Starts off promisingly, then grows as lifeless as a poker face.

The comic elements of this semi-factual tale are heavy-handed, and a key romance falls flat. Despite its titillating subject matter, Hysteria is only mildly stimulating. The final third of the story meanders during a tedious trial and clumsy speechifying.

Though not as engaging as "Knocked Up," there is enough humor to keeps us entertained.

Screwball, vaguely futuristic political satires are a rare hybrid, and War, Inc. is an intriguing, if flawed, example.

This is a movie that makes it exclusively on star power -- when it's making it at all. [22 Dec 1998, p.4D]

If you're not a stickler for consistency, this is an effective pastiche and tribute to one of the world's most enticing cities.

This is the anti-"Hurt Locker" experience: Where that Iraq War film was absorbing and deadly serious, The Men Who Stare at Goats is irreverent and lighthearted. One only wishes it were a more consistently funny film.

A fresh-slant Vietnam picture in which lead Tom Cruise achieves indisputable greatness, July is otherwise a "more often than not'' achievement. But though it's as full of itself as Stone's watchably windy Talk Radio, the film's roundhouse punches propel you into remote Mike Tyson-land when they connect. [20 Dec 1989, p.1D]

Mulroney is a drip with not a milliliter of chemistry with either woman. Roberts doesn't really seem to care about him so much as the fact that life is passing her by. Though, that may be the point.

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

For a film so antsy to start that it barely flashes its opening title, Die Hard 2 takes a curiously long time to get off the ground. Like many return trips, what was once exhilarating is now a bit flat. [3 July 1990]

The ripe dialogue (''I was their No. 1 son,'' wails the Penguin about the parents who flushed their deformed baby down the sewer, ''and they treated me like No. 2!'') and rich settings decked out in deco can't disguise that little happens. The frantic action circles the same city block, as if trying to find a spot to park. [19 June 1992, p.1D]

Colorful. [1 December 1995, p.D13]

Poison is better visually than verbally, though some dialogue in Episode 1 (a missing-kid parody called Hero) got hearty laughs from paying customers in my theater. What 'makes' this exercise, as far as it goes, is polished editing. [12 Apr 1991, p.2D]

While it has the requisite amounts of comedy and romance, it's actually more of a buddy movie. Think "Sex in the City," bro-style.

These movies are best when marrying James Bond high jinks with their longtime emphasis on the strength of family, plus a serving of macho philosophy on the side. F9 tries to goose that template exponentially with soap opera and a greatest-hits package to craft the ultimate "Fast and Furious" movie, instead succeeding at making one that's merely fine.

It’s a sketch-type conceit stretched to movie length that wears thin at times. When the stars are on their game, though, they keep the laughs coming.

The two m's in 8MM could stand for "messy melodrama." [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

Anchoring the story is 9-year-old Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse), whose first scenes are riveting.

Only two-thirds of this unlikely trio comes close to capturing the complexity of anguish and pain.

Though the film has a strong cast, humor and a satirical take on celebrity culture, the story is spotty.

Though the lead performances are uniformly good, the film seems hazy in its focus from the start. Many of the scenes seem to simply meander.

This is Woodstock from another perspective -- one without Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin.

The best thing about Gridiron Gang is the performance of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. He is engaging, affable and wholly believable as a former football star turned officer in a juvenile detention center.

It all comes down to men behaving badly and greed rules all, though at least you’ll laugh and seethe along the way.

There's a familiar feeling to the movie even beyond its twinkle-eyed martial arts melees.

The storytelling suffers from the weight of that ambition, though Elemental at least pulls off fun world-building a la “Zootopia” with a city where the residents – of fire, water, earth and air persuasions – reflect four different cultural groups and ethnicities and don’t always get along.

Oliver Stone's Nixon humanizes a reviled but respected subject for over three hours - dynamically at times, but finally so solemnly that it becomes a grind-you-down dirge. The maker of Natural Born Killers actually concludes with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Shenandoah - without irony. [20 Dec 1995, p.1D]