question: Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are as dependably appealing as ever, but they're let down by director Jon Favreau's inability to smooth Cowboys & Aliens' jarring tonal shifts.

numbered reviews: 1. It's got explosions and horse-riding and fighting and monsters aplenty, but it evaporates almost as you're watching it.
2. All the cliches of cowboy films and alien films are there. But I wasn't expecting them not to be. It's a fun western, and throwing in some alien goo makes it all the more fun.
3. I have no real argument against the film's execution of its concept other than that it is brutally boring.
4. Part of the fun in Cowboys & Aliens is spotting all the movie clichés which can be enjoyed for what they are because the film has no relation to any reality other than that of the cinema.
5. After a mindless conclusion, I realized that two hours had been wasted on this convoluted mess. This botched opportunity to revive the old-fashioned Western puts this movie at the bottom of the barrel right alongside Will Smith's "Wild Wild West."
6. Another assembly-line Hollywood blockbuster, a Western for people who have never seen Westerns, and a science-fiction movie for people who don't like science fiction.
7. ... A dour affair that fails to capture the spirit of either genre.
8. A mercilessly boring, wasted opportunity that forgets to have a sense of humor, charisma, or aliens.
9. Rather refreshingly what-you-see-is-exactly-what-you-get: a western with aliens grafted on, or a sci-fi invasion film with cowboys grafted on--nothing more, nothing less.
10. Jon Favreau's "Cowboys & Aliens" is a film that starts off with promise, but quickly loses its way as it tries to merge two different genres.


question: The Covenant plays out like a teen soap opera, full of pretty faces, wooden acting, laughable dialogue, and little suspense.

numbered reviews: 1. The Covenant has excellent special effects (spiders and specters, oh my!), but it is strikingly lacking in suspense.
2. [An] eardrum-punishing, uninspired composite of X-Men and the Harry Potter series ...
3. doesn't move in any direction and instead wanders without much aim at all
4. Surely nothing Hollywood did in its darkest, most debauched hour could possibly justify the penance we're paying that allows Renny Harlin to continue directing movies.
5. [A] muddled and most unmagical offering.
6. With just a little more effort, The Covenant could have been a classic example of a movie so bad that it's actually good. Sadly, it doesn't even achieve that.
7. The idiocy and sheer laziness of the whole concept ought to be the sort of thing director Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea) could make into glorious cinematic cheese...but he's hamstrung
8. There is not a scary scene in the whole movie.
9. With its barely-distinguishable teen-model cast and earnestness, it comes off like an overlong episode of a WB series that never got off the ground.
10. I would not encourage you to waste your money on this one.


question: Thanks to an outstanding script, focused direction by Alan Pakula, and a riveting performance from Harrison Ford, Presumed Innocent is the kind of effective courtroom thriller most others aspire to be.

numbered reviews: 1. A ponderous adaptation of Scott Turow's cunningly plotted mystery novel.
2. Pakula keeps the suspense level high throughout and effectively brings off a series of twists at the end.
3. This could have been a great movie, but, despite being a darn good yarn well told, the essential magic is somehow missing.
4. It presents a more intriguing and certainly more complicated portrait of cinema's historic struggle with representations of female agency and sexuality.
5. Conscientiously as this movie has been made, it does not work as well as the novel did or as some of Pakula's other films have.
6. A thudding disappointment.
7. Pakula and the cast are excellent in the cut and thrust debates and the grilling of witnesses. At least on the surface, Presumed Innocent unfolds in the grand tradition of great courtroom drama. But nothing in Presumed Innocent is what it seems.
8. Never less than engrossing.
9. Presumed Innocent is a stylish, dark-toned movie with handsome photography (by Gordon Willis) and solid performances.
10. When you get right down to it, Presumed Innocent is really just an elaborate version of the standard courtroom drama -- souped-up Perry Mason. On the other hand, this is as good as Perry Mason gets.


question: A thrilling leap forward for director Alejandro Gonzрlez Iырrritu, Birdman is an ambitious technical showcase powered by a layered story and outstanding performances from Michael Keaton and Edward Norton.

numbered reviews:
1. It's a quasi-religious fable about a man haunted by the past and facing a profound moral and existential crisis in the present, and it's a dazzling display of virtuoso cinematic technique and showboat performances.
2. Lubezki's cinematography, paired with Antonio Sanchez's jazzy, percussion-heavy score, creates an atmosphere of explosive tension that lingers strongly, even throughout Birdman's more satirical and fantastical beats.
3. Birdman, more than most, seems a film that deserves a second viewing, not only to admire the work of Keaton and his co-stars, but to delve into its many layers.
4. Birdman is a tour de force, a heady mix of dark comedy and psychic meltdown with energy vibrating from every frame.
5. Iырrritu serves up a truly fanciful production that is long on characterization but woefully short in the realities of the theatre.
6. Birdman has wings, for certain, even if you find the feathers sticking in your throat now and then.
7. Michael Keaton's performance as ex-leading man Riggan Thomson sees this former star reborn.
8. It's a film no one expected but one for which we're utterly grateful.
9. While Keaton is a tour-de-force, Fight Club star Ed Norton is similarly rejuvenated as co-star Mike.
10. Even if you don't like Birdman, you will be unable to forget its unique ability to disguise meticulous, well-rehearsed craftsmanship as irresistible improvisation.