But here's the problem: Bruce Campbell's character is a complete stiff, and so is everyone else he meets who isn't a special effect. The result is that we couldn't care less who wins any battle in the movie no matter how inventively photographed. What about a love interest? Embeth Davidtz, as the lady who's waiting, doesn't have a sexy scene in the movie. [19 Feb 1993, p.C]

Tony Bill directs a fresh and only occasionally too purple script by Tom Sierchio. [12 Feb 1993, p.C]

A hit and mostly miss parody. [5 Feb 1993, p.C]

Shifting her "Silence of the Lambs" accent a bit westward, the always-reliable Foster is given little to do except react and smile enigmatically, while the always-wooden Gere is all grins and charm, coming across less as a shadowy protagonist than a State Farm agent. [05 Feb 1993, p.B]

The result is a strong, amoral action film. [29 Jan 1993, p.C]

The whole movie seems designed to point out that there are far better things in life than being a ski instructor in Aspen, Colo.

"Damage" is a fruit bowl reduced to a raisin. [22 Jan 1993, p.B]

It's not closed text, but a work of art that needles and disturbs. [14 May 1993, p.H2]

Alive represents one of Hollywood's increasingly rare attempts to create a religious drama, but that novelty aside, the film is stiff, overlong and frequently risible. [15 Jan 1993, p.F]

The inconsistencies of Nowhere to Run make it finally unsatisfying, but the film leaves little doubt that Robert Harmon is a major talent, though one still waiting for a project equal to his abilities.

Miller's finely crafted, highly moving new film, seems meant as a new beginning, grounded in an entirely different kind of material and told in an entirely different manner than anything Miller has attempted before.

The film is finally impersonal, almost anonymous; it's a chilly, lumbering project that carries little of the mark of lived experience. [25 Dec 1992]

One of the few remaining Hollywood filmmakers who can function at this level of pure cinema, Hill delivers here with a renewed force and assurance. After a string of tired films (including the exhausted "Another 48 HRS."), Hill seems revitalized. [25 Dec 1992, p.C]

One of the most mawkish films ever made.

Works because it's able to draw so many side issues into its central conflict, spreading its concerns culture-wide. [11 Dec 1992]

A talky, plodding film that seems likely to bore children and adults in equal measure. [11 Dec 1992, p.B2]

It has a few good laughs in it thanks to Murphy, but mainly depends for its appeal on an uncomfortable manipulation of racial stereotypes. [04 Dec 1992]

A crackling good movie. [18 Dec 1992]

The steady Costner gives a competent enough performance this time out as he dances with foxes, or at least one, while Grammy winner Houston is quite impressive in her feature debut, displaying both hot and cool emotion as well as performing six new songs...Unfortunately, she is assigned to handle lines like, "You're a hard one to figure out, Frank Farmer," and "I've never felt this safe before." Unfortunately, too, the romance gets in the way of the thriller, and when the two principals finally take to their bed, so does the movie. [25 Nov 1992, p.C2]

Although the film in no way measures up to the features made under Disney's personal supervision, it does contain some far more imaginative and adept animation than the last several post-Walt titles.

For Keitel, this is the Scorsese film that Scorsese never gave him, in which he gets to elbow Robert De Niro away from center stage and take the best part for himself. He seizes the opportunity: Bad Lieutenant immediately becomes one of the defining roles of his career. [22 Jan 1993, Friday, p.C]

The new film does little but repeat the gags and situations of the first movie, with a slight change of venue. [20 Nov 1992, p.A]

Coppola has raised the stakes, promising the definitive version of the vampire story. What he has created, however, is fresh and original yet boring, an exercise more in art direction than storytelling. [13 Nov 1992, p. C]

With most of the action confined to the body of the plane (though there is a brief stopover at a Louisiana airfield), the screenplay poses some significant challenges in staging, none of which Hooks seems to recognize or accept. [06 Nov 1992, p.B]

It's to Robinson's personal credit - though probably to the film's commercial debit - that he doesn't emphasize the exploitation elements of the story. By current standards, the violence is relatively sparse and discreet, though there does come a moment when the blind and vulnerable Thurman - or at least, her body double - must strip down and stretch out in a bathtub as a mysterious figure hops around, silently (!) taking flash pictures. [6 Nov 1992, p.C]

While Intervista will appeal mostly to the dedicated cineaste who can appreciate its many inside jokes, Fellini displays such a ravishing range of technique and assurance that even more casual moviegoers must view this film with awe. [26 Mar 1993, p.J]

Erotically charged American films invariably are spiked with criminal danger. So "The Lover" - a movie about a young French girl's sexual awakening in colonial Vietnam that relies entirely on cinematic effects to evoke the sensuality of its time, place and events - is refreshing evidence that we don't need fear to trigger arousal.

Robert De Niro's characterization is too jokey, a knockoff of his Rupert Pupkin ("The King of Comedy"), and Irwin Winkler's direction is earnest but lethargic. Jessica Lange does better as a barmaid who wants her own saloon. [23 Oct 1992, p.CN]