The script, written 20 years ago by the late, great director John Cassavetes, still packs an emotional wallop. [21 Mar 1998]

This emoting doesn't mix well with the comedy and action, of course, and the best that can be said of the film is that it's marginally entertaining, and (for Murphy) reasonably inoffensive. But he's competent enough to make us suspect he might be surprisingly good if he ever did get a real Denzel Washington part. [17 Jan 1997]

As a movie, it's respectably well-acted by everyone, directed with Reiner's usual panache and intelligence, but fits so snugly into the Grisham-movie formula that it's hard not to be a bit suspicious. [20 Dec 1996]

There are a handful of laughs, and maybe three solid scenes. Otherwise, it's an unfunny, relatively charmless, ultimately grueling excuse for a comedy that often plays like a 105-minute public service ad on why it's not a good idea to have children. [20 Dec 1996]

Best of all, the film showcases Leconte's full range of directorial gifts: his sense of pace and suspense; his ability to make a scene come magically alive with a small touch of wry humor; his ingratiating belief that, as bad as people are in the aggregate, they are capable of an amazing nobility of spirit as individuals. [06 Dec 1996]

the film is well cast and the script is mostly faithful to the novel. Visually, it's probably the most accurate evocation of Hardy's world ever put on film. [01 Nov 1996]

But the director hired for the job was Hopkins, who was responsible for two of the worst action movies of recent years - "Predator 2" and "Blown Away." And sadly, he has chosen to play the material as "Jaws" with Paws - a jump-out-at-you horror movie, and not an especially competent or thrilling one at that. [11 Oct 1996]

The film powerfully demonstrates the diversity, the adaptability, the resilience of the insect world. The rest of the animal kingdom (including man) may be on the brink of extinction, but these little guys are thriving. [22 Nov 1996]

Hopkins' Picasso is a first-rate performance.... With his intense stare, his air of subtle lechery, and his life-devouring zest, he not only looks uncannily like the real Picasso, he was actually able to convince me that he was Picasso. [4 Oct 1996]

There is action galore (the deaths, by my rough count, may run somewhere in the triple digits). It's very cartoonish and not upsettingly explicit. But it's all so predictable and pointless that it quickly becomes monotonous, lulling the viewer into numbness, apathy, and perhaps even a peaceful sleep. [20 Sep 1996]

There are scenes in this movie that give you well, goose bumps, that make you proud to live on the same planet with creatures so exquisitely, instinctively and spiritually lovely. [13 Sep 1996]

This "Moreau" is also a pretty creepy affair - at least through its first two acts. Director John Frankenheimer, who is responsible for some of the most chilling thrillers in American film history ("The Manchurian Candidate," "Seconds") certainly knows a thing or two about building a menacing, suspenseful situation. [23 Aug 1996]

Good performances are mostly wasted. Phoef Sutton's adaptation of the Abrahams' novel is poor, it works to an absurdly unlikely and dramatically dishonest must-hit-a-home-run conclusion, and - though it tries here and there - it has absolutely nothing new to say on the subject of fan obsession. [16 Aug 1996. p.30]

Perhaps because I expected nothing - the movie struck me as one of the better comic-strip translations, and one of the better films of the genre. It's fast, colorful, entertaining and a clear cut above its most immediate predecessor, 1994's "The Shadow." [7 June 1996]

Adults will quickly tire of the dragon antics; kids will be bored by all the moralizing and faux metaphysics. [31 May 1996]

The numerous plot elements don't come together in the end. Even though we are gradually expected to sympathize with the plight of the murdering vigilante cop, the whole vigilante theme is suddenly dropped midway through the film. It seems to have no real place in the larger story, except as a clumsy and purposeless O.J. Simpson parallel. [26 Apr 1996]

Before it runs completely out of creative steam in a disappointing final act, Celtic Pride flirts with being a surprisingly effective comedy about the phenomenon of sports obsession. [19 Apr 1996]

"James" is both genuinely exciting as an adventure and genuinely charming as a fantasy, plus it doesn't look quite like anything we've seen before. [12 Apr 1996]

The film works up to a totally conventional ending: It's never much of a comedy or an exploration of the phone-sex phenomenon, and it often seems to be just an excuse for Madonna, John Turturro, Quentin Tarantino and other Lee pals to make cameo appearances and mug for the camera. [22 Mar 1996, p.24]

It's not nearly as good as "Women," but it's still his most likable film since, and there is some definite magic in it. [5 Apr 1996]

This week's excruciatingly dismal dating comedy. [8 March 1986]

Like all Jackie Chan films, this one works best as a rousing action film. From beginning to end, Rumble is filled with imaginative and breathtaking stunts (all done by Chan sans stuntman) and a succession of epic fight scenes that are hypnotic, exhilarating, masterfully choreographed and great fun. [23 Feb 1996, p.3]

Mary Reilly has the distinction of being the most pretentious, the most ponderous, the most utterly suspenseless. [23 Feb 1996]

Ultimately, City Hall is more evidence for the contention that the best movies these days are made from novels in which the basic story has been well worked out by non-Hollywood personnel. The gaggle of high-priced writers who toiled on this script seem to have four different ideas of where they were going, and even what their movie is about. [16 Feb 1996]

It's fun in places, and moves like a bullet, but it's also clumsy and mostly quite routine - and seems a particular letdown considering it was made with a blank check from 20th Century-Fox and the services of John Travolta at the peak of his career. [9 Feb 1996, p.25]

His characters and his situations all ring false, and his movie just seems painful and pointless. [12 Jan 1996]

It's high melodrama all the way - a play written early in Shakespeare's career, filled with great poetry but lacking the sensitivity and complexity (and historical accuracy) of his more mature histories, and revived so often on stage over the centuries primarily because it's such a rousing, audience-pleasing theater piece. [19 Jan 1996]

And, of course, the film's biggest selling point is the performance of China's reigning superstar, Gong Li. Playing a sexy, shrewd but strangely suicidal character who is a far cry from the stubborn courtesans and determined peasant women characters that made her famous, she's as enigmatic and irresistible as ever, and demonstrates once again that she is the Garbo of China. [21 Dec 1995]

Anthony Hopkins is a great actor and he gives a resourceful, inventive, compelling performance that holds our attention over three hours. It never convinces us that he is Nixon: he doesn't look much like him, and he misses entirely that incredible shiftiness in his public manner. But it somehow works. [20 Dec 1995, p.C1]

James Earl Jones and Richard Harris both gave heartbreaking, virtuoso performances as fathers who find a special bond in this subtle, flawlessly acted, immensely powerful new film version of Alan Paton's classic novel of South Africa. [29 Dec 1995, p. 3]

It's a rich, engrossing ensemble drama that reveals itself very slowly, is filled with multidimensional characters and multi-layered performances, and works toward an amazingly verisimilitude. [19 Jan 1996]

It's basically just more of the same maudlin sentimentality mixed with clumsy slapstick, hassled-father routines and Geritol jokes. [8 Dec 1995, p.29]

In any case, for all its good points, this movie doesn't click, it never builds much dramatic tension or momentum, it doesn't communicate a clear vision of the man behind the myth, and it finally can't find a coherent narrative line to tell its (ultimately inaccurate) story. [01 Dec 1995]

For all of its genre awkwardness, "I Am Cuba" has to be considered as one of the most striking visual epics of the 1960s - in the same imaginative league as "Spartacus," "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago." [23 Jun 1995]

The premise clicks, the stars couldn't be more likable, and It Takes Two is as cute and imaginatively directed a family movie as we've had all year. [17 Nov 1995]

Surely, they couldn't be true. Surely, supermodel Cindy Crawford's Fair Game - her debut as a feature film star - couldn't be as bad as the gossip suggested. [03 Nov 1995]

The unlikely marriage of Murphy and Craven is indeed strange, and it results in what often seems to be two diametrically opposed movies in one. Still, it's not quite as bad an idea as it sounds, and the movie is passably entertaining. [27 Oct 1995, p.30]

It's very flimsy, the harrowingly unoriginal screenplay rings false in almost every dialogue exchange, and first-time director Lesli Linka Glatter paints her scenes with the broadest of strokes and a clunky, heavy-handed, TV sitcom sensibility. [20 Oct 1995]

But a movie is only as good as its script, and this one is labored, predictable, sexually unimaginative (despite its salacious poster, and Eszterhas' reputation), surprisingly abrupt (only 90 minutes) and strangely inconclusive. [13 Oct 1995]

It's a by-the-numbers action affair, and one that is considerably more mean-spirited and humorless than the norm. [4 Aug 1995, p.29]

Like all of Hallstrom's American films, "Something to Talk About" has a distinct European "feel," and is less interested in being a star vehicle for Roberts than a freewheeling ensemble piece that balances her in every scene with strong supporting work from Quaid, Duvall, Rowlands and especially Sedgwick.

Not only does it steadfastly refuse to condescend to its young viewers (it may actually be too scary for very young children), Carlei carries us along with his strong story sense, and pulls an unusually satisfying plot twist in his final act that elevates the movie, and cleverly turns it into an unexpected moral lesson. [02 Jun 1995]

Amateur, the fourth film of American independent filmmaker Hal Hartley, is by far his best - though, in the wake of "The Unbelievable Truth," "Trust" and "Simple Men," that is, admittedly, not saying much. [05 May 1995]

The film is your basic sensitive young people coming-of-age in the '60s formula piece. [29 Apr 1995]

Kline saves the movie and makes it something special. He does this not only by mastering the dialect and mannerisms and convincing us he is French, but by skillfully underplaying the character and slowly revealing his humanity. It's a master star turn: He makes a better Gerard Depardieu than Gerard Depardieu. [5 May 1995, p.28]

The film is an extraordinarily complex, well-rounded and multileveled portrait of how Crumb got to be the way he is, as well as a tribute to how he was miraculously able to rise above his dysfunctional roots by putting his demons into his art. [16 Jun 1995]

It's a tough, tight, no-nonsense action melodrama filled with irresistibly hard-boiled dialogue and a large cast of engagingly hard-boiled characters. All and all, it's one of the better of the many recent Hollywood remakes of classic film noir. [21 Apr 1995]

It is long, mediocre and rather pointless. [07 Apr 1995]

Producer Barker (who is only credited with the story idea for the original), director Bill Condon (filling in for the original's Bernard Rose) and his writers have crammed this movie so full of killings and razzle-dazzle MTV imagery that it has very little of what made the first Candyman so effective: genuine suspense. [17 Mar 1995]

Apparently no one bothered to tell Stone the movie was a joke. She plays it without a hint of the tongue-in-cheek required, and totally against her strong star persona, so that she serves mostly as the unnecessary straight woman to all the giddy male comedy. [10 Feb 1995, p.3]

Sayles has also gathered uniformly strong performances from his ensemble cast of mostly Irish actors; he creates a rural Irish milieu with a remarkable authenticity (remarkable since he is not Irish); and he keeps the mood nicely balanced on a fine line between whimsical children's fable and realistic domestic drama. [17 Feb 1995]

Legends of the Fall is one of those movies that is so sloppy and so poorly written and so clumsily directed that every dramatic scene seems to either insult your intelligence or come off as being unintentionally hilarious. [13 Jan 1995]

Ken Loach's new film, "Ladybird, Ladybird," takes us deep inside the true story of a woman who is a long-term victim of brutal men, and examines her predicament with such intimacy and ambiguity that the experience becomes the very antithesis of cliche. [27 Jan 1995]

It's an immensely successful movie - and far and away the most emotionally charged, psychologically uneasy and diabolically suspenseful thriller Polanski's made since his heyday. [27 Jan 1995, p. 26]

Whatever you think of her performance, Foster has certainly made all the right choices as a producer, and come up with a movie of taste, integrity and considerable emotional impact. [23 Dec 1994]

Director de Souza tries for a distinctive blend of exotic locations (Queensland, Thailand), big-budget explosion effects and a hallucinogenic style, but the mix ultimately turns out to be a recipe for tedium - and, though he tries, he can never quite give the movie the humor and flair that might have made it at least campy fun. [24 Dec 1994]

As usual, Albert Finney gives a towering performance in his new movie, "A Man of No Importance," and, as usual, the movie around his performance is not much. [03 Feb 1995]

The sad truth is that it's dreadful, despite a top cast and strong production values. [02 Dec 1994]

Hanson's real strength as a filmmaker is subtle suspense, and his film is even more eerie when his characters are out of the water. His setup of the situation is a small masterpiece of visual storytelling, and he sustains the psychological tension. [30 Sep 1994]

Caro Diario is an alternately charming and unsettling mood piece that communicates well the offbeat world view of a self-confessed '60s-style rebel. [21 Oct 1994]

This is still a director's movie and the real success belongs to Redford, whose overall confidence and command as a director have never been this impressive. He gets a little extra out of every scene and every performance, and he brings the film's diverse themes and story strands together with the special touch of the master filmmaker he has clearly become. [16 Sept 1994]

Despite its obvious good intentions, several strong scenes, and the skill with which it creates its milieu - post-colonial Africa - the film never quite clicks. [09 Sep 1994]

After a slow start, these two characters absolutely absorbed me. The drama develops a strong (and not altogether pleasant) voyeuristic appeal and the performance of Karen Sillas (a regular of the Hal Hartley movies) gradually becomes one of the most devastating and original performances I've seen by an actress in a movie this year. [07 Oct 1994]

If you're in the market for a whimsical, incorrigibly weird movie that basically goes nowhere, try "Arizona Dream." But if you have little patience for self-indulgent movies that substitute scatter-gun blasts of surreal black comedy for dramatic structure and realistic characterization, steer clear of this curiosity from noted Yugoslav film-maker Emir Kusturica ("When Father Was Away on Business"). [9 Sept 1994]

How can a critic feel good about a movie that sets out to numb us with sheer gruesomeness; that embraces nihilism and sadism so enthusiastically; that offers no moral point of view or redemption in its characters, all while feebly aspiring to be a portrait of its generation? [09 Sep 1994]

A marvelous piece of cinematic storytelling, acted to perfection by Sihung Lung (the father in "The Wedding Banquet"), fueled by an ingratiating sense of humor and so infused with the sheer joy of Chinese cooking that it will probably make you rush right out for a Chinese meal. [05 Aug 1994]

Surprisingly, "North" fails most miserably on the level of children's parable. It has no solid emotional core to which an audience can relate: It doesn't touch the heart or come close to communicating a moral. It's just silly and trite and a colossal waste of time. [22 Jul 1994]

The period detail, the makeup effects, the computer-generated transformations, and Jerry Goldsmith's brassy score are all excellent. The Shadow also manages to make fun of itself without ever letting the self-parody get out of hand, or disintegrate into camp. For what is essentially a summer slugfest, The Shadow also has unusually rich character performances. [01 Jul 1994]

That's Entertainment! III - which comes 20 years after the original, and celebrates MGM's 70th anniversary - is largely a rehash of its predecessors. Though it's not nearly as fun or exciting, it is still worth seeing if you're an old-movie buff. [03 Jun 1994]

Surprisingly, first-time director and co-writer Andrew Scheinman relentlessly fails to find anything magical or especially funny here. Little Big League seems to have no sense of the absurdity of its situation and uses the premise mostly as an excuse for one more by-the-numbers competition movie. [29 Jun 1994]

The movie is frequently hilarious, and, for a first feature, Cundieff has done a remarkably accomplished job of directing. Without trying very hard, it also manages to lay out some of the absurdity of the white-hating-paranoid/macho sensibility of rap culture. [17 Jun 1994]

It's an ambitious, eye-filling and thought-provoking work, but it manages to be frustratingly uneven and doesn't really represent Bertolucci at his most fluent. [27 May 1994]

It's an entertaining and mostly intelligent movie that is grungy enough to appeal to today's rock fans and nostalgic enough to appeal to the aging baby-boomer fans of the Fab Four. [22 Apr 1994]

The Paper definitely works. By the time Hackett calls out that inevitable "Stop the presses!" Howard has caught all the romance of the great old newspaper movies - the camaraderie of the newsroom, the adrenaline rush that goes with the pursuit of a big story, the teary pride in the power of the press. [25 March 1994]

Roman Polanski's English-language film released internationally two years ago also lays claim to being a kinky sex comedy, but the sex is predictably darker, and the laughs few and far between. [18 Mar 1994]

First-time director Ted Demme (no relation to Jonathan), also of MTV ("Yo! MTV Raps"), displays little flair for comedy or storytelling beyond a sketch length. He also seems to have the sensibility of a dirty-minded eighth-grader. [11 Mar 1994]

But Medak never finds his groove in "Romeo." Every scene smacks of deja vu, the cynicism and irony become smothering, it's never funny or exciting enough to hold our attention, and it finally just collapses into the same pointless violence of "Gunmen" - including a scene in which a character is buried alive. [4 Feb 1994]

Some of the scenes are gorgeous, but "Papaya" is so passionless and empty it has no real impact. [04 Feb 1994]

And Mackenize Astin (brother of Sean, son of John Astin and Patty Duke) is so likable in this part that his modest success here may represent the advent of a new acting dynasty in Hollywood. [14 Jan 1994]

It's an exhilarating film, largely because of Carville's charisma. [7 Jan 1994]

Jonathan Demme's long-awaited Philadelphia is so expertly acted, well-meaning and gutsy that you find yourself constantly pulling for it to be the definitive AIDS movie. [14 Jan 1994, p.13]

It is shockingly devoid of any shred of originality and imagination. [10 Dec 1993]

The story is so sure-fire that it surmounts these obstacles to be passable entertainment, getting frequent infusions of excitement from the performances of Charlie Sheen, who is likably ironic and deadpan as Aramis; Kiefer Sutherland, who is splendidly charismatic and appealing as the world-weary Athos; and Oliver Platt, who confidently steals the movie as the comic Porthos. [12 Nov 1993]

Dennis Quaid gives what may be his best performance in the stylish thriller Flesh and Bone, but the movie around him is so cold, quirky and ploddingly predictable that it's hard to recommend. [05 Nov 1993]

Carl Reiner's Fatal Instinct is about as awful a movie parody as you'd ever want to see, but the guy certainly deserves some points for persistence. [29 Oct 1993]

You have to admire Chen's fearlessness in chasing the taboo subject matter, and in unblinkingly depicting the horrors of China's recent past. [29 Oct 1993]

Unlike "Crying Game" (which, despite the gender confusion, definitely works as a love story for a general audience), the only emotion this movie evokes for its star-crossed lovers is an unpleasant sense of incredulity. [08 Oct 1993]

The Program has little bite as satire or as muckraking. It doesn't really want to offend anyone very deeply (perhaps because it was filmed with the cooperation of nine separate college athletic departments). If you read the sports pages, you could devise your own script and it would be twice as devastating.

The best thing about The Joy Luck Club is that it is not too cerebral, calculated or self-consciously arty. It is also an intensely emotional movie that celebrates the mystical undercurrent of life, that accepts the healing miracle of love, and - in the tradition of the great Hollywood "women's pictures" of the '30s and '40s - simply does not leave a dry eye in the house. [24 Sept 1993]

Fortress is as harrowing a cat-and-mouse game as the conflict between Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in "The Fugitive," and the new arrival also offers the perk of being about ideas bigger than mere pursuit. [3 Sept 1993]

And the movie stands as a fitting memorial to River Phoenix, whose performance lingered in my mind for days after seeing it. [12 Nov 1993]

The Man Without a Face also manages to be an expression of Gibson's well-known political and sexual conservatism. It goes to some lengths to pay homage to John Wayne (three times) while the anti-war left of the '60s is brutally caricatured as a bunch of effete snobs, and the women in this movie are just in the way. [25 Aug 1993, p.c1]

Allen does become quite likable, the cloud of his off-screen turmoil disappears, and his movie turns into a good time. [20 Aug 1993]

There are some ingratiating moments in "Heart and Souls," but the comedy is mostly a misfire - derivative and emotionally calculated and never as cute or funny as it wants to be. [13 Aug 1993]

Beneath its whimsy and sexual politics, there is a core of humanity in this movie that is deeply satisfying, and powerful enough to disarm even the most vehement homophobia. [06 Aug 1993]

Director Thomas Schlamme ("Miss Firecracker," "Crazy From the Heart") also does a better than average job of evoking the romance of his San Francisco locations; giving his mystery-comedy a Hitchcockian "feel"; and getting likable performances from Brenda Fricker as Charlie's mother, Anthony LaPaglia as his cop best-friend, and Nancy Travis as the maybe-murderess. [30 July 1993]

Poetic Justice is much more self-indulgent and self-consciously arty and shows [Singleton's] directorial inexperience in almost every scene. [23 Jul 1993]

For fans of Rosie O'Donnell, Another Stakeout is also noteworthy as the first real starring vehicle for the fast-rising, dead-pan comic. But she seems awkward as a lead and never very funny. You get the sense that her considerable talent might be better suited to television, stand-up comedy and supporting roles. [23 July 1993]