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.