Andy Seiler

The script, based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is deeply dumb, depressingly derivative (ripping off "Planet of the Apes" the most) and just plain nonsense.

Far too familiar.

Handsomely mounted, strikingly photographed in wide screen and exquisitely acted, director Bille August's new version of Les Miserables is at least the 21st adaptation for the movies or television. [01 May 1998]

Pure nonsense is hard to sustain for an entire feature-length movie.

Poor Sharon Stone! Poor Sidney Lumet! [22 January 1999, Life, p.11E]

Allen Daviau's cinematography is so striking that the movie would probably play better with the sound off.

Snake Eyes sports some of the most breathtaking filmmaking of De Palma's career -- and Nicolas Cage is the one actor who cannot be upstaged by it. [18 September 1998, p. 11E]

This savage parody of the many recent coming-of-age-in-the-ghetto melodramas is rude, crude and outrageous. It's as likely to elicit gasps from the politically correct as chuckles from the impossible-to-shock. [15 Jan 1996, p.4D]

Fans will appreciate not only that the film is predictably solid and surprisingly sharp but that parts of it are just plain bad.

By emphasizing surreal humor and fast-paced action instead, Rodriguez has crafted a prepubescent version of James Bond without aping that series' style.

It's a good actors' showcase, yet not a particularly satisfying movie. [22 Jan 1999]

Shot by a special-effects superstar making his first stab at directing, Mark Dippe, the result is dizzying in its unreality, and the visual tricks are impressive. [01Aug1997 Pg.02.D]

All coy and fey -- and painless to digest.

Best to wait until the movie makes it to TV - where its missteps will loom less large.

Director Dominik Moll knows how to make a gruesome-free thriller and even manages some dark laughs as he turns the screws.

The movie is something of a white elephant itself, a luxuriant, lumbering behemoth. It is pleasant, occasionally amusing - and often dull.

It is a measure of the movie's lack of inspiration that William Shatner is the funniest thing in it.

A curious but intriguing movie that leaves you bemused and more than a little confused.

This re-edited version turns one of Orson Welles' most memorable yet flawed films into a masterpiece. [Director's Cut; 18 Sept 1998, p.11E]

Cronenberg can create alternative worlds like few other filmmakers, and that's a real achievement. If he learns to make us care about them, he'll really have something. [23 April 1999, Life, p.8E]

The computer animation of the monsters here is a herky-jerky cartoon blur that is anything but scary.

Thinking isn't going to do anyone a bit of good during Blue Streak. Turn off your brain instead and you might enjoy it.