The Monuments Men often lets the schematic gears show, succumbing to threadbare formula and sentimental cliches rather than taut, sophisticated drama.

The compulsively watchable Owen makes for an ideal leading man of both action and angst. The film's eye-popping set piece, a shootout at the Guggenheim Museum, is an extravagantly choreographed valentine to philistines everywhere.

Betsy's Wedding is white cake and warm bubbly, not an unsuitable marriage, just a tepid one.

Rudderless is a competent, well-acted melodrama, yet in scope and ambition it has the modest and serviceable scale of the small, not silver, screen.

It's too long to be great and it's too square to be great and it's too loud to be great and it finds homosexual effeminacy too funny to ever be called great, but I can't imagine anyone coming out sadder than they went in.

The three actors excel in their roles, and director Matthew Saville gives additional insight into the men through small yet informative details.

Is it funny? Now and then. Stupid? Very. Racist? Possibly. Ugly? Profoundly. Wild? Undeniably. Singular? Completely.

The new movie adorned with this sure-fire title happens to be a tacky and disreputable attempt at a sophisticated comedy about women writers.

Triple 9 feels more like a collection of good scenes than a novel, propulsive whole. Viewers are apt to be entertained by the film’s visceral pulp pleasures, but left apathetic when it comes to its instantly forgettable genre cliches.

Stenberg and Robinson are enormously appealing young actors, but charisma only goes so far in a story that manages to be, as directed by Stella Meghie (“Jean of the Joneses”), sterile and wildly far-fetched.

Talking-head interviews interspersed with reenactments reminiscent of cheap true-crime shows are the filmic equivalent of a polo shirt and khakis: blandly acceptable but uninspired.

Wendy Wasserstein brings a dull pen to this literary adaptation, which shows none of the bite or savvy of Stephen McCauley's novel.

Enormously visually appealing, even if the story itself is almost unrecognizably bloated.

Clearly well timed with Lenten reflections on sacrifice, service, suffering and responsibility. But it offers an equally relevant — and inspiring — portrayal of principled steadfastness and spiritual integrity in the face of a petty, corrupt and tyrannical leader.

An uncommonly warm, relaxed little movie, the kind they call a "feel-good film," but without a cloying artificially-sweetened aftertaste.

Based on "Romeo and Juliet" the way a martini is "based" on vermouth.

And even though the jokes keep on coming, not all are side-splitters. But before it's all over, they will have viewers howling at one or more pants-wettingly silly moments.

A glittery but dunderheaded murder mystery.

Forget Tad Hamilton -- this is really a 90-minute date with Kate Bosworth.

You can't make an epic about a mouse.

It's like a music video of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" filmed in the Chevy Chase Pottery Barn.

Ponderously cliched and predictable. [19 July 1996, p.N33]

Swedish director Daniel Espinosa isn't as adept at chase scenes as "Bourne" director Paul Greengrass: We sometimes lose track of who's supposed to be where and which direction the bullets are flying.

Nivola and Breslin make a terrific mismatched pair in a film that often resembles a mash-up of "Crazy Heart" and Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere," which may account for why it too often feels derivative and contrived.

Schemel's life story contains many interesting pieces - growing up as a lesbian in a conservative rural town, battling a lifetime of drug addiction, spending years in proximity to Love - but Hit So Hard often finds her as an extra in her own film.

Epic in its ambitions and often visually and emotionally strong, the film nevertheless suffers from a confusing narrative and a style of computer animation that blurs the lines between the real and the animated in a way that evokes the discomfiting artifice of “The Polar Express” (2004).

It’s difficult to believe a word of Labor Day, but then again you don’t have to in order to luxuriate in Winslet and Brolin’s bubbling, steaming chemistry.

There's style and humor, but the visual excess overwhelms the weak plot. [29 Apr 1983, p.17]

Despite the story’s familiarity, its star manages to turn its many tropes into a winning formula.

The tension on the ship keeps accelerating in a straight and dramatically unsurprising line until the final scenes of “Slingshot,” at which point the twists come piling in, one after another, each shocker nullified by the next.

For all its playfulness, the new RoboCop can’t help but lack the novelty of the original’s jolting mixture of dumb-smart irony and visceral pulp.

A film that manages to avoid the dreary, Wikipediaesque literalism that plagues so many biopics while obliquely evoking the man and his era with textures, atmosphere, mood and tone.

His screenplay for Beautiful Creatures is sharp and witty, considering the needlessly complicated source material. His cast is stellar, and the chemistry between his young stars magical. But too much of rest of the movie, like Thompson’s monstrous mother, is an unholy mess.

The result is an unusual movie about acceptance, tolerance, support, sex and fun among a group of longtime female friends who meet for three weekends within a year. Women viewers are not likely to be surprised by their conversation; men may be.

Let's not waste any time: This movie is just awful. Prime problem: Josh Kornbluth, the chubby, wild-haired, bug-eyed star.

Meyers seems content to make a nice movie about nice people doing their best to be nice to each other despite one or two not-nice things that happen along the way. That’s all very nice, but not particularly the stuff of potent or rousing entertainment.

An utterly pointless remake of Sam Peckinpah's hair-raising road movie. Updated and dumbed down, this anemic variation on the bloodier 1972 original is primarily an opportunity for those vast legions of Baldwin-Basinger voyeurs. You know who you are.

The Age of Adaline works best as a simple story of boy meets girl; girl falls in love; girl mulls whether or not to reveal that she’ll stay young forever. Everything else is just a lot of unnecessary noise.

A film of admirable ambition but vexingly uneven execution.

Despite clocking in at nearly 2½ hours, “I Wanna Dance” barely scratches the surface of its celestial subject and the figures in her orbit.

Uncle Buck is competent comedy, a bit simplistic, a bit stale, no gremlins, no gushiness, no surprises. A Hughes movie offers the kind of reliability you expect from major household appliances or a good set of radials.

The movie simply delivers too many colorfuls for its own good, none of whom establish a true emotional identity, and thus it isn't moving, it's busy. Busy, busy, busy.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves has pomp and scale; what it lacks is something essential -- a sense of Once Upon a Time wonder, the exultant, heady thrill of legend.

For a moment, the movie tries to be about something deeper — some existential epiphany, perhaps. The book didn’t deal in platitudes. It was content to be lightly educational, but mostly just entertaining. The movie aspires to be more than that, only to reveal how much less than that it really is.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom finds another way to grow: by making its plot much, much bulkier. In doing so, it commits the worst possible sin: It makes dinosaurs boring.

It's more a brave movie than it is a good one, but at least Singleton has faced the unknown. And he deserves credit for the attempt.

The stars of First Descent aren't particularly memorable, or even likable. At their worst, they come off as cocky, self-absorbed Peter Pans; at their best, they're sweet but shallow.

Destined to be forgotten in the wasteland that stretches between the actor’s best work and his worst, this dumb-but-not-dumb-enough, simultaneously heartwarming and disheartening film features layer upon layer of wedding-disaster clichés (complete with a trashed cake).

The movie is a little crude for the subtlety of the emotions it plays with.

For all this potential, and the appealing presence of Nicolas Cage and newcomer Adam Beach, Windtalkers remains almost obstinately flat.

This is a downbeat, indulgent and self-consciously quirky little movie.

But it's Roberts's memorably comic performance that is the most distinguishing aspect of the movie. As the gawky professional companion, she's ticklishly appealing.

If Refn is trying to skewer our cultural fixation with youth and good looks, his blade isn’t up to the task. The Neon Demon attacks, but indiscriminately. It’s sharp-looking but dull, hacking and plunging every which way, yet drawing no real blood.

Depending on how you take your twee — sparingly or, as is the case in this preciously concocted tale of English misfits, slathered like marmalade over a crumpet — it will either delight or quickly cloy.

Top Gun is basically "An Officer and a Gentleman" with less spirit and depth. But it's still fine formula movie-making -- like a feature-length "Be All That You Can Be" commercial. It's got lots of loud music, hot colors, heat-seeking missiles and other pointed objects. Real men squint into the radar's gleam below deck, while real men hunt MiGs upstairs. [16 May 1986, p.29]

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy promises to take off every so often, but the material proves too slight for buoyant fancy. [16 July 1982, p.C1]

It seemed to me that what Eddie and the Cruisers aspired to do was certainly worth doing. The problem is that it finally lacks the storytelling resources to tell enough of an intriguing story about a musical mystery man. [30 Sept 1983, p.E2]

Let's Spend the Night Together is a disappointing souvenir, at best a sweet substitute for the many who couldn't catch the Stones live. The Stones' status has always excused their shortcomings, so this film won't shake the believers. But it won't convince the skeptics, either. [12 Feb 1983, p.C1]

Heroism, however real, doesn’t, by definition, make The Last Full Measure a great movie. Juicing up a fine story, and then hammering away at its point makes it one that doesn’t appear to trust either its source material or its audience.

It's a frequent theme of bad children's pictures that knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, is the opposite of unspoiled childhood goodness,and here it is again, only weakly contradicted by the one pleasant actor in the film, Jack Soo, as an idealistic truant officer. It's as if kiddies' mindless escape films, unlike adults', needed to carry their own internal justification. [31 March 1978, p.15]

Zieff & Co. give it a game, good-humored try, but I don't think they're in jeopardy of being celebrated as inspired farceurs. [14 Feb 1984, p.D8]

Watching it leaves you feeling less buzzed than jittery and slightly nauseated. If the "Ocean's" movies were martinis, Contraband is a thermos full of coffee.

The story by screenwriter William Nicholson (“Everest”) jumps from one major episode in Robin’s life to another, but with none of those episodes delving into his interior life, Breathe remains a superficial tear-jerker.

Perhaps an experienced director could have pulled it off, but Scharfman isn’t there yet, and the result is a tonally confused, gracelessly shot and edited misfire that squanders its premise on escalating suspense and ugly, unconvincing digital effects.

Gilliam does two things well: mud and trees.

It seems like a waste of talent, but worse still, Cesar Chavez squanders an opportunity to revisit a story worth retelling.

Because Cosmatos has put together a decent cast and a proficient crew, Leviathan is intermittently interesting, but it's a bad sign that the movie starts losing its punch when the monster shows up.

Thanks to its funny, attractive, emotionally on-point cast, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel puts the lie to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s pronouncement about life having no second acts. In fact, it goes one step further to question why on Earth anyone would stop at just two.

Please circle the sentence that most closely reflects your feelings: 1. To me, this scene sounds precious, cute, madcap, zany, lovable, heart-warming, poignant and funny. 2. I find this scene nauseating, despicable, moronic, simpering, formulaic, tacky and culturally dangerous.

Music redeems an at-risk teen in Urban Hymn, a social-problem melodrama whose other major characters don’t fare so well.

It's a highbrow romantic farce, without the laughs.

It feels more like a prosaic knockoff than a classically inspired original.

Due Date isn't pretty; in fact, it gets kind of ugly. But, at least in the eyes of certain beholders, therein lies its peculiar, bent beauty.

Lester doesn't have the sense of visual style that other directors, like Spielberg and Lucas, bring to their comic-book movies; harshly lit and sometimes amateurish, Commando doesn't last in your eye. And Lester doesn't pace his sequences, allowing the suspense to build -- it's all breakneck, and it tires you out. [04 Oct 1985, p.E3]

Simultaneously earnest yet maudlin, Te Ata lacks the one thing its subject is said to have possessed: a gift for storytelling.

Ultimately, How to Be Single feels reverse-engineered to justify its ending, which while admittedly gratifying, can’t accurately be described as happy. For that, it would have to be worth the contrivances, cliches and tedium that have gone before.

Tired conventions, hoary themes and obvious conclusions.

This summer Bullock is in the driver's seat of The Net, a sort of chase movie on the information highway from veteran producer-turned-director Irwin Winkler, and not only is the film a comedown, it's a far less flattering showcase for her talents as well.

When the danger subsides and the sparkless romance returns to the foreground, the vehicle comes sputtering back to earth with a thud, weighed down by the inertia of its leaden leading lady.

With The Baxter, Showalter's begging his way into the ranks of the safe and the mediocre.

Good camerawork only goes so far. Love drags on and on, alternating between arguments and intimacy, breakups and makeups. The movie never passes the authenticity test; if this is what sex feels like, we’ll all soon be extinct.

Too scary for very young children, yet too silly for most older fans of director Bryan Singer’s earlier forays into the Superman and X-Men franchises, “Jack” seems designed to appeal to a very narrow, and possibly illusory, demographic: the mature moppet.

Still, if for the most part Death at a Funeral is as tame as the tasteful parlor where most of its action takes place, it manages to explode one taboo, in casting mostly black actors in roles originally played by whites.

"Valerian” is an expensive, handsome but dozy invalid of a movie.

This earthbound tale has a poignant political message — and not a subtle one.

Live From New York! is a fun, not academic walk down memory lane.

Like the opium dreams that its eponymous hero becomes addicted to, this fragmented, trigger-happy account of Wild Bill Hickok's final years feels like a bad trip through every cheap western knockoff you ever had to sit through.

Shouldn't fool viewers into thinking it's anything but a pseudo-artsy piece of tripe.

Overall the movie is a fun peek at the birth of Lego bricks and their ever-evolving place in the world.

There are certain pleasures here, mostly in the cast of characters. Malkovich’s misanthropic egoist is chief among them. And Bullock makes for a fierce and relatable Mama Bear. But as for tension, there’s precious little.

Suffers from sluggish exposition mediocre direction and a one-closeup-after-another method of composition advertising the film's eventual retirement to the Disney TV series, but it probably salvages things with juvenile audiences by finishing fast. [5 Feb 1977, p.C5]

Between bad hair and tonal irregularity, the movie doesn't give you much to like.

Should have been a smart bit of cinematic froth but instead sinks like an overworked souffle.

Poor Roberts, pretty and perky as the day is long, hasn't a hoot in hell of bringing Julianne off. She's simply not actress enough, she doesn't have that suppleness that would enable her to sell the complexity of emotion, the jealousy, the irrationality, the meanness and the intelligence.

A brightly wrapped, ketchup-drenched mush-burger, it slides down the Zeitgeist esophagus like a slippery McPelican. You pay, you swallow, you drive home. You're left with nothing except, possibly, heartburn.

By turns fascinating, puzzling and troubling -- a deeply felt account of the varieties of religious experience but also a thoroughly uncritical apologia for fanaticism.

The result is a dusty-dopey Tex-wreck, a feeble excuse for a string of computer-programmed explosions and slow-motion death ballets. In director Walter Hill's shaky hands, even the blow-ups are boring. [24 Apr 1987]

This is a movie guaranteed to please crowds, if only because it insists on their affection so strenuously.