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]

Hocus Pocus also offers a slightly different kind of movie role for the Divine Miss M, which she carries off fearlessly. In fact, with her campy makeup and wildly extravagant gestures, she is probably closer here to her cabaret roots than she has been on film before - and her oldest, purest fans are sure to love her for it. [16 July 1993]

Weekend at Bernie's II stands as just about the best argument I've seen in a long time that the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system is a complete farce. [10 July 1993]

In the end, we feel just what Branagh wants us to feel - a sense that, behind all its frustrations, there is a joy in this unavoidable battle-between-the-sexes that makes life worth living. So his film has it both ways: It is true to Shakespeare and his poetry, and it makes an almost perfect '90s date comedy. [21 May 1993]

Bassett's portrayal of Turner's transformation from wide-eyed teen-ager to subservient star of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue is skillful and absorbing. It doesn't take long to accept Bassett as the ersatz Tina and immerse oneself in the story. On the other hand, Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne) comes across as such a flawed and unredeemable human being that one is left with a yearning for his version of the Tina Turner saga. [11 Jun 1993]

And the casting basically works. Seven-year-old Mason Gamble makes a believable, if never especially lovable, Dennis. Walter Matthau is, of course, so marvelously "right" as a neighborhood grump that no other actor could even have been considered. [25 June 1993]

Director John McTiernan is normally a competent director but he's simply not at his best here. He shows little flair for comedy, his performances are one-dimensional, and his action sequences are predictable and sometimes amazingly sloppy. [18 Jun 1993, p.5]

Of course, the whole thing would collapse in two seconds without a co-star on the order of newcomer Vidal, whose New York street kid is convincing and appealing without ever seeming forced. Together, she and Fox make you happy to overlook plot holes and enjoy what might otherwise be fairly routine family fare. [4 June 1993]

A very good movie could probably be made about the black experience in the Old West, but Mario Van Peebles' Posse is not it.[14 May 1993]

Dragon works just fine as a martial arts epic, with several extravagant and thrilling action sequences. [7 May 1993]

Director Ryu Murakami obviously has a few nonexploitative impulses, but more than half of his movie is graphic sex scenes (it's rated NC-17), and it seems mostly just an excuse to sneak into a mainstream theater the kind of S&M, bondage and urination scenes that have been banned from even the hardest of hard-core porn videos since the late '80s. [15 Oct 1993]

Low-key but smart entertainment. Its modesty is one of its biggest virtues. [30 Apr 1993]

The Sandlot is so exploitative of the myth of baseball and rings so false as a nostalgia piece - and is so unfunny as a comedy - that it makes "The Bad News Bears" look like "Pride of the Yankees." [7 Apr 1993]

If they gave an Oscar for the most unnecessary movie of the year, the award for 1993 would have to go to "Point of No Return," the latest product of Hollywood's current mania for remaking successful recent foreign films. It's not that this movie is such an awful rehashing of "La Femme Nikita," Luc Besson's stylish French thriller that was the biggest foreign-language hit of 1990 in the United States. It's that the first movie had such high visibility and is still so fresh in our minds, and this Americanized version is so totally the same film (except for the ending, it's virtually scene for scene the same) that it seems like a criminal waste of $30 million. [19 March 1993]

The truth is this is an amateurish student film, marred by poor sound recording, stereotyped characters, heavy-handed direction, a mild racism (the two white characters - a shallow yuppie and an insensitive Jewish teacher - are harsh caricatures), and an unconvincing, tag-on happy end. [16 Apr 1993]

Unfortunately, director John McNaughton cannot give the script the stylistic unity, black humor or plausibility it needs to rise above an incurably adolescent macho sex fantasy. [5 Mar 1993, p.6]

Cage is more endearing than usual in his usual philosophical slob routine and Jackson is likeably long-suffering as the Spike Lee of the Theater. They click as a cinematic odd couple. [05 Mar 1993]

The film probably should have been a comedy. It would be a lot more cathartic - and a lot more entertaining - to laugh at the grim modern world of Falling Down than it is to have a heavy-handed filmmaker rub our faces in the hopelessness of it all. [26 Feb 1993, p.14]

Its violence is right out of a "Road Runner" cartoon and, despite the R-rating, relatively benign; its special effects and camera movements are often quite imaginative; and, at less than 90 minutes, it's mercifully short. [19 Feb 1993]

The film tells the story of Jimmy Hoffa in a refreshingly honest way. [25 Dec 1992]

Trespass has no story drive; its principals are cardboard caricatures and its production values are as cheap and amateurish as a bad home video. [26 Dec 1992]