Where The Pale Blue Eye succeeds best is in the way it shows how Edgar — yet to become the writer of ghoulish, moody atmosphere and delicious morbidity we remember — got some of his enduring ideas about the coexistence of depravity and beauty. The movie only stumbles when it succumbs, here and there, to the more trivial tropes and jump scares of the contemporary thriller.

Sure, there’s an undeniable pleasure from watching Pacino and Hunter work the screen, but the syrupy, symbol-heavy script by first-time feature writer Paul Logan is weighed down further by cliches and false notes.

The Man Who Knew Infinity tells a great story. It’s just that it’s a little too by-the-book to make anything other than a so-so movie.

Everything and everyone you liked in the original are there. But GB II often seems like "Ghostbusters: The Preview Reel, Extended Mix," with its rather see-through buffet of special effects, comic bits and music-video transitions.

In its second half, “Kundo” becomes robust and exhilarating. The filmmakers stage cast-of-dozens battle scenes and one-on-one showdowns with equal brio.

The Brit who brought us such violent delights as “Shaun of the Dead” and “Baby Driver” has just the right mixture of empathy and impishness to turn King’s cautionary tale into a would-be blockbuster with integrity.

My Girl may well have been intended as a tender way for parents to explain difficult subjects to their kids, but this botch of a movie explains nothing. Its fake nostalgia and cod compassion are as painfully awkward as adolescence itself and about as funny as a corpse.

Dinner for Schmucks has already raised hackles in the Yiddish-speaking community for the breathtakingly offensive epithet in its title (and it's not "dinner"). But it turns out that this comedy of humiliation, starring Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, isn't nearly as off-putting as it might have been.

It's nothing but style and noise, threadbare of content, empty of ideas. Is it anything? Not really.

The occasional big moments are stunning, and kids from the ages of, say, 6 years to 6 years and 3 days will love it. Anyone younger will be scared; anyone older, bored.

A grating and sinister comedy on the dangers of television. This mean-spirited marriage of cautionary tale and thriller-satire follows the increasingly vicious antics of a deranged cable installer who stalks a preferred customer.

In this touching story of boy toys helping boy toys, it's almost impossible to root for characters who are dead in the first place.

The Fluffy Movie’s principal weakness is that it’s not much of a movie. There’s no particular reason to watch this in a theater rather than on television.

Even Lawrence, in the end, is a letdown. As entertaining and committed as she is — and she’s easily the best thing about Joy — the actress ultimately can’t sell a souffle that’s half baked.

So why bother with this earnest but imperfect impersonation when the original artists are readily available on VHS and DVD?

Director Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) settles for a movie of pat moralism, a pamphleteer's parable of how drugs destroy families.

An extraordinarily sensual movie with its own silly integrity.

What might have been a fascinating, intimate portrait turns into something much less compelling when Clark tries to impose a sex-and-action-packed narrative on the proceedings.

An inspired comedy title, Stir Crazy blends several inventive, high-spirited performing talents into a tangy, cheerful entertainment. [12 Dec 1980, p.E1]

The movie is an orgiastic celebration of big, sloppy emotions; it's the film equivalent of "Feelings." And what we're supposed to take from it is a renewed faith in the indomitable strength of women. But with all this big acting and all these stars elbowing for space in front of the camera, the film comes across as something quite the opposite of what was intended, not a tribute to femininity but a kind of grotesque parody -- a corn-pone variation on "The Women."

Swifter comedic timing and a clearer narrative thread might have helped center this peculiar adaptation of Jonathan Ames's 1998 novel of the same name.

Although Gameau’s film includes a fair amount of science, he and his helpers sweeten the film’s statistics, delivering them in clever, accessible ways.

Black Rain is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids. It's big, maybe too big for its shallow notions and commonplace structure. But it is also beautiful and terrible in the same ways that other Scott movies have been eye-filling. With its teeming Asian landscape, its dark kaleidoscopic palette and its heavily layered composition, it's reminiscent of Blade Runner. But this is an atmosphere that needs Sam Spade, not Dirty Harry.

Has bells and whistles, superb technical sophistication and dazzling visual effects, sound, fury and Reese Witherspoon. What it doesn't have is heart. Like so many vehicles that have popped out from the DreamWorks Animation snark tank, Monsters vs. Aliens is too clever by half.

Do you Bean? If you do Bean, rejoice. Bean is back. If you don't Bean, here's a chance to start. Bean now, or forever hold your peace.

Why this movie -- a rushed, wildly uneven, tonally jumbled caricature -- and why now?

Never makes a subatomic particle of melodramatic or psychological sense yet nevertheless provokes an overwhelming proportion of women spectators into screaming fits. [19 Aug 1981, p.C1]

This was originally rated NC-17, and somehow, I'm thinking that version will survive on DVD.

On the whole, Twilight works as both love story and vampire story, thanks mainly to the performances of its principals, Pattinson and Stewart.

Mad Max just sails off into nonsense.

As Omalu, Smith gives an emotional performance, bolstered by capable supporting players. Albert Brooks is especially good as Omalu’s wry boss and chief advocate, Cyril Wecht, lightening the film’s otherwise gloomy mood.

The movie isn't exactly full of twists and turns, but neither is it a long, hard slog.

It's too bad the filmmakers didn't take a breath, look at the rushes and see what a comedic gem they had. With just a few tweaks, The Merry Gentleman could have made a wickedly funny parody of the over-earnest, lyrically hard-edged indie movie. But it's too late for do-overs.

Though writer-director Richard Shepard (“The Matador”) knows how to spin a yarn about the vicissitudes of fate, Dom’s adventures make for a pretty thin garment in which to cloth such an outsize antihero.

Mommie Dearest, the film version of Christina Crawford's poison-pen memoir of her adoptive mother, Joan Crawford, looms as wretched excess. Considering the source, however, this ill-advised and disreputable movie could have been worse.

The director raises the question that haunts the whole film: Who should feel shame: gay Muslims or the Muslims who oppress them?

For all of its old-fashioned discretion, the movie lacks vitality. As a love story it is a complete bust, but beyond that, it is missing a reason to be.

We're talking a thriller about property ownership. This is a yuppie conceit; this is not interesting to human beings. What's the moral behind "Pacific," anyway? Always Check Your References?

Madsen may not be the most egregiously untalented of the new movie beauties, but she's close to it. As Dolly, she presents a Southern accent as ludicrous as any in captivity; she keeps trying for Blanche DuBois and coming out with Gomer Pyle.

X marks the G-spot perhaps, for this is an orgiastic comedy of terrors and errors.

Despite its plentiful and playful sexuality, this dose of Spanish fly is anything but exciting.

Unfortunately, darkness seems to have prevailed over love in a tale that falls flat.

The most damning assessment comes from animator-historian John Canemaker, who concludes that Disney's ethnically neutered South American output "gagged it up so that the American influence overwhelmed the cultural" influence of South America.

From its opening shots, the film is like an invigorating elixir, a movie pick-me-up that delivers thrills and races your pulse but keeps your head in gear too. It's divinely frivolous, nearly perfect fun.

A bodice-ripper for intellectuals.

Less a movie than an act of vandalism.

This is Disney at its live-action best and brightest.

The suspense may be fraudulently manufactured but it captivates us nevertheless, and by the end we're reduced to the bloodlusting anonymity of the true culprits in all this jaded junk, and that is the TV audience.

Hanks is great; the movie isn't.

The film’s counterintuitive success is largely due to Derbez, who demonstrates why he is beloved, both south and north of the border.

Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago may not be entirely brilliant, but it’s at the very least inspiring.

The one bright spot in this film is Modine's performance as Louden. Modine is so earnest and likable that even the oft-seen "big match" climax holds your attention. But a fine leading performance and a muscle-bound villain can't rescue this trite tale.ick. [15 Feb 1985, p.30]

Any resemblance to last year's breakout comedy hit "Bridesmaids" is purely intended in a film that seeks the same kind of liberated raunch but too often succumbs to talky, edgy-for-its-own sake glibness.

Snyder tries to up the spectacle ante with ever more explosions, crashes, thermal blasts, topological realignments, gunfire and mano-a-mano fistfights. But the result is a punishing sense of diminishing returns and a genre that has finally reached the point of mayhem-induced exhaustion.

An acceptable scene-setter, Carpenter reveals glaring inadequacies as a storyteller. [15 Feb 1980, p.C3]

The Mission is everything a movie should be -- magnificently produced, epic in scope, serious in theme -- everything, that is, but good. Hamstrung by an unworkable script, the disastrous casting of Robert De Niro and, presumably, the strain of shooting in the Colombian jungle, director Roland Joffe' has come up with an indigestible lump of sanctimony that rarely goes beyond its good intentions.

Even if a good phone-sex movie does exist, For a Good Time, Call . . . is woefully, definitively not it.

A fable that is by turns antic, scary, sweet and, in the end, slightly soulless. In other words, it's a heartwarmer that doesn't have much of a heart itself.

Desperado also has some entertaining twists, some sexy goings-on, but on the whole, watching the film is about as much fun as sitting on a cactus.

It's a bold exercise, an interesting experiment, but a movie it ain't.

A picture as secondhand and conventional as The Woman in Red can't generate much enthusiasm, but it displays more buoyancy and incidental comic appeal than one anticipates. Wilder's judgment hasn't proved especially sound, so perhaps it's commercially prudent to pin him down to an apparently reliable pretext or scenario. Still, the results would probably have been more satisfying if his nervous keepers had permitted this sometimes misguided but endearing mutt of a funnyman a slightly longer leash in a slightly roomier kennel. [16 Aug 1984, p.B2]

As much as Guy Ritchie’s uber-violent, stakes-free, World War II action comedy caper “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” milks its “based on a true story” bona fides, it’s more akin to the last decade’s glut of slick, cool-guy popcorn pictures (including his own) than any meaningful retelling of real heroism.

Is it a good movie? Not particularly. But if you’re a forgiving filmgoer in need of a smile, it’s a reasonable diversion, one that ties up its message of love — if a bit too neatly — into a holiday bow.

So I expect the Janeites who love the author will feel themselves ill-served by the film, which appears to have even less basis in fact than "Shakespeare in Love." As for the rest of us, the question is simpler: Is it worth the eight bucks?

Soccer needs this movie like Georgia needed "Deliverance."

A choppy and occasionally unsure film, one that doesn't achieve the superb tonal control of "The Ice Storm," but that certainly doesn't represent an unqualified disaster on a par with Lee's first attempt at the western, "Ride With the Devil."

I'd give this movie about half a miracle.

As written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, The Relic deserved to be taken off the shelf; as adapted by a quartet of screenwriters and directed by Peter Hyams, it should have been left on one.

In a jovial, if superficial way, he offers some perspective on the men behind the banana hammocks.

Nothing more than an action-packed bagatelle masquerading as history.

Mary Stuart Masterson, a delicate blond, steals the show as the sensitive gal under the tomboy's leather jacket, her natural magnetism offsetting the story's predictability.

The Brothers Bloom is all about exploding forms, tropes and archetypes. But it's also a charmer, a witty sandbagging of one's resistance to fairy tale and a movie afflicted with a kind of comic Tourette's syndrome.

Karate Kid II doesn't give us any emotional movement in Daniel's character, or Miyagi's, or their relationship, either -- it just recapitulates them. The only character who changes in the story, in fact, is Sato, whom you couldn't care a fried fig about.

While Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski haven't necessarily expanded on Mitchell's book, they've done a superlative job making it legible onscreen. Cloud Atlas deserves praise if only for not being the baggy, pretentious disaster it could have been in other hands.

The Attorney can be melodramatic, and first-time feature director Yang Woo-seok is not yet a singular filmmaker. But the movie is carried by its rousing pro- democracy message and a lively performance from the versatile leading man.

The state of uncertainty persists for the entire film, as you wait in vain for the director to tie the pieces together.

Sure, maybe Clifford doesn’t take the cinematic art form to a new level. All the same, it’s funny and sweet. This old dog may not have many new tricks, but sometimes being a good boy will do.

For all his creepy tendencies, Hitchcock is portrayed mostly sympathetically in Hitchcock, in which Sir Anthony Hopkins plays the corpulent British auteur with a combination of hauteur and playfulness.

Hardly anything feels real, but what feels even more unreal is Hartnett with a cloying, sentimental, self-pitying performance. The liveliest thing in the film is the great Jackson, slumming again in a role miles beneath him.

When it comes to writing the poetry that Kalindra recites, Murray knows how to do more with less; he needs to apply that lesson to his filmmaking, too.

The problem with Hyde Park on Hudson isn't its suggestion of FDR's dark side. That complexity, and Murray's spot-on portrayal of a man juggling myriad pressures and demands, from petty to momentous, marks one of the film's greatest strengths. It's that Daisy rarely comes into her own as more than the pliant emotional helpmeet to the Great Man.

Demon Seed might have been a genuinely witty and terrifying thriller if someone had taken advantage of the story's glaring sadomasochistic implications. Nevertheless, Cammell plays it dumb at a thematic level, ignoring the sci-fi sexual bondage satire staring him in the face. [08 Apr 1977, p.B11]

Dark Shadows doesn't know where it wants to dwell: in the eerie, subversive penumbra suggested by its title or in playful, go-for-broke camp.

Floating in an unconvincing middle ground between realism and madcap fantasy, The Fall of the American Empire is at its best when Arcand is taking his potshots from a sly side angle.

As a character study, Ip Man: The Final Fight would be more convincing if it didn’t look so distractingly like a Hollywood musical.

The movie isn't funny in any big way so much as recognizable in its patterns of dysfunction, delusion and futility. But you believe in it, because you believe in the small but decent lives of its characters, a rare experience for a hot weekend in June.

If a few decent actors play their roles and defend their turf, it doesn't matter how preposterous the whole proposition is.

An overture to the subject rather than a profound study.

It just never began to work for me, and the sub story behind the ghost story is far more interesting than the ghost story in front of the sub story.

Occasional clumsiness is easily coated over by the movie's overarching goodwill.

All the movie's treacheries, deceptions and story twists are marred by our lack of innocence. We see the big picture way before the characters do, and that pushes us right out of the movie and back into our seats -- the last place we want to be.

Money Monster, which is at its best when it’s at its most crisply realistic and timely, suffers from the kind of only-in-Hollywood plot twists and eye-rolling exaggeration that results in smarter than average pulp, but pulp nonetheless.

Eventually — perhaps inevitably — Yesterday overplays its hand, with Curtis seemingly at a loss for how to resolve a story that, after its initial premise has been mined for maximum humor and poignancy, has very few places to go.

John Landis must have entertained greater aspirations for his new movie, "An American Werewolf in London," than the dismaying results he's stuck with -- a wasted clever title and a minor fiasco destined for an obscure niche in the scrapheap of horror movies.

So much of Ambulance works like a charm, but acting-wise, it could use a deeper bench.

Even DeMonaco seems bored by the sieges, escapes and gun battles. Silly one-liners are the only saving grace, and that's because such acting veterans as Williamson know how to sell them.

An overextended, episodic disappointment.

For the most part, American movies concern the middle class, console the poor and celebrate the rich, and Schrader tried to pay blue-collar culture its due. He may have worked an honest day, but he didn't come up with an honest drama.

On one level, it can be read as a metaphor for grief, kind of like “The Babadook,” which covered the same ground, albeit to greater effect. But by choosing literalness over ambiguity, The Boogeyman doesn’t quite stick the landing like that richly allusive 2014 Australian film did.

With its callow cast and playful tone, there is nothing dangerous about Forman's variation on the novelist's schemes.

That’s the real, and somewhat obvious, lesson here, in a lovely yet flawed confection that might be summed up by two words: beautiful nonsense.

It's such a great story, you have to ask two questions: Why didn't they make this movie before? And why did they make it this way?

In one scene -- a costume ball on his ship -- Korman wears an archaic naval uniform and explains that is is an exact copy of "the uniform worn by Lord Nelson when he defeated the Spanish Armada." That's very funny, but one wonders whether anyone who understands why it is funny could enjoy the rest of the picture. [11 Aug 1980, P.B3]

Despite all their toil and trouble, the tale leaves us more bothered than bewitched.

An hour's worth of exposition is a long wait, and if the payoff isn't quite worth it, it is fun. After nine yards of soggy oatmeal, you're reintroduced to the pleasures of an old-fashioned haunted house.

Although it's a far less objectionable Holocaust revision than, say, Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful," Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is yet another attempt to revisit a sorrowful event in history that should never be forgotten or used for entertainment.

Protocol is the kind of corny screwball comedy you thought nobody made anymore. By the end, its ersatz political moralism is almost too much to take; but buoyed by Buck Henry's often hilarious script, a wiggy performance by Goldie Hawn as a not-so-dumb blond, and director Herbert Ross' sure comic touch, Protocol is pleasant piffle for a Sunday afternoon. [21 Dec 1984, p.F1]

At once listless and overheated, giddy and utterly zipless, the current incarnation lacks not just the savoir-faire of its stylish predecessor but also the sex appeal.

In a movie whose texture is supposed to be hard-edged realism, the characterization seems a little too pat and jaunty.

Somehow, wondrous acting holds things together.

Shrill and slovenly opus.

2 Guns feels like it’s all been done before, whether by John Woo, Michael Bay or any number of their CGI-happy clones.

Hardy is extraordinarily good at evoking the fraught fraternal connection between the Krays.... But the film is ultimately unable to plumb the Krays’ deepest souls, if they even have any.

With its brilliant cast, its creative pedigree, Don't Come Knocking seemed as close to a sure thing as possible, but it only proves the sad truth that there's no such thing as a sure thing.

The vacuous quality of Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown" would be better represented by a title like, "Bore Me to Death, Charlie Brown." [24 Aug 1977, p.B4]

To watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which continually sacrifices its potential for sophisticated fun on the altar of style and physical stunts, is to realize how far we've come from the great movies of, say, George Cukor or Howard Hawks.

There's a back story to this, and it's actually sort of witty.

The cast of mostly unfamiliar actors also serves The Visit well. Shyamalan has a gift for eliciting strong performances, even when his material is lacking.

Even as the derivative roots of Nim's Island are clearly visible, kids will no doubt vicariously enjoy Nim's adventures and Edenic existence. And how refreshing, for once, to see a girl embark on derring-do that, in Nim's own words, makes her the hero of her own story.

Is “Megalopolis” the movie that Coppola has wanted to make for more than 40 years? Absolutely. Is it an unfashionable ode to optimism and the freedom to create, a vision as generous as it is crazy as it is overflowing with delirious invention? That, too.

Perhaps seeking to retain something of the book’s rhythm, Knight and Hallstrom let a very simple story meander for two hours and include episodes that serve no dramatic purpose.

On the plus side is the eye-popping production design, although that is also, like the plot, too, too much, dazzling the eye with more fantastical Atlantean technology and — inexplicably — underwater fire than a Las Vegas edition of Cirque du Soleil. Like the frequently shirtless Momoa, it’s pretty at first, then it just hurts.

Jack Black and Kyle Gass bring characters they created for the HBO program "Mr. Show With Bob and David" to the big screen with mixed success, depending on the age, gender and degree of inebriation of the filmgoer.

Behind all the gore-splattered walls and domestic rancor lies a sweet-and-sour bedtime story of good triumphing over evil. That said, please leave the kids at home.

Can contemporary romance be this flat?

It is, however, a baby boomer's treat to see Faithfull, romancer of Mick Jagger back in the day and a pop siren in her own right, show her qualities as an actor. One is hopeful she'll find her way to other, better projects.

If listing the cast of Love Actually is exhausting, it's even more tiring to watch it.

The film serves an effective marketing tool after all, with some lively footage and funny interviews. It’s just too bad viewers can’t see the actual play.

It’s John Goodman who steals every scene. As a scary loan shark who might cough up cash to get Jim out of his pickle, Goodman elevates the material, showcasing the dark humor that Wyatt was clearly going for. But, overall, that comedy just doesn’t land.

An inconsistent but good-natured ramble, Bustin' Loose looks like a secure investment for Richard Pryor fans.

Directing from his own screenplay, Alan Alda displays an alarming aptitude for the comedy of manners at its most trifling and synthetic. [22 May 1981, p.F1]

The disconnect between Barry’s mature and adolescent selves, a running gag, can be amusing. But coming on the heels of the parade of similar content that we’ve been subjected to for the past several years in the world of superhero films and shows, the device cloys.

Hardly a real pip (indeed, it has been rendered Pip-less), but then this loosey-goosey adaptation isn't aimed at those of us with library cards.

For all his patient, accumulative storytelling, Sayles yields little that doesn't feel trite or overly schematic.

What modest pleasure the film affords is largely thanks to the charisma of its genial stars.

John Frankenheimer has directed 52 Pick-Up in a style so devoid of nuance, the movie almost watches itself. From the crosscutting between Scheider and Ann-Margret that opens the film (an exchange of glances so portentous you think an earthquake is about to hit Los Angeles) to the way every emotion is underlined with tight close-ups, 52 Pick-Up is so aggressively explicit that it might have been made for an audience of trained apes.

By the time it glides -- not lumbers -- to the closing credits, it's also amazingly moving.

There’s a repetitive — but not necessarily redundant — quality to Zombieland: Double Tap, a violent, funny and satisfying sequel to the 2009 cult hit zombie comedy.

Despite their Everyman appeal, Damon and Krasinski don't create much by way of emotional investment, instead becoming mirror images of their most mild-mannered, white-bread selves.

Agora, Alejandro Amenábar's absorbing historical drama, proves that, in an era of movies made for iPhones with artistic ambitions to match, there are still filmmakers willing to swing for the fences.

Just good, goofy fun, for a generation too young to have met Bamm-Bamm.

Take a conventional, awkwardly arranged thriller, add one part meditation on the power of The Press, spice with crummy photography and crummier music, bake till inedible, and voila! "The Mean Season." [19 Feb 1985, p.B6]

It's uncompromisingly bad, single-mindedly off-target.

Reese Witherspoon paces and cries through Rendition in a performance that does as much a disservice to her talent as the movie does to the issues it raises.

Like the hit single on its soundtrack, “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” the movie Trolls is irresistibly charming because of a simple but catchy hook.

Has enough dog slobber, curdled hurl and toe-jam jokes to keep its target audience amused. Older kids and overgrown ones too probably will notice that nothing much ever happens in this belabored suburban variation on "The Little Rascals."

Writer Alan Sharp gets so caught up in the legend and the lush language that he doesn't seem to know he's written "Death Wish" in kilts.

A somewhat formulaic if nevertheless crudely effective manipulation of the figure skating themes that all of us girls love so much.

Flatliners is a heart-stopping, breathtakingly sumptuous haunted house of a movie.

Despite its poignant subject matter, much of the film feels like a pastiche of political thriller, romantic drama and tortured-genius cliches.

Priceless it ain't, but if the kids are determined to enjoy it, the brain damage should be minimal. [18 Apr 1981, p.D3]

A jagged little pill of a movie from baby boomer avatar Edward Zwick.

Grandview, U.S.A., shot in the picturesque small town of Pontiac, Ill., opens with some pleasantly misleading evocations of Breaking Away, then degenerates into one of those blithely cretinous entertainments that leave you despising characters you were presumably meant to like. [08 Aug 1984, p.F9]

An amateurish jumble of romantic and tear-jerking overtures from novice writer-director Willard Carroll. [28 Jan 1999, p.M20]

The young cast members are full of attitude and heart. But the film is long on flashy dance sequences and short on depth, character and craft.

Party Girl, which director and co-writer Mayer made for less than $1 million, is hip and contemporary without being archly so.

The only good thing you can say about "Rocky V" is that at least Stallone has the sense to throw in the towel.

A big, sprawling, sweet-natured mishmash with plots upon subplots and enough characters to make the head spin.

Litte Pink House feels like it’s only ever checking off the requisite moments of civic outrage, while failing to connect with viewers on a level that’s deeper than the average made-for-TV issue-of-the-week movie.

A generally well-made tale of humor and hard luck.

The main problem, despite committed and at times vivid performances by the three main actors — and a mostly perfunctory supporting appearance by Tom Holland as Edison’s loyal assistant Samuel Insull — is the sheer amount of information that the movie tries to convey.

What with these pictorial pollutants, he loses sight of plot. "Someone" suffers somewhat from Scott's blind spot, but it's still a reasonably enjoyable romantic thriller with "Platoon's" Tom Berenger on his best behavior.

A flawed but funky adventure.

And all this twaddle about how people are more important than dollars, in a sequel that was rushed out by producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus to capitalize on the summertime windfall of "Breakin' " is almost hilarious.

A warm, unexpectedly moving portrait of a man on the verge of what could either be a dreadful or delightful second chapter.

In The Conspirator, Wright announces in no uncertain terms that she is back and more than ready for her close-up.

Lessons will be learned about teamwork and reconciliation, and many jokes will be told along the way. Some of those jokes are pretty funny.

Lovers of musicals will groove on the shamelessness of its footlights worship.

There’s something about this Lion King, which, like the original, has its narrative roots in “Hamlet,” that feels so much more Shakespearean and — there’s no other word for it — so much more tragic than the 1994 feature-length animation, in which the story’s darker themes were subliminal, not center stage.

See the problem here? There are so many subplots, it’s like herding cats.

So single-minded in its reach for fantasy, it becomes the genre's evil opposite: banality.

Thanks to a superb cast and a welcome strain of comedic energy, Frankie turns out to be more than a pretty travelogue with melodrama.

Sure, it's the corniest of conceits, but "Astronaut" taps delightfully into one of our deepest cultural values: the one about the pursuit of happiness. And the movie's unpretentious lightheartedness, which echoes the old-fashioned, corn-fed lore of Frank Capra, or even "The Andy Griffith Show," makes it blissfully easy to sign on for this good-natured voyage.

Tusk seems to harbor no grander ambitions than to create a gross-out gag.

Michael Caine delivers a stunning performance in Harry Brown, a rancid little revenge fantasy that probably doesn't deserve him.

The film paraphrases a quote from Hitler before he invaded Poland in 1939 (a quote still in hot dispute): "Who still speaks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?" This documentary does. Whatever its flaws, that alone makes it worth seeing.

Thornton, writer-director of the superb "Slingblade," has a gift for depicting down-and-dirty scenes among men. And when our three principal characters go riding from Texas to Mexico, this is the best part of the movie.

As vivid as many scenes are, there are just as many that seem taken directly out of the Cute Irish Movie notebook.

If you don't operate on the premise that soccer is the most important thing in the universe, you might not go along with everything in Fever Pitch.

Yes, it's corny and reemerging cynics need not apply. But it is blissfully heartwarming.

There's something diverting but not wildly stirring about this Italian drama.

At its best, Woman Thou Art Loosed conveys the unfathomable meaning behind those words.

Although the plot is crucial, it's the interaction among characters that makes Snatch percolate. Ritchie knows when to stop and smell the comedy.

Gets more operatically farcical (most of it unintentionally so) by the minute.

Volunteers is a collection of one-liners, mostly good, wrapped around an undeveloped story, generally dull. Despite its frequent glimmers of intelligence, it's an unsatisfactory comedy that yawns to a close.

In retrospect, and viewed as either a once-topical curio or a nostalgic artifact from Hollywood's golden era, On the Beach doesn't seem lousy. It seems naively, even innocently, preachy. [28 May 2000, p.G01]

So when the movie turns out drab and predictable, it's depressing -- you think Hill has become a stranger to his own sensibility. [24 March 1986, p.C3]

I Am Here is, at its core, something much less complicated: a bearing of witness to horror. It’s inspirational, yes, but sadly far from unique. In its oft-heard contours, then, lies both its power and its tragic familiarity.

A diverting bagatelle that could have been tougher, a pastiche that could have probed deeper. Tant pis, as Godard himself might have said: Too bad.

Ron Howard somehow makes a great movie and an awful movie, all at the same time.

the movie comes on as a novelty item, meaning it's so full of disparate parts and so unable to approach coherence, it just sits there and burns out.

A silly breeze of a movie starring two of Britain’s finest actors, each having a blast playing cat-and-mouse with the other.

Compared to the “Fast and Furious” films, Hours is a chamber piece, but Walker wrings real pathos out of his instrument.

There's some cool sword-fighting. But still, it's junk.

For those who crave mannerisms and shtick and like their jokes set up and knocked out with plenty of arrows and quote marks, Baby Mama may fall flat. But audiences alive to the modest charms of its take on female friendship will be rewarded with at least a few quiet chuckles.

There's a reason why one goes to see cinematic gorefests like Hostel: to partake vicariously of the bloodfest, to get hopped up on the sickness of it all, the utter degradation, the fall of Western Civilization, yadda yadda yadda, and oh yeah, to hoot at the flying fingers, the guts, the blood, the bare breasts.

The Duelist will leave viewers scratching their heads over any number of questions, but the most gnawing one might be: Why did everyone get so dressed up for a bloodbath?

5 Flights Up is far from perfect, but it’s also undeniably touching.

Song to Song is a painful movie to watch, not only because it’s so dithery and overlong, but because it reveals Malick to be a filmmaker far more interested in surfaces than his vaunted intellectual depth would suggest.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye gives viewers an absorbing, amusing and provocative chance to rethink yet another train wreck who turned out to be, of all things, human.

Bardo seems to be Iñárritu’s deeply personal — if hermetic — attempt to make sense of the conflicting and unresolved impulses that have animated his life and art over the past two decades, during which he’s gone from promising emerging filmmaker to Oscar-winning superstar.

Inspired by the true story of Ellis, has Hollywood formula practically stitched to its Speedo. But the characters and the actors who play them are so captivating, we're too entertained and charmed to notice.

Vacation is missing a sense of direction. With Harold Ramis in the driver's seat, it veers off course and sputters down a bumpy road. [29 July 1983, p.17]

Veteran Arthur Hiller, who directed Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in The In-Laws and Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in Silver Streak, proves equally adept at managing a female odd couple.

A modestly funny, little bit dark, occasionally knowing, not entirely cynical comedy that, to the extent that it succeeds at all, does so thanks to James Marsden.

The movie makes an over-long deal about Jody's immaturity and never seems to get beyond it.

Those who are only mildly curious, I fear, will be put to sleep or bewildered by the artsy and often pointless visuals.

It satisfies your appetite for totally tasteless but deliciously flaky boy movies.

Modestly amusing teen summer comedy.

Unfortunately, the movie's second half drags, never again achieving the first half's level of narrative dexterity.

The Adam Project isn’t especially smart, but it does leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Its science grade is only passing, but its emotional IQ is above average.

The plot for They Live is full of black holes, the acting is wretched, the effects are second-rate. In fact, the whole thing is so preposterous it makes "V" look like "Masterpiece Theatre." [5 Nov 1988]

Home is about the yearning for the comforts of family. But this kiddie sci-fi adaptation doesn’t quite live up to its evocative title.

For all its shortcomings, Idlewild also has something that few films can pull off: Moments of such pure cinematic fabulousness, breathtaking dance sequences and idiosyncratic 3-D animation flourishes that we are more than willing to forgive it for all its sins.

Producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala bring the customary polish, but no pizzazz, to this simplistic portrait of the artist as a dirty old man.

The inspirational docudrama nicely evokes the havoc of the initial cave-in, but spends too much time above ground to convey the existential horror of the almost-buried men.

Childlike, fetishistic and painfully literal, Luhrmann’s experiment proves once again that it’s Fitzgerald’s writing — not his plot, his characters or his grasp of material detail — that has always made “Gatsby” great.

Hackman isn't giving a "Mississippi Burning"-caliber performance here, but it is a well-crafted one. Jones has the actor's advantage in the villain's role of a cynical soldier who comes to like but not respect the sergeant. The supporting players skulk and menace effectively, and Cassidy adds an earthy oomph to her tag-along's role. Of course there are also the customary chases, crashes and gruesome murders. In other words, it's the best in mindless entertainment.

In the wake of numerous documentaries and a big-budget film, writer-director Clare Lewins can find little fresh material.

While it never sags as alarmingly as its immediate predecessor, Spy, the 10th film in the series, is at best a tolerable disappointment.

A dumb guy comedy about dumb guys by dumb guys and for dumb guys.

Needless to say, in the age of inferior remakes, this would-be homage -- a sort of Wim Wenders Lite -- is a mawkish debasement of its source material.

There seem to be big gaping holes, and not just in the characters' carcasses. The only kind of scene Carpenter appears able to direct well is someone sneaking up on someone else. [07 Aug 1993, p.D4]

Content to be sparkly when it should be sharp-edged and shrewd; it has the potential to roar like a lion, but instead it lays lambs at our feet.

For every persuasive insight John Singleton brings to Higher Learning, his thoughtful but flawed movie about multiculturalism and racism, he throws in something equally disappointing.

A cheerful romp through a fussy New York hotel.

It may not be wholly original or without its flaws, but Magic in the Moonlight offers a pleasant vacation from reality, and what more could you want from a summer movie?

Belabored, ostentatious, overlong behemoth.

Goodbye June is a sweet but bland Christmas film that relies too heavily on its talented cast to make up for its narrative shortcomings — a surprising choice for actress Kate Winslet’s directorial debut, until you take note of who wrote the screenplay.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist will likely make some people mad because of the way it holds the United States responsible for the repercussions of its actions in the world. Like Changez himself, the film has a complicated relationship with the superpower.

Although Psycho II is obviously a travesty masquerading as a sequel, it's impossible to tell how deliberate the ludicrous aspects of the masquerade were meant to be. In fact, the best sustained mystery element of the show derives from stylistic sloppiness and confusion.

Filmmakers ought to be granted time off for good intentions. Then, perhaps, those responsible for the prison film Brubaker could have gotten their do-good impulses under reasonable control, and used them to make a good picture, instead of a goody-goody one.

While disaster yarns aren't known for subtlety, there are limits, and Volcano giddily goes beyond them.