William Arnold

This free-flowing film certainly hits the high points as it flips around its talking-head celebrity sound bites at warp speed.

Working for the first time in live action, under the constraints of a classic novel, he (Andrew Adamson) proves himself to be a capable visual storyteller but no Peter Jackson.

It's only half of a good comedy. After a delicious opening and setup, the movie really doesn't go anywhere very interesting, and doesn't come close to any epiphanies about the subject at hand, even in subtext.

The lack of stellar performances gradually becomes a virtue of the movie as we forget we're watching actors in roles, and Stone builds a documentarylike veracity that gives the saga of the trapped cops and their loved ones a riveting immediacy.

An uneasy mix that's too long, too confusing and too undramatically paced to be consistently gripping, and so blatantly panders to teenagers.

Bound to seem, at best, a kind of CliffsNotes guide to the novel's highlights, especially if the casting is not all that inspired.

Its heart is in the right place, and it doesn't flinch an iota from its duty of rubbing our faces in the horror of the Third World over the past two decades.

The film is an audience-pleaser, but very calculated and far from Curtis' best work: His script will go to any lengths to be cute, and his direction tends to be overly broad. In the end, he wears us out with the sheer volume of witty and endearing characters.

While its execution is fine, the movie is almost shockingly vapid.

Travolta has dusted off his folksy Southern character from "Primary Colors" (one of his most acclaimed roles) and he has his moments with it.

It lets down in the last act and is probably too mired in serial-murderer-movie formulaics to garner Oscar attention. But it's his tightest, best film since "Unforgiven."

In this movie, he (Shelton) falls so hard he becomes, for the first time in his career, genuinely offensive.

The movie is an extraordinary personal adventure that views everything through the eyes of its hero as it carries him from one apocalyptic situation to another.

The real bottom line here is that the character just doesn't make much sense.

Writer-director Bruce Robinson, whose credits ("Withnail and I") are all outside the thriller genre, has also chosen to throw a long, ponderous interrogation scene into the third act for no other reason than to give guest-star John Malkovich 15 minutes of hammy screen-time as FBI agent St. Anne. His movie is not only preposterous and dull, it's pretentious. [6 Nov 1992]

The Paper definitely works. By the time Hackett calls out that inevitable "Stop the presses!" Howard has caught all the romance of the great old newspaper movies - the camaraderie of the newsroom, the adrenaline rush that goes with the pursuit of a big story, the teary pride in the power of the press. [25 March 1994]

At its core, it's an exploration of the demands and obligations of brotherly love, staged with honesty, originality and a surprising spark of intelligence.

In its defense, I can only say that, technically, it's an exhilarating piece of filmmaking; it offers a commanding comeback role for Carradine, and it serves as a summation, dead end and, perhaps, epitaph, for Tarantino's unique contribution to world cinema.

Within the limitations of the script, both stars shine. Moore displays a wonderful flair for self-deprecating farce, and Brosnan is cumulatively endearing as her unflappable nemesis.

Crash can't rise from the ashes of its pessimism.

A pretty dreadful affair -- ludicrous as history and a veritable gallery of visual cliches.

Touching, transcendent love story.

Preposterous, empty-headed and tedious.

This may sound like a satiric comedy, and its intriguing setup carries a faintly comedic tone, but the movie becomes more straight-faced as it moves along and ends up being a fairly serious examination on the nature of, and necessity for, faith.

The finished film, while competently acted and staged, has missed the high mark Spacey set for it. It's self-important, tedious and ultimately pointless, with absolutely none of the sardonic wit that remains the most memorable feature of "American Beauty."

Likely to provide many points of identification for many women.

Inferior remake.

It has moments of effectiveness, some of the performances -- especially Whitaker and Robert Ri'chard -- are moving.