It's shrill in tone, awash in unexamined narcissism - kids are just pretexts for laughs, rather than objects of love - and afflicted by explosive verbal diarrhea. There's simply no base line of normal human activity, let alone intimacy, until the anticouple finally re-examines their anticommitment credo. By then everyone has been so selfish and dislikable that our commitment to the film is lost.

Quid Pro Quo, a bizarre but audacious debut feature by Carlos Brooks.

Here's one more studio extravaganza brought down by numbing action and an addiction to generic digital effects.

This sad excuse for family entertainment tries to enshrine a classic while defacing it.

Having simplified matters, Ms. Fennell sloughs off the psychological depth of the novel and instead lavishes attention on the heavy breathing and the decor, exhibiting much interest in the ornate mansion in which the Linton family lives (one room is set aside for ribbons only) and the costumes and accessories with which Ms. Robbie is gloriously draped.

The film’s energy can be relentless, but the feelings are real, and they’re wrapped in a dysfunctional-family package that’s so venerable and endearing as to seem a little bit new.

Austen comes off here more as stenographer than writer. Worse, the movie has Tom Lefroy as her condescending guide.

The gentle, ambling Ang Lee comedy that's a few tokes short of groovy.

It's just that the picture doesn't have a strong idea behind it, just a fog of many half-expressed ideas. [26 Feb 1987, p.20(E)]

Mr. Campos and his superb cast confer such authority on the whole thing that there’s no choice but to follow the film’s three time-hopping, befuddlingly intertwined stories — for 138 minutes, no less.

This would-be epic is beautifully photographed, elegantly crafted and adventurously cast. Unfortunately, though, it plays like a gargantuan trailer for a movie still to be made.

Hitchcock rings false from start to finish.

Bolstered by a spooky musical score, credited to the musician Rob, a tightly wound performance by Ms. Berry, and creepy unexpected appearances by beings who may or may not be manifestations of the Evil, Mr. Aja makes the most of an uninspired script. In this type of film, however, everything depends on the third-act resolution. It doesn’t deliver.

The movie itself -- which deals (not very interestingly) with the issue of journalistic integrity and (very predictably) with father-son relationships -- doesn't pack much of a wallop.

Soon I realized that the real subject of this film, with its philosophical voice-overs by the filmmaker and its haunting shots of decayed American downtowns, is the passage of time and the toll it takes. The effect of the Super 8 is to give present moments historical weight by making them look primitive; it's a kind of instant oldening that seems to pause time if not to stop it. It's About You is an odd and touching little film. I'm glad I stuck it out.

Mr. Murray gives a fascinating performance, even though his FDR was conceived and written as a fairly small guy at the center of a small film that, for all its considerable charm, miniaturizes its hero in the process of humanizing him.

For many reasons, none of them good, Old is in a class by itself. M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller-slasher-sci-fi-creep-out is peerlessly clumsy, silly and alarmed.

Amusing, in fits and spurts, and sure to make tons of money, but terribly familiar and fatigued.

The problem lies with the central role. The character may be comic, as conceived, but Mr. Landry’s performance is flat. Pierre-Paul is certainly likable in his earnestness, amusing in his confusion and touching in his innocence. Yet he isn’t very funny — there’s no sparkle, no buoyancy, no surprise — and the blame doesn’t lie only with the actor, given the underlying earnestness of the writing and direction.

This debut feature, occasionally arch but consistently affecting, shares the deadpan esthetic of "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Ghost World."

Yet most of the film's energy is generated by flamboyant cinematography and music-video cutting, and much of that energy is false.

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

Mr. Clooney’s prancing, dancing and clowning for the TV camera feel tame and vaguely self-conscious when measured, as they will be, against the calculated craziness of his role’s model, Mr. Cramer, who usually manages to seem simultaneously shrewd and stridently unhinged.

It’s not as if the people never existed, only the band, and the logical conclusion of all this speculation is exactly where the movie takes itself. I don’t want to spoil the party, but it feels like exploitation.

In this action adventure, the apotheosis of his career thus far, cheerful idiocy occasionally rises to the level of delectable lunacy. For the most part, though, it’s entertainment as punishing paradox, a high-speed slog.

A horror flick is only as good as its ending; It either delivers on its promises, or it disappoints. This one builds up to a climax that is meant to be spectacular, but is actually a bore thanks to its literalism.

The film succeeds to the degree that it does -- partially, but honorably and sometimes affectingly -- because it was made as well as it was.

So the awful truth about The Truth About Charlie is that it needed two movie stars and got one.