March 11, 2005 | Very early in Robots, the latest animated marvel from the makers of Ice Age, the extraordinary starts to seem perfectly ordinary. And, mind you, I mean that as a…

Juy 16, 2004 | There’s something conspicuously unspectacular about some of the scenes in I, Robot, an exceptionally smart and exciting sci-fi action-adventure directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow) and starring a buff-to-the-max…

November 24, 1999 | Once you get past Glory, Gone with the Wind and, arguably, Gettysburg, it’s difficult to think of many first-rate movies about the Civil War. Ride with the Devil may not rank as truly great…

February 1, 1996 | In Richard Loncraine's audacious and hugely entertaining version of Richard III, the "poisonous hunchbacked toad" of William Shakespeare's historical drama becomes a Machiavellian fascist on the rise. Even more…

August 19, 2005 | Alfred Hitchcock might have recognized a kindred spirit in fellow filmmaker Wes Craven had he lived long enough to see Hitchcock, you may recall, who contemptuously dismissed “the…

January 31, 2003 | Addressing a class of would-be superspies at a CIA training facility, recruiter-instructor Walter Burke (Al Pacino) confirms what the novices already suspect: “You have just stepped through the…

May 28, 2004  |  Think of it as the movie-marketing version of bait and switch. The lobby posters and newspaper ads for Raising Helen show Kate sexy, in a reclining position that emphasizes…

January 14, 2005 | Call it Babe-licious, and you won't be far off the mark. Much like the beloved fable about the precocious pig who becomes a master shepherd, Racing…

December 27, 2002 | Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio is such a ghastly misfire, such a charmless and witless waste of film, you can easily understand why Miramax refused to advance-screen it for…

April 16, 2004 |  In the pantheon of Marvel Comics heroes, The Punisher ranks several rungs below such luminaries as The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man.…