Terribly tragic, terribly romantic and, ultimately, terribly, terribly dull.

Unfortunately, the more traditionally drawn 2-D human characters are as flat, in every sense of the word, as can be.

The Awakening is nonsense, but with its posh British cast and colors drained to near-gray, it's very solemn nonsense.

The sparkly but flawed sequel to the couple's last caper. [13 Dec 1985, p.29]

"Luther” is not without its pleasures, assuming you have the stomach for the kind of theatrical crimes that exist only in filmdom.

There are three fine performances lost in this otherwise middling film. Alan Arkin makes a wonderfully gruff newspaper editor who does just about as much barking as Marley. Jennifer Aniston makes the most of the rather slender figure of Jennifer Grogan, creating a believably human picture of a career woman who gives it up for the kids. And then there's the dog that plays Marley.

THERE'S Big Trouble in Little China all right, as Kurt Russell wrestles his way through this kung-fu comedy adventure. It might have been a Raiders of the Lost Wok, but instead it's a bad marriage of martial arts and action spoofery, bungled by director John Carpenter working from the world's worst screenplay. [04 July 1986, p.N29]

The Hollars drives inexorably to a conclusion that feels as manipulatively mawkish as it is impossibly tidy, typical of a genre that too often tries to have it both ways. It turns out that happy families are all alike, even when they’re a little bit sad.

True to the film's name, there is one thing I couldn't hardly wait for, and that's the closing credits.

Set on the International Space Station, the movie “I.S.S.” is a modest but satisfyingly suspenseful thriller whose central conflict between the six members of the station’s half-American, half-Russian crew is precipitated by a decidedly earthbound crisis.

What was a steamy battle of wits in the novel looks more like a chemistry-free charade onscreen. Instead of character development the audience gets torture galore, whether it’s Dominika being doused with freezing water while naked and tied to a chair or a particularly sadistic character flaying someone alive.

It’s as affecting as drama as it is effective as horror. It wrenches, even as it unnerves.

Ultimately the movie disintegrates due to its own clumsiness. It's far too coincidence-driven to be believable.

Although Measure of a Man is less gut-wrenching than director Jim Loach’s only previous theatrical film, “Oranges and Sunshine” — about the cruel fate of unwanted children shipped from England to Australia during the United Kingdom’s mid-20th-century “child migrant” program — the British filmmaker shows himself to have an affinity for tales of the abuse of power.

Shot mostly in deeply shadowed interiors, the movie rarely makes effective use of its widescreen format. Indeed, it has a stagy quality and plays mostly as a series of theatrical exchanges between Gilles and Koch.

The Artist and the Model isn’t about much, other than female beauty. That theme is not exactly controversial. Chalk the tameness of the subject matter up to the period in which the film is set.

A premise is about all The Cutting Edge has, and what a tired one it is.

Fly Me to the Moon strains to achieve liftoff, sometimes quite amusingly. But in the end, it’s just too heavy to get off the ground.

Ultimately, The Guardian veers off into slobbery touchy-feeliness, and the tone becomes mock-religious, almost liturgical.

All in all, In Time is not just stylish but surprisingly substantial. From now on, you'll think twice every time you hear the phrase "rollover minutes."

The movie turns out to be something we’ve seen before: an underdog tale mixed with a redemption narrative.

The film's moral commentary is De Palma redux: same old Brian enjoying the peeping, bringing us into the guilt zone, then saying shame on all of us.

It's like a PBS version of a movie of the week about child abduction, complete with histrionic, spit-flecked speechifying in quaint Irish brogues.

It's a love story, yes, but one whose sweetness is cut by honest performances, a sharply drawn supporting cast and a fairly serious, yet never self-pitying, tone.

A tarted-up but tedious reprise of the '70s TV series.

Its scope isn't broad enough to draw in the uninitiated.

This calculatingly adorable coming-of-age tale has its delights — chiefly in a modest, endearing lead performance from Anton Yelchin and an amusing two-handed turn by Glenn Close and Frank Langella as his parents — but feels more constructed than lived.

A startlingly inappropriate tragedy in the final act drives home the film’s pacifist message, while virtually ensuring that the youngest and most sensitive viewers will be left in a puddle of tears.