It's hard to knock The Cutting Edge without feeling like a grouch. It aims to be nothing more than an old-fashioned love story with plenty of banter between its two leads and a straightforward plot about Olympic ice skating. The actors work hard...But the script rings false from the get-go; the dialogue is straight from the school of clever quips and snappy comebacks, and the romantic plotline has been done so many times before, it's beyond cliched. It's too flimsy to carry a whole movie. [27 March 1992, p.G13]

I'd have thought you'd get more for $3 million. The dialogue here is among the worst in modern big-budget memory; even the cliches are lame. [20 Mar 1992, p.G5]

Burnett is probably the most interesting here, but not by much. John Ritter is fun, Marilu Henner is sexy enough to hold her own even while Nicollette Sheridan, who is lovely, colts about the stage in lingerie. Julie Hagerty, as a steadily more nervous stage manager, is the scariest and funniest; Denholm Elliott, the barely reformed boozer who chases every bottle that turns up backstage (and many, many do), is a hoot...The whole thing vibrates with its dark possibilities: Utter humiliation awaits at every turn. Bogdanovich's movie doesn't move at the speed of the live performances of Noises Off that I have seen -- I'm not sure it could, without sacrificing comprehension. But it moves fast enough. If you can't laugh at Noises Off, you're just not mean enough. [21 March 1992, p.E1]

My Cousin Vinny is not without its flaws: The movie is overlong, the middle section sags, and there are a couple of running gags that simply aren't very funny. And while the film's courtroom climax is preposterous, the last half hour is definitely worth sticking around for: Pesci makes it a hoot. [13 Mar 1992, p.8]

Does King's tale play a part in the film at all? Kind of; half of it is there, but they've left out the really scary images from the story. The only thing The Lawnmower Man accomplishes is to remind you how boring it is to watch someone else play a video game. If they ever start marketing this virtual reality stuff, however, someone's going to get very rich. [9 Mar 1992, p.C4]

Take away Once Upon a Crime's star-studded cast and sunny Monte Carlo vistas and what you have left is a dachshund in a green plaid vest. An apt image: The movie is a real dog. [12 March 1992, p.F5]

For all its sweat and muscle, Gladiator packs a weak punch. [6 March 1992, p.G5]

The special effects used to illustrate these drawbacks are remarkable, but the movie around them isn't. There's precious little chemistry between Chase and Hannah, there's not much real menace in the over-the-top performance by Sam Neill as a CIA assassin, and there's nothing but a skin-deep gloss to Carpenter's direction. [03 March 1992, p.E4]

Medicine Man is an adventure story with a message: We must save the Amazon rain forest. It's certainly a noble cause, filmmakers forgot to make their movie any fun. [08 Feb 1992, p.E6]

Final Analysis is a big, brooding film about desire, betrayal and psychosis that seems to have Alfred Hitchcock's fingerprints all over it. It has all the ingredients of a great thriller: a bizarre love triangle, murder, gunplay on a stormy cliff. But Hitchcock isn't in the director's chair. Phil Joanou (who made the arty State of Grace ) is, and his movie winds up as just another clumsy mystery. [13 Feb 1992, p.F1]

Mississippi is full of good will, but it's not preachy, and its story of romance in an ethnic broth is fascinating when it's working right. [14 Feb 1992, p.5G]

Fried Green Tomatoes doesn't mean to be schizophrenic, really; it's a story within a story, and both are well-developed and wonderfully cast. It's just that the past is so much more captivating than the present that it makes you wish the memory movie could stand alone. [14 Jan 1992, p.C1]

Juice has a mind, a mood and a method of its own. And what it does wrong is overshadowed by a cast and a pace that make you sit up and take notice. [17 Jan 1992, p.G5]

The movie is long and sad, but it also seems small. You get the feeling that, like the lives of its protagonists, it could have been more. [11 Jan 1992, p.E1]

Freejack is among the most incoherent sci-fi action films we've seen in a while, despite the credentials of producer- screenwriter Ronald Shusett, who brought us Total Recall and Alien. [24 Jan 1992, p.G5]

Like all bad thrillers, and some very good ones, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle doesn't always make a whole lot of sense and seems to depend overmuch on coincidence, happenstance and shameless contrivance. But that doesn't matter. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle will scare the wits out of you anyway. Pick it apart later, when you're home safe and sound. You won't have the chance while the show's on. [10 Jan 1992, p.G5]

This is a story about the banality of evil, and it succeeds all too well -- these people are ordinary, and that's what makes them scary. Guncrazy is, finally, a romance, but not before it's tough as nails and terribly knowing. You won't forget it soon. [13 Feb 1993, p.E5]

Daughters of the Dust is as concerned with grand and universal emotions as it is with its "story." Daughters is an enlightening and sublimely lyrical film. [27 June 1992, p.E5]

Ihave it on good authority that Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides is a wonderful book. People rave about it. But Barbra Streisand's lumbering, tearjerker adaptation gives little hint of that. This movie is long and full of pain, and it's driven by the most syrupy musical score I can recall. [25 Dec 1991, p.1]

JFK is staggering in its power. [20 Dec 1991, p.5]

If the idea was merely to make a high-gloss entertainment about the last days of mob glamour, Bugsy succeeds. But it leaves one final question unanswered: So what? [20 Dec 1991, p.G5]

The Last Boy Scout is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hollywood. The problem is the script, which is awful. [13 Dec 1991, p.G5]

Jarmusch is interesting, and funny, even when he's falling flat. And the real unifying agent here, Tom Waits' determinedly bouncy sound track, is full of perverse whimsy; it works a kind of magic on the film. It's a good thing. Night on Earth much needs the magic. [08 May 1992, p.G5]

Hook is shot through with Big Theme, and it's splashy- looking and big of heart, as you'd figure a Steven Spielberg take on Peter Pan would be. But it's not the mega-movie that combination seemed likely to inspire, either. It isn't magic. [11 Dec. 1991, p.D1]

The Undiscovered Country looks and feels more like a movie and less like a TV-family reunion. Still, the allegory is labored to say the least. [6 Dec. 1991, p.G5]

My Girl, nominally a story about a gently wacky family but actually a no-holds-barred assault on the tear ducts, is one of those movies you want to hate -- but I don't think it's possible. [27 Nov 1991, p.D1]

Beauty and the Beast is so funny, exciting and suspenseful that its obvious moral (appearance can mean nothing; it's what's inside that counts) is engaging rather than perfunctory. [22 Nov 1991, p.G11]

Uncle Fester, missing for 25 years, has mysteriously returned -- isn't enough to drive the picture. It's all one note, really. Lovely note. But just the one. [22 Nov 1991, p.G10]