Those who’d like to take their more mature children to an animated feature with considerably more imaginative richness than, say, “DC League of Super-Pets” will find that the Japanese anime movie “Inu-Oh” fits the bill: How often do you get a chance to take in a medieval rock opera? But an imaginative hook isn’t everything.

Many of the characters are cut from recycled cardboard, while Kennedy himself, played by Jason Clarke, remains a cipher. (Mary Jo is played by Kate Mara.) The movie makes a point of not judging him, but that only highlights the impossibility, after all these years, of penetrating the mystery of his behavior.

It's a little precious and a little boring, but he has brought out an interesting performance from Adrienne Shelly, who convincingly pulls off a transformation from aimless pregnant teenager to purposeful young woman. [05 Sep 1991]

For its delicate tone, provocative themes, impeccable craftsmanship and superb performances-by Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley-Never Let Me Go earned my great admiration. I wish I'd been affected in equal measure, but I wasn't, and it's not the sort of film you can will yourself to enjoy.

The movie—consistently amusing, amiably performed and never really credible—concerns itself with questions of artistic inspiration, and one leaves it thinking that Ms. Miller has, at the very least, an eccentric muse.

Rather than belabor the what that was chosen—the silly lather the story works up—I’ll reflect in my turn on how fine “Last Night In Soho” turns out to be when its co-stars are fully engaged in their eerily mysterious dance of identity.

Successfully stringing together shocking, disgusting and terrifying moments counts as a solid day’s work for most horror directors, and since The Exorcist: Believer achieves all that it’s competent enough. But I expected better from Mr. Green.

Ting's exploits grow ever more violent and repetitive, but a lot of Ong-Bak is very enjoyable.

The film's examination of confused sexuality, psychic scars and unsupportive parents never moves a step beyond cliche.

Granted, the mayhem is inflicted mostly on zombies and other Halloween decorations that have come to life courtesy of the ancient curse unleashed by Sydney. But the casual decapitations and dismemberments transition from vaguely entertaining to annoying, mostly because there’s a lot less story than there are special effects.

So what does the film, playing in theaters, want to make millions of moviegoers feel? Delight in graphic design? Sure, but the filmmaker’s familiar motifs, playful and inventive as they may be, operate in an emotional void.

It doesn't make Cars a bad picture -- the visual inventions are worth the price of admission -- but it constitutes conduct unbecoming to a maker of magic.

This is Coupland's first screenplay, and it shows -- in a cheerfully discursive quality, but also in a reliance on gestures, contrivance and dialectic speeches rather than dramatic development and conflict.

The movie is a relentlessly intense, grotesquely overblown and numbingly long account of extraordinary heroism on the part of six American security operators in the midst of horrific chaos.

Ms. Richen has a problematic subject for a documentary, and the problems extend beyond the limitations of footage. She needs to sell the event, thus her lineup of marginally relevant characters gushing about it.

The laughs, the warmth, the love and the faith-based fellowship die out in the dismal final act.

Monster House benefits from strong graphic design and lovely lighting, but the script is nothing to write home about.

A textbook case of a film that's befuddled by its subject.

It’s ultimately a genre film with all that implies, meaning omissions, simplifications, conventional heroics, dramatic banalities and, given the narrative’s limited scope, little sense of the event’s complex causes or its environmental cost.

Ms. Findlay’s work is nevertheless so delicate as to be slight, so unassuming as to be unsatisfying. The friction between the two leads could form a strong backdrop to the film; instead, it is the film.

There's a jaunty score by Randy Newman, and Clooney, as always, has charm to burn, but here, he's off his game.

The psychology of The Club is warped and gnarled, the thinking of its members less-than-jesuitical.

In spite of the film's surface allure -- no, not the leather, the period evocation -- and a fine performance by Gretchen Mol in the title role, Bettie is in bondage to a shallow, black-and-white script.

The more elaborate the plot becomes, the sillier it gets.

The sweet spirit that made last year's "Elf" such a success has curdled considerably.

The movie wears thin as its style turns from light parody into affectation, and the plot, which certainly generates lots of anxiety, eventually settles for facile irony.

The Drop finds its humor in cringe comedy and the kind of cultural caricature that isn’t just tiresome but offhandedly so.

Matching Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger is an amusing conceit played out in an entirely predictable fashion. It certainly isn't harmful, and Mr. Schwarzenegger is kind of cute when he smiles. [8 Dec 1988, p.1]