Rita Kempley

A superbly heartfelt drama for six diverse actors, it is as colorfully striated as its majestic namesake - and almost as wide. The film's depth is another matter altogether.

This is screenwriter Richard LaGravenese's directorial debut and now that he's in charge, he finally has his chance to give dialogue and character their due.

Bound, a diabolically clever caper, isn't nearly so deep as the genre it kids.

Micki & Maude is a pain, laborious and predictable despite the tantalizing nature of the material. [21 Dec 1984, p.29]

Despite these lapses in decorum, Jane makes an impressive Tudor "Romeo and Juliet," full of pomp and circumstance. [7 Feb 1986, p.N19]

Everyone is convincingly miserable, and audiences are likely to follow suit.

This anti-feminist parable is both a labor and a pain.

A drama about strong, giving, funny women, Fried Green Tomatoes seems plucked from the same patch as the play-turned-movie Steel Magnolias. It's not exactly a successful hybrid, but you could get a craving for it anyway.

Blending physics and fantasy, Flight spins an easy-going adventure that's also a late-summer treat for the movie-going family. [01 Aug 1986, p.25]

Hounsou, a West African model with beauty and presence but no acting experience, carries much of the movie on his broad shoulders with surprising skill and strength.

A sadly dull and unimaginative outing.

Gattaca may be all done up in new-fangled notions, but underneath all the guff about designer babies, it rests on a notion that was a staple of the original "Star Trek" series.

A happy, scenic, sumptuous film. [12 Apr 1995, p.25]

An engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable adaptation of the bestselling spy thriller by Frederick Forsyth.

Murphy owes much of his success to the amazing special-effects makeup by Rick Baker ("An American Werewolf in London"), but he brings a tenderness and dignity to the performance that he has never shown before.

An abominable, abdominal comedy. Aside from its tastelessness and dawdling pace, the movie’s chief problem is the lackluster chemistry between leading lummoxes Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.

A one-joke comedy written and directed by an older, gentler John Waters, the film gets an enormous boost from Kathleen Turner's puckish portrayal of Beverly Sutphin.

David Zucker and Segal seem to thrive on the formulaic tomfoolery that propels these rapid-fire spoofs. Naked Gun 33 1/3, as pointlessly plotted as ever, manages to be not only still funny but energetically slapped together and occasionally inventive.

An uplifting, superbly acted and intelligent family drama.

Except for pedophiles, it's hard to imagine who'll be drawn to this irresponsible Little Bo Peep show.

Unfortunately, the filmmaking couple take the fetishistic masquerade far too seriously. They may describe it as a "departure" from traditional fare, but it's simply the same old action-packed guff.

It's a snuff movie, all dressed up, for self-abusive audiences...You feel filthy after seeing this stuff, paying to be a party to this sad, sordid business, watching this woman being used during and, now, after life. [11 Nov 1983, p.25]

Landau and Wuhl give especially heartfelt performances under the obviously sympathetic direction of Barry Primus, who based the story on his own attempts to finance a project.

A surprisingly tame and humorless effort by director Curtis Hanson of Hitchcock-spoofy The Bedroom Window, the movie does provide a couple of good jolts.

Alternately a celebration and sendup of cowboy conventions, the movie lingers over a stunning Western landscape only to be spurred on by the principals' inexhaustible supply of escapades. The burr under the saddle: There's just too much of everything.

Director Joe Johnston, a veteran of Industrial Light and Magic, brings a wry Rube Goldberg approach to his first-ever feature. The sets are definitely plastic, but that slightly homemade look is refreshing in the hardware movie decade.

The movie is sleek and shiny as a new bullet, reflecting Scott's patented surplus of style.

Williams, might have been more aggressive. Otherwise, director Roy Hill has done about as well as you can when translating word to image, not only through plot, but via the repetition of symbols: primitive, obvious ones -- the toad, a death's head costume, a child's clumsy drawings. After two hours and 20 minutes, all the parables and paradoxes join in a sluggish whole. And we wind up where we began, up in the air without a tail gunner. [23 July 1982, p.11]