Mick LaSalle

Unfortunately, Stuart Baird's direction is so sluggish and Jim and John Thomas' script so padded that Executive Decision has no build. Instead of focusing on the mechanics of suspense, the film concentrates to a boyish extent on mechanics, period.

Levinson's sure touch keeps audiences smiling and manages to maintain an aura of good nature in a film that, at heart, offers a caustic, almost bitter vision of American institutions and contemporary politics.

Saddest, most hang-dog, most depressing movie possible.

What the movie lacks -- a big lack, not a fatal lack -- is a compelling character at its center. Everyone in Garden State is fun, skewed, strange and singular.

A Korean film that takes an American genre and gets fancy with it.

In the end, W. makes up in immediacy what it lacks in objectivity.

Cruise's undeniable star voltage makes it all palatable, and the film is gorgeous to behold and even to listen to, from the rolling green hills to the galloping horses to the "Lohengrin"-like theme music on the sound track.

The moments between the characters are absolutely full. It's a pleasure to watch such consummate professionals.

Retains the earlier film's ability to delight the viewer with surprise effects and flights of fancy, only now the effects are better.

Home for the Holidays strikes such a perfect note that it's hard at first to realize what an impressive balancing act it is.

Befuddling.

Scrooged doesn't pack the wallop of "A Christmas Carol" - you won't cry or walk out resolving to become a better person - but it's a funny and imaginative high-class effort. Best of all, it stars Bill Murray, who has only to raise an eyebrow to get laughs. [23 Nov 1988, p.E1]