The title represents size and power, speed and hubris -- the very things the ship has come to stand for and the things that Cameron has restored to the cinema with grand, generous style.

Tomorrow Never Dies is convincing proof that there's life yet in fiction's most famous cold warrior. In fact, because the film shifts the focus from Evil Empires to crazed terrorists, it's possible to walk away with a double good feeling: Not only does good triumph over evil, but countries of differing ideologies are able to work together.

Fairly bursts with the exuberance and youthful energy that must have attended its creation.

Gummo is one of the most repellent cinematic efforts in recent memory. Whatever small audiences it attracts -- and they will be drawn mostly by the prospect of watching something "shocking" -- will wind up leaving the theater in a state of disgust. [21 Nov. 1997, p.5E]

A grand, sweeping nostalgia trip that evokes the sickness of an era even as it tries to find its essential humanity.

But the most interesting aspect of the film is its sense of karmic retribution. Coincidences pile so high that "Gang Related" sometimes seems like a comedy -- not necessarily a bad thing. They all point to a larger force at work. Though not every evil is punished, the events in this film noir seem to have sprung from chaos theory: In their randomness, they draw a pattern. Gang Related"delights in bedeviling the devils.

There's many a slip between the page and the stage, to which The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, ploddingly attests. [26 Sep 1997]

A glamorous, alluring entertainment that revels in the artifice of Hollywood while exposing its corrupt heart, L.A. Confidential pays stylish homage to some of the great film noirs of the distant and recent past.

The film -- florid, excessive, brash -- owes its success to bravura performances by Sean Penn as Eddie, Robin Wright Penn as Maureen and John Travolta as Joey, the third leg of a triangle. The three play their parts with an abandon that keeps the film buoyant and luminous. Most of all, these three superb actors give us permission to enjoy the film's terribly flawed characters rather than to judge them. [29 Aug 1997]

Ceaselessly amiable, moving whimsically toward an ending that, while predictable, is a rousing, unfettered joy.

The coincidences pile up in Career Girls, but by then Leigh has involved us so fully in the emotional lives of his characters that the contrivances are easily dismissed.

Star Maps is the work of a talented group of young actors and filmmakers anxious to try as much as they can and see what works. Not all of it does.

La Promesse...presents an unflinching view of the victimization of vulnerable people, but the center of the film is not the immigrant experience. It is the portrayal of a father-son relationship and that turning point where a child must choose between a loved parent and his own sense of morality.

The narrative is engrossing enough, but it diverts from what is strongest about Traveller, its title characters. [2 May 1997]

Smith shows the grasp of character and offbeat humor that really registered in "Clerks," and a subtler mastery of film fluidity and professionalism than anything in the cheesy, amateurish "Mallrats."

Oddly, for such a terrible movie, it looks fabulous. [4 Apr 1997]

It's too film-savvy for kids who won't catch the allusions to Clark Gable and W.C. Fields, but it's too film-simple for buffs and too boring for adults and too magenta-bright for critics. It's completely human proof! [26 Mar 1997]

Nothing of much surprise happens and nearly everybody will feel twinges of the familiar. It's very specific, but also universal in the gentle way it watches two people who are attracted to each other, and what they do about it. [14 Mar 1997]

Reiner should have had faith in his sensational material to make its points without a minister in the pulpit. The movie would have been much better, and much shorter, too. [03 Jan 1997]

Indeed, Scream is better than the average slasher film, as its advertisers insist. And, indeed, it is probably Wes Craven's best film, as they also insist. But that is a little like saying the pimple on the left side of your nose is "better" than the pimple on the right side.

It's so routine and predictable it grows quickly wearisome, its inventions are thin and its wit is witless. You feel the clumsy manipulations coming hours in advance, and when they come, they seem to take forever to finish. [20 Dec 1996]

Let's get it out, loud and clear: Jerry Maguire is not a sports movie. It's a stealth chick movie, wrapped in a swaddling of jock stuff so that it gets through guy radar without setting off the missile defenses.

Builds slowly but passionately, not dancing to some Hollywood tune, but finding its characters where they are and letting them be who they are.

Hard to take in its particulars.

A big, fat old-fashioned gush of passion as drawn through a post-modernist prism that makes it less easily comprehensible but more beguiling.

The movie is full of macabre surprises. As good as Hoskins is as the little sweat-manufacturer caught in everybody's pliers, far better is Robin Williams in an unbilled appearance as a nihilist dynamiter. [13 Dec 1996]

Where "Boyz N the Hood" cut deep, to bone, this one stays glibly on the surface. It's slick and routinely entertaining, if never quite persuasive. [06 Nov 1996]

Thinner provides little suspense and no chills, not to mention rather offensive treatment of Gypsies, Italians and women. Acting isn't at a premium either.