Edward Guthmann

Larger Than Life isn't as bad as it sounds, mostly because Murray is so likable and fundamentally incapable of not being funny.

A conspiracy tale of high-tech chicanery, Chain Reaction has better acting, better writing, more spectacular chase sequences and more genuine drama than all of this summer's blockbusters. It's also got Morgan Freeman, as good an actor as we have today, which easily qualifies it as the one action film you should see this summer if you see no other.

They try to make Beverly adorable, and the movie comes off strained and dishonest as a result.

Dredges up every cliche about druggy, obnoxious dreamers on the fringes of Hollywood and assumes that said cliches have the power to shock and surprise.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, featuring a quartet of unsympathetic characters and an unrelenting air of misanthropy.

Harmless enough, and its team of actors so frisky and enthusiastic that it manages to deliver a modicum of laughs despite itself.

Unfortunately, Raising Cain is largely a retread of De Palma's vintage thrillers from the '70s -- an extended self-homage that makes you wonder if his imagination got frozen in 1980.

What's lacking is an explanation for the relationship, and some insight into the origins of Rimbaud's art. The other big problem, aside from DiCaprio's twang, is his lack of chemistry with Thewlis. These are two fine actors, working in vastly different styles, who might as well be walking through different movies. At the end of the handsome, frustrating Total Eclipse, you'll be wondering who these two men were.

If your tolerance for Branagh's shtick and Woody's narrowness of focus is as low as mine, you can take solace in the director's joke on himself.

Plays like the cinematic equivalent of a paperback bodice- ripper with embossed type.

Instead of defining and spoofing its period, its attitude and its social barometer, Leave It to Beaver just stumbles about in a bland, irony-deprived suburbia that denies the movie any juice or bite and renders the Cleaver family even duller than it was.

Nasty to women, cruel to old people and tosses in a cardboard gay couple for gratuitous laughs. It's also got one of those annoying soundtracks that lays rock music right over the dialogue -- as if it wanted to distract us from it.

It's beautifully shot by first-time feature director Antoine Fuqua, whose eye for sensual surfaces, deft camera moves and elegant framing was refined with commercials and music videos

This movie has a sweetness at its core.

Dreadful teen comedy with a "Cinderella" theme.

A confounding and unsatisfying film.

It sets up two or three dozen satirical targets, hits the mark occasionally, but has trouble maintaining an even satirical tone or satisfying pace. Dawber, too, is unappealing in the female lead -- definitely outclassed by Ritter. I'd wager Stay Tuned will die an early death at the box office and find its real life, appropriately enough, in home video. [15 Aug 1992, p.C3]

The movie was written by Scott Yagemann, who taught seven years in the Los Angeles public- school system, and you can feel the rancor and bitterness he still carries.

Disappointing, pointless and repetitive.

Too bad the plotting is jumbled, and the characters too numerous and undifferentiated.

What is meant to be brave comes off as gimmicky and immature.

In a movie as hackneyed and as dull as Evolution, the small favors of Duchovny's performance stand out.

An earnest, ponderous epic that tries desperately to say Something Important about disenfranchised blacks and their Afrikaans oppressors, but never does. [27 March 1992, p.D7]

Consenting Adults is well-made, preposterous junk -- the kind of modestly effective thriller that delivers a modicum of thrills but insults its audience, over and over, to achieve that effect. [16 Oct 1992, p.C1]

Down Periscope makes a surprisingly successful launch, with plenty of brisk one-liners and a promising set-up. But after that auspicious opening, it sinks.

Sister Act 2 doesn't challenge Goldberg, but it's a marvelous showcase, nonetheless, for one of the screen's most likable personalities. [10 Dec 1993, p.C1]

Handsome and sincere but slightly awkward in its combination of entertainment and evangelical boosterism.

It's a perfect fit for Williams -- a hunk of slapstick, a dose of schmaltz -- and yet he can't save the film, which is overproduced, mechanical and resoundingly unfunny.