Desmond Ryan

An honest, plainspoken and unsentimental movie.

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

In Little Odessa, Gray proves that you can go down what looks like a familiar road and make it seem much less traveled. [30 June 1995, p.06]

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]

As an exploration of a man who really did take the road less traveled, the film is fascinating.

Attenborough's underrated 1977 epic A Bridge Too Far fashioned an antiwar statement from the foolhardiness that stranded 35,000 paratroopers behind German lines in an attempt to take key bridges. [02 Feb 2002, p.C01]

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]

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.

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]

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 comedy of the old school. Depending on your view of the current state of screen humor, that's either a promise or a warning.

Refreshingly gritty and hard-nosed.

A rewarding exploration of the knotty and often contentious relationship between teacher and protege.

Winterbottom also has the insight to share the novelist's suggestion that landscape can reflect and, to a degree, even shape character.

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]

A stalwart military inspirational.

The frenzy and off-the-cuff spontaneity of live '50s TV comedy is lovingly captured, and O'Toole won a best-actor Oscar nomination. [25 Dec 1998, p.22]

Robert Altman's droll 1976 deconstruction of a western icon with Paul Newman in peak form. [12 May 2001, p.E01]

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

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.

A worthy subject is poorly executed.

Honest, sensitive and keenly observant.

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]

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]

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

The borrowings from other movies, going all the way back to the car chase in 1968's Bullitt, are heavy. But Bay has three leads to lend weight and dimension to characters who are hardly original and flatly written.

There is one scene in The Legend of 1900 that is easily worth the price of admission. It finds the ship heeling in an Atlantic storm. In the ballroom Roth plays the piano as it moves and slides in an eerie waltz around the floor.

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.

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.

Rather like listening to Vladimir Horowitz play "Chopsticks."

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

Visually brilliant and thought-provoking.

Full of pungent and telling observation.

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]

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]

An undeniable and, indeed, unprecedented technical feat that's a feast for the eye, Dinosaur is less easy on the ear.

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]

If Fleming had played everything as a black comedy with a satirical send-up of high school life - like Heathers - he might have had something. But The Craft has no consistency and certainly no art as it drifts into an unprepossessing display of special-effects magic. [03 May 1996, p.08]

A solid double rather than a grand slam, The Sandlot remains a refreshing antidote to the daily round of contract squabbles on the sports page.

Even though the soap employed is Irish Spring, this is still a soap opera.

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

The troupe deserves every bit of its worldwide renown, and it makes this Imax trip one well worth taking.

More about future potential than present achievement.

A movie so dumb it raises serious questions about our place on the evolutionary ladder. [12 Jan 1996, p.12]

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

Parker has honored the core of the work and in the process turned a great memoir into a memorable movie.

William Friedkin's Blue Chips, somewhat flawed but pungently honest, is one film that manages to beat the odds and stretch beyond the formula manipulations. [18 Feb 1994, p.05]

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

If you enjoy visuals with substance as well as flash, look no further than this exuberant movie.

Beneath the predictable serving of sex, lies and, yes, videotape - as his characters betray each other in and out of bed - is a satire of tabloid trashiness that is truly withering.

Who would have imagined that the galactic Gonzo would turn out to be a more entertaining space trip this summer than you-know-what? [14 July 1999, p.D01]

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.

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]

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.

A turbocharged and pungently enjoyable take on the sport so many observers see - Stone, of course, included - as a reflection of the darker side of American life.

Fascinating and strangely involving piece.

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

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

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]

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

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]

In his peculiar, confused and grossly violent debut, Texas writer- director C.M. Talkington doesn't seem to know whether he is dumping on the road-movie genre (felony division) or celebrating it. [09 Jan 1995, p.D02]

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]

Yet another Hollywood serving of everyman pluck, sports division.

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

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]

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]

A temptation that can be easily and safely resisted.

Among contemporary films, fans will recognize extensive borrowings from Terminator and Alien. But Donaldson makes sure we wind up with something more than Alienator: Species shrewdly manipulates some very modern fears of deadly sexual infection and touches a paranoia unimaginable back in the '50s. [07 July 1995, p.03]

A tired, cobbled-together concoction.

A standard-issue, ineptly executed serving of the genre's staples, from skeptical cops to an all-knowing psychic.

The "Alien" recipe with a little imagination.

Plunges into a void created by a stale and incredibly derivative plot.

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

When the slimy creatures pop out of the ground in Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, one of the hapless humans in their path advises that the most strategic weapon to try is "anything that destroys their eyes and frees their tortured souls." Anyone exposed to this nauseating piece of brain-dead nonsense may want the same treatment. [13 Jan 1995, p.16]

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.

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]

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]

Tommy Boy is little more than another invitation from Hollywood for moviegoers to suffer fools. There's no reason to do so gladly. [31 Mar 1995, p.05]

Davis, with a nicely turned and witty screenplay from Bucatinsky, freshens up the familiar predicament by having her two lovers recount the affair to a stranger.

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

Not up to the freshness and inventiveness of its predecessors.

The kind of saccharine exercise that ought to do wonders for the cause of atheism. [15 July 1994, p.03]

Cheerful mishmash.

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

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

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]

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

Dumber sequels to dumb horror movies, such as the Friday the 13th series, are, of course, nothing new. [17 Mar 1995, p.06]

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]

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]

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]

As full of terrible acting as it is devoid of suspense.

Repetitive and tedious.

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.

Full of macho swagger and unabashed hero-worship.

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.