Desmond Ryan

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