But despite its audacious sexuality, Tokyo Decadence isn't really honest about its pornography -- or its politics. The sex scenes are more about the twisted uses of power than they are about erotica. And like a movie that purports to be anti-violent but racks up a dougle-digit body count to make its point, the film relies too much on sexual excess to make a persuasive argument against it. Its pretensions fail to conceal the emptiness at the heart of Murakami's vision. [30 July 1993, p.AE23]

Timecop speeds along briskly: It's a well-oiled, smooth-running action movie with a science-fiction twist tossed in for good measure. [16 Sep 1994, p.14]

Intelligent teens will hate this film, and adults will just be embarrassed.

Maybe it's too early to say MacFarlane can't make a movie. He's still young, he's compulsively creative. He'll keep getting more chances. He could figure it out, but I don't think I want to watch him try.

While Burger, Daughtery and Taylor skimp on the characters’ interior lives, they do make some surprising improvements on the book.

Could have had charm if the characters had been more recognizable as human beings.

Fuqua has made three films before his newest, Tears of the Sun, and they've all begun well enough but then collapsed under the weight of his heavy-handed visual technique and his indifference to plot, character and logic.

As two-dimensional animation, Sinbad is passably attractive, reaching a visual height when it arrives in the surreal, shifting Tartarus.

A sweet but weightless and witless romantic comedy, Sandler is not only deeply unfunny, he's deliberately unfunny.

Creepy, purposefully frustrating, nonlinear horror exercise from Japan that quietly burrows right into your skull.

The Counselor is nothing but a dumb, gory, grab-bag of clichés and the biggest waste of talent since "Savages." It makes Oliver Stone look subtle.

This isn't the "Right Thing" in any sense.

Gross, sophomoric, offensive, nasty, cheap and mean -- and so funny again and again that you plumb near forget all that's reprehensible about it.

This film is uplifting, well-meant, and morally impeccable, but it has the incoherent storytelling, abysmal production values and absolute contempt for its audience one ordinarily finds only in hard-core pornography. [18 Aug 1995, p.25]

This sequel, thankfully, is faster paced, and has more action.

It's almost too bad, then, that MacArthur and Jones take a back seat to the far less interesting Gen. Bonner Fellers in the stolid drama Emperor.

When the picture hits high gear, your qualms vanish one by one, and the script, credited to four writers, grows into its own.

21 isn't insultingly stupid. But there's a gap between what we're told about its characters and what we can see for ourselves, a gap that gets larger and more frustrating as the film goes on.

One of the most wearisome "high adrenaline" movies to come along in a while.

With a less popcorn-friendly cast and some cheesy special effects, this is a surprisingly engaging, sometimes foolish but often roughly intelligent film.

Both a prequel and a sequel to the original tale, only with more bloodspilling and slow-motion, and even less wit or truth.

This suspense thriller is scary, all right, but it's also distasteful and manipulative. [17 Feb 1995, p.AE22]

You've never been quite this close to a movie star, and after enduring the experience you'll likely never want to repeat it.

Unafraid of walking the fine line between the repellent and the human, Shallow Hal is wickedly funny but heartfelt.

Perhaps this is what fans want from a movie like this: to sit back as if in a Jacuzzi and get a quick impression of history and Rome and such. If so, Howard, Brown and company likely have another monster hit on their hands.

It's a definite crowd-pleaser and a perfectly fun night at the movies.

Director R.W. Goodwin (an "X-Files" vet) makes a fatal mistake: He never takes a clear stance on the material he's spoofing.

One Day, despite its attractiveness, never manages to find a way to bring the conceit fully to life.