Peter Stack

Has unusual visual vitality in a John Cassavetes vein. For the adventurous, it's worth checking out.

An extraordinary entertainment that personalizes the world of insects and other invertebrates and leaves audiences with an itching conviction of the poetry of nature.

Delightfully comic - and the funniest moments are rich in meaning - A Man of No Importance is laced with memorable scenes.

The all-time great talking-pig movie, a lovely, intelligent gem of G-rated entertainment that is also rib-tickling funny.

Schlock, but amusing schlock.

A mixed bag concocted with an almost willful aim to be quaint and a little arty, but one with small wonders poking through its soft, somewhat plain fabric. [06 May 1994]

Quickly assumes an appealing mockumentary style.

Viewers expecting rip-roaring, chandelier- swinging swordplay adventure are likely to be disappointed by the measured tone and portentous verbal interplay.

That's Entertainment! III aims mightily to please, and it's a fascinating, unpretentious journey through a garish, opulent, often breathtaking American art form. [13 May 1994, p.C3]

It's an excellent movie for kids, because it is about how amazing children can be.

Child's Play 2, stupid as it is, is a surprisingly tight low-budget production, making effective use of dark settings and rainy nights, and a handful of in-yer-face scare tactics that keep the action pumped up. [10 Nov 1990, p.C3]

One of the great movies -- a triumph of storytelling and character development, and a whole new ballgame for computer animation. Pixar Animation Studios has raised the genre to an astonishing new level.

It's implausible, cartoonishly overdrawn.

Riveting.

Pretentious but absorbing.

It's a violent yet occasionally funny film - thanks to some inventive gags that pop up - and it hits some of the same blood-splashed chords as "Terminator." [17 Jul 1987]

Tokyo Decadence is not an action picture, blue or otherwise. Murakami almost batters you with his slow, deliberate style, and in the end the film ventures into puzzling bravura sequences that seem hard to grasp for someone outside Japanese culture. Throughout, Murakami subtly accompanies his work with strains from the introduction to an aria from Verdi's ''Don Carlo'' where the aggrieved King Philip sings ''she never loved me.'' [18 June 1993, p.C12]

If The Hidden were less obvious, it might have been a zinger of a sci-fi action flick. But this cinematic presentation, now available on home video, is too predictable, and even though wickedly fun at times, it's only halfway as awesome as it might have been.

Has an unrelenting staccato quality. Some would say a jackhammer quality.

Better Than Chocolate is smart, funny adult entertainment -- the sex scenes are bold and convincing -- with a love story that is touching and surprisingly cheerful.

A surprisingly handsome film whose visual appeal often shores up a predictable plot. [14 Jan 1994, p.C3]

So inept it's almost entertaining.

Watching this film is a little like wallowing in warm surf with soft pop music wafting in the breeze.

Ben Stiller seems the perfect actor to play Hollywood writer- turned-junkie Jerry Stahl in Permanent Midnight. He's got that bitter humor, the intense eyes betraying an inner life of pain. And he comes off as pathetic. The trouble is that it's hard to care -- even though the film is well-acted, artfully shot and at times haunting in its bleakness.

Kinda cute, occasionally amusing and very, very slow... I just wish [it] had more momentum, more oomph. [9 Oct 1987]

Sizemore ("Heat") and Miller, though saddled with a lot of scientific DNA jargon, are really the only lively people in this dense, gruesome film that stubbornly refuses to break out of its contrived atmosphere.

What an attempt, and what a work of the imagination. The Fifth Element' will change the look of science fiction and will probably be imitated for years.

Although the movie goes too far, you can hardly get enough of its delicious atmosphere - and of Turner, in particular, who has never looked better on the big screen. [8 Dec 1989]