"Ghost" comes on strong -- there's a crash-bang orchestral score, some romantic dialogue by William Goldman and many calendar shots of the savanna by Vilmos Zsigmond -- but it's hardly an epic. Kilmer's Irish accent is a flickering bulb, and Douglas, with his graying, stringy hair and beard, hams it up like a pirate with scurvy. That said, Goldman's screenplay is sharp and often unexpectedly funny. The lions are fabulously smart and evil, always one step ahead of the macho men's intricate plots to gun them down. And the man-against-beast fight scenes are twist-in-your-seat scary. Suffice it to say you haven't lived until you've dropped your rifle and a lion is chasing you up a tree. "Ghost" is no "Jaws," but it's got plenty of teeth. [21 Oct 1996, p.91]

This movie is so unself-consciously wholesome it's almost Gumpian.

The results are wondrous, wrenching and crazily funny to behold.

We're here for catty one-liners, movie-star camaraderie and fur-flying vengeance, and, in spite of a regrettable wimpiness that creeps in toward the end, that's what we get.

No better children's film has appeared all year, but my bet is it'll be the grown-ups, not the kids, who come away with a lump in the throat.

Brando's performance is enormous fun, but it's not just a joke. He's hilarious and gently mesmerizing at once, and director John Frankenheimer savvily adjusts the tone of his movie to fit Brando's daft brilliance...Let's face it -- this is one nutty movie. It's not exactly "good," but I sure had a good time.

The good news about the amiable but only partly satisfying Tin Cup is that it frees Kevin Costner from playing a monument and restores to us the loose, sparkling comic actor he used to be. [19 August 1996, p.66]

Kansas City can be regarded as a jazz tone poem on themes of race, politics, money and the movies themselves.

All the ingredients for a classic doomed-by-overnight-success movie can be found in the trajectory of Jean Michel Basquiat's short, sad life.

The self-deluded, 21-year-old heroine, can be an awful pain, but her meddling misjudgments are redeemed by her wit, grace and budding moral intelligence, and it's Gwyneth Paltrow's triumph that we always keep sight of that potential as she blithely plucks all the wrong heartstrings in town.

In her starched nurse's uniform, shuffling around with a bicycle chain for leg irons, Place would steal the movie if the youngsters weren't so impossibly perfect. [05 Aug 1996, p.73]

Kill is a disappointing movie: slow, overpopulated and muddled in its thinking.

Artfully ambivalent, Danny Boyle's film, twists with a junkie's logic. It does not preach; it wallows in the pain and, more daringly, in the pleasure.

Holofcener has a wonderful breezy touch. She hides life issues in such sweet moments, you barely notice them as they go down.

The dialogue is tacky, the characters stock and the special effects no improvement on anything George Lucas did 20 years ago.

Soft to the point of squishiness, Phenomenon is rescued from terminal bathos by Travolta's radiant conviction.

Directed by Tom Shadyac ("Ace Ventura"), it's nearly sociopathic in its quest for laughs, and busts a very big gut.

Unfortunately, no one seems to have clued Demi in on the joke. Never known for her light touch, she appears to be act-ing (earnestly, humorlessly) in some other movie altogether, a dreary melodrama about a noble mom fighting for her child.

The payoff comes at the end, when the myriad threads pull together with a shock like a noose tightening around your neck. Built with old-fashioned craftsmanship, Lone Star is not a movie you'll quickly forget. [8 July 1996, p.64]

Director Charles ("The Mask") Russell is no James Cameron. He can produce a requisite amount of suspense and mayhem..., but his filmmaking is strictly B-movie generic. [01 Jul 1996 Pg.62]

This fragile, precious chamber piece, co-written with Susan Minot, rarely seems worthy of the high style lavished upon it. [24 Jun 1996 Pg.83]

It can't risk real pathos, or real horror, and still be a Jim Carrey movie, so the most it achieves is a kind of unsettling creepiness. Strange movie: Carrey is working his gifted butt off, and we're not allowed to laugh.

The presence of Connery is pure balm, purring those Celtic tones like smoky single-malt Scotch.

Screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue and director Rob Cohen have reasonably literate fun subverting the knight genre. [10 Jun 1996, p.91]

Holes in the script cause the narrative to burp at times.

The mordant, deadpan humor that streaks through Dead Man is echt Jarmusch, but it's in the service of his most mysterious and deeply felt movie, a meditation on death and transfiguration that, by the end, has thrown off the protective veil of irony. [03 Jun 1996, Pg.75]

Harron sets the stage expertly, but her lack of a point of view ultimately enervates the movie. [6 May 1996, p. 78]

Director Michael Lehmann ("Heathers") nimbly keeps this airy concoction afloat.

A twisted comedy for twisted times, this movie made me happy. Go figure.

The film seems to want us to pin a medal to its own chest.

Dahl himself thought his book would be impossible to translate into film, and for all the ingenuity that's been thrown at the screen, perhaps he was right. This overgrown peach never ripens.

The old pros cavort grandly. Moore even strips down to a black bra and panties, and rolls in bed with her husband (George Segal).

The beauty of Welcome to the Dollhouse is its pokerfaced objectivity, which neither condescends to its pubescent victim nor romantically inflates her plight.

In one of his most impudently engaging movies, Lee's heroine has a lot of sex—on the telephone.

Everyone will be tickled pink by this sleek Mike Nichols remake.

This is a good introduction to the affable Chan persona. The comedy is broad, the inner-city Americana hilariously off-base, and the English dubbing may prove disconcerting to U.S. audiences. But the cheesiness is part of the fun.

Director Harold Becker ("The Onion Field," "Sea of Love") makes "City Hall" absorbing in its evocation of New York fauna and rhythms. The problem is in the screenplay. [19 Feb 1996, p.68]

Robert Rodriguez's second effort is a funny, craftily written piece of low-grade horror crapola.

No simple diatribe against capital punishment, it's a strong film, made stronger by two terrific performances.

Purists will cavil -- or choke -- and not everything works, but this film does more than rough justice to its source -- including McKellen's portrait of a man who tries to redeem his deformed body by deforming his soul. [29 Jan 1996, p.58]

A deep, powerful and rivetingly complex study of Tienanmen - and, ironically, it's far more evenhanded in its account of the massacre that killed more than a thousand protesters than the Chinese government might suspect.

A stunning crime drama that shares its protagonists' rabid attention to detail and love of adrenalin.

Director Joe Johnston ("Honey, I Shrunk the Kids") turns this fantasy into a mean-spirited exercise in terror.

As writer and actress, Thompson has all the right Austen rhythms and filmmaker Ang Lee ("Eat Drink Man Woman") orchestrates with sensitivity and style.

Written with an acute ear by Barbara Turner (Leigh's mother) and directed by Ulu Grosbard, it's a resonant, grittily specific film.

As anthropology, it's fascinating, and everything about the production is first class. But the human drama at the heart of this movie is stillborn.

Once again Disney has come up with a winning animated feature that has something for everyone on the age spectrum.

All this is good fun -- some of which is anticipating the pained reaction from conservative Hollywood-hasslers. Director Rob Reiner has a fine smooth touch, Douglas is charismatic, Bening is scrumptious -- you want to put all these dream politicos in a doggy bag and take them home. [20 Nov 1995, p.28]

Technology has squeezed character to a few measly pixels on the digital screens. Explosions have replaced dramatic climaxes.

Anyone who cares about ravishing filmmaking, superb acting and movies willing to dive into the mystery of unconditional love will leave this dark romance both shaken and invigorated.

Copycat is satisfyingly tense, but the disgusto factor is balanced by its obvious theatricality--neatly captured in the contrasting performaces of Weaver and Hunter, the one playing neurotic standard poodle to the other's tightly wound terrier. [6 Nov 1995, pg.86]

Barry Sonnenfeld's bouncy, immensely likable adaptation.

For about an hour the writing, acting and direction coalesce in a prismatic, hyperkinetic ode to end-of-century doom. And then the two-hours-plus film starts to subside into genre convention. [16 Oct 1995, p.86]

What we want to know is why we should care about any of these stick figures. Eszterhas seems as bored with them as we are. He's just moving his dopey plot along, leaving Friedkin to fill in the gaps with car chases and irrelevant chinoiserie.

A witty movie -- with a fine ear for the undertone of aimless chatter -- that never raises its voice to make hollow Gen-X proclamations.

What stays with you finally is not the mystery's byzantine twists and turns, which are fun but don't resonate very deeply. It's the time, the place, the palpable feel of community. [2 Oct 1995, p.85]

A smart and wicked delight.

A style so chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film.

Thanks to everyone involved, the movie radiates a hundred pleasures.

In Lee's understandable eagerness to let a few rays of hope shine, the polemicist trips up the dramatist--movie conventions replace honest observation. But the passion of this raw, mournful urban epic remains, in spite of the false moves. [25 Sep 1995, p.92]

Unlike Clark's extraordinary books of black-and-white photography, Kids is stunningly anti-erotic, though not untainted by sensationalism. By condensing all this inflammatory material into a 24-hour time frame, Clark and 19-year-old screen-writer Harmony Korine create an overwrought narrative that's sometimes tedious in its relentlesshess.

This one's done right. Here's an intelligent movie with no special effects. You have to pay close attention, to listen hard to its cross-fires of dialogue.

It has a surprising charm.

The women in this smart, highly entertaining comedy don't pack guns, but relations between the sexes are such that a well-placed knee in the groin can come in handy.

A pretty damn good summer movie.

The summer's most compelling movie about teenagers.

An engaging and touching flight of fancy. [17 July 1995, p.60]

Complacently conventional...it threatens to turn an interesting actor into a self-parodying commodity.

By sticking resolutely to the facts of the most amazing rescue mission of all time, the movie builds tremendous suspense, even though most people will know how it came out.

Just about everything in this lavish, animated feature is for the pigtail set, especially a big romance between Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) and the strapping John Smith (Mel Gibson).

The movie does have somewhat more lilt and levity, much of it due to Jim Carrey as the Riddler. But there's still plenty of murk, physical and metaphysical, and more psychobabble about Bruce Wayne's obsessions and repressions.

Congo is basically the old African ooga-mooga movie brought into the P.C., high-tech age.

What Eastwood and Streep have done is to bring a semblance of emotional reality to the story.

Looks like a true epic...even if it is both bloody and bloody long.

But Die Hard WAV lacks the freshness of its two predecessors: we've had it with gassy police psychiatrists and supersmart terrorists.

Ultimately, this is a war of boorishness vs. sensitivity, and the filmmakers waffle.

Every character--not just the kids, but the teachers as well--comes alive with a complexity worthy of Jean Renoir. The lyricism of Wild Reeds doesn't cast a smoke screen of nostalgia, it brings us closer to the experience of adolescence.

The film delivers the warm fuzzies without apology, and you find yourself giving in.

Depp attacks his role with relish, stamping his boot heels and recounting improbable erotic adventures in a wonderful Castilian lisp. Unfortunately, Depp's the only one flying over this cuckoo's nest. [24 Apr 1995, p.64]

A welcome paradox--an intelligent, rousing adventure for grown-up kids. [17 Apr 1995, p.66]

Domestic violence has never been more savagely portrayed on screen.

In the end, this Western is serviceable enough. Herod says if you're born bad, you're bad forever. The Quick was born bad, but it got better. [20 Feb 1995, p.72]

Once the film devolves into teary hospital scenes and courtroom shtik, you might pine for Thelma and Louise's daring road to oblivion. [20 Feb 1995, Pg.72]

Ready to Wear is all appetizers: the main course never arrives. Still, the critical savagery puzzles me. Altman's movie may be indefensible, but it's not unenjoyable. The fun of it is entirely superficial, like skimming a gossip column.

An action-packed love story with something for everyone.

Cobb is a refreshingly spiky antidote to Cataclysm all the Hollywood paeans to the suffering glory of the game. Ty Cobb approached baseball as he approached life: take no prisoners and leave scorched earth behind you. His greatness and his monstrosity can't be untangled. Cobb allows us to honor his achievements, but with no false illusions. It puts the ball in our hands: if this is an American hero, we need to figure out why. [12 Dec 1994, p.72]

Neither hilarious nor horrible, Junior is the first would-be Arnold blockbuster that coasts on charm.

For Trek devotees, it's a supernova of unpredictable sci-fi thrills, though the earthbound may find this trip through the heavens a bit tiresome, especially when the movie tries too hard to wax philosophic. [18 Nov. 1994, p.88]

Branagh's two Shakespeare films have been triumphs-meaty, moving and fun. Bard-less, the director flounders. His Frankenstein gives off the same hollow echo that Dead Again did, the same mixture of stylistic flair and insincerity.

But once the couple clinch their bond -- just when the story gets really shameless -- the life drains out of the movie. Love Affair takes such pains to dodge vulgarity it forgets to put anything in its place.

It's one of the richest movie experiences of the year, a spellbinding American epic that holds you firmly in its grip for nearly three hours.

In spite of the fact that everything turns out exactly as you think it will, director Curtis (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) Hanson's movie, written by Denis O'Neill, is a tense, satisfying entertainment. [30 Sep 1994, p.69]

Quiz Show is supebly shot (by Michael Ballhaus), and the acting ensemble could hardly be better..."Quiz Show is witty enough never to need to get on a soapbox to make its points.

The faces of Noonan and Sillas reflect everything they're feeling. This disquieting duet of high anxiety rests entirely on their shoulders, and they're superb. [12 Sep 1994, p.60]

Though well acted, and handsomely shot by veteran Adam Holender, Fresh sacrifices real emotion for thriller contrivances. It's a tourist's drive through inner-city hell. [05 Sep 1994, p.69]

If Ang Lee sometimes piles on the sugar, he has made a truly sweet movie in a bitter time. It leaves a bracing aftertaste. [22 Aug 1994, p.62]

Stillman remains a deftly funny portrait painter of the young, willfully self-involved Anglo-Saxon male.

Perez, with a whine like a high-speed drill, quickly wears out her welcome, but Fonda and Cage exhibit an endearing lightness. This is a perfect summer souffle. [1 Aug 1994, p.56]