Blessed with clever plot devices and a villainous horde that makes the once-dread Klingons seem like a race of Barneys, First Contact does everything you'd want a "Star Trek" film to do, and it does it with cheerfulness and style.

It's 80 minutes of frantic mugging, of silly pratfalls and clown fights, of ideas lifted from other children's movies, design schemes from Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and characters from Toys R Us, all patched together without an innovative stitch of its own. [22 Nov 1996, p.F6]

Witty, intelligent and quintessentially French, it is an unusually involving costume drama that takes us into a decadent world few will know existed, a place where “vices are without consequence but ridicule can kill.”

Popular filmmaking at its smartest and most persuasive.

Rising to crescendos of emotion usually reached only by tenors and sopranos, these characters are the beneficiaries of the luminous writing of the novel and screenplay as well as the expert performances of the actors, especially Scott Thomas.

Prechezer's cast is ingratiating and attractive, and Blue Juice is as buoyant as its terrific rock score.

Space Jam whimsically teams basketball superstar Michael Jordan and cartoon icon Bugs Bunny in a blend of live-action and animation containing more rowdiness and broad humor than vintage Looney Tunes charm.

Shallow where it would be meaningful, demanding leaps of faith it has not earned, this film's marriage of arresting technique to empty thinking is not unique, only frustrating.

A persuasive thriller for most of its length, it stumbles in its attempt to become an upscale version of "Death Wish" and other vigilante dramas and ends up derailing with a soft thud.

A dense, faithful and absorbing adaptation of the Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel. [08 Nov 1996]

Like the characters it presents, this film ends up with dreams it can’t deliver on, but just having the desire to do something different makes it a project worth paying attention to.

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]

The plot's a lot lighter than Vera, our engaging pachyderm, and Larger Than Life is basically a buddy/road movie--complete with animal comedy and interspecies bonding. For all the traveling, the movie doesn't go many places we haven't seen before. But Murray is careful not to step on Vera's toes. And she shows him the same courtesy. [01 Nov 1996, p.F14]

The laugh lines are mostly crude and the prevalent slapstick is weak and uneventful.

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 problem with Thinner, which went unscreened for critics, is that it's medium-level King. It lacks the gravity of "Shawshank" and the crazed obsession of "Misery." It's more like "Needful Things," another good film of a lightweight story, with a few more servings of gore and gross-out humor to hold us over until the next big thing.

Confident of its emotional effects, Swingers knows how to breathe life into its people, and hooking audiences is its reward.

The film's tone works overtime at mythologizing tawdry incidents into some ultimate epic about the lost innocence of youth. Gilded trash is more like it.

Michael Winterbottom's handsome, uncompromising film. Jude glows with Eccleston's and Winslet's performances and with those in supporting roles.

Director Spike Lee has made angry films, epic films, even sentimental films. But he's not made anything as heartfelt and finally celebratory as Get on the Bus. [16 Oct 1996, p.F1]

The Chamber is like a balloon that all the air has leaked out of. Maybe it wasn't magnificent before, but in its current state it is sad indeed.

This is an extremely cinematic, beautifully made David Lean-type epic, helped by fluid and involving camera work by two-time Oscar-winning ("The Killing Fields," "The Mission") cinematographer Chris Menges.

A tour de force of technical brilliance, with flashes of humor and a wild spirit of adventure signifying that you're not supposed to take it too seriously, but the cumulative impact of its avalanche of mayhem is so numbing that it's enough to shrivel your soul.

Buscemi handles all of this with a casualness that seems exactly right for the milieu. His characters aren't caught up in a great dramatic crisis, they're caught up in everyday life, going over these events like so many speed bumps in time. [18 Oct 1996, p.F12]

"I am epic, hear me roar" is what the lion-centered The Ghost and the Darkness would have you believe. The reality is more like an acceptably loud noise than a true roar, but so few films venture into the old-fashioned world of historical action adventures that even a loud noise is a welcome sound. [11 Oct 1996, p.F16]

On one level, Microcosmos is the strangest act of voyeurism ever recorded, with bugs caught au naturel, eating, working, metamorphosing. We're even treated to a steamy scene of unexpurgated snail sex. When this couple gets together, it redefines intimacy and stick-to-itiveness. On another level, the film is a spectacle and celebration of life, in all its phases. [11 Oct 1996, p.F15]

In short, Bound is admittedly derivative, but it's such an amusing low-down entertainment it really doesn't matter.

Good-humored and just about reeking of innocence, That Thing You Do! is what a character has in mind when he asks for "something happy, peppy, up-tempo." Leaving audiences feeling good is very much, and very successfully, on its mind. [04 Oct 1996, Pg.F1]