The sense of goofy, if gory, good humor [Copley] brings to Hardcore Henry goes a long way toward mitigating the film’s tedious barbarity.

A film of modest ambition and workmanlike pacing, it breaks little new ground, either in form or content. Then again, that may be the point.

Even Strong's best efforts can't save John Carter from collapsing in on itself like a dead star.

A sort of empty hat. Patterned after such noir classics as "The Big Sleep" and "Chinatown," the film is written in an arch, self-consciously hard-boiled style by novelist Pete Dexter that comes close to parody.

A satisfying thriller as grimly professional as its efficient hero.

Within this structurally baggy weepie, at least two perfectly good movies fight to break free, one a provocative legal thriller, the other a melodrama.

So childish it seems to arrive in diapers, and that's not bad; it's good.

Decidedly low-tech and not always particularly coherent or cohesive.

Mr. Mom has its share of bright lines and funny moments, but if you bring anything beyond trifling expectations to this role-reversal farce, starring Michael Keaton and Teri Garr as a couple obliged to switch homemaking and breadwinning duties, it will be difficult to avoid feeling shortchanged. [20 Aug 1983, p.C1]

With Anonymous, director Roland Emmerich gives us "Shakespeare in Luck." Make that "Dumb Luck": In this alternately entertaining and wildly ham-handed speculative romp.

Jack Reacher is a wildly ill-advised miscalculation, with Cruise's virtually unstoppable appeal butting uncomfortably against Reacher's alternately cocky and downright crude cynicism.

Stylishly gruesome and dementedly romantic, "Romeo" has its pervertedly funny moments, but in the end it's a bloody bummer that leaves a depressing aftertaste.

Clerks III is a movie for die-hard fans and die-hards only.

The caper isn't as passionate as the title suggests—in fact, it's facile—but Ryan and Kevin Kline, as her attractive opposite, are irresistible together.

Always is an unfulfilled promise, a plummeting dove.

Ultimately, SLC Punk! doesn't have enough dimension to maintain dramatic interest.

Even before it begins laying waste to the reputations of cast members, Firestarter is promptly exposed as a derivative embarrassment of a conception. What could be better calculated to illustrate King's recent decline than a "new" thriller whose devices have been poorly cribbed and patched together from "Carrie" and "The Fury"? As a matter of fact, "Charlie's Fiery Fury" would be a catchier bad title than Firestarter.

Though he is a master thief with a heart of gold, the new Templar has all the charm of one of those ladies behind the counter at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Studio 666 is either a delightful lark or a mystifying waste of time: Your pleasure will probably depend entirely on how you feel about Grohl.

An uneven look at the reclamation of a former child star, "Life With Mikey" has the strangely amiable feel of a cult movie for the peanut gallery. It's camp and cutesy all at the same time, like a kiddie-car ride down "Sunset Boulevard" with an aging Gary Coleman behind the wheel. Caught somewhere between a spoof and a celebration of child-powered sitcoms, it only hints at the real toll of being a has-been teen.

The special effects, when they kick in, are impressive, and the gore hounds in the audience will eventually get their gobbets of flesh, but the messaging of “Wolf Man” is so muddy that it’s not clear what the movie’s trying to say.

Yields the same sort of archetype and the usual results: De Niro's workmanlike in a dismayingly familiar role.

This flick has modest ambitions, but it delivers the goods in a fresh manner.

You can feel Hoodlum hungering to be bigger than it possibly can be. It wants to be "The Godfather" of African Americans, a vast tale of crime and heroism and nerve and ambition. But it tries too hard and ends up feeling spotty rather than deep. [27Aug1997 Pg D.01]

Some of the portrayals are over-the-top in their villainy, and the dialogue, acting and music all tend to be melodramatic. But all of the overt heartstring-pulling doesn’t add much. Given the awful calamity, the truth would have been enough to amp up the emotions.

Coarse and haphazardly engineered and never more than intermittently funny.

There’s no rude humor, no sarcasm, no sharp edges — just a warm cuddle of a movie that does exactly what it sets out to do.

Writer-director Rupert Goold, here making his feature debut, fails to capture the chemistry and tonal complexity necessary to make this grim, often grisly tale anything more than a tragically lurid anecdote.

In addition to some trite set pieces, writer-director Dan Mazer serves up nothing more than conspicuous cynicism masquerading as comedy.

Despite a strong cast, striking locations and slick digital effects, the overlong movie lurches from chase to battle to soul-searching quietude — and then back again — in frustratingly generic action-movie style. It’s just one darn thing after another.

You can make a movie that’s both sweet and crass; just look at Judd Apatow’s comedies. But the mix doesn’t work here, maybe because both the vulgarity and the cheesiness are so amped up.

Last Christmas labors to turn the genre on its head and say more than your typical feel-good holiday flick. Somehow, Kate and Tom’s story still finds a way to play out in painfully predictable fashion.

The Shadow does have its moments, which include a googly-eyed mad scientist portrayed by Tim Curry, a smoking billboard for Llama cigarettes and an animated dagger capable of biting he who wields it. Of course, they too are crushed under the weight of this overproduced but underwhelming monolith.

Crowe clearly seeks to return to classic storytelling values with this sweeping-yet-intimate, serious-yet-swashbuckling, hither-yet-thither picaresque; that he succeeds only part of the time shouldn’t detract from the worthiness of his mission.

Isn't as novel as it hopes to be, but it gets the job done.

Although Fleischer pulls a few clever tricks, such as when his camera angles work to deceive viewers alongside the handful of French policemen chasing the Horsemen through Thaddeus’s eccentrically designed mansion, most of the film is underwhelming.