Richard Donner's sequel is more than eager to please -- it's desperate.

Armageddon is as irresistible as it's indefensible.

Dr. Dolittle is a zoo-and a blast. [6 July 1998, p. 67]

Lucky for us there are no ordinary circumstances in this smart, tasty adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel and it gets quirkier, funnier and sexier as it goes.

It's the characterization of Mulan, both in voice and visuals, that makes the film a keeper.

The only thing you can count on in this exhilarating movie is that nothing is what it seems. Even the borough of Queens looks beautiful.

A miraculous movie. It will rattle both your head and heart

All the surprises strenuously cooked up by screenwriter Patrick Smith Kelly and director Andrew ("The Fugitive") Davis can't overcome the movie's inability to make us care about any of its paper-thin characters.

[Stillman] has a keen sense of group dynamics and a fine comic ear.

A dizzying mixture of the sophisticated and the naive, the deft and the clumsy, Bulworth is overstuffed, excessive, erratic -- and essential.

It's punishingly dull for fully half of its two hours and 45 minutes.

Flaws and all, this may be Spike's most purely enjoyable movie, and his best looking

Hugo's themes may be timeless, but in this version the viewer is all too aware of the passing time. [04 May 1998, p.81]

His smart, raunchy movie offers no answers (how could it?), but it poses its questions with painfully hilarious honesty.

In trying to appeal to a wide audience, quirky material has been forced to fit a formula that can't really contain it.

Only near the end does the mix of melodrama, mush and message get out of hand.

I expected to laugh; I didn't expect to be moved.

Frothing from two mouths, they parody film noir, megaviolent thrillers, sports allegories, ravaged-war-veteran movies, existentialist Westerns, even Busby Berkeley musicals.

The first-time writer-director, Englishman Richard Kwietniowski, has adapted Gilbert Adair's novel with wit, economy and a delicate understanding that the funniest comedies are played with dead seriousness.

Proyas floods the screen with cinematic and literary references ranging from Murnau and Lang to Kafka and Orwell, creating a unique yet utterly convincing world.

With the talent involved in Sphere -- director Barry Levinson, novelist Michael Crichton and actors Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson and Sharon Stone--how could it fail? Somehow, it does.

Great Expectations has great style; that's not everything we want from the movies, but sometimes it's almost enough. [2 February 1998, p. 61]

Wong Kar-Wai's cinematic style is unmistakable: hip, colorful and energetic and the film's frenetic pacing and exuberant camera work make the streets of Hong Kong a neon wonderland.

What holds the movie together is the fiercely self-contained commitment of Day-Lewis's performance and the palpable chemistry between him and Watson.

It has a lovely score by Thomas Newman, stunning production design, striking costumes and gorgeous cinematography. Unfortunately, it just doesn't jell.

As a character study, the film is sensitive and precise, but the weak plot often flounders. Ultimately, Rudolph is a master at conveying mood, and gives Afterglow a melancholy feel that wisely never gives in to total despair.

Filled with funny, gritty Tarantino lowlife gab and a respectable body count, but what is most striking is the film's gallantry and sweetness. Tarantino hits some new and touching notes with Grier and Forster.

It's a deliciously outrageous premise, and director Barry Levinson and writers David Mamet and Hilary Henkin know just how to spin it, savaging Washington and Hollywood with merciless wit. It's a hoot.