Barbara Shulgasser

This movie has a first-rate script, and director Joseph Ruben ( "True Believer," "The Stepfather" ) knew exactly what to do with it.

Because the movie is otherwise so well made and so full of sweet emotion and "good" values, I was happy to ignore the shortcomings.

The movie is, more than anything else, great fun to watch. The sets and costumes are stunning. The women are beautiful. The men are dashing. What's not to like?

Director John McTiernan outdoes the previous "Die Hards" (McTiernan directed the first, Renny Harlin the second) with machinery, stunts, noise, bullets and guts. Hand-held camerawork tweaks the audience's sense of anxiety further, and for the most part it works well.

The best way to characterize "The Blues Brothers 2000" is as a fabulous concert film with incredibly bad patter between the songs. If you ignore the silly plot that links the extravaganzas together, you'll have a great time.

Referring to his love of Hollywood musicals and a working-class background that fostered enduring dreams of making movies one day, Varda creates an homage to a filmmaker's imagination. It doesn't hurt that she was also in love with him.

DeVito, whose singing sounds like a cross between coughing and Jimmy Durante on a good day, is a gruff and lovable mentor with a Brooklyn accent and a New Yorker's intolerance for sentimentality. Egan's Meg is a fiery dame with lots of gall. Tate Donovan gives voice to the adult Hercules, and he is just right as an almost Dudley Doright-ish lug who thinks heroics have more to do with physical daring than with big-heartedness. Alan Mencken's original score is boisterous and hummable, and lyrics by David Zippel perfectly suit the story and Disney's recent style for cleverness.

[Nair's] sure touch with the details of social decorum carries the film through. [14 Feb 1992, p.D3]

The good guys metamorphose into bad guys and back into good guys with dazzling efficiency in Brian Helgeland's disturbing, comic script.

DeVito directed this wonderful fantasy about a brilliant little girl with strange powers and a sunny disposition. Using special effects DeVito creates a visual delight that seems more British than American partly due to the origin of the material and partly due to the playfulness of DeVito and writers Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord.

In the attempt to rein in a cast playing a great assortment of exaggerated types, Schlesinger (who directed "Midnight Cowboy" and "Marathon Man" ) and Bradbury sometimes lose the tone of the movie.

This sequel is much better than the original "Under Siege"...The real coup here is the discovery that when you eliminate dialogue, and thus eliminate Seagal's efforts to act in that rather high voice of his, the movie takes on a surprising gravity. When Seagal doesn't talk, he verges on the dignified. It's kind of scary.

Bay has two great assets in Connery and Cage. The special effects give The Rock a James Bondian feel so Connery's wry, world-weary devil-may-careishness looks right at home here.

Sometimes the movie lacks a quietness, an omission most egregiously felt at the end.

Hoffman proves himself a master of complex scenery, crowd control and graceful direction. He succeeds in making a conspicuously lush and rich movie out of what was reportedly a less than kingly budget.

Coppola again shines his intelligence on this bestseller material, rather than just shoving it through the Hollywood mill unsifted.

The movie is well made by director Michael Winterbottom ("Jude"), with a minimum of overdramatics.

There is something nicely matter-of-fact about Greg Mottola's family comedy-trauma, The Daytrippers. This first-time writer-director has a breezy way of persuading us that seemingly unrealistic behavior is the most natural in the world.

Of course, turning a novel by Woolrich into a light romantic froth is a little like turning King Lear into a musical comedy. But Benjamin has the right comic touch to pull this off.

With an original score by Alan Menken and Gilbert and Sullivan-ish songs by Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, the movie is the cartoon equivalent of a full-scale, high-quality Broadway musical.

This is the old beauty and the beast tale, one that Disney has already done well enough. I guess they had so much fun the first time that they just had to do it again.

The whole thing seems awfully familiar, not to say boring.

While Birdcage has many isolated funny moments, long bits of slowness interrupt the energy.

The most refreshing performance is by Mortensen.

Aside from avuncular Lewis and two-bricks-shy-of-a-load Dunaway, this movie's greatest asset is Depp. With his scooped-out cheeks, flower petal mouth and an innately balletic approach to communicating with the camera, he is as natural a performer as film has seen in many years.

Director Cassavetes may want to cut back on the slow-motion stuff, but he's unquestionably a talent.

Giving especially good performances are Aniston, Mahoney, McGlone and Burns. Not that this movie is bad; it's just not as great as "McMullen."

The action moves along at a good clip, and Apted, who made "Gorillas in the Mist," "Nell," "Coal Miner's Daughter," and the "7-Up" series of documentaries, doesn't allow the plot to bog down in details. But the so-called moral dilemma that Myrick's work poses - kidnapping the homeless and torturing them to death in the name of medical science - is laughable.