Desmond Ryan

The River Wild is not a picture that tries to break new ground or even part fresh waters. Yet it is a crisp and exciting exercise, and while it may not be a watershed in Streep's career, she shows that you can take the plunge into an action movie and go swimming without going slumming. [30 Sep 1994, p.03]

One of the better Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire outings. [14 Jun 2004, p.D01]

A fresh, striking and rewarding piece of work.

Penny Marshall brings a logic to the premise that is sustained through most of the movie. And where the other movies snickered at the sexual possibilities in the idea, she faces up to them with both candor and taste.

A work that demands patience, and it will easily exasperate some moviegoers.

A droll piece of deadpan played with mostly unerring pitch by a talented cast.

Full of pungent and telling observation.

If Blow Dry isn't a rousing triumph on the order "of The Full Monty" and "Brassed Off," Rickman, Richardson and Nighy make sure it's a winning film.

A high-energy chase, but in this spirited action comedy Yaguchi still finds time to allow the romance between lovers on the run to blossom at its own pace.

Hollywood keeps turning out boxing movies. Price of Glory is the latest to step into the ring and face an increasingly no-win situation

It's a bright and breezy piece, and a refreshing alternative to the gross-out Hollywood comedies.

Just Cause is an entertaining if overwrought death-row thriller built on the pros and cons of the capital punishment debate, and it owes most of its appeal to the presence of Sean Connery. [17 Feb 1995, p.03]

Baird is a highly regarded editor of action films, and his debut as a director shows a sharp eye for the tensions and angles in individual scenes. But his grasp of pace is less certain, and it exposes the movie's more outlandish developments. [15 Mar 1996, p.03]

Fans of the original should relish going back to Back to the Future, as long as they keep in mind that in movies - as in life - you can't go home again. And if you do, things aren't likely to be the same. [22 Nov 1989, p.E1]

If you can accept Dennis Quaid as a post-Arthurian knight and a dragon who looks like Sean Connery as well as talking like him, there is a certain loopy charm to their adventures. But the rest of Dragonheart, with evil kings and distressed damsels, is such a warmed-over borrowing from better fantasies that it undermines the film's modest strength. [31 May 1996, p.05]

Mulholland Falls deserves more a tip of the hat than an enthusiastic greeting. [26 Apr 1996, p.03]

You might be occasionally dumbfounded by The Messenger, but you won't be bored.

The obstacles are many, most notably Rookery, a local vampire hunter who looks like a rejected extra from "Mad Max."

Instead of the usual contrast of black and white, The Yards offers a vivid palette of grays, and it's a far more rewarding color scheme for a movie.

Hill, Redford and Goldman reteamed for 1975's The Great Waldo Pepper, which is set in the barnstorming days of aviation, but never really takes off. [04 Jan 2003, p.C01]

Faces, torsos and other parts of the human anatomy go into gory meltdown in Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers. But his remake of of a sci-fi classic that already has been brilliantly remade leaves you wondering why he wasn't willing to go out on a limb. [18 Feb 1994, p.04]

It's a work that preaches to the choir, and the song has been more subtly sung in better movies.

The Ghost and the Darkness is beautifuly photographed and produced with an immaculate sense of period. Stephen Hopkins directs the action with a sure hand, but he is understandably at a loss in the film's subtext, which is as dense and often as impenetrable as jungle undergrowth. [11 Oct 1996, p.14]

Cats Don't Dance is pleasant middle-tier animation that will not cause anyone to lose sleep over at Disney. [26 Mar 1997, p.D07]

Not up to the freshness and inventiveness of its predecessors.

As Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands reminded us, Burton always has been more absorbed by what his audience sees than by what his movies say. It's part of his unique talent as a filmmaker, but it leads him to ignore the flaws in the structure of what is, after all, supposed to be an exciting adventure film.

Arnold has a gem for the third millennium in End of Days.

Apted's movie puts flesh - and a considerable amount of blood - on problems that usually get lost in the winds of empty political rhetoric. [27 Sept 1996, p.03]

The film, which is amiable, undemanding family holiday entertainment, is more a tribute to the astonishing skills of the dog trainers than anything else.

Picks up speed as it goes along and the finale is frenzied and, well, cartoonish.

Has the incoherent look of a movie thrown together by a committee whose members weren't on the same page.

Defiantly different, a movie that carefully checks the pulse of its characters rather than trying to get the blood rushing.

A stalwart military inspirational.

Zemeckis and Gale obviously paid attention to quality control in finishing the trilogy. They could not, however, hope to reach the quality of their first effort. [25 May 1990, p.5]

Consist of little more than people arguing or clambering in and out of dusty Land Rovers.

There are points, most notably and predictably in the action sequences and set numbers, where The Swan Princess comes within hailing distance of the Olympian standards that are now almost routine at Disney. What the film lacks is an equal sophistication in story-telling that talks to children on an almost subliminal level about their fears and fantasies while royally entertaining them. It is that quality, as much as technical skill, that sets Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King in a class by themselves as the finest achievements of the Disney renaissance. [18 Nov 1994, p.06]

Unfortunately for Disney, the real obstacle confronting the submarine isn't the giant lobster. It's a foul-smelling ogre, and it's no contest.

What Rock fans will sorely miss in Down to Earth is the earthiness and outrageous hilarity of his stand-up act.

Modestly entertaining when it is engaged in such a celebration onstage, but it trips up when the action moves backstage, where bad dialogue ... lurks in the shadows.

An entertaining mess. [19 Aug 1994, p.03]

Ricci makes all this far more palatable than it should be. She is surely helped by the dismal level shared by most allegedly more adult afterlife fantasies. The kids will enjoy the high-spirited antics, but Casper ultimately is another reason to wish Hollywood would declare a moratorium on ghost writing. [26 May 1995, p.03]

An undemanding and reassuring amiability that made it a crowd-pleaser at Sundance.

Doesn't have the exuberant inspiration or seamless, polished dazzle of "Toy Story 2," but if the latter is sold out at the multiplex this weekend, the mouse is a passable substitute.

More a grab-bag of loosely connected scenes and lives than a film with a firm sense of direction.

Licence to Kill continues the salvage operation begun in The Living Daylights and rescues a series that was in danger of shooting itself in the foot.

The kids will relish flying Air Jordan, but it's Bugs who makes the trip worth it. [15 Nov 1996, p.3]

The formula in Chain Reaction is familiar, but at least it has been entrusted to a proven technician. [2 Aug 1996, p.03]

No one has done the journey quite like Takeshi Kitano in Kikujiro

There is a sequence where his four felons parody a sitdown from The Godfather that is both inept and painfully out of place. But there's enough in Set It Off to set it apart and to argue that, when it comes to putting a new spin on the inner-city heist, you're better off with the ladies. [06 Nov 1996, p.E01]

A picture that's pleasantly forgettable.

Falls short of being totally absorbing and compelling.

The kind of date movie that should do a lot to promote celibacy.

The $40,000 budget of The Blair Witch Project wouldn't cover a day's limousine bill for a production like The Haunting, but if you want a genuine chill on a hot summer night, that - not this - is the horror movie for you. [23 July 1999, p.03]

Achieves the rare feat of fusing tightly ratcheted suspense with intense romance.

Modest, unassuming fare for younger children.

While Dumont's movie has its striking scenes, it is doomed to a sense of lethargy and inertia by the kind of people it ponders and the context in which they are placed.

The comedy is usually silly, and - in keeping with the fare served up at these busy counters - often tasteless. The wiry Mitchell and the chubby Thompson may physically suggest such great teams as Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello, but - at this stage of their development - the resemblance ends there. [25 July 1997, p.04]

A fascinating but flawed work that demonstrates that, contrary to popular wisdom, great minds do not think alike.

An honest, plainspoken and unsentimental movie.

The "Alien" recipe with a little imagination.

More about future potential than present achievement.

A film with many redeeming qualities. Its heart is certainly in the right place, but its head makes some misjudgments.

Younger children who might buy into the fantasy are not of an age where they will recognize the family conflicts that Jack Frost is trying to raise and resolve. As the film serves up slapstick, chases and empty-headed seriousness, don't be surprised by their puzzled expressions. After all, a profoundly puzzled expression is what should have greeted the idea of Jack Frost when it was broached. [11 Dec 1998, p.03]

Individual moments in Hit and Runway are quite funny, but as a send-up of action-movie mindlessness, the movie is sometimes as dumb as its targets.

A thriller is only as good as its villain is bad, and this is the film's problem.

While it's always gratifying to see girls in the kind of piece that has long been male- dominated, Now and Then merely makes ground that better films have explored more memorably seem like a rut. [20 Oct 1995, p.03]

A tired, cobbled-together concoction.

Begins with a scene of mass repentance, but the real sin here is a profligate waste of talent.

To do this kind of satire successfully, you need the kind of merciless and unrelenting wit of films such as Gus Van Sant's "To Die For" or John Huston's "Prizzi's Honor."

There's no doubt that the formula for this kind of action film is showing its age.

Full of macho swagger and unabashed hero-worship.

A worthy subject is poorly executed.

Willis is always on target, but Last Man Standing is an aimless excuse for the kind of action at which Hill undeniably excels. [20 Sep 1996, p.03]

There's nothing in Jungle 2 Jungle that hasn't been treated with more flair and imagination in dozens of other movies. [07 Mar 1997, p.03]

Cheerful mishmash.

Richie Rich has some fun with Richie's pampered life, and Culkin seems at ease with the role of a kid who has been isolated from his peers by money and celebrity - perhaps because it surely touches on feelings in his own young life. [21 Dec 1994, p.E01]

It musters both the merits and the drawbacks of the landmark original.

Yet another Hollywood serving of everyman pluck, sports division.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3 has the feel of a movie with too many jokes off the cutting-room floor. Through it all, Nielsen's consummate timing and ability to come through in the klutz makes things seem more amusing than they are. [18 Mar 1994, p.3]

Rather like listening to Vladimir Horowitz play "Chopsticks."

Vera retains her dignity throughout, which is more than can be said for human company, and she seems to be having more fun. That's as it should be in an elephant comedy one soon forgets. [04 Nov 1996, p.D06]

Sorely needs the injection of skepticism - a quality that would have been even more useful when Pollack was mulling over doing Random Hearts in the first place.

Surely there is a good comedy to be framed around that strange limbo of powerless celebrity we reserve for our ex-presidents. My Fellow Americans merely proves that it has yet to be made. [20 Dec 1996, p.45]

The jokes are framed by a silly plot about a missing jewel - a prize sought by assorted thieves and law enforcement types and unwittingly protected by Magoo. Of course, Nielsen saves the day, but there's no way he can save the movie.

Feeble and formulaic.

Tedious sports inspirational that genuflects before the mythology of Notre Dame football with the story of a walk-on who fulfilled a lifelong dream of suiting up for the Irish. [26 May 1994, p.E05]

Has its moments of charm, but it's ultimately a fascinating failure that surely looked better on paper than it does on the screen.

A comedy that belongs back on the drawing board.

The muddled huddle that is Necessary Roughness is one long fumble strewn with offensive lines.

Leaves you in no doubt of where the talent is in what would otherwise be a throwaway picture.

There is no discernible train of thought in Under Siege 2, but it serves up exactly what Seagal fans want - a movie where the body count is higher than the IQ needed to enjoy it. [17 July 1995, p.D01]

Strictly for adventurous moviegoers, a peculiar experience -- a polemic that is at once watchable and repellent.

It's an awkward mix, and Simon Wincer, a director with considerable experience in animal movies, can't make the ingredients work consistently. [28 Jul 1995, p.14]

Illsley's fine cast, with a riotous contribution from William H. Macy as the sheriff who falls for Harry, plays out the comedy without condescension.

In returning to what is basically the same premise, Carpenter gives us an update as well as a sequel. [09 Aug 1996, p.5]

The stiff banalities and trite dialogue of the genre hardly suit his flamboyant comic style. And whatever life Murphy manages to bring to the few moments between crashes and explosions are done in by the lifeless, if beautiful, presence of Ejogo and the completely wasted talent of Michael Rapaport as his partner. Ejogo's London accent is gratingly out of place on the streets of San Francisco. So, too, is Murphy. [17 Jan 1997, p.03]

Lame and misguided homage, which reduces satire to vulgar silliness for kids.

The scenario looms as a brain-dead invitation for the stars to embarrass themselves, and Company Man wastes little time in fulfilling that glum suspicion.