Emanuel Levy

Aiming to instruct as well as entertain --- and often struggling to reconcile these two divergent goals.

Gattaca, New Zealander helmer Andrew Niccol's impressive feature debut, is an intelligent and timely sci-fi thriller that, with the exception of some illogical plot contrivances, is emotionally engaging almost up to the end.

A briskly vigorous, occasionally brilliant actioner.

Riveting, often haunting.

Begins extremely well as a saga of greed and conspicuous consumption, but gradually loses its bite.

Steve Zahn shines throughout Mark Illsley's feature debut, Happy, Texas, elevating this eccentric small-town comedy a notch or two above its level of writing.

Influenced by "Thelma & Louise" and "Waiting to Exhale," F. Gary Gray's "Set It Off" is a well-crafted girls-n-the-hood actioner, with an acute social conscience and plenty of soul. A tale of female bonding and empowerment, this relevant film boasts a terrific cast, headed by Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah in career-making performances.

Provides a platform for Sean Connery to deliver a definitive, career-summation performance.

A deliberately paced literary film that takes too long to build narrative momentum and explore its central dramatic conflicts.

Good musical numbers serve as welcome punctuation to a film that grows increasingly tedious.

The teaming of Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, two of the most highly regarded actors around, in perfectly fitting roles that call for a battle of wits and wills, proves to be a shrewd piece of casting, and the best element of The Negotiator.

Whimsical, intermittently enjoyable but decidedly unmagical.

An intelligently proficient movie that works more effectively as a family drama than a legal thriller.

Writer John Cassavetes wants to show that there’s nothing like the purity of first love, but he doesn’t provide his triangle sufficient psychological motivation to ground their otherwise erratic behavior. The script feels incomplete, and is further marred by a missing third act and a lack of discernible point of view.

Overall, this smooth, glossy, enjoyable film showcases an impressive new authorial voice.

Sachs commits a major error by deciding to center on Lincoln’s character, for John is a far more interesting, complex and disturbing personality.

Norton directs with assurance.

Ultimately, the comedy comes across as a celebration of openness, alternative lifestyles and bonding, all life-affirming values that in the 1990s are beyond reproach — or real controversy.

With half a dozen roles to her credit, Portman is a natural performer who brings rough edges to any role she plays -- the movie is inconceivable without her.

The large, talented cast elevates the film above the trappings of its loquacious debates, particularly Allen.

It is so sharply written and entertaining that in its stage-to-screen transfer the material easily overcomes its theatrical sensibility and the static direction of Joe Mantello, who also staged the Broadway production.

An idealized tribute to a charismatic teacher who has devoted his entire life to music appreciation, Mr. Holland’s Opus has the same old-fashioned texture as Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Older audiences will be moved by the story, but the crucial variable is to what extent younger viewers will embrace this schmaltzy, Capraesque saga that’s not only set mainly in the past but also feels as if it were made back when.

So fractured and so awkwardly staged that end result is an uninvolving film that’s dramatically inert and artistically shapeless.

Under Siege is an immensely slick, if also old-fashioned and formulaic, entertainment. Steven Seagal fans and action buffs should eat up this taut suspenser, which is set entirely on board a battleship.

Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson render such startling performances in the romantic fable Benny & Joon that they almost overcome the trappings of an emotional tale that is not particularly well written or directed.

An extremely handsome production that meticulously evokes the 1920s, and a likable male-dominated cast, headed by Matthew McConaughey in his best screen performance to date, only partially compensate for a story that's too diffuse and lacks a discernible point of view that would make it dramatically engaging.

But Foster is unable to give the episodic, fragmented film a coherent feel; her prosaic, sometimes irritating picture proceeds scene by scene, with the requisite climaxes and anticlimaxes along the bumpy road.

The film shrewdly humanizes its protagonists to the point where the audience forgets their identity and roots for them to succeed - and survive.