Why do they persist in making these retreads? Because RoboCop is a brand name, I guess, and this is this year's new model. It's an old tradition in Detroit to take an old design and slap on some fresh chrome.

The first film had maybe a shred of realism to flavor its romantic comedy. This one looks like it was chucked up by an automatic screenwriting machine.

Ruby in Paradise is a breathtaking movie about a young woman who opens the book of her life to a fresh page, and begins to write.

The past traps the present, fate smothers spontaneity, and all of the dialog sounds like Dialog - not what people would say, but what characters would say. The film is depressing for some of the right reasons, and all of the wrong ones.

The suspense screws up tighter than a drum-head. The characters remain believable; we have a conflict of personalities, not stereotypes. The action coexists seamlessly with the message.

It is one of those rare movies that is not just about a story, or some characters, but about a whole universe of feeling.

Armand Assante, on the other hand, is one of the best movie actors of his generation. But he isn't very funny in Fatal Instinct.

The director of the film, a veteran stop-action master named Henry Selick, is the person who has made it all work. And his achievement is enormous.

Astin's performance is so self-effacing, so focused and low-key, that we lose sight of the underdog formula and begin to focus on this dogged kid who won't quit. And the last big scene is an emotional powerhouse, just the way it's supposed to be.

Pretty much required viewing.

One of the worst movies of this or any year.

Farewell My Concubine is a demonstration of how a great epic can function. I was generally familiar with the important moments in modern Chinese history, but this film helped me to feel and imagine what it was like to live in the country during those times.

Hulk Hogan can hoist 400-pound wrestlers over his head, but the former heavyweight champ still can't carry a movie in the hero's role. [11 Oct 1993, p.30]

What is remarkable about "Mr. Jones" is how clearly it communicates his feelings. We begin to understand why manic-depression is sometimes described as the only mental illness its victims enjoy - on the up days, anyway.

Los Angeles always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and people view the future tentatively. Robert Altman's Short Cuts captures that uneasiness perfectly.

M. Butterfly does not take hold the way the stage play did.

The problem with a story like this is that it's almost too perfect. It tends to break out of the boundaries of the typical sports movie, and undermine those easy cliches that are so reassuring to sports fans.

Malice is one of the busiest movies I've ever seen, a film jampacked with characters and incidents and blind alleys and red herrings. Offhand, this is the only movie I can recall in which an entire subplot about a serial killer is thrown in simply for atmosphere.

Take away the basic human appeal of Fox and his love interest, Gabrielle Anwar, and what you have left wouldn't fuel 22 minutes of a sitcom.

This is a good film, but it would not cheer people up much at a high school reunion.

It is a great performance by Danny Glover, the portrait of a proud man who discovers his pride was entrusted to the wrong things.

The movie is a creepy, unpleasant experience, made all the worse because it stars children too young to understand the horrible things we see them doing.

By the film's end, I found myself simultaneously hoping that ESU would win its big game, and that the school would pull the plug on its football program. I guess that's how I was supposed to feel.

A Bronx Tale is a very funny movie sometimes, and very touching at other times. It is filled with life and colorful characters and great lines of dialogue, and De Niro, in his debut as a director, finds the right notes as he moves from laughter to anger to tears. What's important about the film is that it's about values.

I have seen love scenes in which naked bodies thrash in sweaty passion, but I have rarely seen them more passionate than in this movie, where everyone is wrapped in layers of Victorian repression.

The bare story itself could be simplistic and silly: Cops chasing a couple of kids on a horse. But when relationships are involved, and social realities, and a certain level of magical realism, then the story grows and deepens until it really involves us. Kids will probably love this movie, but adults will get a lot more out of it.

Striking Distance is an exhausted reassembly of bits and pieces from all the other movies that are more or less exactly like this one.

Airborne is cursed with a multiple-personality disorder. Part surfing ode, part pacifist lecture and part skating story, "Airborne" wastes plenty of celluloid developing throwaway story lines. By the time some exciting skating scenes show up, the film is two-thirds over. [18 Sept 1993, p.20]

Savoca's subject is larger: She wants to show how, in only three generations, an Italian family that is comfortable with the mystical turns into an American family that is threatened by it. And she wants to explore the possibilities of sainthood in these secular days. That she sees great humor in her subject is perfect; it is always easier to find the truth through laughter.

True Romance, which feels at times like a fire sale down at the cliche factory, is made with such energy, such high spirits, such an enchanting goofiness, that it's impossible to resist. Check your brains at the door.

When actors grin as much as they do in "Undercover Blues," you know that something is seriously the matter. [10 Sept 1993, p.40]

Like a flowering of talent that has been waiting so long to be celebrated. It is also one of the most touching and moving of the year's films.

Think of how we read the thoughts of those closest to us, in moments when words will not do. We look at their faces, and although they do not make any effort to mirror emotions there, we can read them all the same, in the smallest signs. A movie that invites us to do the same thing can be very absorbing.

Fortress doesn't dig enough beneath its own surface, or create the tension it should. But its originality and taut muscularity make up for those limitations, and a winning supporting cast makes up for the granite-headed Lambert (already lined up for a sequel), who is only marginally less robotic than anything he's fighting. Locklin is bright and appealing. And "Re-Animator" star Jeffrey Combs keeps the party hopping as an explosives expert in the nerdy Bud Cort/wasted hippie mold. "This is highly sensitive," he says, examining a potent device. "We are talking TNT on PMS!" [6 Sept 1993, p.21]

Needful Things is yet another one of those films based on a Stephen King story that inspires you to wonder why his stories don't make better films. The movie only has one note, which it plays over and over, sort of a Satanic water torture. It's not funny and it's not scary and it's all sort of depressing.

But at the center of the film is an actor whose mind and heart are far, far away, and he is like a black hole, consuming light and energy. He's running on empty. Sometimes there are even scenes where you can sense the other actors scrutinizing Phoenix in a certain way, or urging him, with their tones of voice, to an energy level he cannot match. It is all very sad.

Gibson, as director, doesn't give himself a soppy speech explaining why he doesn't say them. He lets us figure it out. That is the essence of the story and, we eventually realize, the essence of teaching, too.

King of the Hill could have been a family picture, or a heartwarming TV docudrama, or a comedy. Soderbergh must have seen more deeply into the Hotchner memoir, however, because his movie is not simply about what happens to the kid. It's about how the kid learns and grows through his experiences.

The good news is there still are scenes to peel back the eyelids, beginning with a nighttime stalking and ending with some slambang mano a mano encounters in a warehouse for Mardi Gras floats - the kind of restricted setting of which Woo is a master. But the adrenaline lift, not to mention the deeper dimensions, of such films of his as "The Killer" are missing in action. [20 Aug 1993, p.46]

Manhattan Murder Mystery is an accomplished balancing act.

Not that anyone expected logic, but no one expected the series to so completely abandon much of what was familiar to the audience and become an amalgam of countless other horror-fantasies and pop culture media. [16 Aug 1993, p.24]

Like all great stories for children, The Secret Garden contains powerful truths just beneath the surface. There is always a level at which the story is telling children about more than just events; it is telling them about the nature of life.

Hey, it's no masterpiece. It is what it is: soft-core eroticism. But on that basis, it succeeds, which is why I am giving it three stars. All criticism is subjective, all star ratings are relative, and if you have read this far you want to know if "Sex and Zen" is a superior example of its genre. It is. If there is the slightest doubt, stay around for the closing credits, which begin with gigantic block letters reading: "Recommended by Penthouse." The possibilities for additional recommendations in other kinds of movies are tantalizing.

Here's a movie that lets you know from the start which strings it's going to yank, how hard it's going to yank them, and even how many times. But caught in its emotional rigging, you're unlikely to find yourself bothered by its hokey predictability or strained plotting. However coolly you fight off the film, you eventually find yourself throwing in the towel and allowing your tears to be jerked. [13 Aug 1993, p.37]

A film of remarkable sensitivity and insight.

The three films of Body Bags were horrid, but they weren't horrifying. [06 Aug 1993, p.67]

A tense, taut and expert thriller that becomes something more than that, an allegory about an innocent man in a world prepared to crush him.

What makes the film work is the underlying validity of the story, the way the filmmakers don’t simply go for melodrama and laughs, but pay these characters their due. At the end of the film, I was a little surprised how much I cared for them.

The screenplay by Kaufman, Crichton and Michael Backes is not about much of anything important, and Connery's deep penetrating wisdom takes away some of the suspense: If he knows everything that's going to happen, why keep us in the dark?

So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mediocre movie with a good one trapped inside, wildly signaling to be set free. The good movie involves a droll and eccentric Scottish-American family whose household embraces more of the trappings of Scottishness than your average Glasgow souvenir shop. The bad movie is about a young man's romance with a woman he comes to suspect is an ax murderer.

How this smart and funny man, he of the convulsive Tonight Show performances and the great Young Frankenstein, could end up putting his name on lame comedies like this one remains one of the great mysteries of the day. [28 July 1993, p.37]

Poetic Justice is not ["Boyz N the Hood's"] equal, but does not aspire to be; it is a softer, gentler film, more of a romance than a commentary on social conditions.

This is a dismal, dreary and fairly desperate movie, in which the actors try very hard but are unable to overcome an uninspired screenplay.

This one holds its flavor better than most.

The movie is sure to be appealing to younger viewers (they may find it more accessible and certainly less frightening than "Jurassic Park"), and it's smart enough to keep older viewers involved, too.

Hocus Pocus is a film desperately in need of self-discipline. It's one of those projects where you imagine everyone laughing and applauding each other after every scene, because they're so convinced they're wild and crazy guys. But watching the movie is like attending a party you weren't invited to, and where you don't know anybody, and they're all in on a joke but won't explain it to you.

The director is Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot"), who is able to unwind the plot like clockwork while at the same time establishing the characters as surprisingly sympathetic.

Absolutely nothing in this film suggests wit or talent; much of it suggests very easy money on the video aftermarket. [12 July 1993, p.27]

Look, this isn't a great movie. If you're not a kid, don't go unless there's a kid you want to take. But if you are a kid, and you have ever for a moment wondered what it would be like to play major-league ball at your age, then take it from the old Little Leaguer and see this movie.

The movie might have had a chance if it had abandoned all the false sentiment and simply acknowledged Crawl as the cretin he is. John Belushi would have known how to play this part.

Branagh sets the pace just this side of a Marx Brothers movie.

But with a screenplay that developed the story more clearly, this might have been a superior movie, instead of just a good one with some fine performances.

Ephron develops this story with all of the heartfelt sincerity of a 1950s tearjerker (indeed, the movie's characters spend a lot of time watching "An Affair to Remember" and using it as their romantic compass).

What's Love Got to Do With It ranks as one of the most harrowing, uncompromising showbiz biographies I've ever seen.

There's a lot to like in "Dennis the Menace." But Switchblade Sam prevents me from recommending it.

For all of its sensational stunts and flashes of wit, however, Last Action Hero plays more like a bright idea than like a movie that was thought through. It doesn't evoke the mystery of the barrier between audience and screen the way Woody Allen did, and a lot of the time it simply seems to be standing around commenting on itself.

The film lacks the delirium, ambition and transcendence of Woo's "The Killer" and "Bullet in the Head," but nothing in the way of over-the-top action or audacity. [27 Sep 1992, p.8]

The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values.

Directed with sly grace and quiet elegance by Sally Potter, it is not about a story or a plot, but about a vision of human existence.

Life with Mikey is a good-hearted retread of many other movies about friendship between a hapless adult and a wise child.

Movies like this are machines for involving us and thrilling us. Cliffhanger is a fairly good machine.

After the curtains close on The Long Day Closes, its special light lingers, sending us back to the beginning for another "hearing." Such is the singular intensity of Davies' vision; even the rug has much to say. [30 July 1993, p.40]

Like Water for Chocolate creates its own intense world of passion and romance, and adds a little comedy and a lot of quail, garlic, honey, chiles, mole, cilantro, rose petals and corn meal.

Super Mario Bros. is not without its charms. Chief among them is its army of giant, overcoat-draped Goombas: cheerfully stupid creatures with tiny reptile heads - and a soft spot for schmaltzy waltzes. And any chance to see Hopper get down with his bad reptilian self is not one to dismiss out of hand. He has a fine time with his dino-furrowed hair, flashing an exceptionally long forked tongue and instructing the pizza delivery man to hold the worms...But otherwise, King Koopa seems bored. [31 May 1993, p.21]

This isn't a great movie, but it sure is a nice one.

As well-directed a film as you'll see from America this year, an unsentimental and yet completely involving story of a young man who cannot see a way around his fate.

The film's edgy, high-density atmosphere and seductive dance tracks can't cover up its flimsy handling of the murder plot, character twists that twist in the wind and other fallout from a troubled production. [24 May 1993, p.21]

Movies like this are more or less impervious to the depredations of movie critics. Either you laugh, or you don't. I laughed.

One of the best qualities of Map of the Human Heart was that I never quite knew where it was going. It is a love story, a war story, a lifetime story, but it manages to traverse all of that familiar terrain without doing the anticipated.

This is an overdirected, overphotographed, overdone movie that is so distracted by its hectic, relentless style that the story line is rendered almost incoherent.

Ivan Reitman's direction and Gary Ross' screenplay use intelligence and warmhearted sentiment to make Dave into wonderful lighthearted entertainment.

You cannot do in real life most of the things the characters in these movies do, because of the unfortunate restrictions imposed by Newton's Laws, but what the heck: It's fun to watch.

Bound by Honor contains some effective performances, some moments of deeply felt truth, and a portrait of prison life that I assume is accurate. What seems to be missing is a clear idea of why the movie was made, and what the director, Taylor Hackford, wanted to say with it.

This is a film which could gag on its own self-congratulating premise if it weren't for the sprightly tone and basic likability of Sam and Ellen. Together, they make the apartment magic. [30 Apr 1993, p.47]

Now this is a terrific premise for a thriller, and director George Romero (The Night of the Living Dead) sets it up with skill and style. Unfortunately, the film's biggest disappointment is that it doesn't develop its preternatural opening theme.

Benny and Joon is a film that approaches its subjects so gingerly it almost seems afraid to touch them. The story wants to be about love, but is also about madness, and somehow it weaves the two together with a charm that would probably not be quite so easy in real life.

Curiously enough, the movie isn't really about what happens. It's about how it feels. This is a story more interested in tone and mood than in big plot points.

Forget the title: The only time Boiling Point generates any heat is when treasury agent Jimmy Mercer (Wesley Snipes) torches his unending supply of little cigars. [19 Apr 1993, p.21]

The movie is successful largely because [DiCaprio] is a good enough actor to hold his own in his scenes with De Niro, so that the movie remains his story, and isn't upstaged by the loathsome but colorful Dwight.

The movie is ingenious in the way it surrounds its essentially crass subject matter with a camouflage of romantic scenery.

These days too many children's movies are infected by the virus of Winning, as if kids are nothing more than underage pro athletes, and the values of Vince Lombardi prevail: It's not how you play the game, but whether you win or lose. This is a movie that breaks with that tradition, that allows its kids to be kids, that shows them in the insular world of imagination and dreaming that children create entirely apart from adult domains and values.

In a world already corrupted with Amy and Joey, and Woody Allen and Soon Yi, the last thing we need is a movie like "The Crush" masquerading as entertainment. [6 Apr 1993, p.29]

The whole point of a Turtles movie is superhero power through ninja fighting. And no matter how it is dressed up, or what century it's set in, that's all there is inside the shell. [22 Mar 1993, p.24]

If I didn't feel the same degree of involvement with Point of No Return that I did with "La Femme Nikita," it may be because the two movies are so similar in plot, look and feel. I had deja vu all through the movie.

If this is messy filmmaking, it's vibrant and winningly acted. Johnson reveals genuine star quality in her her film debut. It's to her credit that Chantel's up side lingers in the memory well beyond her down side - and that Just Another Girl is not just another movie. [06 Apr 1993, p.30]

CB4 is a profoundly confused movie, combining rap music with a satire of the world of rap. Working both sides of the street, it gets caught in traffic. The film stars Chris Rock and Phil Hartman from Saturday Night Live, but it doesn't have SNL's smarts -- and worse, it doesn't have any sense of what's funny. On a structural level, it's incompetently written and directed.

The scenes inside the craft are really very good. They convincingly depict a reality I haven't seen in the movies before, and for once I did believe that I was seeing something truly alien, and not just a set decorator's daydreams. Science-fiction and special effects fans may find these scenes worth the ticket price. But the movie's flaw is that there's not enough detail about the aliens, and the movie ends on an inconclusive and frustrating note.

Mad Dog and Glory is one of the few recent movies where it helps to pay close attention. Some of the best moments come quietly and subtly, in a nuance of dialogue or a choice of timing. The movie is very funny, but it's not broad humor, it's humor born of personality quirks and the style of the performances.