Joe is a masterpiece of special effects wizardry, looking more real than any giant primate ever to walk across the silver screen. By combining animatronics, computer-generated images, and a man in a costume, Mighty Joe Young creates a compelling illusion.

The Theory of Flight is far from a perfect movie, but it offers enough highlights that, on balance, it's worth a recommendation. The solid acting camouflages a great many other deficiencies.

A feel-good movie that offers enough comedy and romance to warm the heart without risking a sentimental overdose.

Overall, it's a story of triumph and adventure - of oppression ended and freedom begun.

The characters are at the heart of A Simple Plan, and the gruesome complexity of their interaction elevates this film to the level of a midwinter treat.

Not a great film, but it's an excuse to have an evening of pure enjoyment with a little culture painlessly mixed in.

Rushmore is one of those films that's so inconsequential that its memory threatens to fade away before the end credits have finished rolling.

The best Star Trek stories are allegorical - in addition to telling an involving story, they're about something other than going into space and blowing up enemy ships. Insurrection continues that tradition.

Kids might think the snowman is cool, and some adults might be mildly amused by some of what transpires, but, on the whole, Jack Frost is far too superficial to be affecting, and its facile resolution to the loss of a parent borders on insulting. This is the kind of film that will leave most viewers cold.

By offering opportunities to laugh, cry, and cheer, Little Voice satisfies in a big way.

Redundant and unnecessary.

A Bug's Life, like “Toy Story,” develops protagonists we can root for, and places them in the midst of a fast-moving, energetic adventure.

The tone, which veers uncertainly between dark comedy and suspense, is uneven, and the characters are not vivid enough to stabilize the load of a shifting, runaway plot.

A fast-food type of movie - it looks good in the commercials and is easy to sit through, but it doesn't offer much in the way of satisfaction.

Pig in the City has been designed with the goal of recapturing the enchanting feel of the original while taking the story in new and different directions. It succeeds at both aims, standing as a worthy sequel to one of the decade's most innovative family features.

An unabashed excursion into feel good territory.

A touching, well-made motion picture whose only real flaw lies in the overfamiliar storyline.

It is a recognized truth of the movie industry that even the best film makers will have disappointments, and, for Woody Allen, Celebrity fits into that category.

I can recognize when a movie has been made for the sole purpose of generating a few cheap bucks, and that's exactly the case with The Rugrats Movie, an embarrassingly juvenile production that would seem more at home in the midst of Saturday morning cartoons than on a big screen.

It offers a solid two hours of pure, escapist entertainment.

Meet Joe Black has the dubious distinction of being the longest film to date of 1998. It is also one of the most tedious and bombastic.

If there's a blessing, it's that the sequel isn't appreciably worse than the original - but that's slim praise considering how bad the first one was.

It's a rousing adventure that keeps the audience involved for the entirety of the two hour running time while opening a window into the culture that gave birth to Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Francis Bacon, and William Shakespeare.

It's a thinking person's thriller, where pyrotechnics give way to plot, character development supplants fight scenes, and adrenaline does not short-circuit intelligence.

Director Todd Haynes' (Safe) much-anticipated look at the "glam rock" scene of two decades ago, is like a jigsaw puzzle with half of the pieces missing.

Arguably Sandler's most enjoyable motion picture to date, but it's still far from a masterpiece.

A rich, multi- layered portrait of a director from Hollywood's Golden Age whose own life was as interesting as any of his movies.

May be flawed, but it's not easily forgotten.