David Sterritt

On the surface, The Game is an unusually imaginative thriller that bends its offbeat plot into so many twists that you actually have to pay attention - something few Hollywood movies demand nowadays - to understand its evolution and enjoy the multiple payoffs at the end.

Less original than the first "Star Wars" and less resonant than "The Empire Strikes Back," but packed with fast-paced action and downright cuddly Ewoks.

Stirring on religious and humanitarian levels, and very timely notwithstanding its 1979 setting.

Horror fans will find plenty to shriek about. Everyone else should keep their distance.

Sharper and smarter than any animation since "Shrek 2," making it one of the season's supermovies.

Wesley Snipes is terrific as the hero.

This is the only film Laughton ever directed, and he packed it with a mixture of eerie chills, ingenious suspense, and absurdist humor. It's a genuine classic.

The comedy as a whole is very slight.

Worth viewing by anyone concerned about world events.

Offers much food for thought.

The picture is capably acted, especially by Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman, but it's also gory and much too long. [18 Dec 1992, p.12]

A thriller so tricky that figuring it out is half the fun.

The movie wastes a good opportunity to look at important questions, such as who's responsible for American policy when the president is busy killing terrorists.

Light, lively, informative, fun.

The filmmakers are more interested in spinning an entertaining yarn than probing the spiritual dimensions of their important subject.

While it's not a great movie, it's a revealing study of how long it often takes for businesspeople to realize they're being freaked out, not flattered.

Based on a novel by French provocateur Georges Bataille, an important thinker whose fiction rarely translates into good cinema.

Campion is an imaginative filmmaker, but here she reduces a fascinating subject to a two-character soap opera that often seems contrived on both spiritual and psychological levels.

Detailed, compassionate, humane.

Cary Grant is irresistible as Dudley the angel, David Niven brings offbeat humor to the clergyman, and Loretta Young is refreshingly low-key as the title character. The picture is more witty than laugh-out-loud funny, but director Henry Koster serves up some fetching scenes, and there are snappy second-string performances from old pros like Monty Woolley, Elsa Lanchester, and James Gleason. [03 Jan 1997, p.15]

Humane, unsentimental, eye-opening.

Seems more clever than heartfelt, and whether you enjoy it may depend on how much you like Robert Altman's eccentric western "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," which it uncannily resembles.

Efficiently and imaginatively directed.

A ruthless dissection of suburban malaise.

Davis contributes his usual dignity -- not easy when you're playing a character who thinks he's John F. Kennedy dyed black -- but it's not enough to save this silly thriller-comedy.

The music and camera work are dazzling, and the story has solid sociological insights into a fascinating pop-culture period.

The subject is crucially important, but the movie dilutes its impact with by-the-numbers filmmaking, and Cheadle's one-note performance displays few of his acting gifts.

The dialogue is often silly but Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, and Goldie Hawn deliver it with enough crackerjack energy to keep audiences laughing.

This engaging 1966 comedy isn't de Broca's best movie, but it was so popular with American audiences in the late '60s that it's still one of the era's most fondly remembered cult classics.

It's best when the carefully chosen cast throws itself into developing characters and building their relationships. When pure storytelling takes over after an hour or so, the picture becomes less original and engaging.

Like its predecessor, it's a hugely ambitious picture...But also like its predecessor, it cares far more about action, adventure, and violence than feelings, relationships, and ideas.

It's a serviceable picture, but hardly a top-notch vehicle for Washington's remarkable gifts.

Harrowing, realistic, humanistic.

The story meanders, but the subject is timely and important.

Less pretentious and more gripping than the overrated sequel, ''The Road Warrior,'' but viciously violent and awfully shallow.

Alas, the movie isn't nearly as amusing as its premise, but it's refreshingly different from most run-of-the-mill teenage fare.

The story is so important and compelling that you wish Jewison had treated it more as an urgent wake-up call than a by-the-numbers morality play.

Nicely acted and capably directed, but hardly memorable.

The movie's most striking assets are its lyrical visual style, which forms a silky counterpoint to the plot's turbulent emotions, and Beat Takeshi's smooth and expressive performance as a senior warrior.

The acting is solid, but Tony Pierce-Roberts's unimaginative camera work falls short of his highest standard.

As featherweight as its title, but Lyonne gives a winning performance and the mischievous story packs a few good laughs.

Judged by the standards of ordinary filmmaking, it's as strange, suggestive, and surreal as other Lynch pictures have been. Judged by the standards of Lynch's own career, however, it's amazingly stale and second-hand… [and] contains not a single moment of genuinely felt emotion. [1 Sept 1992]

The plot is promising and the acting is earnest, but in the end the movie doesn't quite work.

This is closer to an Allen comeback than anything else he's made recently. Maybe he'll achieve it with his next movie, "Match Point," due this year.

The star's over-the-top energy isn't enough to make this hopelessly vulgar, numbingly repetitious farce worth watching.

The story is irresponsible and the filmmaking is awful.

Makhmalbaf continues her rise as Iran's most promising young female filmmaker, and Iranian cinema extends its reign as one of the world's most exciting cultural phenomena.

Its grimness is explicit, so approach it with caution.

Denis's pungent images create a nightmarish mood but don't bring full artistic coherence to her odd mix of gothic horror and postmodern reverie.

A true story of the Memphis Belle's magnitude deserved to be told with as much dramatic intensity and as much natural humanity as possible. It deserved to be more than just an action-adventure dressed in phony heroic conventions.

Timely, chilling, and grimly instructive.

It's campy fun, but if you've seen the previous sequels, the plot grows tiresome and lacks shock value.

Romano tries hard, but it takes real big-screen talent to draw laughs and emotions from material as flimsy and formulaic as the script.

This is an op-ed polemic, and it's refreshing to see one so skillfully produced by filmmakers with a shoestring budget and meager access to mainstream distribution. A must-see movie, no matter what your politics are.

There are a few amusing moments, helped by subdued performances from Affleck and Gandolfini, but this is no "Bad Santa" despite its obvious ambition to play similar holiday tricks.

If the heroine really had seven days left, she wouldn't waste it watching stuff like this.

As deliciously eccentric as the real-life characters it chronicles.

Exhilarating doses of style, imagination, and sheer energy.

The story's rambling, meandering style is just right for the melancholy subject being explored, and all the acting is excellent.

If these talented people had worthwhile things to do, No Small Affair would be no small movie. But the action has many weak moments, and the subplots are trite, especially when the trendy bachelor-party scene arrives. Too bad the screenplay, by Charles Bolt and Terence Mulcahy, doesn't live up to the cast or to Vilmos Zsigmond's careful cinematography. [13 Nov 1984, p.47]

My main complaint -- there's too much emphasis on action -- will strike the film's young target audience as a see-worthy virtue rather than a fault.

Intended as a parody of B-movie fantasies from the '50s, this satire more directly lampoons kiddie thrillers like "Captain Video," putting it perilously close to the pop-culture trash it aims to mock.

The acting is solid, but the story builds less drama and suspense than its high-stakes subject might lead you to expect.

This modestly produced family drama has all the poignancy and humor associated with today's vibrant Iranian film industry.

So vulgar and incoherent that even Hackman's gifts can't score a touchdown.

Gwyneth Paltrow is enchanting as a self-confident young woman who decides to wile away her time by playing matchmaker for a friend whose romantic life would fare much better without interference.

The story is stylishly filmed and acted with high spirits, but there's not much going on in many of its colorful shots.

The acting is excellent, and the movie has a good-natured spirit to match its ultimate faith in the hero's deep-down goodness.

Although the drama doesn't quite live up to its early promise, much of it is emotionally involving and intellectually stimulating. [22 May 1992, p.12]

The action ranges from mildly humorous to merely vulgar; and far too many of the laughs revolve around racially crude confrontations between sweet, blond Goldie and denizens of the big, bad ghetto. [10 March 1986, p.33]

The result can be viewed as an uproarious satire of science fiction in the "Independence Day" mold, or as a rehash of "Gremlins" without the novelty of the original.

In sum, Van Helsing is yet another video game disguised as a wide-screen epic. Here's hoping the box office drives a firm wooden stake through its hokey Hollywood heart.

Ingenious, eye-opening documentary.

The eerie tale is steeped in brooding atmosphere and psychological suspense thanks to Glazer's hugely imaginative visual style and creative use of music, sound, and silence.

Effective action, solid suspense, excellent Ribisi, plus enough clichés to equal the grains of Gobi sand that fill the screen.

The material is right up Schrader's alley, and while his vision of the first "Exorcist" chapter isn't a masterpiece, it's far superior to the Renny Harlin prequel to "The Exorcist" released last year.

Should be required viewing for every concerned citizen.

McDonald and Montgomery are fun to watch in this mildly amusing Irish romantic comedy.

Baye and Lopez are excellent, as always.

This delirious film is overflowing with energy and effects, but it lacks the heart and soul that would have made it important as well as impressive.

Noyce's movie pares away the novel's meditations on the futility of war and the importance of religion. It retains the book's thoughtful blending of psychological and moral issues.

The film tries to revive the sort of good-hearted optimism associated with Frank Capra classics of the 1940s era, but pictures like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" were never so simplistic, syrupy, or tedious to sit through.

Surely it couldn't be meant as dramatic realism! But it is. And amazingly, the movie gets worse as it goes along.

The picture makes up in energy and high spirits what it lacks in structure and style.

Sensitive acting by Morgan Freeman and stylish directing by Gary Fleder can't overcome the bottom-line pointlessness of the movie's melodramatic material, which never achieves the dark resonance that helped "The Silence of the Lambs" get under the skin of many moviegoers.

There's too much hokum and too little suspense in the screenplay by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson.

Robin Williams is no Fred MacMurray, but he plays the hero with his customary energy.

A full-fledged masterpiece.

Despite the drawbacks of the Silkwood screenplay, written by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen, this is a directorial triumph for a filmmaker who has artistically matured during his absence from the screen these past several years.

Talking dogs were cute, once. It's a tad disconcerting, however, when a canine starts lip syncing to the voice of Carl Reiner so it can complain about flatulence.

It's the best animated fun of the year, and you don't need a lamp or a genie to enjoy it.

Thoughtfully directed by the versatile Iain Softely from Hossein Amini's screenplay, which reduces James's intricately structured narrative to feature-film scale without losing the book's rueful psychological tone.

Quite funny and eye-catching.

The movie doesn't reach any deep insights, but its mixture of psychology, philosophy, and realpolitik is downright riveting.

There's lots of atmosphere and information to be gained, but stay away unless you can tolerate graphic plunges into the wildest kinds of youthful excess.

A pungent, powerful film that points an accusing finger not at religious beliefs but at flawed human institutions. It also targets social and cultural mores that are almost medieval in their patriarchal bias against girls and women.

Tykwer doesn't aim for the heights of excitement and invention he reached in "Run Lola Run," but he blends an impressively varied palette of moods into an intriguingly unpredictable story that's never short of ideas.

The movie is often preachy and self-conscious, especially in long dialogue scenes, where Robbins's inexpert scriptwriting makes people talk at instead of with each other. Yet the picture's solid assets enable it to soar above such problems, both intellectually and emotionally. [29 December 1995, Film, p.13]

A lot more violent and a tad less creepy than the 1974 original, the much-changed remake delivers enough gory, belligerent mayhem to keep horror fans screaming.

Redford gives one of his best performances ever in this taut, emotionally engrossing thriller.

Splendid acting, a screenplay as likable as it is unpredictable, and an undercurrent of deep human generosity make this a particularly engaging comic-dramatic experience.

Cantet has rich insights into this material, and brings them alive through sensitive acting and powerful filmmaking.

De Villa's debut film is persuasively written and acted, if a tad rougher around the edges than one might wish.

Emotional, powerful, an important film to see.

It's unlikely there will ever be a more moving portrait of the shared selfhood, usually veiled by politics, common to the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

Who would have guessed a documentary about Derrida, the great French philosopher of deconstruction and "différence," would be so entertaining?

Superb performances by Setsuko Hara and the great Chishu Ryu also contribute to the film's impact, which is at once deeply moving and profoundly thoughtful about moral and spiritual issues. [10 Nov 1994, p.12]

This unusual Macedonian release is engrossing if not always nimbly directed.

The characters are hardly original...but Stone puts them into play with his usual fever-pitch gusto, producing what's probably the most heart-pounding gridiron movie ever made.

Manages to seem fresh, funny, and original from start to finish.

Intelligent yet easy-going masterpiece.

Striking photography, period detail, screen-filling crowd scenes, and veteran composer Morricone's score make this one worth seeing, but the sheer nastiness of the town's people drags it down.

Lively characters, snappy dialogue, and snazzy visuals make this an uncommonly fine animation.

This remarkably clever, often hilarious animation derives much of its humor from its satirical view of the 1950s.

Lavishly produced animation makes imaginative use of familiar formulas, filling the screen with handsome images accompanied by sprightly songs and lively voice-performances.

Coogan and Broadbent are agile and expressive, but too much time goes to Chan's silly stunts. A colorful disappointment.

Whoopi Goldberg has a lot of heart; Neil Patrick Harris gives a sensitive performance as her young friend; and the supporting cast is solid. The screenplay is gushy, though, and director Robert Mulligan rarely tones it down. [14 Oct 1988, p.21]

The latter element joins with Crudup's excellent acting to make this deliberately scruffy tale a worthwhile experience if you can handle its explicitly sordid subplots.

Runs out of good ideas long before it's over, falling below "Prizzi's Honor" and "The Freshman" in the dubious genre of contract-killer comedies.

The acting is capable and the suspense is effective at times, but the gore is grisly and the climax is surprisingly hokey.

Acute sense of color and offbeat storytelling style aren't enough to make this sometimes sensual fantasy more than a whimsical trifle.

Stone does a masterly job of balancing two Nixons, the ruthless power-monger and the sadly vulnerable man, allowing each to flourish as a fully rounded screen figure. Yet here, as in many of his other movies, Stone pushes the envelope a little too far, allowing his own similarities to Nixon. [20 Dec 1995, p.14]

The first half is a well-acted psychological drama, but the second half is standard thriller fare with more action than insight.

Kenneth Branagh overplays his portrayal of Neville, but most of the other characters are skillfully acted by a solid cast, including the great Aborigine actor David Gulpilil as the tracker. In all, this is a watchable movie that's not quite the memorable experience it might have been.

The director, Roman Polanski, is often at his weakest in the comedy field, and the insipid vulgarities of this picture are poor substitutes for inventive gags. Yet he shows some of his erstwhile ingenuity when he crowds the screen with sumptuously filmed images of richly costumed characters, much in the manner of his underrated ''Dance of the Vampires'' a number of years ago. [25 July 1986, p.23]

May find some fans among female teens. But even they may decide the project cares more about quick profits than real entertainment value, since the signs are hard to miss.

The acting is smart and gritty, Almereyda's visual style has a raw immediacy found in few films with Shakespearean pedigrees, and an eclectic music score adds atmosphere and surprise every step of the way.

It's so clean a film, you could bring your grandmother.

Russell's stylish and imaginative filmmaking wages its own war against lunkheaded and sometimes offensive material.

Grand Canyon finds Kasdan in firm control of a restrained and intelligent style. Eliciting first-rate performances from a well-chosen cast, he brings these to the screen with graceful eloquence - giving words as much weight as actions.

Never quite jells into a coherent statement. Or a coherent film.

The first hour is sharply directed, character-driven drama that ranks with Scott's best work. Then he lapses into his usual mode - more a bombardier than an entertainer, filling the screen with sadistic violence and arbitrary plot twists. In all, a wasted opportunity.

It's a beautiful movie to watch, and the cartoony characters are as endearing as they come.

Downright awful.

It's never been topped.

An ingeniously scripted psychological thriller.

The title refers to the commercialization of just about everything in modern society, and Ferrara brings touches of his ornery filmmaking imagination to bear on the pessimistic parable.

If one's domestic environment is a kind of autobiography, then the five households visited by this entertaining documentary reveal fascinating lives indeed.

A private eye enters a horrific world of degrading sex and bottom-feeding pornographers.

Its ambitious aims are commendable in themselves, but regrettable since they overinflate what might have been a simpler and better film.

A total lack of chemistry between the stars -- neither of whom is particularly good at romantic comedy in the first place -- and you have a promising package that grows steadily less lovable as it goes along. Down with this movie!

Lively acting and stylish directing make this an engaging comedy-drama, although its attitude toward guns and violence is disconcertingly romantic.

The suspenseful set-up never pays off, but Rampling continues the impressive collaboration with Ozon that began with "Under the Sand."

Although overlong, the picture has a fair measure of jolts and surprises.

Fallen will sell tickets on the strength of its appealing cast and high-impact camera work, but will probably fade from the scene more quickly than its demonic villain does in the story.

The story is as rambling as the characters, but superb acting by McTeer and Brown goes a long way toward redeeming it.

Considered as a whole, The Chosen is indeed a maverick movie, depicting its characters and their milieu with restraint and respect. Yet it doesn't measure up to the fine Chaim Potok novel it takes its story from.

Robin Williams plays the main character with his usual air of repressed hysteria, and Kurt Russell is a good foil for him. But between the very funny beginning and the good-hearted finale, the story grows scattered and the tone is often ragged. [31 Jan 1986, p.23]

The offbeat screenplay turns even the corny bits in unpredictable directions, and it's rare indeed to see such consistently superb ensemble acting.

Logue's magnetic performance is the movie's main virtue, supported by a good secondary cast and a sharply written screenplay.

While the story takes some clever turns, its psychology is far from convincing and its momentum flags long before the finale.

The movie works well as a straight-out horror yarn, proving that the Hughes Brothers are more versatile than their previous "ghetto pictures" suggest.

The satire is crammed with sexual and scatological humor; some may find this Rabelaisian and refreshing, while others will detect the end of civilization as we know it.

This is a riveting treatment of a fascinating subject.

This uneven drama might have been more effective if someone with more on-screen charisma than writer-director Elster had played the main character.

Intimate and engaging.

Can a misguided adult start afresh with a new set of values and priorities? This ambitious drama, directed by one of France's most resourceful filmmakers, explores that crucial question in depth and detail.

It's fun to watch the gifted Marisa Tomei and the lively Rosie Perez, but Christian Slater is less engaging as the waif of the story, and the screenplay is loaded with sentimentality. [26 Feb 1993, p.14]

A caper that rarely goes wrong.

All this amounts to a badly wasted opportunity, since global warming is a serious issue that deserves thoughtful treatment. So stay home and read a scientific journal instead. This is a disaster movie that lives up to its label.

Only part of it is in 3-D, but youngsters should enjoy pulling their special specs on and off at appropriate moments.

The film begins strongly and violently, then simmers down to a standard-issue suspense story.

Creepy.

The picture is a little too pretentious to achieve its artistic and emotional goals, but its ambition and imagination are impressive at times.

Loach has made more memorable films, such as "Raining Stones" and "Ladybird Ladybird," but his dramatic sense remains strong and his social conscience is absolutely unstoppable.

High-energy comedy.

Its metaphors are too obvious (as before, Cimino's analogy for death is more death) and its treatment of social problems is skin-deep. Although the screenplay throws sops to many cultural and ethnic groups, it's riddled with racist and sexist attitudes. [23 Aug 1985, p.25]

Splendidly acted, and directed with touches of visual poetry by Lasse Hallstr"om, but a little heavy on trite sexual-awakening scenes.

It's regrettable that director Costa-Gavras puts more of his storytelling energy into simplistic psychology and suspense-movie action than historical depth and philosophical insight. This prevents Amen. from becoming a Holocaust drama for the ages.

You might expect "Seabiscuit" meets "Lawrence of Arabia," but overall, it's a big, beautiful bore.

Many moviegoers may find its colors and effects delightful enough to make the experience a thrill. Look beyond the tinsel, though, and you may be disappointed.

A revealing, often amusing, sometimes disturbing look at the history and politics of marijuana use in American society.

Gentle, humanistic, delicious.

Yedaya's prizewinning debut film is acted and directed with uncommon psychological realism.

Some will dislike its shaggy-dog screenplay and restless camera work, and others may find its finale too postfeminist for comfort.

The fine cast helps an old-fashioned screenplay seem reasonably fresh most of the time.

Directed by Joel Schumacher with occasional gestures toward social commentary, and enough spectacle to mask the movie's deep down emptiness.

Hero is a smart and funny movie and also a surprisingly complex one. [02 Oct 1002, p.12]

Sensitive acting and imaginative filmmaking help rescue the movie from potential excesses of its own.

Results are illuminating, harrowing, and riveting.

Best of all, Ben Kingsley as the menacing man in the yellow suit, brings the picture pungently to life every time he flashes his enigmatic smile.

Violent and vapid, but the visual jolts may please horror buffs.

The screenplay by Tina Fey -- head writer for "Saturday Night Live" -- is marvelously smart, though, and the ensemble cast is uncannily in sync with it.

Strange, scary, and atmospheric, with a delicious Claude Debussy score.

Visually sublime and intellectually dense, this is one of the extremely rare movies that prove cinema can be as complex and profound as the very greatest art works in any form.

Alexander Payne's equal-opportunity satire persuasively argues that no ideological group has a lock on "values" or "correctness," and reminds us that fanatics can be found on every side of an issue.

An entertaining look at a genuinely offbeat subject.

The story has old-fashioned characters and situations, and Haas has sensibly filmed it in an old-fashioned way, stressing visual appeal rather than the story's sordid undertones. The acting is excellent, too.

Junger spins hilariously written scenes with split-second timing, although the story sags during its long middle portion.

Full of old tricks - cuts between worried faces and overheated gauges inching into the red zone - but director Mostow pulls most of them off with conviction and pizazz.

Peter Greenaway's unorthodox drama treats the movie screen less as an entertainment device than a postmodern canvas upon which he writes, photographs, and records an intricate multicultural collage. [06 Jun 1997]

Costner is convincing as the hero, ably supported by Joe Morton as a short-tempered supervisor and Kathy Bates as a feisty neighbor. Dragonfly has little chance of "Ghost"-like popularity, though.

Von Trier sets the action on a theatrical stage, spotlighting the existential isolation that weighs on people who don't seek larger visions of life, individuality, and community. Challenging, dramatic, provocative.

It's all very pretty, but its use of motion-picture possibilities is unimaginative. What lifts The Best Intentions above its visual limitations, and makes it seem impressive, is the extraordinary depth and sincerity of Bergman's screenplay.

Boorman treats this moving, important subject with restraint, tact, and candid views of horrors suffered by the nation.

This thoughtful, troubling drama is leagues above the sensationalistic stuff Araki peddled in earlier films.

The comedy is frantic and tasteless in the usual Waters mode, but it takes telling potshots at the Hollywood establishment, which isn't nearly so open about the tackiness of its products.

John Turteltaub directed the drama, which lapses into medical jargon and new-age clichés near the end, but it scores telling points with its respect for intelligence and optimistic view of human potential.

All so fast and frenetic.

Moretti's acting skills aren't up to the demands of the main role, and his portrait of family life is too simplistic to be credible.

Girard invests each episode of this production with dramatic credibility and emotional strength.

Piccoli gives one of the most nuanced performances of his distinguished career, but the primary star of the movie is de Oliveira, who unfolds the story with unfailing skill and sensitivity.

The junior Giannini, who has inherited Giancarlo's handsome looks, portrays his mercurial character with energy and flair. Madonna doesn't. Indeed, it's hard to remember the last time a certified celebrity gave a performance so monotonous, unimaginative, and all-around tiresome to watch.

Directing the action from a screenplay he wrote with Michael Thomas and Stephen Ward, filmmaker Softley keeps the pace reasonably quick and the images reasonably absorbing. [15 Apr 1994, p.13]

This fact-based drama is very well-meaning but also cloying, sentimental, and simplistic. Gooding's fake-toothed grin deserves an Oscar for best makeup, though.

At the very least, look for it on 10-best lists next month, and there's every chance it will be a strong contender at the Oscars. Filmmaking so sensitive and intelligent deserves its weight in honors.

Stiller strives to be a wild and wacky villain, Vaughn endeavors to be a likable and average hero, and both fall flat on their faces, like everything else in this unspeakably stupid comedy.

The adventure is well-acted by Mira Sorvino and Giancarlo Giannini, among others, and imaginatively directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who gives a new twist to old science-fiction effects.

Rodriguez's acting almost scores a knockout even though the movie's directing and dialogue are fairly routine.

Fine acting and creative directing lend three-dimensional life to this absorbing story, which blends dreamlike elements with sharply etched drama and touches of pure cinematic ingenuity.

The movie takes fascinating material and transforms it into a routine soap opera.

Few of its loosely linked vignettes have enough visual or emotional power to be very memorable.

Driver gives a winning performance in a human-scaled story that avoids romantic clichs and gender stereotypes, although a few of both creep in from time to time.

Most of the acting is as real and warm as the characters themselves. And the streets, shops, and living rooms of Brooklyn have never seemed more inviting. [29 Jan 1988]

This movie has promising ingredients. But you'll leave wanting much, much more.

The ultimate challenge of making a first-rate caper movie is dishing up often-used ingredients with enough novel twists to make them seem familiar and fresh at the same time. Mamet soars over the hurdles with energy and imagination to spare.

This is a subdued and sometimes subtle exercise in ghostly doings, going against the horror-movie grain by relying on quietude and understatement.

Smart and entertaining almost every step of the way.

In short, it's dull, derivative, and as lifelike as a heap of historical figurines. Few will remember this Alamo for long.

This is one of the rare movies to explore American materialism through the eyes of an all-too-ordinary person who isn't up to the challenges of everyday life.

The ensemble acting is impressively in tune; and Michael Nyman's surging score adds an extra measure of emotional power.

The humor is uneven and sometimes crude, but much of the mock-documentary is surprising and amusing.

Angela Bassett gives a superbly versatile performance as the heroine, and Laurence Fishburne's portrayal of Ike Turner consolidates his status as one of the most expressive and intelligent actors in movies today. [18 Jun 1993, p.13]

Some scenes in a Manhattan hotel have the amiable ring of old-fashioned farce to them, but most of the going is noisy and obvious. [10 Jun 1988, p.21]

The fast-talking Tucker and quick-kicking Chan are a surprisingly good team that manages to deliver a fun combination of highly choreographed action and comedy.

Intolerable Cruelty is a romantic comedy, but it has enough dark, strange, and cynical moments to qualify as a full-fledged part of the Coen canon.

What a waste of a fine cast.

Unnecessary profanity for PG, a little slow for grown-ups, but good for laughs and promoting sibling peace.

The plot is predictable, and the humor is uncreative and often crude. The heroine, however, is endearing in her quirkiness.

Has touches of quirky style to match its slightly edgy content.

The story has inherent emotional power, but Jeremy Brock's formula-bound screenplay rarely soars beyond cliches.

The action is mild enough for fairly young children, and grownups may enjoy its old-fashioned spirit.

A dark comedy about a bachelor party gone awry, it is excessively violent, ghoulish, and gory. Very Bad Things is lack-of-taste taken to the extreme.

The filmmakers can't decide what sort of picture they're trying to cook up, so they keep oscillating among shallow psychological drama, high-tech action sequences, and comedy scenes that are themselves an uneasy mixture of sitcom-style dialogue and self-mocking campiness.

Gripping, suspenseful, and spiced with fascinating information about the long history of chess between human and mechanical opponents.

Like a nincompoop version of "The Usual Suspects."

The movie has moments of breathtaking suspense, at least until it lapses into cartoonish implausibility in the second half. With good acting and good dialogue it might actually have been a good picture.

The filmmakers seem well in control of their chaotic material, but what can be said when the movie features wall-to-wall teenage alcohol abuse.

One of Almodóvar's most challenging pictures, jumping around in time and sending a large gallery of characters through a wide variety of situations -- will find him again at the peak of his powers.

You'll enjoy this sentimental drama if you feel good intentions are their own reward, at least where movies are concerned; but it'll exasperate you if you want your entertainment to have some connection with the world we actually live in.

It's interesting to see a movie of this kind based on a single gospel, with no additions or interpolations from other sources. But except for a few scenes that evoke the reverent beauty of Renaissance painting, the filmmaking and acting are awfully stiff -- certainly not worthy of the timeless story being told.

Lively acting, eye-catching cinematography, and funny dialogue lift this fantasy a notch above the average until love-story cliches and horror-movie shocks bog it down.

The animal action is often gripping and suspenseful. As a whole, a giant step beyond Annaud's earlier animal movie, "The Bear," a more gimmicky film of 1988.

A View to a Kill plods along dutifully, observing the rules of the series with dull consistency.

A promising feature-film debut.

What keeps the movie from championship status is a sense that the filmmakers see Ali's social and political contributions as extra added attractions, ultimately less important than his greatness in the ring.

Laurence Fishburne and Tim Roth play the main characters with conviction, but Bill Duke's punchy filmmaking style banishes any hope of storytelling subtlety or psychological nuance.

Smoothly directed by Kevin Costner, who also gives a sensitive performance in the leading role. The screenplay is often trite, however, and there's no reason for the picture's three-hour length. [9 Nov 1990, Arts, p.12]

Its most vivid scenes -- a visit with an insane ophthalmologist, a showdown at Anderton's supposed crime scene -- have the kind of anything-goes creativity that set "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" apart from the crowd last year.

The story raises hard moral questions relating to the relative value of human lives and the overwhelming debt that may be felt by those who benefit when others sacrifice. But the movie falls short of excellence because it doesn't so much explore these issues as finesse them in an action-filled climax.

Julia Roberts is brighter and spunkier than usual, and Rupert Everett steals the show.

Desplechin wants to film an adventure of the human spirit in the manner of a Hitchcockian drama, but he doesn't have a solid enough grasp of English culture to equal the complexity of his French productions like "The Sentinel" and "The Life of the Dead."

Victimization of homosexuals during the Holocaust era has often been overlooked. Epstein and Friedman lucidly recount this woeful history, with help from Everett's articulate narration.