The script by William Goldman (Misery) is based on fact, and when the movie sticks to fact (in an unprecedented bout of man-eating, the lions took just a few months to slaughter 130 bridge builders), the result is a hypnotic spectacle. The natives fear that the lions are unkillable demons. The hunters — Douglas and Kilmer spar splendidly in their roles — aim to prove them wrong. Hopkins, unfortunately, won’t leave well enough alone.

Hanks works like a sketch artist feeling his way before attempting a large canvas. His material is slight, but his writing and directing have an unforced humor and an unhurried grace that suggest he may be a natural.

It’s too bad the script never allows their ethical battle over human guinea pigs to rise above the level of plot device. With these actors, the debut film from Grant and Hurley should have soared above TV mediocrity. What the hell were they thinking?

A feast of a film done on a low budget with a menu featuring top-grade acting, writing and direction.

The movie, from the 1992 best seller by Olivia Goldsmith, isn't deathless art. But as pure entertainment, this witty revenge romp is sinfully satisfying.

If you see one Minnesota movie this year, make it "Fargo." This botch job should be stamped direct to video.

Enough Burns pungency remains for She’s the One to qualify as a setback, not a drop into quicksand.

It’s a power house.

Most movies stress the agony of art (think of Kirk Douglas' Van Gogh in "Lust for Life"). Schnabel's exceptional film honors his friend by showing the act of creation as a natural high.

McGrath's script is faithful: fierce when it needs to be and devilishly funny.

Audiences expecting more Bullock or more weighty import from A Time to Kill will have to adjust expectations and settle for the kick of a good yarn.

By the fourth clone, played as a babbling simpleton, Keaton has exhausted the gimmick and the audience. I’d trade a dozen Dougs for one Beetlejuice.

Eddie Murphy is funny again. Sadly, he lacks the guts to follow through on the cathartic self-satire that gives the film its distinction.

The performances are uncommonly fine...Lone Star isn't built to ride trends. It's built to last.

The problem for Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who also co-directed Beauty and the Beast, is turning a tale of violent love and death into a family film with a happy ending.

In contrasting the sexuality and rebellion of Lucy's generation with his own, Bertolucci clearly yearns to rekindle his creative spirit.

Carrey knocks himself out trying to make The Cable Guy different, then neglects the quiet, telling moments that would make it real.

It's a popcorn-movie deluxe.

Zane, a good actor in the right circumstances (Orlando, Dead Calm), is trapped by screenwriter Jeffrey Boam (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and Australian director Simon Wincer (Free Willy), who don’t give him anything to act.

Immensely entertaining and provocative.

In Washington's haunted eyes, in the stunning cinematography of Roger Deakins (Fargo) that plunges into the mad flare of combat, in the plot that deftly turns a whodunit into a meditation on character and in Zwick's persistent questioning of authority, Courage Under Fire honors its subject and its audience.

You'd get more of a jolt from Angela Lansbury on "Murder, She Wrote" and more intellectual stimulation from a cozy game of Clue.

Girl 6 is shameless stuff -- pompous, sentimental and attitudinizing. To swat the Spikeman with his own symbol, the film feels like he phoned it in.

Timely and smartly entertaining.

What saves director Ted Demme's comic talkfest from sitcom slickness is a quirky script by Scott Rosenberg and an appealing cast.

Broken Arrow delivers the hippest action fun around. Travolta's "Dr. Strangelove" exit will blow you away. Ditto the movie.

Amid the action heroics of White Squall, Bridges creates a character of consequence.

Forrest Gump lives in spirit in this overbearing tear-jerker that takes two and a half hours to cover three baby-boom decades in an effort to prove that nice guys finish first, at least in the hearts of academy voters.