Caine is magnificent, and the film is worth a look for his contribution alone. But Milner is a promising actor, too, and the pairing of young and old is believable and occasionally very moving.

An exercise in vanity, indulgence and a startling degree of shallowness.

Never was the case for psychotropic medication more acute than in Jovovich's performance.

You have a movie in which sharks with triple-digit IQs hunt humans with double-digit IQs. It’s no contest.

It’s a touching evocation of friendship, brotherly competition and artistic courage at the cusp of a new century.

Never gets as emotionally involving, or persuasive, as the moviemakers intend it to.

It's the sick humor that's most appealing about this odd little Danish film.

It's refreshing that in effects-happy Hollywood, Evan and Olivia only imagine their travels, rather than run a gantlet of computerized hallucinations. This may turn out to be one of the more endearing aspects of Imagine That to its younger audiences.

When all is said and done, Mike proves to be not only peripheral to the main thrust of the movie, but a drag on its momentum.

The unevenness of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Stiller’s recessive characterization of the title character, keep it from being an all-out crowd-pleaser.

The movie by Jean-Pierre Améris milks the tears in the home stretch, making little effort to hold the melodrama at bay. The result is a story that everyone can feel great about feeling terrible about.

The movie feels forced, cliched and derivative.

The movie is gross but not unfunny as it covers the Zohan's rise through hair culture, aided by his steamy heterosexuality, his lack of inhibition and his stereotypical career aggressiveness, until the old ladies are lined up all the way to the Bronx for a few minutes of bliss in the Zohan's chair.

Truth be told, none of it is actual living, and all of it is secondhand re-spinning of such better movies as "The Year of Living Dangerously" and "Welcome to Sarajevo." To use an antiquated newsman's cliche: Get me rewrite.

Co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose visual schemes lent a hypnotic aura to their previous collaborations -- "The Deep End" and "Suture" -- don't find the right balance of story and image this time.

The sense, in the first half of the film, that love and contentment are attainable dreams slowly gives way to the more existential notion that happiness is really just a fairy tale.

Life has cool effects, real suspense and a sweet twist. It ain’t rocket science, but it does what it does well — even, one might say, with a kind of genius.

To paraphrase the T-shirt, everyone here went to the Isle of Capri, and all we got was this lousy movie.

Hiddleston steals the show here, making wickedness and treachery look a heck of a lot more fun than virtue.

The jump scares are genuinely jumpy, but the film plays out more like a theme park ride than a family drama with teeth. It’s pulse-pounding, in other words, from a cardiac perspective, but not especially engaging as a narrative, despite the earnest efforts of the cast to breathe life into a personal story arc that feels pasted onto another one.

There's a genuinely tragic side to Stuart's character, and for the movie to work the filmmakers have to keep it in balance with the comedy so that the pathos of his life doesn't kill all the laughs. But Ramis can't keep the movie's tone under control, and, as a result, it teeters precariously between farce and wake.

The script is adroit: It doesn't force the humor, and it steadily keeps track of Jim's growing maturity.

That's the thing about this corpse pileup of an action movie. It persistently tries to drag the audience down to its mindless level.

It’s surprisingly wise, funny and affecting, thanks in part to a sensitive script, and in part to a strong ensemble cast.

The whole thing plays like some dreadful masochistic, self-pity fantasy.

The best thing about this movie? It's short.

In the translation from page to film, the life seems to have gone out of the story

Presents an America that is as much about the pathological display of imperial power -- a showmanship of arrogance and violence -- as policy.

As the wily leader of the Japanese forces, grizzled Kurata Yasuaki has more presence than Zhao, who’s bland in non-action sequences. But Zhao’s ability to deliver dialogue is less crucial than his skill at leading hundreds of extras through elegantly choreographed, sumptuously photographed chaos.

Unfortunately, the fact that these particular stories come from the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King can't overcome the direction of John Harrison and the movie's basic television-level aspirations.

In the end, its somewhat equivocal message — that nuclear power might just be the lesser of several evils — is more convincing than you’d think.

Although Miller is excellent as the doomed teen, Wahlberg seems out of his league here, except in the actor’s rendering of Joe’s acute discomfort with public speaking and confrontation — which is odd in a movie that wears its heart, and its lessons, on its sleeve.

It's too long, it's too dull, it's too lame.

The humor is often over-caffeinated and anarchic — a style that suits the production — but when the film dares to slow down, it has a gift for reworking classic gags, like a wordless shot of animals stampeding through a china shop.

Springs from that childhood fantasy of being able to stop time and wander freely among the temporarily frozen. If only writer-director Sean Ellis had done more than use the conceit for a functional romance.

It's a movie by a true believer in anti-globalization, and it may win a few converts, but not among devotees of convincing, capable cinema.

Even the most ardent fans of the natural-born Bond are more apt to be shaken than stirred by the 68-year-old's implausible feats in this inert romantic adventure.

Fans of the play will be pleased. And for those that love the Four Seasons’ music but haven’t made it to the play, you can put your fear of missing out to rest. This is a much more affordable way to very nearly re-create the experience.

Laxton knows how to get the audience down but hasn’t quite mastered the art of lifting them back up.

Memoirs of a Geisha is everything you'd expect it to be: beautiful, mesmerizing, tasteful, Japanese. It's just not very hot.

It doesn't do much for the film's pacifist message that, as spacecraft zip across the screen and fire lasers into your popcorn, you may find yourself wishing that Tsirbas had replaced the movie's poorly written dialogue and implausible plot with more battle scenes. War! What is it good for? Awesome animation!

If it weren't for Sharif's extraordinary presence, there wouldn't be a cherishable moment in the movie.

Sometimes thrilling, but rarely inspired, it is thoroughly-almost perfectly-adequate.

The Paris Opera is a good representation of the struggle behind the spectacle. In movies, though, it’s sometimes best to even out those proportions — a little less absolute truth, and a little more bull.

F.I.S.T. may be given patronizing credit for reflecting some vague desire to do an important picture about the perils of corruption within the American political system. Unfortunately, it can't be given credit for realizing that desire with much skill or credibility. [26 Apr 1978, p.B1]

Fade to Black washes out by relying too heavily on assocations from older films. The excerpts from old movies are far more vivid and evocative than the host attraction. [12 Nov 1980, p.B7]

The movie is as insistently bubbly as the Bradys themselves, but it does run out of carbonation before the end. "Bunch" fans won't mind a bit, while others will be amused by the juxtaposition of the family's wholesome idyll with the harsher realities of life in the '90s, as evidenced by "Roseanne," "Married ... With Children" and "Grace Under Fire." [17 Feb 1995, p.F01]

It's mindlessly violent, profane and insultingly racist. It's also relentless, repetitious and tiresome, and leaves us feeling that a once-great director has run out of ammunition.

Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity.

Although sweet and likable, Ricki and the Flash pulls too many punches to qualify as cathartic or even memorable. Instead, it’s a crowd-pleaser every bit as calculated and earnestly defanged as a Golden Oldies bus-and-truck tour.

Once upon a time [Brooks] was hilarious. And can still be, in interview, which is his true art form. But for some time now, his movies have not even cruised near the neighborhood of funny. And this one is the bottom of the barrel.

It doesn't help matters much that director Thomas Schlamme pays homage to great marital murder mysteries of the past, mostly because the attempts to borrow from the classics are so halfhearted.

While Sparkle doesn't give the audience a lasting memory of Houston's voice at its most soaring, it does manage to provide a lingering sense of loss, mixed with celebration and grim irony.

The movie's signal flaw -- that is, other than its degeneracy, its sloppiness, its love of dark things and pretty stains and arterial spray patterns -- is Moseley as the demonic Otis.

It's a richly appointed production that's hard to take seriously since the monks all look vaguely like Marty Feldman.

In structure and concept, the film resembles the faux-documentary “Borat,” with the distinction that the cameras here are all hidden. And that is where the film falls down and can’t get up.

A good-natured but failed experiment in meeting cute -- indie-movie style.

The drama stars Edgar Ramírez as Roberto and Robert De Niro as his legendary coach. The two are exceptionally well cast, but they can’t save an unfocused jumble of a movie that doubles as a cautionary tale about the importance of film editing.

Though Goodbye Christopher Robin has moments of delight and even profundity, and looks-PBS pretty, too often it stumbles.

A phenomenally atrocious movie—so bad, in fact, that you might actually manage to squeeze a few laughs out of it.

Moviegoers may be happy to hum along with the jaunty soundtrack — and maybe even sympathize with the movie’s unlikely couple — but it’s unlikely to hold anyone entirely in its thrall.

While it’s gratifying — and occasionally gripping — to see that story told in 12 Strong, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film contains few genuine surprises, at least from a cinematic standpoint.

Give Woody Allen credit for ambition. Failing at one movie wasn't enough. Nearly anyone can do that; it happens all the time. He's chosen to fail at two simultaneously.

What's strangest, though, about Die Mommie Die! is how material that was obviously so giddily irreverent in origin became so inert, so joyless and dull.

In his [Ice Cube's] dramatic roles, Cube's raised eyebrows usually unleashed a fearsome glare and a hint of danger; here, his expressions are more quizzical, amused or confused. He plays against type, just as the movie itself plays against hype.

The nice thing about Nice Dreams is that, if you can live with a little raunchiness, it's fun, and it's funnier than C&C's "Next Movie," their second movie after "Up in Smoke": the humor doesn't rely so completely on old jokes about the drug culture. Cheech and Chong are bawdy, they're unself-consciously irreverent, and if any idiocy can happen, it will happen to them. So naturally people enjoy watching them. [5 June 1981, p.17]

Director Caroline Link (Nowhere in Africa) brings handsome period production values and a lyrical, restrained sensibility to a narrative that might not qualify as riveting, but exerts its own unmistakable emotional pull.

The Treatment gets this year's Rip van Winkle award.

Count me among those who would be perfectly happy if they never saw another movie in which a big-city cop, fueled by the death of his partner, seeks revenge against a corrupt small-town sheriff, a wily and ruthless pillar of the Establishment, a psychotic killer or (as here) all three. While you're at it, count me among those who would be happy never to see another starring role for Gere, except maybe as Felix in a remake of "The Odd Couple."

There are no gambles in this crossbreed of sports movie and doggy drama that dutifully — and lazily — stays on course from beginning to end. Heartstrings are tugged, dogs are adored and it’s all inoffensively inspirational.

It really captures what it feels like to be a kid.

Aside from Danner and Ivey, who's also miscast, performances are steady if uninspired. Silverman is engaging but hasn't yet learned to work the camera like the crowd. But all their efforts hardly matter given the surprisingly unsteady pace set by Tony award-winning director Gene Saks, who collaborated with Simon on the successful film versions of "The Odd Couple" and "Barefoot in the Park." Caught between the strictures of stage and the freedoms of film, Saks and Simon (and producer Ray Stark) compromise with an amorphous hybrid that's stagey and forced. [26 Dec 1986]

James Earl Jones, James Caan and D.B. Sweeney turn in superior performances in "Gardens of Stone," but it's all for naught. Francis Coppola sabotages their efforts with a handsome but fragmentary film that can't decide which story to tell.

Something is missing, and you feel that its absence prevents both the characterization and movie from going decisively over the top.

Seems fatally out of tune, with every staged encounter falling as flat as the protagonist's hot-ironed bob.

The camera is more athletic than anyone on-screen, muscling between bullets and smashing through walls. Heyvaert shoots action so well that you forgive how little physical action there actually is.

There are laughs to be had here, yes, but your mileage will vary depending on your tolerance for sophomoric bathroom humor and gratuitous vulgarity.

But when mechanical plots are a drama's main engine, we look for something else to divert us, preferably good comedy. That's in short supply, unfortunately. And it's no fun to sit through the movie's retread Woody Allenisms.

As for Hathaway, she's a revelation. Those eyes are still as big as Beamer hubcaps, but she's able to show more edge than her previous goody-goody roles have allowed.

A kind of satisfaction ultimately arrives, but it is not one for purists, or even lovers of speculative history. It feels tacked on: too little, too late, too ludicrous — the past rewritten as a form of wishful thinking.

One of the great strengths of CSNY is how skillfully it deflects criticism of "four balding hippie millionaires" taking to the stage to criticize American politics; the film is peppered with excerpts from some of the tour's earliest and nastiest critics.

The stranger and more unusual the characters, and the less they're explained, the better.

So phony it makes your gums ache.

Feels razor thin. None of the characters is particularly noteworthy. And the revelations of deep-seated conspiracy in the usual privileged, closed circles are hackneyed and tired.

The outspoken congressman is just as entertaining as his liberal fans already know him to be.

The film would be insufferable if it weren't for the total sincerity and commitment of its players.

Heckerling seems lost and distracted here -- the framing is careless, and the film moves with a stuttering pace. Why is this talented director being channeled into projects like this?

I suspect that none of these actors had as much fun bringing to life the cagey and colorful political vulgarian as his fellow Texan, Woody Harrelson, seems to be having in LBJ, crudely and rudely drawling his lines behind a wall of latex makeup, plus-size prosthetic ears and horn-rimmed glasses that obscure his own facial features.

The result is an unabashedly violent B-movie throwback, the sort director John Carpenter used to make, with moments that resonate with real life.

The picture amounts to little more than an uninspired, almost perfunctory exercise in "big game" manipulations.

When the tone goes from daffy to dour in the course of a harrowing plot point, the story becomes more forced than fierce.

Romero and his original partners apparently made no money from the original, and Romero admitted to the Wall Street Journal that the reasons for remaking the film were "purely financial." It shows...This Night of the Living Dead is resurrected, but it's never brought to life.

Compared to Escape From New York, the weapons are bigger and the violence is more extensive, although it’s toned down by today’s excessive standards. There are also greater special effects this time, involving holograms and nuclear-powered submarines. But Escape From L.A. is more enjoyable in a playful way.

Eddie the Eagle leaves viewers buoyed by satisfactions unique to classic come-from-behind stories. Even when it’s as ungainly and cravenly audience-pleasing as its protagonist, it soars.

Though creepy Jeffrey Combs and beach boy Bruce Abbott return as West and Cain, producer Brian Yusna has replaced Stuart Gordon in the director's chair, without bringing new life to the affair. Even the jokes in the Woody Keith/Rick Fry screenplay seem refried.

At 85, Ian McKellen doesn’t have many performances left in him, so any movie that lets the actor carve ham with such exuberant relish as “The Critic” is worth his time and ours.

Writer-director Gerard Johnstone and co-writer Akela Cooper, both returnees, keep the pace fast enough to paper over the incomprehensible plot and, more important, retain the first movie’s self-mocking humor. The result is enjoyably over-the-top summer junk, which, honestly, a lot of us could use right now.

Bobby, even if it suffers from a few silly scenes, gets more right than it does wrong.