The film's confused moral sense is summed up by the contrast between the Aiello and Spader characters. Though both are professional killers, Aiello is somehow coded as "good" because he takes time to make pasta, and Spader is "bad" because he plays mildly kinky games with his mistress (imposing South African model Charlize Theron). [27 Sept 1996, p.43]

Sarah Jessica Parker makes an unflatteringly tense appearances as a nurse who knows more than she's telling, and David Morse dredges up his hulking soulfulness as a maverick FBI agent. But no one involved in "Extreme Measures" is displaying a commitment beyond showing up for work. [27 Sept 1996, p.42]

Does the testosterone fly? Not as fast as the potty jokes. Ditto the homophobe jokes zing! zing!

The performances are all on-target. Shelley Long and Gary Cole reprise the lady and her fellow, with Tim Matheson as the interloper, Christine Taylor as the hair-obsessed Marcia and Jennifer Elise Cox as Jan, the mouth-breather.

The comparison to Woody Allen is obvious, not only in the New York setting and the characters' comic approach-avoidance to sex, but in Burns' casting of his real girlfriend to play his screen girlfriend. Uh, Eddie big mistake there. [23 Aug 1996, p.41]

This movie is not just bad, it is breathtakingly, spectacularly, awesomely bad. You might want to see it out of curiosity. [23 Aug 1996, p.40]

It’s hard not to like these characters, or to come away without a little more sympathy for the nonlinear ways teenage girls can react to a world that often makes no sense and offers no apologies.

Jazz is a good metaphor for Robert Altman's movies they're often improvisational, free-form and full of unexpected dissonance. Unfortunately, his movies also fall prey to the hazards of jazz they can be boring, screechy and endless. Thus, Kansas City. [16 Aug 1996, p.49]

Chain Reaction never develops a sense of mounting energy. The action sequences are thinly conceived and too spread out by dramatic filler (mainly involving the crises of conscience of Morgan Freeman, as the project's enigmatic chief fund-raiser) to create much momentum. [2 Aug 1996, p.45]

A finely performed, breezily directed, very funny comedy. [17 July 1996, p.33]

Based on the comic strip created in 1936 by Lee Falk, The Phantom is a handsomely produced, numbingly impersonal adventure film that fails to do anything new with the format. [7 June 1996, p.49]

The movie comes alive in bursts such as a train-top fight hampered by gale-force winds. Cruise's star wattage may hog the show, but it insures that Mission: Impossible won't self-destruct easily.

With its sense of what can be accomplished on a small budget, The Craft suggests the classic B-horrors of the '40s particularly The Cat People and The Seventh Victim.

Nolte does his standard lovable-lug routine with his usual ease and assurance, though a more daring producer might have allowed Madsen, stranded again in a second-banana role, to step up to the lead. This crafty, insinuating actor has been ready for his closeup for a while now. Can't somebody make him a star? [26 Apr 1996, p.47]

In a movie theater, at least, there are other people to hear you laugh, and the film of MST3K already seems a more communal, less onanistic experience.

Combining the sports obsessiveness of "SNL's" venerable "Da Bears" routine with the buddy bonding of Wayne and Garth, Mike and Jimmy might make great sketch material. But as the central characters in a feature film, they wear thin quicker than a cheap suit. [19 Apr 1996, p.65]

The Substitute is just engaging enough that you won't wonder until after the movie why Mr. Smith is apparently the only teacher in the entire school. [19 Apr 1996, p.65]

A handsome, entertaining though emotionally thin animated feature.

Experimental in form, it's also open and appealing in its vision of romantic redemption, an avant-garde romp that's also a great date movie. [8 Mar 1996, p.40]

Schaeffer thickens the general air of narcissism by directing Parker's Lucy essentially as a female version of himself, with the same puckish sense of humor and undertone of self-pity. Stiller's Bwick is an entertaining invention, an art-world variation on The-Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince though he, too, turns out to be mainly a foil to Joe's wonderfulness. Clearly, Eric Schaeffer has at least one really big fan. [8 March 1996, p.40]

City Hall can't decide whether to be melodrama or sociology. In the end, it isn't enough of either. [16 Feb 1996, p.49]

ALTHOUGH IT DOES HAVE a plot of sorts, Black Sheep isn't really a movie it's more like a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches highlighting Chris Farley's fumbling fatboy shtick. [2 Feb 1996, p.36]

Ken Kwapis' Dunston Checks In contains not a single surprising moment. But it is well crafted enough to squeak by. Kids should get a few laughs from it. Accompanying adults will be only moderately bored. [12 Jan 1996, p.33]

No amount of computerized razzle-dazzle can make this insipid sequel worth logging on to. [13 Jan 1996, p.21]

Directed by John Schlesinger, Eye for an Eye is a repellent, cynical piece of work a movie that exploits violence while pretending to deplore it. [12 Jan 1996, p.33]

Though the slow, obvious "Two If By Sea" probably won't do much to advance Bullock's standing as America's current sweetheart, it shouldn't do irreparable damage to it, either. [13 Jan 1996, p.21]

This movie is not as intricately rewarding as Zhang's others. But because it is so Westernized, it could do even better at the box office. [21 Dec 1995, p.60]

The cinematic equivalent of comfort food it soothed when you were younger and, in its familiarity, it soothes again.