Janet Maslin

Dutch is never more than glancingly comic, and rarely even that.

Miss Clarke's methods tend to be as fanciful as Ornette Coleman's are rigorous and abstract, but the collaboration between film maker and subject has its own kind of harmony.

Mr. Assayas's screenplay is loose and uneventful, but his direction has more energy.

The fierce-looking Sean Bean is outstandingly good as Ryan's main antagonist, and Patrick Bergin brings the right air of calculation to the terrorist mastermind he plays. Several of the film's main sequences, like an encounter between Mr. Bean's Sean Miller and David Threlfall as the police inspector who has been his captor, derive their horror from the looks of pure loathing that these terrorists bestow upon their prey.

Charlie Sheen brings just the right exaggerated seriousness to his ace pilot's role, and Cary Elwes perfectly captures the ingenue arrogance of Topper's handsome rival. Jon Cryer, as a pilot with major eyesight problems, also displays expert deadpan timing, especially when he delivers the film's most uproarious line.

This feature-length concert film is hilarious, putting Mr. Murphy on a par with Mr. Pryor at his best.

Though Three Amigos is the kind of skin-deep contemporary comedy that assembles its stars and then just coasts, it's friendlier than most. And it contains a few elements that are destined for immortality.

The forcefulness and mystery of Mr. Melville's direction often generate an urgency that keeps the film from feeling vague. [30 Nov. 1979]

Three Men and a Baby follows the French film as faithfully as it possibly can, and it too revolves around one lone idea: that there's humor in the spectacle of a grown man, heretofore ignorant of his own gentler nature, discovering that he can indeed administer formula and change diapers. The hilarity inherent in this has its limits, but it's a premise with enough timeliness and warmth to account for the first film's success. And in terms of success, this glossier, more effervescent remake will undoubtedly outstrip the original.

In Who's Harry Crumb? Mr. Candy has a varied role, a good supporting cast, a script full of comic setups and every imaginable opportunity to shine. But the result is little more than a weak comedy, one that suggests Mr. Candy is potentially a great deal better than his material.

Ms. Foster and the screenwriter, W. D. Richter, have given this film some peculiar mood swings, so that it starts out zanily and winds down to a wistful note.

despite such maladroit moments, The Last Temptation of Christ finally exerts enormous power. What emerges most memorably is its sense of absolute conviction, never more palpable than in the final fantasy sequence that removes Jesus from the cross and creates for him the life of an ordinary man.

Teachers is Arthur Hiller's attempt to do for public education what he did for medicine in The Hospital, and the results are very uneven.

The film uses morphing and Rick Baker's monster effects strikingly, but it also keeps its gimmicks well tethered to reality.

A deeply felt, deceptively simple film that marks the high point of Mr. Eastwood's directing career thus far.

Though this is by no means the grisliest or most witless film made from one of Mr. King's horrific fantasies, it can lay claim to being the most unpleasant. Why? Because when you strip away the suspenseful buildup to a King story, you're often left with mechanical moralizing and crude, sophomoric small talk. Needful Things has more of both than any film could ever need.

Mr. Dalton, the latest successor to the role of James Bond, is well equipped for his new responsibilities.

When the movie backfires, which it finally does, it's because too much grisly footage has been used too lightly. Mr. Landis's comic detachment, which has been fascinating throughout much of the movie, is something he holds on to even when a deeper response is needed. Eventually it becomes less comic than callow.

The cast never has much chance to shine. And the main attraction is kept all too understandably under wraps.

Combine two stars of this wattage with a lot of techno-talk and elaborate heist plotting and you get plenty of good reasons to pay attention.

A warm, surprising, gently incandescent film that discreetly describes a family tragedy.

A tight, energetic sleeper in the action-adventure genre, manages to pack a few anti-machismo sentiments into an otherwise brawny tale.

[It] has a gentle approach to its characters and an occasionally striking visual style. What it doesn't have is much momentum or originality.

This film works hypnotically, with great subtlety and grace, in ways that are gratifyingly consistent with Gould's own thoughts about his music and his life.

Mr. Cage digs deep to find his character's inner demons while also capturing the riotous energy of his outward charm.

Mulholland Falls is so well cast and relentlessly stylish (thanks to some fine technical talent assembled here) that its sheer energy prevails over its shaky plot.

Splash could have been shorter, but it probably couldn't have been much sweeter. Only purists will quibble with the blissfully happy ending, which has the lovers swimming through a shimmering underwater paradise that is supposed to be the bottom of the East River.

Thanks to Glenn Close's delicious villainy, it succeeds in breathing archly theatrical life into the irresistibly monstrous Cruella DeVil. Otherwise, this remake goes to the dogs too often.