This is Spielberg's weakest film since "1941."

Nothing Cruise has done will prepare you for what he does in Born on the Fourth of July. His performance is so good that the movie lives through it. Stone is able to make his statement with Cruise's face and voice and doesn't need to put everything into the dialogue.

Beresford is able to move us, one small step at a time, into the hearts of his characters. He never steps wrong on his way to a luminous final scene in which we are invited to regard one of the most privileged mysteries of life, the moment when two people allow each other to see inside.

De Niro and Penn are both essentially serious dramatic actors, and maybe the reality of the location gave them such a solid grounding that they felt they had permission for the necessary goofiness.

The Wizard is finally just a cynical exploitation film with a lot of commercial plugs in it, and it is so insanely overwritten and ineptly directed that it will disappoint just about everybody and serve them right for going in the first place.

Family Business tries to play it down the middle, when it probably should have jumped in one direction or the other, toward a pure caper or toward a family drama.

Although Newman is a delight, the best surprise in the movie is the performance of a new actress named Lolita Davidovich, who plays Blaze Starr. She has a comfortableness in the role that is just right.

Barr could have made an easy, predictable and dumb comedy at any point in the last couple of years. Instead, she took her chances with an ambitious project - a real movie. It pays off, in that Barr demonstrates that there is a core of reality inside her TV persona, a core of identifiable human feelings like jealousy and pride, and they provide a sound foundation for her comic acting.

The movie treads a dangerous line. There are times when its ferocity threatens to break through the boundaries of comedy - to become so unremitting we find we cannot laugh.

The movie is curious in how close it comes to delivering on its material: Sequence after sequence seems to contain all the necessary material, to be well on the way toward a payoff, and then it somehow doesn't work.

I should have brought a big yellow legal pad to the screening, so I could take detailed notes just to keep the time-lines straight. And yet the movie is fun, mostly because it's so screwy.

The principal pleasure of the movie is in the ensemble work of the actresses, as they trade one-liners and zingers and stick together and dish the dirt. Steel Magnolias is willing to sacrifice its over-all impact for individual moments of humor, and while that leaves us without much to take home, you've got to hand it to them: The moments work.

The Frears version is cerebral and claustrophobic, an exercise in sexual mindplay.

People may go to see Eddie Murphy once, twice, three or even six times in disposable movies like Harlem Nights, but if he wants to realize his potential he needs to work with a better writer and director than himself.

There is a lot of individualism in this movie, both in the filmmaking and in the characters.

There is a deep embedding of comedy, nostalgia, shabby sadness and visual beauty.

Walt Disney's The Little Mermaid is a jolly and inventive animated fantasy - a movie that's so creative and so much fun it deserves comparison with the best Disney work of the past.

My Left Foot is a great film for many reasons, but the most important is that it gives us such a complete picture of this man's life. It is not an inspirational movie, although it inspires. It is not a sympathetic movie, although it inspires sympathy. It is the story of a stubborn, difficult, blessed and gifted man who was dealt a bad hand, who played it brilliantly, and who left us some good books, some good paintings and the example of his courage.

There is not a single scene in this movie that I found amusing, original or interesting. What we really have here is a documentary of the actors wasting their lives.

Dad is a case of a movie with too much enthusiasm for its own good. If the filmmakers had only been willing to dial down a little, they would have had the materials for an emotionally moving story, instead of one that generates incredulity.

What works best in the film is the over-all vision. Branagh is able to see himself as a king, and so we can see him as one.

This is not a cute fantasy in which bears ride tricycles and play house. It is about life in the wild, and it does an impressive job of seeming to show wild bears in their natural habitat.

The movie labors under an enormous handicap: A much better, more intelligent and more exciting film has already been made about this same subject.

In the world of this film, conventional piety is overturned and we see into the soul of a human monster.

Look Who's Talking is full of good feeling, and director Amy Heckerling finds a light touch for her lightweight material.

There is a scene in The Fabulous Baker Boys where Michelle Pfeiffer, wearing a slinky red dress, uncurls on top of a piano while singing "Makin' Whoopee." The rest of the movie is also worth the price of admission.

Drugstore Cowboy is one of the best films in the long tradition of American outlaw road movies - a tradition that includes "Bonnie and Clyde," "Easy Rider," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Badlands."

An Innocent Man has all the elements to put us through an emotional wringer, but the movie never works up any enthusiasm for them. It's the most relaxed crime movie of the year.