What starts out as a slick, streamlined delivery system for mayhem, carnage and quippery finally finds its inner Agatha Christie. For all its supercool posturing, casual cruelty and lurid overcompensation, “Bullet Train” was a cozy all along.

Loud, stupid, unrealistic, overdone, without a thought in its ugly little head and kind of enjoyable.

Little more than a sleek, stylish stunt.

It’s all diverting, if not ultimately sustained. Although the cast is thoroughly committed, as “Amsterdam” wends its way to its hysterically pitched climax, it sometimes feels like it’s two very different movies.

Too long winded and dull.

Ricochet, the latest explosive, cynical thriller from Joel Silver, best known for engineering the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard blockbusters, should keep action freaks overstimulated for the next few weeks. [08 Oct 1991, p.E5]

A majestic musical score by the great composer John Powell somehow makes everything old feel fresh and wondrous again.

The two main characters are so shallow and self-involved -- not to mention the friends, family members and sundry apparatchiks they lug around with them -- that the two hours of Flannel Pajamas begin to feel like real time.

The movie is so beautifully filmed by Bojan Bazelli, and so skillfully edited, that its art house surface belies its exploitation content, making this a trip through a cool world rather than a cruel one.

It isn’t great. It’s a watered-down version of the original, but it’s still pretty good: neither wise nor profound, yet sometimes smart and with sharp elbows — especially if you have nothing with which to compare it.

Never better than fair to middling pleasant.

It's part travelogue in Hell, part ineffectual weepie.

A mite sluggish.

None of the movie’s faults can undo the power of Binoche and Owen. Their interactions look so naturalistic that they seem unscripted.

There are movies that make you want to mince words, and then there's Poltergeist II: The Other Side, a movie so ineffably bad, you can't even find the words to mince. [23 May 1986, p.D2]

All too faithfully adapted by Kenneth Branagh, the film is the last thing that one would expect of a contemporary highbrow version of this ageless horror classic. It is, in a word, dullsville.

Ironically, the film is conspicuous not for its brio but its blandness.

A case study in how Hollywood can make a complete mess out of what was previously a marvelous film.

The movie is so flimsy that people might wonder how it could possibly have been made.

If I had to sum up Tristan & Isolde for a term paper, I'd say it's like "Braveheart" without the face paint, "Shrek," except the Lord Farquaad character is a sweetheart, and "Freaks and Geeks" because James Franco is so hot, even in Orlando Bloom-y ringlets.

The gory and grotesque V/H/S/2 marks such a drastic improvement over its predecessor, though, that I’m actually eager to see who signs up for the inevitable third endeavor. With the right people in p

The scenery of wind-and water-eroded mesas and stone archways is lovely, but the voice performances are largely inert and unremarkable. Other than the risky shenanigans of the PALs, which ought to give any parent pause, so is the film.

Bogdanovich, who worked with McMurtry on the Last Picture Show screenplay, adapted this one on his own. It's kinda like he tried to pare down the big ol' Encyclopaedia Britannica and couldn't bear to leave out nothin' -- a lot of Billy Joe Bob types talking guff and hogwash and settin' round the Burger King eating fried eggs. This is purty near the worst movie of the whole year.

A farce founded on a mix-up at a sperm bank, Made in America is a simplistic but amiable dip in the nation's multicultural fondue pot.

Languidly paced and prettily crafted, it's certainly a scenic adaptation of Golding's novel. But while it's been brought up to date, there's certainly nothing new under this tropical sun. [16 Mar 1990, p.B7]

Clever enough to keep adults entertained, even if the story is something of an antique.

The movie doesn’t offer much more than fleeting and superficial pleasures.

The movie is hilarious...there's Rock's encounter with Viagra, which I can't describe but has to be one of the funniest scenes of the decade.

Riddick can be cheesy and silly, not to mention excessively violent, but it’s also fun.

It’s Rainn Wilson who steals the show as the cocky physical education teacher who takes charge when the pint-size monsters corner him and his fellow educators.

Written and produced by John Hughes, it's a kiddie action comedy much indebted to Hughes's "Home Alone," but with much less of its meanness.

Smith and Jones seem like superannuated company men: They're going through the motions, but the zip is gone.

The gags are physical but rarely funny.

Miller is key to the film's success, with his earnest, sweet-faced looks and evident dark side. He plays Obree with just the right understated intensity, a believable competitor who fights back fiercely with his wits and a few tight-lipped words.

Father of the Bride, Part II is a virtual avalanche of cheap emotion. Short on comedy but long on maudlin sentiment, this sequel stumps so hard for the traditional values of home, hearth and family that any possible entertainment value is canceled out.