The movie's two instincts are at complete odds with each other. The first is to portray with compassion and understanding a young man of great gifts who is twisted by a cruel society into childhood's end. The second is to provide a rousing goose of vigilante justice more appropriate to the Death Wish films. How much better if Yakin had made up his mind; the movie wouldn't feel so split.

Overall, though, the movie lacks the dash, wit, authority and character to become a first-class thinking-man's thriller.

The movie ended just in time. Any more of it, and I'd have been crying uncle. Or maybe, given the grrrl-power of it all, crying aunt. This is one supposedly contrarian film that rouses the counter-contrarian in you.

Ends up being more about her hair (Meg Ryan's) than anything else.

The Punisher punishes. That's what he does, and that's all this movie does.

A working-class drama that has its heart in the right place but undercuts itself by stacking the deck, letting its main character off too lightly and being overly impressed with its own profundity.

Despite all its talk of genetic engineering and its deliberately stupid characters, the unintended message of Jurassic Park III is that when it comes to art and entertainment, you can't beat human DNA.

Outbreak is fast on its feet and simple in its head.

Instead of a sweeping epic, this adaptation of a novel by Elizabeth Bowen is much quieter, a work perhaps too understated and stereotypical for its own good.

A flimsy, genial romp peopled with early-twentysomethings and targeted at teens and young adults.

Except for the two stars, not much is believable in the movie. The ice skating sequences are clearly hampered by Sweeney's lack of skill, and it's crushingly obvious when a skating double has slipped into the picture. He's the guy who never looks at the camera.

Thanks to Daniel Craig, the most Byronic of 007s, who, with scarcely any help from the filmmakers, manages the astonishing task of rooting an outlandish yet sober-sided movie in reality and bringing it an air of wicked amusement, too.

Burton's movie is more like Chris Columbus' first Harry Potter movie. Nearly everything that's supposed to be magical falls flat; nearly everything that's supposed to be mundane is magical.

Woo's antiwar intentions and his talent are at odds. In Windtalkers, war is a beautiful hell.

City Hall has plenty of smarts; it just lacks real wisdom.

It would be nice to say that Bruce is hilarious, rather than merely (and fitfully) funny; certainly, the premise suggests laughs more consistent and outlandish than are present here.

The violence is muted and discreet, never appalling, and the sexual tension between Streep and Bacon has been dialed way down. What they want is what they get: a nice, tidy, polite thriller. [30 Sep 1994]

Has the sentiment and sweetness of a good coming-of-age movie but lacks the drive and pulse that makes for a great rock and roll movie.

Misfires by constantly tossing out liberal feel-goodisms.

Norton is brilliant in Lee's so-so 'Hour.'

By the end, Hamer's crisp, prickly compositions go soft.

While it displays its share of quirky charm, off-kilter characters and outlandish situations, this is really the first film where you can feel the Coens straining to keep up with themselves.

Surprisingly funny, a deep-down-good-hearted take on that oldest of comedy conventions, the ill-prepared rube caught up in a situation that somehow never gets the best of him.

Can be recommended even if just for the presence of Elaine May, who turns in her most charmingly ditzy performance since "A New Leaf."

For all Quek's insistence that she was seeking to ennoble women by helping them gain control over their sexuality, Lewis' film shows that all Quek really wanted was be famous.

Delivers an unexpected sweetness.

The actors here are uniformly excellent, and the story has a definite lightweight charm.

Laura's histrionics sometimes seem forced, and Hines has to struggle to be the heel the screenplay sometimes asks him to be.