Susan Wloszczyna

Epic in nearly every way, The Hurricane has the power to blow you away.

For all its faults, Justice is never boring. But it's such a battering experience, you may find yourself checking your own body for bruises before leaving the theater. [16 Apr 1991, p.6D]

Generations feels like a flimsy device to ensure Trek's earnings continue to live long and prosper. [19 Nov. 1994, p.1D]

Visual pyrotechnics and dark humor aside, Three Kings rules because it dares to dig for such truths, whether banal or significant.

The Wal-Mart of cinematic soap operas. One-stop shopping for your emotional movie needs.

Though 102 Dalmatians digs up little new ground and muzzles its villain, it does have a fetching sense of functional fun now and then.

Consider The Other Sister emotional quicksand. [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

Vile, violent and less hip than it thinks it is.

Mannequin Two desperately wants to be magical. But the spell it casts is one of idiocy. [21 May 1991, p.4D]

Rain pours, snow flies, the sky is cloudy all day. Every corridor is steeped in shadow. But the artful atmosphere goes to waste as Robinson (best known for the quirky Withnail & I) skimps on character, drags out the action and stacks up overly convenient clues like dirty dishes. [6 Nov 1992, p.8D]

Passenger 57 already has been labeled Die Hard on a plane. Die Lite is more like it. [06 Nov 1992, p.2D]

But for all the fancy-schmancy effects (budget: $90 million-plus), the vision of a hypercongested metropolis is not much more sophisticated than an episode of "The Jetsons." [9 May 1997]

Chuck rhymes with bucks - the only possible reason to revive this poor excuse for a horror villain in Child's Play 3. [03 Sep 1991, p.5D]

We are happy to report there is intelligent life in feature animation beyond planet Disney and the gaseous ball of foul language known as South Park.

A blah romantic comedy that has the bad taste to force the heavenly Ashley Judd into being an insecure, date-desperate, quirky career gal.

Until it coughs up a ridiculously convoluted explanation of why an isolated town in Colorado suddenly goes deader than a weekday matinee of "The Postman," Phantoms delivers the shivers.

There's some heavy-duty Oedipal stuff going on underneath all the running gags about Hooters restaurants. [25 June 1999, Life, p.8E]

Wildly uneven collage of effects and live action is no Disney-bland vision of dreams gone bonkers. There's enough Freudian material to reupholster a thousand therapy couches.

Not just stupid, but brain dead.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, in an atypically high-minded and low-budget frame of mind, manages to breeze through most of the gridiron genre's obstacles with his admirable, crowd-pleasing Titans.

A weak whinny of a horse opera tailor-made for those who can't quite locate "Young Guns" or "The Long Riders" in their video store.

Can't scare up a decent plot.

The goofiest, giddiest and, yes, grooviest animated trip since Aladdin unbottled its genie.

A glossy wisp of a cautionary tale.

Edited like the world's most expensive car ad. The screen opens and closes like a nervous accordion, and the action shifts speeds like crazy.

Flawed but not fatally, this ambitious epic's strength lies not just with its haunting melodies, pretty pictures, star voices and kid-friendly sidekicks - the usual shtick that makes Disney tick. [14 Nov 1997, p.D6]

Except for a brief episode in which singer Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland make like an FBI Rocky and Bullwinkle, this is a morbidly joyless affair. You'll feel as drained as one of Cooper's mugs of joe watching homecoming queen Laura drown in a whirlpool of sex and drugs. [31 Aug 1992]

While the attractive cast is willing, the translation into '90s teen culture is weak -- like a clueless adult's notion of cool.