Mike Clark

Though arguably not to the film's overall advantage, physical splendor is the overwhelming factor in this unintimidating film of John le Carre's best seller. [19 Dec 1990, p.4D]

For better or worse, but surely satisfying novelty needs, Jerry Bruckheimer's King Arthur is set much earlier than usual and against the crumbling Roman Empire, which may even (or not) be historically legitimate.

Now that we no longer expect the world from any of them, the movie is an amusing 88-minute trifle with Beatty in a gigolo mustache and Nicholson with Art Garfunkel curls. [05 Jun 1998]

Compelling and provocative -- though not memorable.

Despite a cast and production that seem to promise one of the year's first movies of any note, Cool never translates its promo-photo flashiness into authenticity on screen.

Sporadically amusing but sometimes slogging.

The Two Jakes turns out to be a surprisingly rich movie - if you're willing to spend 138 minutes on what is essentially a psychological study. [10 Aug 1990]

Uneven but also unflaggingly lively, the movie presents F. Murray Abraham as a corseted and bewigged Stalin in expository bits whose broadness recalls the Billy Wilder-scripted Soviet satires ("Ninotchka" and "One, Two, Three") without being as funny. [16 May 1997, Pg.02.D]

Unexpectedly, one of the better F-man outings. [11 Aug 1989, p.2D]

The film never makes total sense, but at its best (the first half-hour), it comes closer to solidly junky titillation than the hapless Final Analysis. [20 Mar 1992, Life, p.1D]

Flashily nihilistic Killers is easier to admire than love, but credit Stone for putting it on the line with a yarn tailor-made for his hopped-up vision of media-engendered white-trash immortality. [26 Aug 1994, p.1D]

You feel some of the strain in this immaculately shot, designed and costumed farce, but it's fast and the cast is lively, even though a lost-looking Broderick rarely gets to shoot his patented bewildered look.

Dark Territory is back to familiar territory, and the payoff is moronically comfy [17 July 1995, p.6D]

The film is funnier off court than sizzling on it, the preferred balance in a broad farce that's only in it for the laughs. Irrelevant to real life but performed with enough gusto to justify somebody's 91 minutes, it at least allows the actors to hold their heads up. Not with pride, but not with shame, either. [19 Apr 1996]

Fanning and Russell make this watchable family entertainment, if not necessarily at today's prices.

Of all unlikely possibilities, the team has finally made a movie that, for them, is on the tepid side.

Naked Lunch is so well-acted and so amusingly warped that it's a shoo-in to become a cult movie. [30 Dec 1991]

But certainly this is a movie for fans of Willis-style action with a little James Bond and probable instant obsolescence thrown in.

Geronimo: An American Legend offers both sides of the protracted battle between the U.S. Army and Chiricahua Apaches in 1885-86, which means that the film's most abject villains are Jason Patric's vacant performance and Matt Damon's droning voice-over. [10 Dec 1993, p.9D]

An overlong guilty pleasure. [12 Oct 1990, Life, 4D]

The movie Weaver has to carry has so many nagging imperfections that Academy Award attention looks like a long shot.

The picture is all Lawrence and Zahn, whose dynamics get something going, though not enough (please!) to spark a buddy sequel.

Overall, this Dead is zippier than 1995's retake on "Village of the Damned" and somewhat less junky than the recent remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Truth is, Idaho is nothing but set pieces; tossed into a mix whose meaning is almost certainly private. [27 Sept 1991]

The movie just gets by on heart and a conversation-stopping finale. [28 Jul 1995, p.5D]

Older youngsters not threatened by PG-13 levels of intensity might pester Mom and Dad to let them see this cinematic fluff-head. For everyone else, it simply is what it is -- which, despite a budget that could feed Star Wars' Jabba the Hutt for life, isn't very much. [07Feb1997 Pg 04.D]

This is one of those movies in which a strong ending might have made all the difference...But the wrap-up is unsatisfying, with too many questions unanswered.

There isn't much Napoleonic grandeur in this Idaho-set high school comedy, which in spite of its most condescending instincts, does have its moments.

Capably made and certainly impresses by carrying its length, but it doesn't expand 60 years of World War II screen literature by very much.

Based on a popular children's book by Chris Van Allsburg and directed by that "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" guy Joe Johnston, Jumanji is a calculated but very entertaining special effects extravaganza. [15Dec1995 Pg. 01.D]

Part of the appeal is the underlying theme of the torch being passed between generations. Think how disappointing it would have been had Dana become an insurance actuary instead of a surfing filmmaker.

The recent model for this kind of surreal jazz-riff comedy is Doug Liman's 1999 "Go," a neo-classic. But you know already from the director (Dude, Where's My Car?'s Danny Leiner) if this movie is for you. Leiner has cornered the recent market on low-rent farces.

The starship Enterprise is back, piloted for the first time (from behind the camera, that is) by William Shatner. Though he doesn't exactly parallel-park Star Trek V: The Final Frontier into a meteor, the journey is (at best) an amiably lazy Sunday drive. [9 June 1989, p.4D]

The situations are mighty broad, but exuberance counts for something in the movie with perhaps the year's most double-edged title.

With Todd Haynes' direction suggesting a Twilight Zone full court press, this uncommonly rigid movie is either bloodlessly objective or so subtly droll that the joke is beyond comprehension. But given that Haynes previously utilized a cast of Barbie dolls in the brazenly daring Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, it's tempting to give him the benefit of the doubt. [21 June 1995, p.7D]

Hostage is really about sleek Bruce - buff, bald and clean-shaven - as he goes to town on two sets of assailants.

Amazingly, the film grows monotonous because Heller and Schmiderer can do nothing, via archival footage or even novel camera placements, to vary the program.

Disclosure should slickly satisfy people who like movies about advanced computers, topical themes, hardball attorney mind games, office politics, sex and sweet revenge. [9 Dec 1994, p.1D]

A disciple of David Lynch's, Roth packs his story with horror, humor, hillbillies and sex. Roth caps his fast-moving story with a joke that's as oddly left-field as it is funny, but truth to tell, it is funny.

For director/co-writer John Carpenter, it's a chance for career renewal. For eyepatched lead and co-writer Kurt Russell, it's a fitfully amusing lark, a harmlessly retro career move and a second audition for any future Rooster Cogburn parts. [09 Aug 1996, p.3D]

Lumet remains a great director of actors, one of several reasons why this very iffy movie grabs you - up to a point. [27 Apr 1990, p.9D]

Kilmer seems less dangerous than Morrison, but it's a blessing in the most uncompromising bio of a please- don't-move-next-door type since "Raging Bull." [01 Mar 1991]

A showcase for Vince Vaughn's rantings and Owen Wilson's standard but affable chum act.

If Sandler felt compelled to take on a role immortalized by Gary Cooper, at least it wasn't as "Sergeant York," "Lou Gehrig" or the sheriff in "High Noon."

Has its moments - but far too many of them. It runs two hours and seems to end five times.

Clunkily stagebound but gorgeous to look at in VistaVision and Technicolor. [07 Oct 2005]

A lot of cinematic ineptitude and moral turpitude can be forgiven in the final 40 minutes, when Halicki redeems his movie by staging one of the greatest car chase scenes in history -- one without much, if any, fakery. [01 Dec 2000, p.8E]

Flies II improves as it progresses, especially in the surreal, fireswept climax. But overall, it seems like an afterthought. [16 Mar 1990, p.4D]

For a movie that generally delivers the goods while you're watching it, mild irritants abound. Arachnophobia is soft at the center, but at least it won't traumatize (and thus repel) the mass audience. [18 July 1990, p.1D]

The movie meanders without a rudimentary sense of the dramatic, yet it remains intermittently interesting thanks to a surprisingly voluminous cast of usual suspects from the world of independent cinema. [14 Aug 1996 Pg.09.D]

Until it cools off some with a full half-hour remaining, Tequila Sunrise packs the solar heat the credits and premise promise. Yet a three-quarter success does a good Mel Gibson movie make - even if his co-stars steal it. [2 Dec 1988, p.1D]

The story keeps reinventing itself (some of the later plot twists are among the funniest), but a little goes a long way at 112 minutes - maybe 25 minutes more than this sporadically pointed conceit really needs.

If you can imagine a relatively solemn take on this theme, RoboCop 2 is it. Though Irvin Kershner's direction is competent, there's not a whole lot of eye-twinkling in evidence. [22 June 1990, p.2D]

There's nothing very rockin' about seeing Gene Hackman give a rare indifferent performance as a Navy admiral trying to effect a rescue for which his hands are tied.

A less-than-middling melodrama whose subject matter and talent never click as much as its credits portend.

There's, say, a 20-minute stretch where this slapstick works; there's also a subplot about N!Xau's lost children (cute, but shruggable), and a real pace-killer involving two rival soldiers. Uys' shots often fail to match, and the monotonic narration really grates; it drones on like a junior high science film on plant blight. [16 Apr 1990, p.9D]

Brothers never catches fire the way Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" did. And you almost feel during subpar special effects that sweaty stagehands are pushing the trees around.

Despite haunting moments in this fabricated fling between a headstrong Native American and an English sea captain, the film isn't as chirpy or majestic as recent Disney fare. [16Jun1995 Pg. 01.D]

A hopeless if harmless boxing picture whose principals just happen to wear uniforms outside the ring, Annapolis is set in a U.S. Naval Academy where no one ever seems to attend class.

There's nothing super about the movie, aside from a loopiness that affords it a certain guilty-pleasure cachet.

A few chuckles will be had by both the rabble and more learned brains.

The movie, though, is more of the same: another current comedy with want-to-see elements that fails to deliver the goods. [01 Jul 1992]

It's asking a lot of audiences to spend nearly two hours with characters as screen-unfriendly as the ones played by Biggs and Ricci, though both actors (and especially Ricci) do what they're asked to do.

Yet because this adaptation of Franz Lidz's childhood memoir is odd enough and even stylish enough to attract a small following, you might want to weigh my ingrained dyspepsia before electing not to see it. [15 Sep 1995]

This cliche primer is a bit more than bearable - even when it's literally and figuratively off the track. It's no Cocktail, but it's no Dom Perignon, either. [27 Jun 1990, p.1D]

Though the movie is more mediocre than abysmal, Ryan's recently banged-up filmography (remember In the Cut) could use what every fighter needs at ringside: a good cut man to stop the bleeding.

You can feel the movie going wrong in the first scene.

Eastwood gutsily stages the extended opening slowly and methodically... [But u]nintentional yuks litter an otherwise somber political thriller adapted from David Baldacci's novel.

The cycle thrills here are everything: flips, collisions, a chase across the top of a fast-moving train and even a zoom down the aisle of one of the train's cars as the passengers take it in stride.

Despite Mel Gibson wearing dude duds, Jodie Foster picking their inside pockets, and even James Garner for incalculable good will, the poker hand in the all-new Maverick is almost an empty house. [20 May 1994, p.1D]

Hurried, harried. [14 February 1997, pg.D4]

By the time you've given up guessing whether S.W.A.T. wants to be a half-serious action pic or just affably jokey, its storytelling has turned so ludicrously melodramatic that it doesn't matter.

The movie keeps switching focus without ever getting its bearings, and when Brando exits earlier than expected, there's little but mayhem to fall back on. Moreau and mayhem are synonymous, to be sure, but we already know this going in. [23 Aug 1996]

Low on Diesel fuel, though probably amusing enough if you're part of the intended demographic, which appears to be the age group that likes to stick fingers up noses.

Has a three-way split personality, which happily includes an action-packed middle to ease the pain of its early protracted exposition and later action so slow that you'll be asking "Gotta match?" to the person next to you.

The borderline Parenthood is either an iffy comedy with lots of compensations, or a good comedy with more irritating flaws than most movies manage to survive. Whichever, the "feel good'' infantry of summer-film escapists will probably love it. [2 Aug 1989, p.5D]

This is impressive on costuming and hunk fronts (with Billy Dee Williams the key factor in both), while Diana Ross is better than OK in a performance whose Oscar nomination was probably a fait accompli. Otherwise, this lumpy 2 1/2-hour biopic of Billie Holiday hasn't improved since it was critically drubbed -- four other nominations or not -- as one of the most ponderous of all showbiz chronicles. [11 Nov 2005]

Drab as it is, the movie is not impossible to endure -- in part because the concept has a timeless appeal.

The latest picture to give you the sense that Hollywood filmmakers simply plucked another old pop-tune title ripe for ripping off, then were shaken by the rude reality of coming up with a script to jerry-build around it.

A few bits are filler, albeit funny filler. But those who would rather laugh than cry at weddings ( will say "I do'' to Bride. [20 Dec 1991, p.1D]

Somewhere within all of this there really is a homicide -- a hip-hop industry rub-out that may someday make this movie half of a passable DVD double feature with Nick Broomfield's documentary Biggie and Tupac.

It says something that during a scene in which nude chorines are turned into a fleshy backdrop, you spend as much time looking at your watch as what's on screen.

De Niro's widely praised performance is like the rest of the film: competent, a product of hard work and borderline mechanical. I like much of Awakenings, including several supporting performances - but like Big, it left me just a little cold. [20 Dec 1990, p.5D]

Shepherd and O'Neal have six Peter Bogdanovich films between them- but criss-cross for the first time here under Emile Ardolino's (Dirty Dancing) comatose direction. They're pleasing (as are their co-leads) but don't quite deliver the salvage job a good cast performed on Mystic Pizza. [10 March 1989, p.5D]

Sports-satire misfire. [31 July 1998, p. 2E]

Victoria Tennant's iciness has been well-utilized on screen occasionally, but not this time. [8 Feb 1991, p.D4]

No abomination but forgettably mediocre. [19 March 1999, Life, p. 13E]

There's evidence of his talent in some lyrical flying scenes, but the movie is so addled you'd think it was conceived by Michael J. Pollard, who shares a one-on-one scene with Lewis here (the mind boggles). [24 March 1995, p.3D]

Unpleasantness alone doesn't sink a movie. But miserable tidings intensify when there's not only a high ick factor but also floundering storytelling.

This 140-minute I-don't-know-what-it-is unravels like a ball of yarn after a bout with a tiger on Colombian catnip. Lee exhaust me.

Though not much of a movie, Loaded probably will bring fleeting satisfaction to audiences who don't know Dean Jones from Spike Jones.

A 2 1/2-hour movie with halves that don't quite mesh, it still gives Al Pacino a role that's a perfect fit. [23 Dec 1992 Pg. 01.D]

Becomes a little more compelling as it progresses because Lisa Kudrow (as the straight-arrow first Mrs. Holmes, who halfway stood with him despite her disgust) ends up being surprisingly well cast. She engages in some very un-Friends-like fiery exchanges that also give Kilmer his best scenes.

An OK mood piece but story-hungry murder mystery that flubs its whodunit fundamentals.

Dramatically, even a persuasive supporting cast gets Heaven only so far.

At least this movie seems more aware of its trashiness than "National Treasure" was. It's therefore freer to have some off-the-cuff fun the way Steven Seagal's more tolerable vehicles once did.

Little Buddha is strange in the way that only Bernardo Bertolucci movies can be strange, and the strangest thing about it is the fact that Keanu Reeves isn't the strangest thing about it. [25 May 1994, p.5D]

Martin, Keaton and cinematographer William A. Fraker put this retro fluff over better than expected early on, but hour 2 is only for those who don't want their equilibriums rattled by surprises. [8 Dec 1995, p.1D]

Anyone who pays to see it will certainly feel as if he has been clipped.

An odd mix of seediness, sideburns and even scorpions, the movie nearly matches the Lisa Marie-Michael Jackson marriage for weirdness.

Point Break points up inherent limitations in the "star" rating system. Its purely visceral material (surf sounds, skydiving stunt work, a tough indoor shootout midway through) are first-rate. As for the tangibles that matter even more (script, acting, directorial control, credible relationships between characters), Break defies belief. Dramatically, it rivals the lowest surf yet this year. [12 July 1991, p.4D]

Almost nothing about Raising Helen rings very true, other than the camera's crush on Kate Hudson.

It isn't an unabashed movie-movie like the chest-thumping "Braveheart" or a cool, clinical semi-documentary like "The Battle of Algiers". There are elements of both here and they just don't dance. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]

At least 2 Fast is self-aware enough to know that it's trash, which is worth half a bonus point. Lack of pretension helps the viewer get over the fact that this is just another retread.

Writer/director Julie Dash pours on sounds, music and costuming for a tone more impressionistic than dramatic - and more somnambulant than either. She might have gotten away with it for 80 minutes, but merciless Dust closes in on the two-hour mark, a structural shambles in the too-earnest American Playhouse tradition. [1 April 1992, p.6D]

The movie is repetitious in some ways and superficial in others. But though Penn doesn't always seem to know where he's going, his movie doesn't altogether miss its destination. [15 Nov 1995, Pg.05.D]

The wrap-up feels tacked-on and too good to be true, with emotions the story really hasn't earned.

Hoffman stores the plane fuel in his house and even enjoys sniffing it. The movie might be a lot more fun as a suspense pic were he to take on a roommate who chained-smoked.

Young directed under his preferred nom de plume (Bernard Shakey), and you'll either want to see this or you won't. Will it influence your decision to add that Devo - yes, Devo - plays nuclear power workers who glow? [01 Sep 1995, p.12D]

A handsome but riotously cluttered melodrama with maybe 145 subplots, it's the latest and least in a soulless string of preordained multiplex hits from the John Grisham warehouse. [24Jul1996 Pg. 10.B]

Though Walt Disney's Peter Pan once implored us never to smile at a crocodile, the Irwins' own home movie is worth a couple of chuckles. Shivers, too.

This Lynch-ian knockoff is moodily monotonal, but the sameness is wearying.

The movie establishes good will (or even great will) in the initial scenes because it's so gorgeous, but the rest is such a slog.

Tolerably tepid.

The tone is consistent, but consistently uneventful. [06 May 1994]

Even in the junky potboilers that John Travolta has persisted in making since his "Pulp Fiction" comeback (all 5,000 of them), you usually get the sense that he's acting in his bailiwick.

Despite an 87-minute running time, the movie takes a long time to get rolling, and even fellow Leigh enthusiasts may wonder whether the payoff is worth it, though reaction could well divide along sexual lines. [7 Aug 1997, p.3D]

Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.

It's all very slight and only sporadically amusing, and it makes Allen's "Celebrity" from last year look even more underrated than it already is.

Shyamalan's style is so exaggerated, with its long pauses and exacting rhythms of sound- vs.- silence, that it easily can engender eye-rolling and snickers.

To cut Noe a break, it does become evident that he has a viable narrative concept. Told backward, á la "Memento."

SpongeBob barely rates as OK when compared with "The Incredibles."

Isn't tough to take as long as you've paid a matinee price.

It does survive its 40-minute test drive before turning into a lemon.

With heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is.

Spike Lee deserved a vacation after putting himself through the grueling emotions of Clockers, but Girl 6 is too flimsy to excuse even as cinematic R&R. Frenetic but lazily conceived, it's like one of those puny low-budget toss-offs Brian De Palma used to spring on us when he thought nobody was looking. [22 Mar 1996, p.4D]

Predictably, the derivative title here is a jumping-off point for another derivative slasher-revenge pic. [17 October 1997, p.5D]

It saves its clunkiest scene for the finale. No fair telling, but the key words are "political," "propaganda," "outdoors" and "orphans."

At least the horror premise here has a hook - a house can spread its curse like a plague to adversely affect all who enter.

Even so, the film's incest theme seems more symbolic than literal in what is, at heart, a comedy about escaping the womb; throwaway gags are wicked enough throughout to keep the taboo plot twist from knocking this hit-and-miss black comedy off the track. [26 Jul 1994 Pg. 08.D]

Snipes gives a looser, cooler performance this time around, though emotionally, it's closer to dead than undead. Blade II is for the horror faithful only; others will be grasping their crucifixes.

With tangy Fisher equaling the leads in a sometimes scene-stealing role as Moore's mom, the actors emerge unscathed. Brosnan's part, in fact, is among the actor's most convincing non-Bond characters.

You don't get the sense that too many enthusiasts are hanging up wanted posters for the ho-hum-ish U.S. Marshals. [6 March 1998, pg. 04.D]

A faithful, technically brilliant, but also dramatically malnourished film of J.G. Ballard's popular World War II novel. [08 Dec 1987]

At least the models' avarice and teasing provide a chuckle or two, as their dates line up panting at the door. Purely by default, their contribution makes this a slightly better working-woman romance than "The Wedding Planner."

A ludicrous medical thriller operating on the supposition that readers and moviegoers have forgotten about "Coma". [27 Sept 1996]

Just going through the motions here (and mild ones at that), both Chan and the movie should have stayed at home.

Give Dozen a slight edge to the mournful "Yours, Mine & Ours" as a holiday season bottom-feeder, because Martin and Levy are better at slapstick than Dennis Quaid.

As far as acting goes, neither Olsen is ready for Euripides' Medea, yet each projects well enough in their shared big scene.

The sad truth is that Cadillac is still another of the amiably lazy efforts that Eastwood and his band of production regulars have been mass-producing for too many years. (And by now, it's decades.) [26 May 1989, p.4D]

Superstars usually avoid movies this spiritless, and it's tough to believe anyone could read this script and fail to realize the movie wouldn't end up going anywhere.

Let's just say that if you loved Dana Carvey in Opportunity Knocks, you'll thrill to Taking Care of Business. [17 Aug 1990]

When it isn't funny, it's embarrassingly obvious - and it's almost never funny. [24 Dec 1990, p.1D]

A minimally tolerable excuse to splice one or two perfunctory scenes between song cues.

Those who teach public speaking sometimes advocate telling your audience what you're going to tell them, then actually telling them, then telling them what you've told them. Sidewalks reproves this isn't a wise path for movies.

Valiant is voiced by Robots' Ewan McGregor, an actor apparently no longer in a "Trainspotting" mood.

Action star Chow Yun-Fat's latest is as thin as the buzz cut he sports in Bulletproof Monk.

The movie is so silly I found myself snickering a couple of times, just before slumping down in my seat in mortified embarrassment.

Director Joel Schumacher, whose pastel color schemes vitalized St. Elmo's Fire, gives this a sensual, at times even erotic, sheen. And a few subplot issues - single motherhood, runaway kids, midlife dating - hint that at least someone involved with this project intended to go after bigger game. [31 Jul 1987, p.4D]

Director Frank Sinatra (on screen, he's a medic) was probably going for Kurosawa-like profundity here. Unfortunately, the other actors include Clint Walker and Tommy Sands. [05 Apr 1991, p.3D]

A comedy without much zing but with an occasional zing-er that enables the film to pick up . . . well, if not nine yards, maybe an inch or two on the gridiron.

As in "Arachnophobia", director Frank Marshall can't decide whether he's making a thriller or a laff-it-up lark. [09 Jun 1995, Pg.03.D]

Though Bond may never die, this time he's on life support. [19 Dec 1997, p.3D]

For novelty value, you can do worse than seeing Sean Penn in a rare chance to don evening-wear on screen, but this isn't a sight to sustain a two-hour haul.

Almost by himself, Jackson transforms the film's final chapter into a serviceable view -- faint praise, perhaps, but a crumb to savor, given what has come before. [11 June 1999, Life, p. 6E]

Even if audiences can get by the tasteless shock title, it's tough to figure who will ever watch this movie - even when it's on cable.

Disappointing. [6 Mar 1991, Life, p.9D]

Philandering pilot Cliff Robertson overprotects sister Jane Fonda's virginity in a comedy as queasily dated as Ask Any Girl, Shirley MacLaine's 1959 office politics primer. It probably rates a few points for skewering the sexual double standard, and the era's New York locales are still as attractive as Mel Torme's title tune. [04 Oct 1996]

The First Wives Club has a femme casting coup for the ages, and sometimes it only takes the right performers interacting to give sprightly fluff indispensable showmanship. [20 Sep 1996 Pg.01.D]

Copycat, despite two tough-babe leads to kill for, flies in more directions than scattered kitty litter. [27 Oct 1995, pg.02D]

Recapturing magic proves elusive -- or maybe the late Darren McGavin was just irreplaceable -- in an OK follow-up to 1983's beloved A Christmas Story. [11 Aug 2006, p.15D]

There's nothing like dumbing down a movie grown-ups love so it can be "sold" to teens who aren't going to go anyway. The savvy flyer will proceed to the gate marked The "Aviator" instead.

I.Q. is a limp period comedy essentially distinguished by two of its haircuts, with Meg Ryan sporting a pert peroxided trim and Walter Matthau decked out in a free-form Albert Einstein coiffure. Fortunately, in the latter case, Matthau is actually playing Albert Einstein. [22 Dec 1994, p.3D]

A year ago next week, Debra Messing's "The Wedding Date" arrived DOA. And now this. In terms of movies that matter, it looks as if the wedding-funeral motif will continue.

David Mamet handled such small-town whimsy better in 2000's "State and Main." Hackman could play his role in his sleep, but Romano IS asleep. Result: Welcome to Mildport, and that's being kind.

This movie has a little something, and part of it is subtext. Walken, who wants to use drug money to build hospitals, is embraced as a New York celebrity; this rings true. Plus, King reunites director Abel Ferrara and screenwriter Nicholas St. John of Fear City/Ms. .45 cultdom. [1 Oct 1990, p.5D]

Jumps at chance to be silly.

The new version has a few jolts, some occasionally effective smoke-and-mirrors photography and a lead (7th Heaven's Jessica Biel) who could teach a grad course on walking provocatively in blue jeans.

There's definitely some paradiso in watching Malena walking, but not enough to sustain almost two hours of cinema.

The movie isn't without style, but the material can't remotely sustain 100 minutes.

It's easier to take Hi-Heel Sneakers by Tommy Tucker- more seriously. [20 Dec 1991]

The plunk-ing of a rap/disco soundtrack onto a movie about debtors' prisons and 18th century British highwaymen?

Tim Robbins plays the working dad, and the movie misses him once he bails out early.

Truth be told, the movie isn't among the worst sequels of this summer.

One would be hard-pressed to name another submarine movie that lingers so little in the memory two days after seeing it.

Exhale and enjoy Keenen Ivory Wayans' culturally disreputable I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, a sendup of black street comedy that's equally crude, funny - and sentimental. [26 Jan 1989, p.2D]

This is a slow if stylish slog through familiar terrain.

It's fun to see somebody revive the amnesia genre - how long has it been? - but the conceit quickly grows irksome. Only Thompson, who manages to be appealing in both of her roles, will likely reap much from this DOA folly. [23 Aug 1991, Life, p.4D]

Heaven is saved only by the power of an occasional hypnotic image.

The film is more interesting around the edges than down the middle, but even the edges aren't that sharp. [17 Feb 1989, p.6D]

Begins promisingly and entertains for a stretch because you think it's leading to something more than one of the movie year's flattest conclusions.

Packed with digs at Bush-Cheney that even Democrats could find heavy-handed, the movie's lumbering approach reminds us that, OK, Emmerich did "Independence Day" -- but also 1998's "Godzilla," which began sinking back into the sea in week two.

This too-belated reprise from the same filmmaking duo isn't any model, but it ought to amuse fans of the original. [23 July 1993, p.5D]

Dramatically empty Norse warrior adventure.

Canyon is similarly slick, though even more heavy-handed in hammering home its points. [26 Dec 1991]

Already too long. It makes you want to start moving globs of dirt to tunnel out of the theater as the movie ends with the famous theme to "The Great Escape."

De Niro's scowl and Murphy's sass are inherently funny, though in this case both actors are forced to call in moviegoers' long-established goodwill.

Best scenes: Campbell pondering whether to squash her dismembered head in a vice, and a later quandary when he must shotgun his own dismembered hand. Moral: Pimples aren't the worst thing that can happen to your body. [11 Sept 1987, Life, p.3D]

There's the germ of a sexy idea in True Colors, which serves up a duplicitous friendship, Capitol Hill intrigue and even attractive scenery (indoors and out). Too bad some folks have disinfected it. [15 Mar 1991, p.4D]

There will always be an audience for the escapist rewards this type of movie always dangles.

This is the kind of movie that has always polarized serious film folk, while the public usually elects to stay home and prune shrubs.

At its worst, Toy Soldiers is just an action variation on the old Rooney- Garland musicals - you know, let's-get-a-buncha-kids-together-and-put-on-a-counterinsurgency. At its best, it's surprisingly bearable for a movie so easily typed. [26 Apr 1991, p.4D]

The latest entry in the cottage industry launched by 1980's Airplane! oozes diminishing returns. [5 Feb 1993, p.5D]

Director Richard Attenborough's Chaplin is catastrophic only partly because it tries to squeeze in topics, subtopics and more. [24 Dec 1992, p.3D]

Terry Gilliam's “12 Monkeys” can teach The Thirteenth Floor a little something about how to have fun with time travel. And with one number less. [28 May 1999, Life, p.7E]

Though John Travolta and Christian Slater don boxing gloves to open the dippy but zippy Broken Arrow, the real slugfest in director John Woo's elaborately mounted action pic is between content and style. Call it a draw, and call the movie's content a Speed derivative. [9 Feb 1996, p.1D]

This isn't the worst movie Warner Bros. has brought out this summer (Scooby-Doo, boo on you), but for it to work, you have to accept the irredeemable stupidity of almost every character. Time better spent: a Shaquille O'Neal film festival on video.

Irredeemably dull. [13 Aug 2004]

This isn't a movie to be taken too literally, given that a camera crew keeps on rolling in situations that would make even combat photographers bolt; as a result, the movie plays like one of those self-referential stunts that sometimes wow film festival audiences (as this one did). [24 Sept 1993, p.3D]

Unwed John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell are living on what amounts to room-service charity in a posh London hotel, waiting for his cocoa crop investment to bankroll their spiralling bill. Neither lead plays a very bearable character, and the pathetic maid (destitute and hearing-impaired) is too obviously conceived as their counterpoint. It's good to see MacDowell loosening up (a little) after her alarmingly stilted dialogue delivery in deadly, dreadful Green Card. But that's all. Sleeping Beauty never awakens from its monotonal slumber. [12 Apr 1991, p.2D]

Has added virtually nothing to two cinema genres with their own prodigious histories: ensemble and black.

Flimsy little comedy unworthy of its portentous title.

A stylistically fastidious, exasperatingly affected package that will put most people in the mood for slumber.

Of course, The Rock looks the part, though with a headband and buckskin, he'd also look like Tonto on steroids.

This remake is shorter than its predecessors, a welcome earthly reward.

On both technical and conceptual levels, Bamboozled is a movie that will leave Spike Lee fans bewildered.

The movie grows progressively more routine in quarter-hour increments, eventually collapsing under the weight of its own insignificance.

Stone is competent, if not commanding; as neighbor lovers, she and Baldwin have less chemistry than the Taster's Choice coffee couple. [21 May 1993, p.1D]

Teamed again after Midnight Cowboy, writer Waldo Salt and director John Schlesinger make a costly flop of Nathanael West's great novella about underbelly '30s Hollywood. Karen Black is just OK as craven screen wannabe Fay Greener, but, along with M*A*S*H, this is Donald Sutherland's greatest lead (as a dweeb named Homer Simpson). [08 Jun 2004]

The time might be right for the Scary movies to quit on top, even though, alas, there are no term limits for sequels.

After a tense, terrific, stomach-turning opening that may have moviegoing acrophobes recalling Vertigo, the film soon becomes the latest screen variation on cat-and-Mighty Mouse. [28May1993 Pg.04.D]

It's a hoary Chinatown knock-off wrapped in a seductively novel black-culture veneer, with a dash of Laura added for bad measure. [29 Sept 1995, p.01.D]

Evil's one strong presence is lead Milla Jovovich -- and not because the script gives her supercop/soldier anything interesting to say.

The sentiments here are thoroughly semper fi, but the result occasionally works at cross-purposes.

Only slightly more slick and slightly less edgy than past John Grisham adaptations.

Stilted film squanders an intriguing premise.

Were this movie a naval battle, it would be Lord Nelson vs. Judd Nelson, so decisively do the older actors knock the younger off the screen. [26Dec1997 Pg03.D]

Top-flight cast.

Plays a little like a pacifistic variation on Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon."

It's reduced to glorified refereeing of family squabbles discomfortingly magnified by his frequent use of close-ups.

Pulpy, fairly speedy but just the same old urban thing by its wrap-up.

Poor, no-respect ABBA gets tweaked repeatedly in this unexpectedly handsome widescreen import - though, in keeping with the movie's soft tone, the gooning isn't mean-spirited or even all that catty. [10 Aug 1994]

At least director Dwight Little (Free Willy 2) gives us enough B-movie speed to keep Orchid from becoming a fountain of aging.

There are laughs here, but easily as many groans.

The Chamber merits some respect for daring to be gloomy, for facing the capital punishment issue head-on and for the quality of Gene Hackman's performance. [11 October 1996, p.1D]

Tested my own love of the game more than anything since the time Roseanne screeched the national anthem.

The tepid result is like "Courage Under Fire" without the compelling Meg Ryan angle, or Travolta's 1999 "The General's Daughter" without the sexual squalor. It all feels a little moldy.

Mediocre terrorist melodrama turned even punier by real-life events, and that's before we scratch our heads at its lead-actor choice.

Though this saga would be terrific to read about, it is dicey screen material that only a genius should touch. With no genius in sight, K-19 might be headed for meltdown.

Except for one good recurring gag with a brakeless Cadillac, Fletch Lives is best when it's most offensive. What an unprecedented thing to say about a Chevy Chase movie - but it's true. Compared to much of the rest here, Chase's airplane nose-picking is pretty funny. [17 March 1989, p.4D]

Connery fares better as a medicine man here than he did in Medicine Man; but Beresford was a better director in Africa with 1991's Mister Johnson. [09 Sep 1994, p.8D]

Mary Reilly, a perversely courageous disaster that audiences will simply hate. [23 Feb 1996]

Far from being a run-of-the-mill slasher pic.

If grossness gives you the giggles, at least a couple of the movie's effects indeed put a little "wow" in this cinematic bowwow.

It's an extravaganza worth seeing once -- and maybe later on DVD.

Nothing but attitude.

The material is so solid and Thornton so tailor-made that the movie almost gets by.

The script is so bereft of real surprises that it's best to keep the lid on what few there are.

If this is Dumas, there's a "b" in the middle and an extra "s" at the end.

Borderline ponderous in hour one, Wyatt Earp picks up once it reaches Dodge, thanks in part to drolly delivered guffaw lines from sunken-cheeked Dennis Quaid, who lost 43 pounds to play tubercular Doc Holliday. [24 Jun 1994, p.1D]

Too distinctive-looking to dismiss out of hand, but it would help to be able to look through a magic viewfinder (or maybe magic eraser) and make its script disappear.

It's tough to think of another child-adult pairing in a long screen tradition with so little emotional kick.

Casting, in fact, is Rob Roy's dominant virtue, a hedge against its overlong 2 1/4-hour running time and some initial reluctance to get rolling. [7 Apr 1995, p.01.D]

Has less substance and depth than its title.

True-blue Ford keeps 'Clear' out of danger. [3 August 1994, p.D1]

Dumas' perennial story demands stars of stature or wit - components missing from this candy-bar wrapper of a movie. [12 Nov 1993, p.4D]

The flashbacks, functional at best, aren't really the problem. Interminable one-on-one dialogues between the two male leads are. [7 Apr 1995, p.03.D]

After "Chocolat" and this, how about a moratorium on candy-centered comedies?

Anything but cutting-edge. [28 Jul 2003]

Kapur's stodgy style halts the momentum of young actors who have impressed in other movies.

For a story that centers on intrigue in high places, the few even halfway-grabbing scenes come from the mild if unexplored sexual tension between co-Caine sleuthers Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Northam.

An instant merit barometer of any farce this contrived is the creativity in and conviction of the exposition. It takes an empty half-hour just to get Goldberg into the convent, and even then the payoff is mild. [29 May 1992, p.5D]

At least Van Damme parodies himself just enough to avoid an all-out battle of the blands . At least director Roland Emmerich slyly allows supermarket Muzak to play during Lundgren's one big emoting scene. [10 July 1992, p.5D]

Dull and unpleasant.

Scoundrels isn't rock-bottom. That a more sturdy vehicle couldn't be found for such stellar leads, though, is a dirty rotten shame. [14 Dec 1988, p. 4D]

Likely one-week box office wonder.

Glum and preachy.

Too langorously European for slasher fans, and too dopey for others, Vanishing 2 may fall between the cracks. See it to savor Bridges playing a heavy. [05 Feb 1993, p.5D]

One thrilling shot of land's discovery - so good it's reprised at the end - hints at what might have been. But despite production values that advertise a first-class journey, 1492 is a long haul in steerage. [09 Oct 1992, p.8D]

But the film's emotional core is father-son reconciliation, and Pete Postlethwaite is very sympathetic as Dad. [29 Dec 1993 Pg. 01.D]