Tarantino's palpable enthusiasm, his unapologietic passion for what he's created, reinvigorates this venerable plot and, mayhem aside, makes it involving for longer than you might suspect. [27 Oct 1992]

For Liar Liar is marking time through the duller moments of exposition, wishing the film was as sharp overall as Carrey is himself.

The skill involved holds us in our seats, the project's inability to transcend its built-in limitations keep it from achieving the kind of overarching impact it is after.

Sails along on a slipstream of pleasant scenery, amusing incident and the boundless charms of its appealing leading men, Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan: It's an unexpectedly buoyant spectacular.

Overmatched by the strange and compelling true story that is its subject, this unfortunate film ends up both more disingenuous than it wants to admit and more awkward than it can easily acknowledge.

It's not the kind of work that wins awards, but without Cruise's intensity almost willing our interest in Spielberg's unrelentingly dark world, Minority Report wouldn't have nearly as much life as it does.

Taken on the level of spectacle rather than of sense, The Last Samurai affords the sort of fizzy enjoyment that can come with epic movie endeavors, including a meticulously detailed world unlike our own, an excellent supporting cast and some pulse-pounding fights.

Fleder has directed three-quarters of a terrific movie and one-quarter of pure Hollywood baloney. After carefully building up the suspense and tension through Cross and McTiernan's search, spiked with nail-biting encounters on both coasts, Fleder lets it trail off in anti-climax and banal violence.

Noticeable skill has gone into the making of Seven, but it's hard to take much pleasure in that.

Though it is difficult to take Unfaithful as seriously as it takes itself, on its own terms it's quite well done.

Has the right mix of sugar and spice for a satisfying rush.

A deeply personal film that is also a mature, assured work rich in telling details and shot through with humor to offset its serious concerns.

Moore's concern about issues is genuine, and his showboating technique is often entertaining. But he is not the most organized person in the world, and there is a scattershot randomness about this film that is both its essence and a source of frustration.

Real enough around the edges to hold our attention even if it sacrifices accuracy for storytelling ease.

The disconnect between what men say and what they do makes Old School funnier than most of its gags and it also invests the movie with curious pathos.

Has noticeable problems with characterization and dialogue. But once that awesome storm, one of the most terrifying ever put on film, gets cranked up, it's hard to remember what those difficulties were, let alone care too much about them.

More creepy and flesh-crawling than overwhelmingly gory, it nevertheless takes pride in characters who get splattered with blood as often as take-out fries get doused with catsup.

Under Tierney's admirably low-key, unexploitative direction all his actors are memorable and never seem to be acting. Twist is decidedly dark but consistently engaging.

Egoyan's oblique, layered attack ultimately pays off, evoking a strong emotional connection between past and present, the historical and the personal, in a flowing, cinematic manner in collaboration with his frequent cameraman, Paul Sarossy. The film makes use of an intoxicating array of Armenian music.

Beautifully put together, sensitively acted by Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, directed by Mike Figgis with assurance and style and making exceptional use of its musical score, this doomed romance is finally not as satisfying as all of that would have you believe.

Moreau is this film's irreplaceable epicenter. With her radiant smile and unquenchable spirit, she carries this film on her shoulders, and makes it all look, well, easy.

Strangely entertaining.

A fascinating hybrid. A Hollywood fantasy at its most fantastic, the film is equal parts true innocence and shameless calculation. Deciding whether the glass is half empty or half full depends on which part you are willing to embrace.

There's a certain pleasure in seeing a thriller that's almost a relic of a bygone era. There's nothing flashy about Blood Work, no in-your-face nihilism, no hot young actors you'd know from the WB network if you ever watched it.

A stunningly beautiful object offered in tribute to a holy man, a gorgeous film that is nevertheless burdened by the defects of its virtues. Careful and respectful, it is everything a movie about the Dalai Lama should be except dramatically involving.

It's not just that we've been there before but also that Steven Spielberg and his associates simply haven't been able to imagine as many flat-out scary moments this time around.

It's weird, wacky territory you enter in The Price of Milk, and we don't just mean New Zealand.

One of the ironies of Casino is that even though Scorsese is interested in the story's wider implications, he focuses so much energy on that unsavory romantic triangle that he and the film lose sight of the larger issues.

Smart and sassy high school movie that's fun for all ages.

Not quite stunning enough to live up to a boldly bleak and unrelenting buildup.

Affecting and sincere in the best sense, which makes up for the whiff of anachronism and the creakiness of some of the big metaphoric moments.

Frustrating as I ultimately found it, Primer is undeniably geek heaven. For everyone else, it's a nice antidote to big-budget bogusness.

The movie's pace is appropriate to its mood, which is crisp, melancholy and gently cruel.

Inspired by actual events, Saints and Soldiers benefits by being a small-scale war movie.

A sleek Hollywood crowd-pleaser, more movie than art film, but its makers have wisely stuck not only to the spirit but often even to the letter of the original.

Director CB Harding captures the relaxed rhythms of the comedians while keeping the film well paced.

There's a naturalness to the entire cast, yet there is considerable depth to the portrayals, and the interplay between the characters is exceptionally rich and nuanced.

There's delight to be had from watching Burton conjure up one fantastical Edward-inspired scenario after another.

The movie love can make it hard to hear the human pulse beneath the noise (it's there, if faint), much less see if there's anything new going on.

The heart of the movie, however, is the dancing, which is as spontaneous as it is spectacular, incorporating considerable gymnastics.

If, as the Virgil quote that starts the film claims, fortune favors the bold, Alexander has not been nearly bold enough.

On the whole, this lively, bittersweet Columbia release works well and is sure to connect strongly with fans of Sandler at his most free-wheeling and uninhibited. Scrub off the latrine humor, and underneath there's a heart-tugging sentimental tale of uplift and redemption.

A highly entertaining movie assured of its genre-jumping potential.

In its spirit and execution, Baadasssss! lives up to its forebear.

At its best at its most absurd.

Sufficiently original and engaging to be called merely "Havana Nights" but will no doubt get a boost by the reference to the popular 1987 "Dirty Dancing."

An enjoyable if somewhat neutered defender of the free world. Make no mistake: Hellboy still has a hide as hard-boiled as Lee Marvin in "The Dirty Dozen," but now he's also wearing a smile.

The movie is undeniably weird, though it's hardly what you'd call "experimental." My hunch is that whether you love it or reject it as obtuse, incoherent or self-involved will be a generational thing.

He (director Mark Waters) keeps the story light and bright, and he brings out real comic performances from his cast, including newcomer Seyfried, who plays her ditz with Judy Holliday charm.

A virtual replay of the original "Home Alone." It's darker, meaner, sillier, more scatological, and, in rare moments, funnier.

It's hard not to wish this film were more of a piece and less like loud music at the wrong party.

Ray may be too by the numbers, but with Jamie Foxx out front, this is one film that knows how to make it all add up.

It's a grisly but sweet ode to friendship, love and the George Romero zombie trilogy.

With killing as an end in itself, combatants lose sight of what they were supposed to be taking up arms for in the first place. It's a terrible lesson, and one that Tae Guk Gi teaches with unexpected confidence.

Mackenzie has greatly tempered the story's brutality the old-fashioned way: He puts an appealing, sympathetic star at the center and surrounds him with beautiful visuals, with a darkly contrasting color palette of bruising black and blue.

Isn't in league with the Nicholas Ray classic ("Rebel Without a Cause"), but in its ferocious energy and lead performances it's many cuts above most big-screen soap operas.

An expertly made suspense thriller based on an actual incident, but on a visceral level it's about as much fun as watching someone pull the wings off a butterfly.

The film's septuagenarian director deserves his share of the credit for bringing this human story to the screen with engaging B-movie modesty and no small measure of chops.

That Cho and Penn are such likable actors and are so funny in their roles earns the movie more slack than it probably deserves and prevents it from being just another gross-out comedy.

For those who do enjoy being smacked around by the ocean, for those who thrill to the romance and hype of extreme surfing and dig the outsider aspect of this rarefied culture or at least its marketed cool, this film will likely be their ticket to ride a board by proxy.

It's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish -- You'd have to go back to Joan Crawford in her hungry prime, in films like "Rain" and "The Women," to find another female film star who grabs hold of the screen with such ferocity.

It's most successful when it is being off-center, a state of grace it doesn't quite have the nerve to maintain. [6 July 1994, Calendar, p. F-1]

If the second film never reaches the highs of the first -- we have met the players before and there are no new worlds of wonder -- it nonetheless invests moviegoing with a sense of adventure.

Though being magical is very much its intention, it never manages to cross the threshold that makes that happen in our hearts.

Spider-Man may look like an action comic come to life, but its best feature is its romance comic heart. It's that rare cartoon movie in which the villain is less involving than the love story.

As lovely and heartbreaking as Staunton is to watch, there's something about Leigh's attachment to his politics that leaches some complexity from the experience

One of those relatively rare comedies that's at once puerile, charming and very funny throughout.

The story it tells is such a wrenching one it cannot help but move us, especially when the performance of a lifetime by Don Cheadle is added to the mix.

Might have benefited from a more satirical edge.

Successfully brings to the big screen those no-brainer nerds who have brought laughter to living rooms around the world for nearly four years.

The resulting film does have a makeshift quality to it, with the new footage, old newsreel shots, circa 1974 interviews, film of the fight and the concerts stitched together in a kind of cinematic crazy quilt. But because a classic heavyweight championship fight, especially with these protagonists, epitomizes the drama inherent in sport, When We Were Kings always compels our interest.

The latest in an unending series of bleakly comic, nihilistic neo-noirs to reach the screen, U-Turn's story of a bad day in an Arizona hell invests a lot of skill and style in a trifling tale. So it manages to sporadically amuse even while it's wasting your time.

Moviegoers who can make it past "Denver's" excessive violence--no small thing--and get on this film's off-center wavelength will find a grave noir comedy heavy with romantic regret, a cocky piece of work that flaunts its style and attitude and dares you not to be impressed.

The idea of Bean fitting into this situation, even disastrously, requires more than suspension of disbelief. It requires a full blackout of reasoning. But for the converted, and for people with a low threshold for visual comedy, Bean amounts to a hill of laughs.

In addition to its terrifically bratty performance by the epically bratty Posey, House of Yes contains some of the smarter (and smarter-assed) writing of the year.

As written by Gregory Poirier and produced by Jon Peters, whose credits are mostly of the blockbuster variety, the film is broader and more simplistic than it needs to be, settling more than it should for obvious emotions and situations.

The special effects are effective and aggressive, although one might occasionally confuse a divine vortex with a flushed toilet.

A mildly successful attempt at updating a relic, its appeal depends greatly on an audience's willingness to go along for a familiar ride. [17Nov1995 Pg. F.01]

Working as much like a circus ringmaster as a director, Joel Schumacher has brought several critical qualities to the mix, starting with much more of a pop culture sensibility and a sense of fun than Tim Burton, who directed the first two pictures, and he has a stylish visual sensibility as well.

While it's understandable that it was thought that Tess needed something more, that it couldn't go on merely being clever and fragile, this solution goes too far in the opposite direction. [11Mar1994 Pg. F9]

Russell is unusual among first-time directors in his ability to mold and shape performance. [28 Jul 1994 Pg. F2]

It's sweet and winsome and a little pat, done with just enough feeling to lift it out of its class. [15 Mar 1995, Pg.F5]

From the moment we meet Abby, whimsically soothing her callers, we're turned into lap dogs, ready to follow her -- ready to follow Garofalo -- anywhere.

Juiced to the max and drenched in style, this "Romeo," mad about its image-a-minute visual agenda, is sure to infuriate as much as it delights. But the film can't be bothered to slow down for your reaction, and it never forgets its duty to be alive on the screen. [1 Nov 1996, pg.F1]

Neither flashy nor dishonest, a wizard with restraint, Pearce has a gift for discovering the excitement in honest human behavior, and working from an acute script by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, he's able to dramatize the story's essence without forcing the issue.

For serenely rising above all the foolishness is Chan himself, a performer whose belief in broad and harmless fun gives his films a clear and present connection to the classic silent comedies to go along with its action fixation. For once a film's ad line has a whiff of truth about it: "No Fear. No Stuntman. No Equal." [23 Feb 1996, p.1]

Fortunately, in image and structure Roodt and Harwood go for a steadfast simplicity that builds to a beautiful moment of rekindled faith for the grieving Rev. Kumalo that lifts Cry, the Beloved Country to a climactic moment of redemption.

The Portrait of a Lady may not be up to this high standard, but it is never less than absorbing either.

The point of this film seems to be that wholesomeness is a sign of maturity, and it partially cancels out the performers. Juliet Stevenson breaks through anyway. She has a charged core, like Judy Davis, and she makes you root for her passage to happiness. [8 May 1991, p.6]

But seductive as his surfaces are, Forman's tack doesn't hold for long. His changes have muted a great tale of betrayal by intelligence and he has blunted the malign inevitability of Laclos' story. [17 Nov 1989]

Its stars, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, are on screen virtually all of the time, and they're always worth watching. But the film puts such a premium on tastefulness that it never threatens to become exciting. [23 Nov 1990]

The comic pizazz and bawdy dazzle of this film's vision of gaudy drag performers trekking across the Australian outback certainly has a boisterous, addictive way about it. [10 Aug 1994]

Passion, obsession, mad love, the violent clash of insider and outsider-all these themes, plus the performances, are rich enough to carry us past that wounded climax, if not to carry the movie past the fatal attractions of the big box-office cliche. [18 Sep 1987, p.1]

It's the right format for this scattershot jokefest, which at times resembles a vaudeville act crossed with the kind of goofy bludgeoning antics that sometimes make it into gangsta MTV videos. [26 Apr 1995]

Writer Deborah Dean Davis and director Andy Tennant are fully aware of the absolute predictability of their material and therefore make the getting to an inevitable ending as much fun as possible.

Party Girl has the courage of its own no-braininess.

What Meyers and Shyer have accomplished is to create a pleasant, sentimental domestic comedy out of a family that really has no problems to overcome, not an easy feat.

Nixon is in many ways an impressive, well-crafted piece of work. With name actors in more than 20 parts, it is as intelligently cast as any movie this year, and includes at least one exceptional performance, though not the one you're expecting.