Kevin Thomas

Not as inspired or amusing as it might be, leans heavily on the considerable charm of its three young and attractive principals. Their charisma and the film's larky spirit, English locales and elaborate cons might be just enough to divert easily satisfied date-night audiences.

Although you could certainly wish that Seagal and his writers, Ed Horowitz and Robin U. Russin, could have found less preachy ways to express themselves, On Deadly Ground is otherwise lively entertainment for action fans.

Has sufficient mayhem to please Diesel's action fans while allowing the star to reach out to family audiences.

Well-paced and solidly crafted.

An easygoing, earthy comedy that's a good showcase for the robust comic gifts of Cedric the Entertainer.

No "Babe" but should delight youngsters, although parents likely will find it is sentimental in the extreme, with a plot that telegraphs every development.

As a grand flourish of cinematic technique, it is awesome; as a human drama, it is disgusting and silly, a mindless depiction of carnage on an epic scale. [15 July 1988, Calendar, p.6-1]

If Tony Vitale's Kiss Me, Guido isn't quite the laff riot its trailer suggests, it nonetheless abounds in good-hearted humor, adding up to a perfectly pleasant summer diversion.

The stories are interlinked effectively, and the film strikes an upbeat note yet does not address racism and discrimination. For all its affection toward its characters, however, the film is too long and too slack.

The result is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser that will strike Chen's admirers as a heartfelt but decidedly minor effort.

Comedy is ever an effective weapon against hypocrisy and oppression, but to be effective it has to cut a lot sharper and deeper than it does in You I Love.

There's a spirit of generosity to How High that allows many performers to shine beyond its sharp and amiable stars.

Surprise after surprise follows in this increasingly dark comedy, which is loaded with sharp observations and exceptionally complex characterizations.

A leisurely, understated film reminiscent of any number of Japanese counterparts featuring quietly heroic rural teachers. It is easy to label the film as slow, old-fashioned and sentimental, which it certainly is, but it has the tenacity of its heroine, the pretty and intelligent Melinda (Alessandra de Rossi).

An engaging and forthright documentary.

A tour de force of technical brilliance, with flashes of humor and a wild spirit of adventure signifying that you're not supposed to take it too seriously, but the cumulative impact of its avalanche of mayhem is so numbing that it's enough to shrivel your soul.

A sensitively told story of first love that could have been more affecting with a little more grit and without so mawkish a score.

Lee's energy never flags, and She Hate Me resonates with authority and impact and daring, but the messages it sends are mixed.

Besson's restored Big Blue proves mystical, intriguing.

There's enough atmosphere, mayhem and just plain energy to make the film a viable midnight movie.

With a hilarious script and capable cast, the film puts a clever spin on the everyone-is-a-suspect plot.

A thoughtful but uneven film.

Luckily, there's a jagged spontaneity to Wild Style that goes with the scruffy street art and culture that it celebrates. [22 May 1998, p.F17]

Unfortunately, this film is not as convincing as LaBute's first feature ("In the Company of Men"), for it betrays its origins in the theatricality of its dialogue, resulting in an aura of artificiality.

Hamburger Hill pays heartfelt, richly deserved tribute to the young American soldiers who fought so valiantly there. If only director John Irvin, who was in Vietnam in 1969 making a BBC documentary, and writer Jim Carabatsos, a Vietnam veteran, had been content to honor these men who were prepared to risk their lives in what had become a singularly unpopular war. But they don’t trust the soldiers’ brave actions to speak for themselves and instead give them a series of preachy, rabble-rousing speeches that add up to a diatribe against the anti-war movement at home rather than an attack on U.S. involvement in the war in the first place.

Starts encouragingly and finishes strongly with a twist, but the middle is weighed down by too much discourse when it should be visually evoking its ideas and developing its mood of unease.

Third in the series, the effortlessly effervescent Powell and Loy and a sharp supporting cast are all but overwhelmed by a tedious, impenetrably complicated plot, involving the murder of Nora's late father's business partner (C. Aubrey Smith). [14 Jul 1996, p.4]

Thumbsucker aims high but swerves too frequently between the engaging and the credibility-defying to be satisfying.

The Little Rascals is such an emphatically well-shaped, well-crafted picture that you wish you could have enjoyed it more than you did.

A charming if overlong Canadian film. [01 Nov 1993, p.F8]

Whereas its plot may be derivative--and at several junctures, unconvincing--Flight of the Navigator nevertheless manages to develop considerable humor and poignancy from David's predicament and what he does about it.

A striking Western but empty as it is elegant. [25 Jan 1987, p.5]

Lively and often comical.

A likably thoughtful romantic comedy.

Jakubowicz has aptly said of his film that "the beauty of Secuestro Express is how localized it is. The more local it becomes, the more universal it becomes." The truth of his remark resonates throughout this fast and furious film.

Felicity Huffman is such a wonder, at once funny and brave, playing a pre-op male-to-female transsexual in the uneven comedy Transamerica that she sustains several lapses that might otherwise have sunk it.

It is ultimately more routine than provocative, despite the timeliness and seriousness of the issues it raises.

Decidedly uneven yet intriguing.

A clever, entertaining stunt, no more, no less.

Virtually everything about the film is derivative--even the design for the eerie setting for the climactic struggle recalls the interiors of the more exotic old movie palaces--but its makers can't be accused of cutting corners. No doubt about it, those who ask only for pure action will be getting their money's worth.

All the ways in which the killer’s evil spreads and manifests itself are consistently dazzling. The trouble is that they show up the film’s human relationships as drab and conventional in comparison.

Although graceful and dynamic, Three Dancing Slaves is none too substantial or original, lacking the edge or complexity of Morel's impressive debut film, "Full Speed."

As deliberately silly as the film is, it is very knowing and carefully thought out.

Amiably glossy if naggingly old-fashioned.

Even though Defamation, which is sprinkled with unexpected moments of wry humor, will be inescapably controversial, Yoav Shamir strives admirably to be evenhanded.

Everything that ensues is laughably predictable and silly, but primitive as it is, Spider Baby is a professional effort in which Hill makes an attempt at style, aided by Al Taylor's shadowy black-and-white cinematography and Chaney's willingness to play straight. [01 Apr 1994, p.F8]

First-time writer-director Renée Chabria's sincerity and commitment to Sueño are so complete they override its sentimental streak and some overly familiar plotting.

Fjellestad exhibits a playful adoration for the man and the otherworldly sounds of his machine in an intriguing rendering of one of music technology's seminal figures.

Flawless this Joel Schumacher film is not, but it plays so well that scarcely matters.

While an abundant sense of humor cannot save the film from terminal silliness, it might make watching it bearable and even sometimes amusing.

The Money Pit grows increasingly mechanical, both in its content and in the resolution of its plot, as the effects start overwhelming this essentially modest little romantic comedy.

This big-scale work, directed by Martin Ritt, is of solid craftsmanship but little style. James Earl Jones' Johnson is, however, intensely vital and larger-than-life. [10 Dec 1989, p.2]

Perceptive, good-natured movie.

Like its predecessor, it's Hollywood hokum at its most glamorous and effective.

The film means to be an unpretentious, engaging romantic comedy but stretches its charm awfully thin with a 110-minute running time.

Thraves is skillful at evoking mood and atmosphere and at depicting transitional periods in a person's life with a mildly wistful humor.

Leaves you wanting to know more, and that's not a bad thing.

The film is amiably silly, gaudy and even pleasantly diverting for the non-Hindi-speaking viewer who realizes that the verbal gags that elicited laughter in the original language tend to elude translation via English subtitles. The comedy, however, is also heavy on slapstick, pratfalls and crazy disguises.

A skilled heart-tugger from Australia that verges on rock opera.

Despite honoring noir genre conventions, Buschel also draws upon his fertile imagination in dialogue and in storytelling that allows his film gradually to accrue meaning.

A warm and largely amusing family film. [18 Oct 1987, p.5]

Very much a first film, but a venturesome start for Devor as well as a splendid launch for Warburton.

Payne cops out, and the result is off-putting, despite a sparkling cast headed by a fearless Laura Dern in the title role.

A gentle film yet develops increasing dramatic tension beneath its easygoing, fair-minded surface.

Chan defies time and gravity with remarkable energy, ease and resourcefulness, not to mention charm and humor. He even gets away with a nude scene, not bad for man who turns 50 in April.

What follows is graphic, but it's too cerebral and too challenging to be dismissed as pornography.

The picture is never less than pleasant -- but it's not more than that often enough.

A heart-tugging comedy-adventure that's in the spirit of the holiday season.

Paper Clips arrives with an authentically persuasive message of hope.

This one-of-a kind charmer casts an immediate and delightful spell.

Has the great sleek, dark look of its predecessors and, most important, it has Snipes.

Dares to take a different tack, taking its young people seriously in a more realistic context. If ever there was a director ready to graduate from genre films, it surely is Shea. [12 March, 1999, Calendar, p.F-6]

A major cult film, but a bit much, to put it mildly. [23 Sep 1991, p.F12]

An unpretentious, amusing thrill-a-minute sci-fi horror thriller / monster movie that plugs right into fears of a Y2K crisis.

A heart-tugger that, although highly inspirational, has a strongly orchestrated quality.

To consider Harry and Max as being about incestuous feelings would be shortchanging it, because the film is really about the evolving nature of love and the need to define it.

It makes clearer much that was so vague in the original; it even jokes about how confusing its premise is. In short, audiences who made the first film successful enough to warrant a second will be getting a bit more for their money.

Mission: Impossible proves something of a letdown, not just because it's fairly easy to guess who the bad guy is but also because we've hardly gotten to know anyone in the movie well enough to become more than superficially involved with them.

Not quite original enough to make much of a dent in the marketplace, but it shows its stars to advantage.

The Boy Who Could Fly is as fragile as a kite, yet it’s kept aloft by the commitment of writer-director Nick Castle and the talent and presence of lovely young Lucy Deakins, who has that crucial gift of catching us up in her imagination.

The film may be fearlessly sentimental, but it is sturdy enough to provide rewarding major roles for two veterans, who are of an age when such starring parts are rare.

Kika, which has Almodovar's characteristic high gloss, may not be a vintage film but it's nevertheless indelibly idiosyncratic. Nobody but Pedro Almodovar could have made it.

A fine mood piece with lots of atmosphere and boasts terrific performances from its stars.

Francis Ford Coppola has reworked somewhat and meticulously restored his ambitious 1982 romantic musical fantasy One From the Heart, out of circulation for more than 20 years, but for all his efforts it stubbornly remains a bold experiment in style and technique that doesn't work.

Has lots of energy and a sensational villainess, Divatox (Hilary Shepard Turner), whose fashion tips come from Ming the Merciless and who has been given all the film's sharpest lines.

A moderately diverting thriller that builds suspense and entertains effectively... strongest selling point is Charlize Theron.

Sea of Love is a satisfactory end-of-summer diversion, the kind of film that works as long as you ask nothing of it beyond simple escape. It's a slick, knowing genre film, through and through, a New York cop suspense thriller that we've seen countless times before.

Lightly reflective and consistently entertaining, Lucky Break is an easy-to-take diversion.

It's a persuasive spiritual journey, sentimental at times but never hopelessly cloying.

A lively, good-looking kiddie action comedy best left to those under 10. Although their attention may wander, parents can be grateful that there's some substance as well as fun in this Disney release, for martial arts is presented as a matter of defense rather than aggression, emphasizing that it is a matter of mind and spirit as well as body and requiring resourcefulness and discipline.

A pow-in-the-kisser kind of movie.

The difference between the "Phantasms" is the difference between "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "2010." Coscarelli's sequel is a fast, entertaining fright show, but it's not inspired in the way the original was.

The witty coming-of-age film is marred by an uneven, digitally shot look, a disservice to its first-rate cast.

If Hay's style tends to the theatrical, his use of flashbacks, aided by Edie Ichioka's sharp editing and Matthew Heckerling's resourceful camera work, is entirely cinematic, revealing his clever way with plotting.

It's a good thing Better Than Sex, which is pretty raunchy and absolutely not for prudes, does have more than sex on its mind, because otherwise audiences might be tempted to dismiss it as a tease.

If there's not much content -- and even less logic -- in Demons, there is a helluva lot of form. With its stark modern architecture and neon glare, West Berlin has a cold, hard atmosphere that's just right for the film, and the city has been captured gloriously by cinematographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia. [06 Sep 1986, p.13]

Has a charming, skittish quality, and Lewis finds pathos and humor in his characters' often painful search for love.

You find Went to Coney Island sticking with you long after it's over.