Yet the personalities of the actors are so appealing here and the direction by John Badham (''Stakeout,'' ''Saturday Night Fever'') so filled with inventive comic bits and details that Another Stakeout plays much better than you'd think. It's a consistently entertaining two- hours-or-so at the movies. [23 July 1993, p.C3]

Weekend at Bernie's II has the tell- tale signs of a bad film directed by its screenwriter. There's lots of goofy shtick, and the actors seem to have been directed to act silly. Instead of playing for truth, they mug and overdo it, particularly McCarthy, and the result is deadly. [10 July 1993, p.C3]

I like to think that sometimes when a film maker takes no shortcuts but does everything truthfully and sincerely, with an interest in nothing but the creation of something wonderful, he can be visited by a muse or a spirit that comes out of nowhere and, as a kind of reward, infuses his film with that extra element that can't be earned or whipped up from a recipe: magic. Much Ado About Nothing is a wonderful, beautiful film. It's not a perfect film -- it has Keanu Reeves in it. But it has that kind of magic. Very early on, from the first scene, really, it lifts up off the ground; and there it stays till the last shot, when the camera itself lifts off, and we in the audience look down on lots of happy people dancing in an elaborate Italian garden. [13 May 1993, p.E1]

What's Love Got to Do With It isn't the best musical biography of all time, but it's an unusually satisfying one, and a tremendous showcase for the splendid Bassett. [11 Jun 1993, p.C1]

The plotless Dennis the Menace is nonsensical and playful and, in its way, creates a pretty dreamworld that is a foundation of good escapist entertainment. In addition, Walter Matthau takes good-natured grumpiness to new heights as legendary curmudgeon Mr. Wilson, opposite a kid named Mason Gamble, as Dennis, who (another minority opinion) acts circles around Macauley what's-his-name. [25 June 1993, p.C1]

The script is weak and unrelenting. The stunts are unspectacular. The special effects are nothing you haven't seen before. But worst of all, there's the spectacle of Schwarzenegger glorying in the wonder of Schwarzenegger. [18 Jun 1993, p.C1]

It is far too sophisticated and operatic to be dismissed as simply a cheap-thrills, blast-'em blowout. [19 Aug 1994, p.C14]

One great monster movie. [11 June 1993, Daily Notebook, p.C1]

Life With Mikey is friendly and funny and ought to renew a lot of lost affection at the movies in coming weeks -- it's solid entertainment with heart and an ever- so-gentle contemporary edge. [4 June 1993, p.C1]

All things considered, The Long Day Closes is a remarkable film -- tender and intelligent, long on mood and short on ''action,'' a cinematic poem that stands head and shoulders above the summer harvest of bonehead action thrillers. [23 July 1993, p.C9]

Though much of Like Water For Chocolate simmers with humor and the stumbling plight of human life, the movie takes its soul from deeper strains -- unfulfilled longing, the tyranny of social customs in a macho-dominated world, and the final outrage that love and death are inseparable, often indistinguishable companions. [26 Mar 1993, p.C1]

Made in America, for the most part, is surprisingly inept -- badly shot, badly lit and badly edited. It's the actors alone, Danson especially, who save it from total disaster. [28 May 1993, p.C1]

The movie's biggest weakness is in the presentation of Caine's grandparents.... The attempt, it seems, is to show a potentially positive influence in Caine's life. But the grandparents come across as canned characters, corny and concocted. [26 May 1993, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

A strong thriller, slick and sleazy in a summer-movie sort of way, but intelligent too.[22 May 1993, p.C3]

People who go into Hot Shots! Part Deux knowing what to expect will not be disappointed, and people who stumble in unawares won't be too sorry. At its best, ''Part Deux'' is very funny, and at its worst, it's a complete waste of time -- with the balance about even between the strong and the weak sections. [21 May 1993, p.C1]

Made mostly by white people, it's a film largely about how awful white people are -- just the kind of thing many white viewers will love and consider important. But however you might feel about this kind of movie, Map of the Human Heart is fake merchandise, an unfelt, boring travelogue that covers itself in its anti-racist, anti-war message and then dares audiences to notice its barrenness at the core. [14 May 1993, p.C6]

I liked Dave -- bits and pieces of it, that is -- but I think it would have worked better as a dark and fearless farce -- reckless, nervy, a little bit mean. American politics deserve it. [07 May 1993, p.C1]

In the end, the best thing about The Dragon is that it will make people want to go out and rent ''Enter the Dragon.'' [7 May 1993, p.C1]

Tokyo Decadence is not an action picture, blue or otherwise. Murakami almost batters you with his slow, deliberate style, and in the end the film ventures into puzzling bravura sequences that seem hard to grasp for someone outside Japanese culture. Throughout, Murakami subtly accompanies his work with strains from the introduction to an aria from Verdi's ''Don Carlo'' where the aggrieved King Philip sings ''she never loved me.'' [18 June 1993, p.C12]

The Night We Never Met gets phony but it doesn't get boring, and that's not bad. [30 Apr 1993, p.C5]

The Dark Half is another retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story, but King and Romero fail to work out the premise of the story. [23 Apr 1993, p.C3]

Ultimately, Chechik can't pull off the fractured-fairy-tale aspect of Benny and Joon. His film never explains mental illness, but romanticizes it, making it seem like a state of enchantment. It's ultimately irresponsible, and not very funny. [16 Apr 1993, p.C1]

A lovely though stubbornly shallow romp in nostalgia mixed with contemporary adult angst. [23 Apr 1993, p.C7]

A smart, nicely paced crime drama, with colorful characters, compelling situations and an assured style. [17 Apr 1993, p.C3]

Sandlot is no ''Stand By Me'' -- it lacks the dramatic, us-vs.- them power of that popular '80s film. The look is simple, direct, often gimmicky with the big dog purposely overdone as a clunky animatronic figure. The movie is also a little long. But somehow its contrived tone and style become minor charms. You walk away feeling that perhaps people aren't as mean as the movies make them out to be these days and that maybe there's hope after all. Or at least there was in 1962. [7 Apr 1993, p.C1]

The Crush is the latest in the growing ''from hell'' genre, about all the fun things that happen when a ferocious, precocious 14-year-old girl develops an intense crush on the nice-guy journalist who rents a guest house from the girl's parents. Things start innocent. Get worse. Get horrible. Get ridiculous. You know the formula. Working within that formula, The Crush isn't bad.

It's a little of this, a little of that, and in the meantime there's not a single joke to crack a smile over. [20 Mar 1993, p.C3]

Nothing in her performance in the second two-thirds of the film hints at the shallows or depths that could allow Maggie to be a killer -- before or after. [19 March 1993, p.C1]