Ghosts of Mississippi isn’t a bad film by any means; it’s just not a very good film.

Experiencing Evita is like watching one uninterrupted long-form music video divided only by different arias or costume changes (of which there are untold numbers).

This kind of angel stuff is classic Hollywood fare, especially at Christmastime. Thus, it's all the more wonder that director Nora Ephron has missed and mishandled so many of her cues.

Craven is obviously having a ball here, and it's impossible not to sit back and go grinning into this dark, gory ride.

A wellspring of lowbrow comedy that leaves you giggling in spite of yourself. Truly, it does not suck.

It's almost as enjoyable watching these august septuagenarians jumping from trains, cruising with Harley-riding dykes, and exchanging pubescent screw-you/blow me repartee as it must have been for them to do it. And fun, sometimes, is its own best rationale.

For those viewers who can relate to Melanie's and Jack's lives, One Fine Day offers light-hearted romantic fun, but for younger viewers the film may not quite hit the mark.

What's fascinating is the depth of humanity Cruise finds within the character of Jerry and also Cruise's generosity toward the other actors in the story -- a generosity that allows all the other performers to shine and create vivid and memorable characters.

A holiday film with no conscience whatsoever, Mars Attacks! will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it definitely will make you wonder about Earth's ability to defend itself in the face of higher life forms.

The script fires off clunker after clunker so fast you don't know whether to laugh or cry. (I chose to laugh as I'd already done enough crying at The English Patient.) Vintage bad Stallone, this lost-in-the-shuffle Summer of '96 blockbuster is just what you thought it would be: loud, boisterous, and without a single original line of dialogue. It's enough to make you miss Judge Dredd.

Thornton, who wrote, directed, and stars in Sling Blade, has created an unforgettable character and situation, a film that's sure to become an American classic.

At times, the film feels like one painful, protracted pratfall.

In this context, The Crucible very much becomes a story about a love affair gone bad and a young, solitary girl who uses the situation to advance her position in society and wreak her vengeance. Surrounded by some phenomenal acting performances (notably Day-Lewis, Joan Allen as the wronged wife, and the always welcome Paul Scofield in the unenviable position of judge and jury), the weaknesses in Ryder's technique become more blatant.

Not in itself a bad thing -- the "Star Trek" films have long come under friendly fire for being too heavy on the philosophizing and not enough so on the deep-space car chases -- but oddly, the film feels soulless and hollow, despite best intentions to the contrary.

Unfunny and worse, unpleasant, Jingle All the Way is holiday cheer from the warped psyche of a Scrooge. Even the Grinch wouldn't like this one.

Director Patrice Leconte (The Hairdresser's Husband, Monsieur Hire) again displays his keen observation of the minute details that transpire between people, though Ridicule doesn't share the same mordant perversity as his previous American successes. It does prove that certain games that people play never go out of fashion.

If, at times, Shine's luster reveals more elbow grease than internal radiance, the movie is still a moving tribute to the human capacity to overcome all odds.

Feels brief and dreamlike. Waking from its spell, you touch your face, and it's wet, but you're smiling anyway.

The amazing thing is that, despite such crass beginnings, Space Jam rises to the occasion and succeeds as an enjoyable piece of film entertainment.

With this artlessly profound and affecting story of love, von Trier emerges as one of those blessed filmmakers who've managed to blend their early stylistic flamboyance with enough human empathy to make their work both visually and emotionally compelling.

A reprehensible movie from just about every perspective, Ransom tries to justify the behavior of its lead character as something grounded in principle, but make no mistake about it: This is the act of a man who can't bear the thought of losing, a man who will turn the tables on his enemy at the risk of a beloved's death.

It's an utterly contemporary film that forces - and rewards - hard reflection on the nature of truth, goodness, and identity.

The movie is, ultimately, a fascinating victim of its own ambitions.

This Romeo & Juliet is a rich visual feast, besotted with the fervor of its acrobatic camerawork and kinetic staging and its mind-bending aggregation of unrelated but resonant fragments of 20th-century iconography.

With the warmth of Elliott Davis' cinematography and The Band and the Staple Singers on the score, Larger Than Life has much that's appealing for an older, old-fashioned crowd.

Lovitz is occasionally amusing, especially in his creative attempts to get through to his pupils, although his style of slow-take humor is a grave mismatch for this kind of frenzied comedy.

The stunning vitality and passion of this film arises not only from the high-voltage personalities involved (especially Ali and King) but from the way they galvanized political and ethnic pride among the people of the poor West African nation.

Apart from its rushed pacing and occasionally stale dialogue, Thinner suffers even more from the fact that it has no redeemable characters.

Actor-screenwriter Favreau and director Liman demonstrate with Swingers that they're definitely "money."

Somewhat byzantine in execution and confusing in its logic, the film's second half never achieves the catharsis you'd expect.

Director Winterbottom and screenwriter Hossein Amini could have given the story a bit more resonance, particularly in character development, if they had allowed some of the scenes to go a little longer.

With its complexity of viewpoints, Get on the Bus has to be seen as one of Spike Lee's most mature visions to date.

An adequate, inoffensive thriller that, every so often, shows itself to be a little smarter than it needs to be… even if it isn't often enough to make this thriller anything more than average.

Neeson's performance as the legendary Irishman reminds us of how large a presence the actor is: He fills up the frame with his voice, his hands, and his gestures.

The movie is a lot of fun if you don't think about it too much, the stuntwork should satisfy the genre fanatics in the crowd even though it doesn't set any new plateaus, and the rapport between Davis and Jackson is enough to keep the sticklers for realism in abeyance at least until the final credits roll.

Trees Lounge gives the appearance of being slight, spontaneous, and effortless. It would be easy to write off Buscemi's maiden effort as a serendipitous fluke, but just like that squirrely face of his, you know that surface values are merely the outer layer.

For all its noble intent, Hopkins' film falls flat halfway through, mired in bad philosophizing and too-beautiful killing fields, neither bark nor bite mean much here.

Microcosmos is more about reverie than revelation. Still, don't be surprised if you come away from it with that feeling, like the aftermath of a deep, strange dream, that your consciousness has been enlarged in a subtle but very real way.

What's more, they toss a few original twists into a familiar generic set-up and thereby create a thoroughly entertaining and stylish thriller.

In his first effort at directing a feature film, Hanks chooses his material wisely and writes it with witty, beguiling charm.

The Glimmer Man is simply a spectacular belly-flop of an action movie -- neither good enough nor bad enough to be anything but instantly forgettable, though not necessarily painless.

Secrets & Lies, despite my dwelling on its problems, is a really solid and enjoyable movie. It's just not what I would call "best of the fest."

On the whole, there are some good moments in the movie, but altogether, 2 Days in the Valley is about one day too much.

Any sincere investigation of the situation's ethical dilemmas is hampered by a plot run amok with transparently nefarious evildoers and ever-more ludicrous complications, until it sputters to a conclusion and a thoroughly preposterous epilogue in which all animosities are neatly put to rest. Somebody call a doctor.

Big Night is, in a word, delicious.

As a satire this film would be hilarious, but writer Robert Harling's ("Soapdish") script doesn't quite hit the mark.

From Lloyd Ahern's breathtaking, earth-toned cinematography to Freeman Davies' uncommonly graceful editing, Last Man Standing is a real class act, an old-fashioned thriller propelled by wildly violent, decidedly modern action sequences.

Indeed, the biggest acting coup here comes by way of Courtney Love, whose cameo as an obliging waitress is the best thing the film has going for it.

From gawky, gladdening parades across the grasslands to breathtaking aerial acrobatics, Fly Away Home is a feast for the soul and for the eye.

Dickerson's newest film is an embarrassment of near epic proportions.

Koepp's film examines the interconnections between man and the electronic society, and the terrors that are unleashed once those connections are severed, and does so in a wholly original and unnerving manner.

As kids' comedies go, this one's fairly topical and, better yet, amusing.

Nothing about the movie makes much sense.

A white-trash riff on Little Red Riding Hood, the oddly titled Freeway is a road movie that hits a dead end.

Hideously directed with all the comic subtlety of Oliver Stone on speed, A Very Brady Sequel misses almost every single mark it sets for itself, from the disastrously ill-conceived animation that marks Roy's hallucinogenic mushroom trip at the family dinner table to the persistent background hiss on the film's soundtrack. Even Sherwood Schwartz would've hated this dog.

The film's tagline describes it as “a romantic comedy about two brothers...and the one thing that came between them.” This “thing” appears to be the women in their lives, and if this description sounds even slightly misogynistic, perhaps it does so for a reason.

Frankenheimer resorts to gunfire and explosions to bring the film to its predictable end. It's when things get mundane that you find yourself wishing that Brando would reappear on the screen to make things interesting again.

To paraphrase a passage from one of the character's journals, Girls Town illustrates how these young women express themselves in ways that compensate for the words they do not yet have.

If you've got money to waste and enjoy pain, go ahead and see this movie. Or just play a round of golf. Six of one…

Hollow, predictable, and too glitzy for its own good, The Fan never even makes it to first base.

Although the movie contains occasional moments of glimpsed accomplishment, Kansas City is for the most part a lame duck.

The Dennis Miller Show… with nekkid vampire-vixens. That's it in a coffin-nail.

Despite its inadequacies, Basquiat presents a fascinating glimpse of the Eighties art scene, due in large measure to several stunning performances.

A listless family comedy and bland morality primer.

Loud, rollicking, alternately ultra-violent and hilarious, Escape from L.A. is Snake redux, and what more do you need, really?

Flirt has its ups and downs, but it's certainly an intriguing ride.

Despite my lack of Austen education, I found the film to be thoroughly engaging and surprisingly touching, so I can only imagine how pleased a true Austen-ite may be with Emma.

The contrast of light and dark, good and evil, enlightenment and ignorance, innocence and corruption is the heart of this absurd, insightful, sincere, very funny fairy tale of a movie. The cast is uniformly superb.

There are a few nice special effects, and Jerry Goldsmith's score works overtime to make the rather bland proceedings a bit more exciting, but, ultimately, any movie in which even Morgan Freeman manages to give a lackluster performance can only be considered a seriously botched job.

Cyclo is a rich, gritty, and ultimately distressing feast for the eyes. It's a dark and dirty dream that stays with you long after you leave the theatre.

An understated movie that, in turns, is funny and heart-breaking and uplifting, Manny & Lo is a work that burrows under your skin and makes you impatient for the next project from first-time feature filmmaker Lisa Krueger.

To its credit, A Time to Kill allows the debate to snake through the entire movie, engagingly pitting characters and speeches against each other, creating a dramatic forum for ethical debate uncommon in most commercial American films.

The on-target performances, along with the unceasing barrage of popular music and daring narrative gambles, combine to make Trainspotting one of the grand movie rushes of 1996.

A thoroughly preposterous movie that's as outrageously entertaining as it is relentlessly chaotic.

Rarely does a first film depict characters who seem so comfortably familiar, and even less frequently are these characters three-dimensional women.

These elements fail to rescue Multiplicity from its moronic plot devices, orchestrated by husband-and-wife writing team Chris Miller (National Lampoon's Animal House) and Mary Hale. Despite my better judgment, each movie with Andie MacDowell makes me think that she'll have improved her acting skills. Unfortunately, Multiplicity proves me wrong once again.

Once you get past the admittedly breathtaking shots of our national landmarks being turned into kindling, the rest of the film is a tired and empty two hours of feel-good patriotism and oddly cast characters.

Phenomenon flails about in a search for direction: inspirational drama, romance, social study, government intrigue- nothing fits or is explored very deeply.

Arguably better than the last five Eddie Murphy films taken together, The Nutty Professor still seems to be playing down to its audience much of the time, though you'd never know it to hear the gales of laughter erupting at the screening I attended.

In the wake of the debacle known as Showgirls, Striptease has had to fight to establish its separate identity and credentials. In retrospect, it appears to have been wasted energy.

The range of characters here is daringly broad, but Sayles is able to touch on the humanity of each (with considerable help from a gifted and eminently watchable cast), and the details of the region -- the heat, the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape, and especially the pride of the residents -- are vivid and true.

However, despite having all the tried-and-true elements set firmly in place, Ah-nold's latest doesn't quite measure up to the action star's finest work, even if it should prove to be a mildly pleasing diversion for fans.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame ultimately misses its target, as it's more likely to find acceptance with an older-than-average Disney crowd.

Bertolucci returns to his native Italian soil for the first time in 15 years, and the result is a gorgeous albeit fairly insubstantial homecoming.

The Cable Guy is being marketed as a dark comedy, which I suppose it is, to some extent. Honestly, though, it's just not dark enough.

The Guy Movie to end all Guy Movies, a ridiculously overblown summer testosterone blowout right down to the Wagnerian strains of the soundtrack and its stunningly high body count. It's also a hell of a lot of fun.

The Nintendo generation may not “get” The Phantom any more than those original Thirties fans would have understood Bruce Wayne's tortured psyche, but that aside, Wincer's updating of an old warhorse is lovingly done. It's a Saturday afternoon matinee for the Nineties, 60 years old and totally new.

The movie demands to be watched and rewards that attention handsomely, though at times Heavy seems a little too introverted for its own good.

Goofy summer fun that makes Earth vs. the Flying Saucers look like Citizen Kane.

Dragonheart is a disappointingly hit-and-miss affair.

Filled to the bursting point with witless, sub-Mad magazine movie parodies, pointless cameos by a seemingly endless parade of has-beens, and once-hysterical, now stale jokes lifted straight from "Airplane!" and the original "Naked Gun", Spy Hard is a truly desperate comedy.

Whatever the reason for its disappointments, Mission: Impossible is a mission gone awry, prompting you to hope that reruns of its television incarnation will pop up on cable soon.

Flipper's story is a tired fish tale.

It's a keeper, a tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of 24 hours of really, really inclement weather in the Oklahoma heartland.

It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, just one that grabs your attention and then lets it go, time and time again.

Together the cast, the director, and the screenwriter work to make the characters off-centered but realistic, with plenty of room for warmth.

It's a comic book movie in the broadest sense of the term, and although it's neither as emotionally resonant as "The Crow" nor as surreally goofy as "Tank Girl," Barb Wire still manages to get you going, Anderson Lee fan or not.

It's Teen Witch for the Nineties: dark, brooding, dangerous, and, come to think of it, a lot like high school.