Janet Maslin

Tykwer deliberately blows away all traces of the mundane and the familiar, so that not even the closing credit crawl moves in the expected way.

An interestingly wild hybrid of visual styles and cultural references.

To Live and Die in L.A. is Mr. Friedkin at his glossiest, a great-looking, riveting movie without an iota of warmth or soul. On its own terms, it's a considerable success, though it's a film that sacrifices everything in the interests of style.

The Prince of Tides marks Ms. Streisand's triumphantly good job of locating that story's salient elements and making them come alive on the screen.

I was able to sit through only the first fifteen minutes of Dawn of the Dead.

Genuinely disturbing in its vision of fearless students and powerless teachers locked in struggle.

The script's bare bones are familiar, yet the film also has fine acting, steady momentum, a sharp eye and a very warm heart.

A funny and good-natured comedy that marks the directing debut of Richard Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin works in a steady, affable style that is occasionally inspired, always snappy and never less than amusing.

As directed by Dwight H. Little, Marked for Death lacks much visual interest or suspense.

Guardian angel movies almost always have a little charm, but The Heavenly Kid has none.

Mr. Franklin delivers the kind of symmetry, surprise and detail that easily transcend the limits of the genre.

A tough, gorgeous, vastly entertaining throwback to the Hollywood that did things right. As such, it enthusiastically breaks most rules of studio filmmaking today.

A dense, quirky, uncommonly interesting movie, this time with a high quotient of suspense.

The web of lies, failures and brutal revelations here is strong stuff, and it's the work of an original filmmaker who takes no prisoners.

However simply he approaches this familiar milieu, Mr. Stone winds up treating his story's sin-soaked connivers the way Francis Ford Coppola treated vampires. Neither of them is really capable of anything plain.

Ought to please an undemanding kiddie audience, but Flipper offers little else in the way of excitement or plot.

What makes the performance(s) even better is that Mr. Irons invests these bizarre, potentially freakish characters with so much intelligence and so much real feeling.

This film's not-so-secret weapon is Michael J. Fox, who works tirelessly to keep the comedy afloat even when its sentimental side begins to show.

It's a beach party movie, marginally better than the average, with snow taking the place of surf.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch speaks to the gleeful hell-raising monster in each of us, and it speaks with much more verve, cleverness and good humor than the film on which it is based. Add this to the very short list of sequels that neatly surpass their predecessors.

Cadence, which is the first feature Martin Sheen has directed, allows the director and his son Charlie ample opportunity to grapple with one another, as well as with questions of racial harmony and with another of Mr. Sheen's sons, Ramon Estevez. The result is well meaning and at times even gently likable.

Return of the Living Dead 3 has more visual than dramatic flair, with the actors most memorable for their sharply-lit cheekbones and upstaged regularly by the macabre special effects.

Conceived frankly as a product, complete with hit-to-be theme song over the closing credits, this adventure film cares less about storytelling than about keeping the Musketeers' feathered hats on straight whenever they go galloping.

But Mr. Olmos's direction, from a screenplay by Floyd Mutrux and Desmond Nakano, is dark, slow and solemn, so much so that it diverts energy from the film's fundamental frankness. Violent as it is, American Me is seldom dramatic enough to bring its material to life.

A gloomy film with a story whose outcome... is an especially foregone conclusion.

A revealing film and an invaluable document.

What Mr. Linklater does best here is to come up with conversational gambits that have just the right fancifulness to suit this situation.

Neither this anger nor Mr. Lee's daring is ever given free rein. Instead of a sharp satire or even an "Animal House" variation (since fraternity life is central to its story), School Daze is a collection of musical numbers, dramatic episodes, attempts at parody and cinematic wild cards, bound together only loosely by Mr. Lee's prevailing sense of outrage.

There is an essential meanness to the entire project, tapping the manipulative power of taunts. Such jokes don't jibe with the times, the culture.

Rocky II has a waxy feeling, and it never comes to life the way its predecessor did. As the characters go through their stock routines — Talia Shire shyly whispering I love you, Mr. Stallone making self-deprecating jokes, Burgess Meredith telling the kid he's either a bum or a hero — you get the feeling that you've been here before. Well, you have.

A suspenseful, involving detective drama with one of the screen's most durable tough-guy heroes, doing what he does best and still managing to show something new.

For all the funny possibilities of Mr. Murphy's neat transformation here, the latest comedy from Stephen Herek ("Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "The Mighty Ducks") doesn't know what to do with him.

It is by no means the dopiest thing on the big screen.

An ingenious, cathartic exercise in illusion and fear.

Rob Roy is best watched for local color and for its hearty, hot-blooded stars.

The director, Simon Wincer, makes Quigley Down Under an unapologetic homage to the formula western at its most pokey, complete with Wagon Train-style score. All things considered, this could be a lot worse.

With a fine vengeance along with flashes of great, unexpected tenderness, Mr. Solondz lethally evokes every petty humiliation that his seventh-grade heroine can't wait to forget.

Has a droll tone that sets it well above comedy's lowest common denominator. But it also has a bloodlessness that keeps it from being funny very often.

Porky's Revenge proceeds with the kind of comic pacing that has the audience laughing way ahead of each joke. Some of it is funny, but it's also entirely predictable.

Sister Act was screened on Wednesday night for an audience of 300 nuns who found a lot of it funny, especially a closing gag about the Pope. Secular audiences aren't likely to be so charitable.

The gimmick behind When a Stranger Galls is a scary one, but it's been played for more than it's worth.

The film turns into a preposterous but engrossing spectacle, fueled by a resource more enduring than steam or its successors: big ideas.

Stalker offers the eye so little that it might well have made a better novel, or short story, than a nearly three-hour-long film.

Another nice thing about Circle of Friends is that it escapes a happily-ever-after scenario to provide more bite and toughness than it first promises.

It's both a frantic, innovative mixture of animation technologies and a fan magazine full of adulation for Michael Jordan. He handles this tribute with regal bearing and good grace.

Despite its "based on a true story" opening credit, this earnest, nostalgic film has a way of seeming too good to be true.

This comedy has the earmarks of humor and even a few genuine laughs, but it also has a prefabricated, automatic-pilot feeling.

Mamet's handsome, stately adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy does not embellish upon its source material. Instead it skillfully pares the play down to its essentials, arriving at a faithful but tighter version of this drama.

For anyone who doesn't think an hour and a half is a long time to spend with a comic book, Heavy Metal is impressive. Though it owes some slight bit of its toughness and nihilism to Ralph Bakshi, this animated feature is off on its own track, combining science fiction, mysticism, sex, violence and rock music. Much of the time, these elements do what the film makers want them to, and make for a heady mix.

The Night We Never Met is never lifelike enough to evoke the madly romantic New York atmosphere it seems to be after. The actors try hard, but they are hamstrung by too many broad strokes and silly inconsistencies.

I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, a documentary about Mr. Wilson that ought to fascinate anyone who's ever turned on a car radio in America, does more than induce this legendary rock recluse to speak for himself. . . . This film also illuminates the music itself and makes interesting, accessible sense of Mr. Wilson's very real genius.

As directed by Ralph S. Singleton, Graveyard Shift works better above ground than below. The early scenes that allow the actors a little color are more fun than the all-basement episodes, which are visually monotonous despite the fact that the film's monster plot is a multi-media affair.

The only real value of Damnation Alley is educational: This is the movie to see if you don't understand what was so wonderful about the special effects in, say, Star Wars.

Starman provides him with a role that, played by anyone else, might seem preposterous. In Mr. Bridges' hands it becomes the occasion for a sweetly affecting characterization - a fine showcase for the actor's blend of grace, precision and seemingly offhanded charm.

The Outsider is vivid even if it isn't much of a character study, and energetic even though it's often clumsy.

It's a movie struggling with its own identity crisis, and with the obvious constraints created by its subject matter.

Even if Clueless runs out of gas before it's over, most of it is as eye-catching and cheery as its star. [19 July 1995]

Miss Littman, who directed and was co-producer of Testament, gives its individual scenes a very realistic air, even if the film's overall conception is sometimes strained.

While Body Heat involves murder, fraud, a weak hero led astray and a seductive, double-dealing broad, it also incorporates something new: a sexual explicitness that the old films could only hint at.

There are subtly etched characters, effortlessly fine performances, and a moving story that is not easily forgotten.

Only when it comes time to justify its excesses and deliver on a promise of wider revelation does the otherwise audacious screenplay by James Cameron and Jay Cocks look too specific and small.

Mr. Seagal is effective for both his novelty value and his ability to be both literally and figuratively disarming. And the film itself is a lively one for its genre, ambitious enough to do more than simply string fight scenes together.

As he demonstrated in "Groundhog Day," Ramis knows how to handle a high-concept story with unusual cleverness, and he does it again here. It helps to no end that De Niro and Crystal, despite their obvious differences, are perfectly in tune.

Really, it's all as funny as a hernia.

Van Damme, who has nonetheless made eight films in six years, including "Bloodsport," "Cyborg" and "Kickboxer." His looks are memorable but his acting skills stunningly limited, confined mostly to the flexing, seething and pouting realm. Should anyone be in the market for an all-new Hercules, Mr. Van Damme might at the very least take a number. But when it comes to even the minimally dramatic events of Lionheart, he's in over his head.

For every necessary touch that Valmont has reduced or dispensed with (the climactic duel scene, for instance), there is another, less vital moment that has been expanded.

A movie with a sloppily sentimental heart that's as big as the city in which its story takes place.

Powaqqatsi, which is the second part of a planned trilogy, reaffirms Mr. Reggio's diligence and sincerity, though it does not signficantly advance his achievement.

Fatigue is in the air. This third look at the quintessentially middle-American Griswold family, led by Clark (Mr. Chase) and the very patient Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) is only a weary shadow of the original ''National Lampoon's Vacation,'' which found a lot to laugh at as it followed the dopey paterfamilias Clark and his quarrelsome brood on a hellish cross-country journey in their station wagon. The new film does little more than reintroduce these familiar characters (with new actors playing the children, who would otherwise be college age by now) and let them get on one another's nerves in earnest.

The Kids in the Hall's first feature isn't anything more than a sloppy showcase for the group's costume-changing tricks, but sometimes its sheer chutzpah can be amusing. Just as often, flashes of complete plot incoherence or atrocious taste spoil the effect.

It benefits not only from Mr. Brando's peculiar presence, but also from Johnny Depp, who again proves himself a brilliantly intuitive young actor with strong ties to the Brando legacy. The movie is cheesy, but its stars certainly are not.

Mr. Zieff seems never to have determined what sort of romance he wanted to show, and as a result the movie is constantly contradicting itself.

It's too smart to be maudlin.

The movie has lots of glossy charm even if Ms. Roberts and Grant seem less like lovers than members of a support group for the desperately attractive.

This new menu movie has a soapy plot, appealing stars, family values, down-home atmosphere and a conviction that there's rarely a problem fried chicken can't cure.

A colossally sour and ill-conceived misfire.

The film's cool, sober texture and its clever characters are often more interesting than the larger plot.

Since Trapped in Paradise assembles three actors as amusing as Nicolas Cage, Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz, it's a minor holiday miracle that this homey comedy barely elicits even a chuckle.

Unlike ''The Fugitive,'' which had tremendous dramatic urgency, this film isn't clear enough to build suspense that escalates from scene to scene...A lively look and some frantically inventive action scenes generate energy, even if the gimmicks do have an edge of desperation. Mr. Davis churns out vigorous excitement inside the working of a drawbridge, in a science museum, in a secret bunker and on a frozen lake.

Mr. Russell's wonderfully mad odyssey of a movie, in which a man sets out to find his biological parents and winds up meeting more weirdos than Alice found down the rabbit hole.

It lacks the coherent fantasy of truly enveloping science fiction, preferring to concentrate on flashy, isolated stunts that say more about expense than expertise. [28 July 1995]

A comedy that's cheery, earnest, harmless and almost totally lacking in bite. City Slickers ambles along lackadaisically, incorporating birth, death, casual wisecracks and a running gag about two ice-cream moguls who pride themselves on knowing the right flavor for any occasion. Each of these things seems to be given equal weight.

D.C. CAB is a musical mob scene, a raucous, crowded movie that's fun as long as it stays wildly busy, and a lot less interesting when it wastes time on plot or conversation. There's a lot of talent in the large cast, and Joel Schumacher, the director, generally keeps things bustling.

Even when Best Friends isn't working uproariously as a comedy, there's an element of original, offbeat humor that keeps it promising.

The worst of it is painless; the best is funny, sly, cheerful and, here and there, even genuinely inspired.

Some of the gags in Better Off Dead have a lot more cleverness than the material - just another silly story about a lovesick high school boy and the cute, annoying habits of his friends and family - might warrant.

Queen Victoria is played with splendid regal grace by Judi Dench.

Has warmth and good cheer. The film is loosely focused, but its ensemble cast is as affable as anything on television these days.

Another fast, gripping spy story with some good tricks up its sleeve.

Operation Dumbo Drop is painlessly good-humored by any lights, but the viewers most likely to enjoy all this are those most easily driven to giggles by the idea of elephant poop.

Mr. Avary's debut feature, fiercely ambitious but way out of control, is an orgiastically violent exercise in hand-me-down nihilism, much more firmly rooted in cinematic posturing than in real pain.

The whole film has the intensity of a dream, and Mr. Kazan selects his fantasy elements with great care.

Familiar but likable, thanks largely to Mr. Jacoby's irrepressible clowning and Miss Hyser's good-sport manner.

A movie that's as sweet as it is clever, and never so clever that it forgets to be entertaining.

Most of the movie is simply about mountain climbing, something that is undoubtedly more thrilling to attempt than it is to watch.

The moral ambiguity of James's novel has been skillfully captured in the film, as has its remarkable modernity.

It will seem suspenseful only to those who wonder whether Mr. Stallone can get the dog out alive.

In place of a real story, there is just the spectacle of stock characters being put through their paces to fill up the time.

One of the few things this listless bore of a film makes clear is that Mr. Penn, ever since his hilarious performance as a stoned surfer in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, has been greatly overrated.

Truth or Dare is at the very least a potent conversation piece. It can also be seen as a clever, brazen, spirited self-portrait, an ingeniously contrived extension of Madonna's public personality and a studied glimpse into what, in the case of most other pop luminaries, would be at least a quasi-hidden realm.

Some parts of it are rapturous and stirring, others hugely improbable, and the film moves unpredictably from one mode to another. From another director, this might be fatally confusing, but Mr. Spielberg's showmanship is still with him. Although the combination of his sensibilities and Miss Walker's amounts to a colossal mismatch, Mr. Spielberg's ''Color Purple'' manages to have momentum, warmth and staying power all the same.

Seeming warmer and more comfortable in this antic comedy than she has before, Ms. Goldberg is helped not only by the right co-star but also by the right role.

The backgrounds and characters, though ambitiously executed, aren't particularly compatible, because there's nothing in Mr. Frazetta's steep phallic landscapes that speaks to Mr. Bakshi's overly sleek cavemen.

OF all the Spielberg-inspired fantasy films afoot at the moment, Joe Dante's Explorers is by far the most eccentric. It's charmingly odd at some moments, just plain goofy at others.

Mr. Hunter has an extraordinarily clear understanding of teen-age characters, especially those who must find their own paths without much parental supervision. Though its Midwestern locale and lower socioeconomic stratum give it a different setting, River's Edge shares something with Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, a novel that is also full of directionless, drug-taking teen-age characters who are without moral moorings and left entirely to their own devices. This is as chilling to witness as it is difficult to dramatize, if only because at their centers these lives are already so empty.

Mr. Craven's attempts at such effects are always gripping, but here they are sometimes overpowered by the complexity of the material. The search for the zombifying elixir, the influence of the Tontons Macoute, the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship and the mysterious powers of voodoo sometimes run together in a manner less provocative than confusing.

In Mr. Holland's Opus, Mr. Dreyfuss gives a warm and really touching performance. He's firmly in control of the film's comic moments and just as comfortable delivering the film's calculatingly Capraesque payoff: a good cry.

Fresh features delicate and sympathetic work from both Mr. Esposito and Mr. Jackson, whose fine characterizations say a lot about the originality of this film's vision.

There's no great show of wit or tunefulness here, and the ingenious cross-generational touches are fairly rare. But there is a lively kiddie version of the Dickens tale, one that very young viewers ought to understand.

Sheena is the perfect summer movie for anyone who's dissatisfied with the season's intentional comedies, and who doesn't believe in looking a gift horse in the mouth. Actually, it's more like gift zebra.

The ending of Jacob's Ladder, when it finally arrives, is, like much of the film, both quaint and devastating.

Only late in the game do they make an unforgivable mistake. Blue Chips falls apart when the film makers, figuratively speaking, haul their soapbox right onto the court. Most of the time, Blue Chips is too energetic to sound self-righteous.

Neil Simon is hardly Norman Rockwell, but his Brighton Beach Memoirs has a warmly nostalgic quality, something that has traveled very nicely to the screen...A film of surprisingly gentle charms. Mr. Simon's humor is much in evidence, but it is not the film's strongest selling point. Even more effective are the sense of a place and a way of life long vanished and the care and affection with which they have been summoned up.

This isn't the kind of sexy California beach film that lulls you into a pleasant stupor. It's the kind that makes you wish for a biblical plague.

Two reasons it's impossible to resist "Independence Day": because of its pitch-perfect cartoonish dialogue ("Now you're never gonna get to fly the space shuttle if you marry a stripper!") and because the Captain, like Indiana Jones, is so unflappably tough.

The film's facile treatment of racial issues may be enough to bring back the practice of throwing tomatoes at the screen.

Even when the action seems wrongheaded—and it frequently does—the movie is richly textured and well played.

The film is full of gratifying gags, but it also has to strain for newly enlarged scope.

The film tends to be funny when confining itself to short sketches or dopey television-based humor, flat when pretending to be anything more.

A portion of the audience will be strongly offended by Porky's, just as another portion will find it filthy but fun. However, there is no debating the success of Mr. Clark's casting, for he has assembled a cheerful, likable bunch of actors, most of them unknowns.

Events are minor and they unfold slowly. The audience has plenty of time to get ahead of the game.

Hal Ashby directs Being There at an unruffled, elegant pace, the better to let Mr. Sellers's double-edged mannerisms make their full impression upon the audience.

Lawrence and Murphy make an entertaining team. And they are surrounded by a supporting cast that makes the prison setting more pleasant than it has any right to be.

ELMORE LEONARD'S thrillers leap so easily to the screen that it's astounding so few of them have gotten there. Even with the kind of slapdash, unsightly production that's been given 52 Pick-Up, Mr. Leonard's stories make terrific, unself-conscious B-movies of the sort that are more and more rare.

Crimson Tide is better watched for its toy appeal and high-priced talent than for any real suspense over where Hunter's mutinous instincts will lead the story.

Unlawful Entry manages to be more gripping than it is convincing, thanks to the story's inevitable movement toward a violent showdown.

This is a strong, affecting story but it's also a straggly one, populated by tangential figures and parallel plotlines; the criminals' histories are every bit as convoluted and fascinating as those of the policemen they abducted. Even the courtroom drama is unusually complicated, introducing a new legal team with each new trial.

A cheerful, four-cylinder children's movie, though its car jokes aren't good for much mileage. Herbie the Volkswagen, last seen in Monte Carlo, is now in South America, as the title may or may not indicate. This allows him to get into a bullfight, for the movie's most inspired episode, and to fall into the sea and get rusty, for its saddest. His adventures aren't much more far-flung than this, but fortunately they move fast. [12 Sept 1980, p.C8]

The new film is twice as busy as its quiet predecessor, and perhaps half as interesting (which still places it several notches above run-of-the-mill studio fare).

Despite great scenery, the distinctive visual ideas of Mr. Scott ("Alien," "Blade Runner") and the strong dramatic presence of Mr. Bridges, most of White Squall remains listless and tame.

Ms. Jenkins, who makes her writing and directing debut with wit and confidence, keeps the small surprises frequent and the coming-of-age perspective sharp.

The Long Good Friday charts a perilous course through a world of powerful people, ghastly acts of vengeance and ominously shifting fortunes.

Fever beings to flag when, after an initial hour filled with high spirits and jubilant music, it settles down to tell its story; the effect is so deflating that it's almost as though another Monday has rolled around and it's time to get back to work.

Grosbard mercifully avoids melodrama -- the only real false notes are musical ones, from a score by Elmer Bernstein that turns familiar and trite when the film does not.

As martial-arts movies go, it's pretty tame. As movies of any other sort go, tame is putting it nicely.

Coup de Torchon, which opens today at the Paris, has Mr. Tavernier's typical polish, which means it has much to recommend it. But however impressive the meticulousness and conviction on display here, or the performances Mr. Tavernier has elicited, Coup de Torchon seems strangely lacking in overall momentum and direction.

Mr. Ivory and Ismail Merchant have long since learned to breathe life into their material without excessive reverence, in a manner that is as decorous as it is dramatic. As might be expected, the costumes, settings and cinematography are once again ravishing.

There's plenty of room for sentimentality here, but the wonder of Salles' film is all in the telling.

Grandview, U.S.A. is slight, but it has a good enough cast to keep it watchable.

Antz works best just showing off its prodigious voice talent.

Easier to watch than it is to believe.

Years of tireless persistence have begun to work in Mr. Van Damme's favor. It's hard not to enjoy his energy, even if his acting gifts still leave a lot to be desired. The fact is that he looks good, behaves affably and kicks with gusto, which is quite enough to satisfy the demands of Timecop.

However adversely it must have affected the morale of those involved in making Brainstorm, the death of Natalie Wood hasn't damaged the film. Her performance feels complete. Playing a more mature character than she had done before, Miss Wood brought hints of a greater sturdiness and depth to this role, which is pivotal but relatively small.

As both a skillful director and a lovable oddball, [Moretti] commands interest. It's easy to follow him anywhere.

A well-made but sugar-coated working-class fable about a football star.

Staged as pure fluff without an ounce of ballast, Mixed Nuts succeeds only in getting its cast into Halloween-caliber crazy costumes by the time it's over.

The Madness of King George mixes the ebullience of Tom Jones with a pop-theatrical royal back-stabbing that is reminiscent of films like The Lion in Winter. That makes it a deft, mischievous, beautifully acted historical drama with exceptionally broad appeal.

Its comic episodes are nicely controlled, and the movie has a consistent zany style.

Hardcore never gives in to the rhythm of its nighttime world, never swoons; Mr. Schrader doesn't seem capable of the perversely rhapsodic style his subject demands. But he does work with speed and intelligence, paying sharp attention to detail and making the movie as funny as it is quick and frightening.

Nothing spoils a horror story faster than a stupid victim. And Nightmares, an anthology of four supposedly scary episodes, has plenty of those.

One way to get through Baby Geniuses is to think about whether it really is the worst movie you've ever seen. Probably not, but pretty darn close.

Films like "The Pianist" and "Schindler's List" immerse viewers in the bleakness of that time. The Red Orchestra is set in a sunnier world, which seems more frighteningly false. The bright, quotidian landscape seems a facade that threatens to tumble at any moment.

It is beautiful -spectacularly so, at times - but dumb. Computer fans may very well love it, because Tron is a nonstop parade of stunning computer graphics, accompanied by a barrage of scientific-sounding jargon. Though it's certainly very impressive, it may not be the film for you if you haven't played Atari today.

Too often, Betty Blue has the posturing good looks of a fashion spread and nothing more.

A better-than-average horror film, in large part because it isn't about terrified coeds being stalked by an ax wielding loon. Its story is more original than that -although where horror-movie ingenuity is concerned, it's only a thin line that separates the original from the bizarre.

The Coca-Cola Kid is of more interest for these oddball peripheral touches than for its awkward attempts at satire.

Das Boot is yet another moving testament to the wastefulness of battle.

Mr. Jarman's visual sense easily eclipses his conceptual talents. And The Garden has a burning, kaleidoscopic energy to compensate for the facile nature of some of its more unavoidable thoughts.

Though it all comes together, most tragically, at the conclusion, Colors is less notable for its plot than for its chilling urgency and its sense of pure style.

Alive remains remarkably colorless, despite its difficult subject and the harrowing adventure it describes.

The Loveless, a pathetic homage to the 1950's, has been made by two writer-directors, Kathryn Bigelow and Monty Montgomery, who share an unmistakable longing for that era. But their nostalgia expresses itself no more interestingly than through a lot of silly, lifeless posturing, plus the use of colors like chartreuse.

SEVERAL of the characters in Dune are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to understand what goes on in the movie.

A benign adventure saga that has attractive stars, elaborate gimmicks and nice production values -- everything it needs except a personality of its own.

What the film needs, instead of these familiar teen-movie trappings, is a cleverness and eccentricity to match that of its characters. For the most part, these are qualities that it lacks.

What it doesn't have, unfortunately, is enough true conviction to rise above novelty status. Nor does it really have a plot.

The film's strength is that it sustains an intimate and realistic tone. Mr. Fishburne, who is called upon to deliver several lectures, manages to do so with enormous dignity and grace, and makes Furious a compelling role model, someone on whom the whole film easily pivots.

[Hanson] does another deft job of conveying a heroine's secret anxieties, at least during the first half of his story.

There is a dazzling array of talent on display here, and the film surely has its memorable moments. But it articulates so little of the end-of-an-era feeling it hints at—and some of Mr. Scorsese's accomplishments have been so stunning—that it's impossible to view The Last Waltz as anything but an also-ran.

The film bounces busily among these players until it has to slow down and pretend to be sincere.

Dragonslayer has pacing problems, and its special effects tend to be more overpowering than helpful. But it also has a sweetness and conviction that amount to a kind of magic.

Soapdish, directed with good-natured zest by Michael Hoffman, has as serious a split-personality problem as any of its characters, perhaps because its screenplay is the work of Robert Harling (who wrote the story) and Andrew Bergman, two screenwriters with decidedly different comic sensibilities.

The chief thing it counts on is a built-in appreciation of the Murray sense of humor, which is growing ever more refined as Mr. Murray proceeds with his movie career. Mr. Murray hasn't yet reached the point at which his routines can be sustained for more than 10 minutes at a time. But he has achieved a sardonically exaggerated calm that can be very entertaining.

Directing his first feature, Christopher Browne shows flair and determination in getting the movie's pathos down pat, but he can't quite find enough that is pleasurable in its many reels.

Bitter Moon is, by any reasonable standard, just awful. It's smutty, far-fetched and bizarrely acted, especially by Ms. Seigner, who gives the kind of performance that can only be explained by the fact that she is the director's wife. The good news: Mr. Polanski seems to know all this, and even to encourage it. This material obviously appeals to his sense of mischief, which remains alive and well.

At the very least, a warmly old-fashioned soap opera with several significant new twists. And for all its flaws, Falling in Love is one of those ordinary-seeming modern films that present unremarkable characters in the throes of all-too-familiar contemporary crises. When films in this genre succeed fully and realistically in mirroring the audience's concerns, they aren't ordinary at all. [09 Dec 1984, p.21]

This latest special-effects free-for-all from Jan De Bont is a lavish illustration of how to take a fairly modest black-and-white horror film from 1963 and amplify it so relentlessly that the sight of the flying cow in Twister would not be all that amiss.

Its own efforts to be tongue-in-cheek, as with a backwoods gunman who quotes Emerson and Machiavelli, fall seriously flat. But should anyone have the patience to look closely, the two leading players do show signs of what would soon make them famous.

It's easy to see why this cheerfully dopey film has struck pay dirt.

Ferngully is more run-of-the-mill than its subject matter might indicate. The main characters are disappointingly ordinary, with the exotic Crysta sounding very much like someone who spends time at the mall.

Couch-potato comedy can't get any lazier than Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, but that counts for most of this film's slender charm. [19 Apr 1996, p.C8]

The terrifically confident Mr. Snipes gives a funny, knowing performance with a lot of physical verve. And Mr. Harrelson (of Cheers) further perfects the art of appearing utterly without guile. Their comic timing together shapes the film's raucous wit, and their basketball playing looks creditable, too.

As a film about heroism, it is chiefly remarkable for its gutlessness.

Ruby in Paradise is more often pensive than genuinely thoughtful, but it is helped immensely by Ms. Judd's gravity and strength.

Nothing about Tales From the Darkside is likely to give anyone much of a scare. But thanks to casting that is savvier than the horror norm, and to direction by John Harrison that is workmanlike and sometimes even witty, at least it's fun.

Gary Kemp, as the more commanding and peculiar Ron Kray, makes an especially scary impression, particularly once the Krays' perfect control has begun to unravel. In a series of events set off by Reg's marriage, the Krays are seen on a downhill spiral that Mr. Medak conveys with great and effective understatement.

Dialogue that strains to be colorful, indiscriminately piled-on pop songs, plot developments that aren't followed through on, and minor aspects of motivation that are never known.

In performance, as in the rest of this film, Mr. Noonan only haltingly captures what he seeks.

Higher Learning culminates in facile violence instead of the assurance that this film maker, in trying to explain forces that oppress his characters, has really done his homework.

Big features believable young teen-age mannerisms from the two real boys in its cast, and this only makes Mr. Hanks's funny, flawless impression that much more adorable. This really is the performance to beat.

But the screenplay, by Eric Roth and Michael Cristofer, can sound pat enough to diminish the characters.

In his third and most comfortable effort to model the Bond mantle, Pierce Brosnan bears noticeably more resemblance to a real human being.

Though Videodrome finally grows grotesque and a little confused, it begins very well and sustains its cleverness for a long while.

M. Butterfly as idiosyncratic as Mr. Cronenberg's work always is, is sometimes too flat and ambiguous for its own good.

Although Manhattan Murder Mystery struggles with its own contrivances, it achieves a gentle, nostalgic grace and a hint of un-self-conscious wisdom. Those who appreciate the long, daring continuum of Mr. Allen's work will be glad to find him simply carrying on.

The best thing about Yentl is its earnestness. It may resemble a vanity production from afar (or at close range, too, for that matter), but even at its kitschiest it seems to be heartfelt. That goes a long way, though not far enough, toward saving the film from its own built-in difficulties.

The sardonic, testosterone-fueled science fiction of Fight Club touches a raw nerve.

However endlessly film makers around the world have told that story, Mr. Zhang reimagines it with immense grace and turns it into a deeply felt tragedy.

Little more than a set of intermittently funny skits strung together by a sketchy nonplot about Stuart's relatives. As directed by Harold Ramis, it's seldom better than just amiable.

This claustrophobic mess of a movie offers only carnage.

The film's flamboyant portrait of Nino may be stereotypical, but Mr. Snipes makes it chilling.

A thoroughly pleasant, down-to-earth romantic comedy that never entirely takes flight, though it picks up immeasurably whenever Mr. Martin is on screen.

Children may enjoy this, but their adult escorts will have a harder time...It's been well made and, especially in Miss Tandy's case, acted with a sense of fun. But the time for this brand of fantasy may have come and gone.

Until its final reel, when it strains badly to accommodate an almost biblical stroke of retribution, The Man in the Moon is a small, fond film that achieves a kind of quiet perfection.

The idea has anarchic possibilities, but the film itself is awfully tame.

If you can get past the movie's aimlessness and its visual drabness, it has its share of isolated laughs.

No more convincing on screen than it was on the page. But it is greatly helped by the presence of Mr. Spader, who was apparently born to play life-denying, icy-veined young heroes, and especially Ms. Sarandon, who has made a career out of coaxing such characters out of their buttoned-down ways.

Elaborate as this sounds, there really isn't much plot here, only a parade of arbitrary visual tricks to hold the film together.

Mr. Cameron has made a swift, exciting special-effects epic that thoroughly justifies its vast expense and greatly improves upon the first film's potent but rudimentary visual style. He has also broadened his initial idea to encompass better developed characters (after all, the first Terminator was barely verbal), a livelier wit and a more ambitious, if nuttier, message.

Barry Levinson's richly textured new film also has a rueful nostalgia, a fine-tuned streak of con artistry, and the same hilarious, nit-picking small talk that colored Diner, his first and best film - which is recalled, rivaled and in a few ways even outdone by this one.

It may not capture Mr. McInerney's novel completely or even succeed in standing on its own, but it does go a long way toward bringing the book to life. If Mr. McInerney's readers think it incomplete, they should also find it enjoyably familiar.

In fact even the film's most dramatic moments are presented with decorousness bordering on detachment.

Beautiful and heartfelt, an oasis of humanity in a season of furious hyperbole.

As fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dark alley.

The effort to turn Outbreak into an action picture insures that little of it will be believable, regardless of how much scientific data has been woven into the story. The film's shallowness also contributes to the impression that no problem is too thorny to be solved by movie heroics.

It's cheerfully inoffensive entertainment designed for the crowd that liked "Car Wash," with which one of the present film's producers was also involved, and it offers a similarly shapeless brand of merriment.

A devilishly entertaining crime story with a heroine who must be seen to be believed, is as satisfying an ensemble piece as Red Rock West.

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle has its flaws, but it also has a heartfelt grasp of what set Dorothy Parker apart from her fellow revelers and makes her so emblematic a figure even today.

But Mr. Costa-Gavras, a galvanizing filmmaker working with a splendid cast, is able to tell this story in style.

Mr. Lyne's films may not cast any new light on the human condition, but they do keep you glued to the screen.

Though Songwriter is an original, it recalls the director's earlier Roadie in its choppiness, its knowing view of show business, and its humor, which tends to be exuberantly rude.

Baz Luhrmann's Australian film Strictly Ballroom is, in short, pure corn. But it's corn that has been overlaid with a buoyant veneer of spangles and marabou, and with a tireless sense of fun.

Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Walt Disney production of Ray Bradbury's 1962 novel, begins on such an overworked Norman Rockwell note that there seems little chance that anything exciting or unexpected will happen. So it's a happy surprise when the film...turns into a lively, entertaining tale combining boyishness and grown-up horror in equal measure.

Slow, overlong and ridiculously overproduced.

Death Becomes Her dares to invent a world of spectacular self-interest and populate that world with two fabulous harridans (Ms. Streep and Goldie Hawn) giving wonderfully spirited performances. But in spite of that, it remains surprisingly tame. A lot of the problem arises from simple -- and inexplicable -- lapses in the screenplay.

Isn't much when it comes to either deliberate or inadvertent humor. But it does have a few amusing moments.

Gleaming the Cube (the title refers to achieving the skateboarding equivalent of cosmic bliss) has an intrigue plot that is unremarkable, and it doesn't do anything terribly novel with the relationship between Brian and the policeman (Steven Bauer) who helps investigate the case. It becomes somewhat more interesting in exploring the Vietnamese community of Orange County, Calif., especially in its tinier details.

Starting Over depicts an abandoned man in all his misery, and still manages to be fast and funny while it breaks new ground.

This film's very lack of surprise and sophistication accounts for a lot of its considerable charm.

There's no need to worry that Mamet is on foreign territory with this action premise. The Edge succeeds ably in blending his famously acerbic dialogue with nerve-racking adventure scenes.

Broadway Danny Rose proceeds so sweetly and so illogically that it seems to have been spun, not constructed. Mr. Allen works with such speed and confidence these days that a brief, swift film like this one can have all the texture and substance of his more complicated work.

Its story is unusual, but it's told in a style that is immediate and understandable, and that never opts for heroism at the expense of authenticity.

Ingenious fantasy.

This carefree comedy film does its best with material that would have been totally ephemeral in a less Brady world.

Mr. Ferrara has his saving graces, too, the chief one being raw talent, which he continues to display while telling even the most far-fetched story.

Barry Sonnenfeld...proves that he does not need the Addams family to develop a wry, cartoonish atmosphere filled with funny, well-etched minor characters.

Frankly geriatric, and made without a single gunfight or explosion, the weak but genial romp Out to Sea supplies touristy scenery, familiar players and enough rumba scenes for 10 weddings. Everything about the film is as intentionally dated as its gag about Normandy.

It has taken only two films, "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and now Happiness, for Todd Solondz to establish his as one of the most lacerating, funny and distinctive voices in American film.

Disarmingly, the film thus acknowledges the Spice Girls' flash-in-the-pan status and lets them kid around about their frankly synthetic career.

An irresistible black comedy and a wicked delight. [27 Sept 1995]

It's hard to imagine what the film might have been with anyone other than Mr. Hackman in this role, for this actor's quintessential decency and ordinariness have never seemed more affecting. It's precisely the lack of bravado in Hambleton that makes him an interesting character, and a poignant anti-Rambo.

The punchy little flourishes that load this English gangster film with attitude are perfectly welcome, because there's no honest, substantial part of the movie they can hurt.

However hamstrung it occasionally becomes, "Wild Bill" is impressive for a thoughtful, daring spirit and a charismatic hero, so unapologetically larger than life.

The spiky documentary in their honor keeps alive the echoes of their slapdash, Smithsonian-worthy sound.

Despite huge resources at Mr. De Bont's disposal and the fact that both he and Ms. Bullock have achieved stellar status since ''Speed'' screeched onto movie screens, the sequel is still a B-movie at heart.

Ladybird, Ladybird is a tough, utterly absorbing film even at moments when it seems to skirt some of the fine points of Maggie's difficulties.

A marvelous toy. It's funny, it's full of tricks and it manages to be royally entertaining, which is really all it aims for.

If you've never seen anyone wear a gold chain with a sweatshirt, then by all means go see Kenny Rogers in Six Pack. If that is not your idea of originality, the good-natured but none-too-interesting Six Pack won't strike you as anything new.

A Bronx Tale offers a warm, vibrant and sometimes troubling portrait of the community it describes. Almost everyone within that community sounds a little bit like Robert De Niro except Mr. De Niro himself.

Largely because Mr. Cuaron is such a voluptuous visual stylist, this Great Expectations is capable of wonder even when its wilder ideas misfire.

Nothing in Gilda Live is funnier than, or a substantial departure from, the material Gilda Radner does on "Saturday Night Live." But the film ought to satisfy her fans.

Mr. Pacino has not been this uncomplicatedly appealing since his Dog Day Afternoon days, and he makes Johnny's endless enterprise in wooing Frankie a delight. His scenes alone with Ms. Pfeiffer have a precision and honesty that keep the film's maudlin aspects at bay.

His Breakdown is a tough, vigorous exercise in pure action, shot with throwback expertise and, most refreshingly, without special effects.

Mr. Ichaso's slow, deliberate direction of Barry Michael Cooper's windy screenplay is painfully slack. If this film doesn't resort to much vicious gunplay until its later sections, that may be because the characters are always in danger of talking one another to death.

Thanks in large part to Mr. Candy, who gives an honestly touching performance in what might have been a cloying role, this story does have its simple charms.

The only sneaky scheme at work here is the one that inflates a hollow plot to fill 2 1/4 hours while banishing skepticism with endless close-ups of big, beautiful movie-star eyes.

A very good-humored sequel for anyone in tune with its subject.

Here, instead, is Keanu Reeves in one of his off roles, sleepwalking dutifully but seeming to share the audience's bewilderment over how he wound up in this awkward, slow-moving story.

With some gentle humor that will delight the "Napoleon Dynamite" set, Dorian Blues lights a natural little footpath between two ways of living.

Stunning...a film much tougher and more transfixing than its wan title.

Meticulously detailed and never less than fascinating, The Shining may be the first movie that ever made its audience jump with a title that simply says "Tuesday."

A lovely, lyrical, unexpectedly delicate movie. [12 Dec 1980, p.C8]

It will help if, while watching The Naked Gun, viewers can assume a mental age of about 14. The jokes will seem fresher that way, and they will also, much to the writers' credit, seem screamingly funny at times.

Early in his career, at the time of ''Diner,'' Mr. Rourke managed to do this sort of thing very seductively, with a charming nonchalance. This time he seems puffy, sleazy and sadly ineffectual, well over the edge into self-parody.

Not surprisingly, there are some slow patches and formulaic touches, but that's a fair trade for the fun of watching Mr. Williams and Mr. Crystal make an irresistible comic team.

Messy as the semiautobiographical Crooklyn often is, it succeeds in becoming a touching and generous family portrait, a film that exposes welcome new aspects of this director's talent.

Loose, rambling and sometimes rudderless as it is, The Indian Runner has a fundamental honesty that gives it real substance.

A minor but witty entry on the exceptionally strong slate of French films at the New York Film Festival this year.

A rueful, warmly affecting film featuring a wonderful performance by Mr. Troisi, The Postman would be attention-getting even without the sadness that overshadows it. [14 June 1995, p. C15]

The technical minutiae, the solemn silliness and the preachy tone occasionally sounded here...are all essential to the Star Trek mystique. Whatever it is, it seems durable beyond anyone's wildest dreams. And Mr. Nimoy, by injecting some extra levity this time, has done a great deal to assure the series' longevity.

It's the overall resourcefulness of Mr. Tsukerman and his talented colleagues that gives Liquid Sky its high style. Visually bright and arresting, with a varied and insinuating electronic score, the film is full of eye-catching images.

Violent as it is on the surface, Akira is tranquil at its core. The story's sanest characters plead for the wise use of mankind's frightening new powers, lending the whole film the feeling of a cautionary tale.

It takes on the overtones not of an awful movie, but of an awful play.

Moving isn't anything out of the ordinary, but those who have shared at least some of these experiences ought to find it amusing.

Lacks the sexy elan of "La Femme Nikita" and suffers from infinitely worse culture shock. [18 Nov 1994, p.C18]