Huston manages to bring the unavoidable brutality of this story to the screen without seeming exploitative. And she gets good performances out of Malone, Leigh and Eldard. Glenne Headly gives a great performance as Leigh's saintly sister.

Now "Rod Tidwell," with Jerry Maguire as a supporting character, would be a movie to pay to see.

Nicholson squeezes every wretched drop of buffoonery from this character, and it's distressing to watch him play an easy role for easy laughs.

Dern is nothing short of brilliant here.

Speaking of bangs, the special effects include one of the better mega-blasts in recent memory: vast fireballs tear through the busy tunnel at dizzying speed and with devastating results. This is the money shot, what the Stallone audience is paying for. It remains to be seen if they'll buy a Stallone who's been downsized and reformulated - about a teaspoon's worth of added complexity.

I can't help thinking, though, that maybe Thornton was too ambitious in trying to wear three hats.

Dalmatians proves an apt playground for Hughes as one could surmise that his inspiration for treating comic bad guys in his movies so violently comes from a cartoon sensibility.

Hytner uses 360-degree camera turns and strange angle shots to inject this largely lifeless business with some drama. Ryder tries to do the same by nearly working herself into cardiac arrest in several monologues. Day-Lewis is acting so hard you can see his lower teeth, which, by the way are sometimes horribly decayed and other times white enough to blind a dental hygienist...See this movie at the peril of your soul.

Even those unfamiliar with the entire "Star Trek" phenomenon (it's now been 30 years since the original TV show sprang from the fertile mind of creator Gene Roddenberry) will find this a clever action movie, with a well-written screenplay and tight direction of a fine cast.

Not even his gap-toothed charm and willingness to make fun of his usual take-no-prisoners persona made it easier to swallow the mess of pottage that is Jingle All the Way.

What the story lacks in tension, Waterhouse's writing and Leconte's direction make up for in entertainment.

The movie is meant to be uplifting and to the degree that you can ignore its unquestioning treatment of mental illness, I suppose it is.

Minghella is an artist and he has painted himself a masterpiece.

Ransom is every bit as taut and expertly directed, and it's another in the emergency genre, one in which Howard excels.

This is a piece of gloriously literary and serious filmmaking, but again it falls prey to misjudgments in pacing and rhythm.

You've seen Set It Off several times before featuring male characters: The proven popularity of boy-dominated 'hood movies has made this female variation possible. Just the fact that four worthy African American actresses get decent staring roles gives the story a purpose it wouldn't ordinarily have.

Like a Les Brown tune, a really dry martini and a hug from a good buddy, Swingers makes you feel warm all over, baby.

Sometimes the movie lacks a quietness, an omission most egregiously felt at the end.

Get On the Bus might just be Spike Lee's best work yet.

Hackman is, as ever, a master performer, an actor at the peak of his powers. However, he can't carry the whole movie.

A filmmaker of Jordan's capability is not likely to make anything less than a competent, watchable movie, and that Michael Collins is. I think content rather than form detracts from the cogency of the finished product in this case.

One of the most blithely, giddily ridiculous movies to come along in ages.

Buscemi is after a slice of life with a grown-up slacker. The trouble is that, in the end, this isn't terribly interesting.

Most of these scenes are long, boring shots of the men aiming their rifles nervously into the mist. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is more artfully arranged.

The movie is magnificent and stunning the way few spectator events are.

The Wachowski brothers are to be applauded for a film that is also nearly as stylishly funny as it is sexy and fast-paced.

It's as sunny as you would expect a Hanks project to be.