make Twihard converts of the rest of us.

Put to the sequel litmus test, queasily spectacular Vengeance would only rate a footnote without a strong original to exploit - or a protracted telephone-terrorist subplot to steal from Dirty Harry 1. [19May1995 Pg.01.D]

Splinter is no exploitative blood bath or torture horror like the "Saw" movies. It's more of a thriller along the lines of "The Thing" or "Alien." The scares are equal parts psychological jolts and gore. This is classic Halloween fun, with plenty of thrills and chills, surprisingly believable performances, and healthy doses of humor.

A movie of moments whose ultimate legacy may be to get Carrey out of formula comedies forever.

The interwoven stories are haunting, but also darkly funny.

The star interplay and anachronisms recapture some of the surreal spirit of the Crosby-Hope Road movies, and the end-credit outtakes are funny enough to sustain that getting-hoary device for at least one more picture.

The main lessons Jonah attempts to teach are compassion and mercy. That's an unusual -- and welcome -- message these days.

Populaire takes an intrinsically boring activity — typing — and makes it unusually entertaining.

While this third go-round may not seem necessary amid summer's blockbusters, it's an entertaining jaunt back in time with the likably mismatched duo.

Has enough tasty bait to satisfy an array of moviegoers: Burton fans, Albert Finney fans, fans of tall tales well spun by experts and fans of movies that don't look like any other.

Snowden’s a polarizing whistleblower portrayed as an American hero here but in too pedestrian a fashion for such a hot-button topic, and the movie seems at times as awkward as its brainiac subject.

So stunningly photographed that the blood that spurts early and often in this grisly period piece is extra-vivid red. But that hardly makes the Prohibition-era story of a trio of bootlegging brothers feel authentic.