Since the hit-man career is probably one of the most familiar non-law enforcement careers in films, it should come as no surprise that Little Odessa has nothing new to say about it.

The submarine drama, which opens today, has everything you could want from an action thriller and a few other things you usually can't hope to expect: an excellent script, first-rate performances and a story that has more to do with individuals than explosions.

Wild Reeds is a sober, heartfelt piece of work, sensitively directed and lovingly photographed -- though slightly dull, if we're going to be perfectly honest.

Ryan's comic timing continues to delight, while Kline is touchingly heartfelt as a man doing what is evidently all too easy to do -- fall in love with Meg Ryan.

Crumb is one of the most provocative, haunting documentaries of the last decade.

Skillful as many of its elements are, however, The Underneath doesn't have the taut storytelling and intriguing characters to make this film noir make-over truly compelling.

Curiously mellow for a John Carpenter thriller, Village of the Damned, a full-color, cornball special-effects remake of the 1960 sci-fi favorite, is a trip to a village of the darned tedious.

It takes about 20 minutes to catch on that Friday is without narrative drive - and about as long to figure out that the film offers nothing better in place of it.

It's a feel-good deal you can take the whole family to, or even better, a date. And this almost cuddly film, built on a farfetched case of mistaken identity, delivers plenty of fun.

Basketball Diaries is an earnest, botched effort to do justice to Carroll's book. Amazingly, though, even with Kalvert's lack of style and vision, the greatness of DiCaprio's performance is undiminished.

Swimming With Sharks, despite its attempt to be wicked and hiply fun, is ultimately just tiring as it pits people against one another.

Kiss of Death was directed by Barbet Schroeder ("Single White Female") in the fashion of a creepily smirking cat toying with a particularly appealing mouse.

The picture meanders and goes back in time for needless flashbacks, and in the end the comedy mutes whatever punch the dramatic elements might have had.

Benefits from Smith and Lawrence's chemistry. As long as they're on screen together, things breeze along. But when they're apart, the movie flounders.

The picture... is simple, sweet and elegantly written, and it benefits from the presence of Marlon Brando.

Like a coffee-table book, it looks inviting and teases you with sumptuous photography but leaves you cold.

Overall, A Goofy Movie is an incoherent mess that jumps from one unlikely, brainless, crash-bang situation to another, with each element of a protracted father-son bonding story increasingly out of synch with the others.

Jefferson in Paris is dull, sluggish and unfocused.

Has genuine life in it. It's an energetic comedy that consistently looks for and finds unexpected ways to be funny. [31 Mar 1995, p.C8]

I found the sensory bombardment of Tank Girl ultimately numbing and at times had to fight to stay awake. But let's be fair: This isn't a film for people over 25. Or over 20, for that matter. Tank Girl is for teenagers, who will find something exuberant in its anarchic spirit as well as in its barrages of image. Teenagers are also sure to appreciate, probably more than adults would, the film's off-color humor. [31 March 1995, p.C3]

The mysteries of Dolores Claiborne are never gripping enough to consume an audience, and there are few, if any, surprises along the way. But the women are wonderful and reason enough to see the picture.

A cynically made, painfully long comedy without a single laugh. It's a film to really make you wonder about Damon Wayans ' abilities as a comic actor.

The picture gives the impression of a director in control of his vision, making precisely the film he intends to make. But the vision is a distinctly idiosyncratic one that will appeal only to certain tastes.

The least they could have done with the sequel Candyman : Farewell to the Flesh is make it scary. How they managed to give us a killer with a bloody hook going around eviscerating people and have him come off as mild as a butterfly is boggling.

Young Benny has a nice smile, and she and Jack seem like pleasant people, but in the end (and in the beginning and in the middle) it's hard to get worked up about them.

There's poignant drama in this brash, sometimes overstated film, and Muriel's transformation is truly touching.

In the end this is Hoffman's movie, and it's refreshing, finally, to see him not as an oddball or eccentric but as a decent, capable guy who is ultimately a lot more intense than most people.

A movie that's lean, unsentimental and hard around the edges -- a gut- grabber that stays with you for days afterward.

The Brady Bunch Movie is fairly innocuous, and ought to satisfy the twenty- and thirtysomethings who grew up on the sitcom. Just one problem: It may be unsporting to point this out, but the whole notion of holding up the Bradys as the ultimate cultural icon of the '70s is basically a lie.

Like many films that attempt to be inspiring, Heavyweights uses the sound track like a rubber hose to beat the audience into submission. The movie is so honest and good-natured that it's hard to stay mad at it for long. [18 Feb 1995, p.E1]

Despite a few shortcuts and some small but nagging inconsistencies -- not to mention weak performances in a couple of key roles -- Just Cause delivers.

Yet all this work, all this skill, serve as little more than an elaborate setting for a rhinestone. At its core there is no passion, no sincerity of conception, nothing that might have made The Quick and the Dead into anything more than moment-to-moment stimulation. You get lots of clothes here, but no emperor. Or rather, no empress.

In his big-screen directing debut, British film maker Danny Boyle demonstrates wit, intelligence and economy of style.

Its one flaw occurs when the film concocts a fake conflict between the women in an attempt to add some drama. The plot device doesn't do great damage, but it is enough to keep the film from being a hands-down four-star movie.

In the end the most interesting thing about In the Mouth of Madness is its weird relationship with itself -- its cheesy horror celebrating the power of cheesy horror, while pretending to be appalled.

It's a lyrical, lulling, beautiful film that children may relish.

It's a lovely and wistful celebration of youth, time and moments of connection -- and about the experience of living in the midst of a simple, perfect day that you know you'll remember for the rest of your life.

Highlander: The Final Dimension is no more compelling than the average pile of bricks.

Legends of the Fall is so gorgeous that its failure to catch fire seems a piddling concern.

Nobody's Fool functions mostly as a character study, but it's also Benton's elegy to America's endangered small towns. It's a gem.

The movie isn't particularly well-paced, and I found it dull. But I've got to give credit to Todd Masters, who designed the special-effects makeup, to Gilbert Adler, who directed the Crypt Keeper sequences, and to Zane, who plays the Collector with style and wit. If I were 12, I might've loved it.

Tough, mean and unsparingly honest, Ladybird, Ladybird is the kind of movie that people resist going to, feel edgy while sitting through and then can't shake off for weeks afterward. [31 Mar 1995, p.C3]

Higher Learning says nothing new or challenging and is too naive to inspire controversy.

Not a stirring piece of drama, and it does not altogether work in the ways it was intended to. But in its own shambling, elliptical way it's an entertaining, memorable movie whose 2 1/2 hours go by without strain.

The potential for a funny film is here -- one that captures people with their ''clothes'' off, and uses fashion as a metaphor for emotional defenses. Sadly, Altman seems to have taken out all the jokes, and given his actors nothing but sketches to work from. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

As prim and dreamily romantic as an old Doris Day movie -- and a genuine eye-pleaser photographically -- the new romantic comedy I.Q. is one pokey little film that refuses to get up and dance. Or sing. Or do much of anything but be mildly pleasant. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

The Jungle Book has been shaped into solid, not-quite-golden but effusive family-style entertainment with exotic settings, amusing animal characterizations, hair-raising adventures and a saccharine romantic theme that is played big but finally is the film's least interesting facet. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

Polanski directs the film without a wasting a moment. The occasional humor does nothing to relieve tension but, as in a Hitchcock picture, has a way of increasing it.

The film has a good heart, but its central premise -- that ignorance is an enchanted realm -- is too sentimental.

For all the characters butting heads, all the street fights and all the explosions (there are plenty of those), Street Fighter may very well put you to sleep. [24 Dec 1994, p.E1]

Delightfully comic - and the funniest moments are rich in meaning - A Man of No Importance is laced with memorable scenes.

Mixed Nuts, opening today at Bay Area movie theaters, is laced generously with chuckles, though it neglects one little detail that helps make movies satisfying: a plot. [21 Dec 1994, p.E1]

Meticulously crafted, and warmly acted by a cast that includes Winona Ryder as Jo and Susan Sarandon as her mother, the devoted Marmee, Little Women is one of the rare Hollywood studio films that invites your attention, slowly and elegantly, rather than propelling your interest with effects and easy manipulation.

A solid bit of fun in the straight-arrow family entertainment genre, Richie Rich, starring Macaulay Culkin, doesn't pretend to be much more than pleasant matinee fodder.

This wacky buddy road film... has a brilliant glow of intelligence behind the stupidness. It's easily the funniest movie of the year.

Disclosure is a frankly adult picture. The seduction scene is protracted and genuinely sexy -- though what this woman sees in Douglas is a mystery. The talk in Disclosure is also frank -- and unusually explicit. People talk about sex in this picture as they would in life.

Given its mad-dog subject, Cobb, starring Tommy Lee Jones as the raspy, snarling and seemingly demented Ty Cobb -- one of baseball's greatest players -- should have been a home run of a bitter, heartrending drama. Instead, this histrionic portrait of the most celebrated cur in sports history comes across like a fly ball that thuds on the ground.

Though many of Parker's well- known wisecracks make their way into the screenplay, Mrs. Parker ultimately does not give us the Dorothy Parker of legend.

Red is the best of the lot: warmer, more accessible, unusually generous toward its characters. A mystical tale of chance encounters and unexpected connections, Red uses a traffic accident as a springboard to discovery.

As a comedy, Junior has its share of laughs -- but no more than its share.

Directed by first-time film maker C.M. Talkington, Love & a .45 is a low-rent variation on Natural Born Killers -- ragged, raunchy, a bit bratty but not altogether worthless.

The film may be intended to launch the movie careers of Patrick Stewart and the gang from ''Star Trek: The Next Generation,'' but any vibrancy, any emotional power it has derives from William Shatner as Kirk. And it's not even his movie. [18 Nov. 1994, p.C1]

Haneke directs Benny's Video in a cool, dispassionate style that matches the austerity of his subject, but keeps us at a distinct remove. And even though he introduces a faintly optimistic note in the film's last moments -- a hint at possible redemption -- his film is mostly a grim, downbeat experience. [01 Apr 1994, p.C3]

There's almost no violence in the film, which favors natural settings and, for weaponry, archery. Only one scene, when Rothbart appears as a bat, is strong enough to make kids shudder a little. The script chirps with funny interplay between the animals.

Jackson has called "Creatures" a "murder story about love, a murder story with no villains." His generous approach makes it an unforgettable experience.

Directed with playful wit and energy, with steamy sex scenes played as much for laughs as anything else.

Exuding glamour, health and prosperity, real-life spouses Beatty and Bening are so radiant that they run the risk of seeming superhuman and thereby losing our sympathy as screen characters.

It is an exhilaration from beginning to end. It's the movie equivalent of that rare sort of novel where you find yourself checking to see how many pages are left and hoping there are more, not fewer.

Though the movie clocks in at just under three hours, it is -- aside from an occasional slow spot -- fascinating and exciting.

In a way the faults of New Nightmare are the faults of the horror genre as it now exists. Once you get the set-up, the rest of the film is just incidents leading up to the big confrontation. The problem is not in knowing what will happen, but in waiting for it to happen. [14 Oct 1994, p.C3]

A flick so terrifying and brilliant that it makes the two other Chainsaw sequels seem like After-School Specials. [20 May 1995, p.E6]

The River Wild may be the season's most exhilarating family entertainment. [30 Sep 1994, p.C1]

Burton has trouble sustaining the briskness of the first half. But the brilliance of many individual scenes, and the extraordinary performance by Landau, are more than enough to justify this goofy, tender ode to eccentricity. [7 October 1994, Daily Notebook, p.C1]

The desire to go back in time to change things -- or just to visit -- is so central to the experience of being alive and stuck in time that Timecop has a built-in power. It's a power the film, a satisfying science-fiction thriller, takes full advantage of.

The problematic result is not that The New Age is bleak -- bleak is fine. We all like bleak. The problem is that The New Age becomes static. [30 Sept 1994, p.C1]

Robert Redford's exceptionally handsome and provocative Quiz Show manages a trick that few films even dare try -- to take a hard look at personal and public moral issues and still provide dazzling entertainment.

The Next Karate Kid' has all the makings of a terrible movie, but it never quite becomes one. One reason might be that cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs just loves a beautiful picture. [10 Sep 1994, p.E6]

Connery's charm and integrity make all his scenes worthwhile, and Lithgow's stiff-backed turn as the classic British imperialist is in good fun.

What Happened Was . . . isn't always easy to watch. Like a Beckett play, it doesn't spare its characters, but strips bare their insecurities, their fear of rejection, their essential isolation and foolishness. [07 Oct 1994, p.C3]

Arizona Dream is an inspired, erratic goulash that ignores standard movie- making formulas.

The evocative nature of Nelson's stillness is essential to the whole last movement of Fresh, an intricately plotted series of unexpected and related events. In a way, the audience has to read the meaning of the ending in Nelson's face. Fortunately Nelson has a face that can make you believe anything. [31 Aug 1994, p.E1]

Some of "The Shawshank Redemption'' comes across as outrageously improbable. Yet the film keeps pulling you back with its sense of striving humanity slowly turning the tables against evil.

Killing Zoe is another jolly bloodbath about disaffected young people having trouble getting in touch with their feelings, so they go on a spree, killing people, killing everything, tra-la- la-la-la.

An entertaining but exhausting satire on tabloid media and the way they feed our thirst for violence, Natural Born Killers stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, in banshee-out-of-hell performances, as serial killers Mickey and Mallory Knox -- a trashy, gonzo/weirdo version of Bonnie & Clyde. [26 Aug 1994, p.C1]

Somewhere along the line, someone seems to have thought this was ''Last Tango in Paris'' all over again. It ain't. [19 Aug 1994, p.C3]

Director Stephan Elliott too easily buys into the drag queens' conception of themselves as valiant pursuers of illusion, without ever questioning the value of the illusion being pursued.

Although the picture's title and promotion might lead you to expect another "Wayne's World," Airheads is something more substantial. It's a spoof of heavy-metal culture that at the same time respects the vitality and pent-up passion behind it.

Kinda cute, laced with a few chuckles, but mostly just annoying, the new feature film version of The Little Rascals is not likely to go down in history as a paean to kids or a filmic delight for anyone much older than 7. [05 Aug 1994, p.C3]

The plot alone is a thing of beauty.

Director Ang Lee ("The Wedding Banquet") spared no effort in giving the food its perfect preparation and display. Brace yourself for a visual orgy.

There are moments of satirical humor sparked by Ted's stiff, earnest demeanor and Fred's glib, transparent conniving.

Ideally It Could Happen to You should be fun all the way, with the audience confident things will turn out right. Instead it's mostly annoying, with an ending that feels tagged on.

North is director Rob Reiner's first flat-out failure, a sincerely wrought, energetically made picture that all the same crashes on takeoff. It's strange and oddly distasteful, at its best managing to be bad in some original and unexpected ways.

For a little while The Client seems as though it's going to be a battle of wits between the two lawyers played by Sarandon and Jones. The interplay between the two is the best thing about the movie. [20 July 1994, p.E1]

Angels in the Outfield may not be a great baseball movie, but it is a cheerful line drive as a story about having faith when the world seems stacked against you.

At its best, Forrest Gump is a gentle, elegiac fantasy about love and trust.

The Shadow is more than just the product of the trend to make high- tech features out of '30s superheroes. It's adventurous film-making, genuinely enthusiastic and genuinely inspired. [01 Jul 1994, p.C1]

That's Entertainment! III aims mightily to please, and it's a fascinating, unpretentious journey through a garish, opulent, often breathtaking American art form. [13 May 1994, p.C3]