Even though this is essentially a one-joke movie, director David Ward has turned it into more. When Dodge's rustbucket is pitted against a sleek nuclear-powered sub under Graham's command, it brings out the best in Dodge's motley crew and in the commanding officer himself. The story doesn't dive as deep as the sub but under Ward's direction, we like the Stingray's odd assortment of inhabitants and wind up rooting for them. [01 Mar 1996, p.5E]

FOR about an hour, this movie is like a smooth ride with a good cabbie through the winding streets of deepest lower Manhattan. It's a fascinating, disturbing, at times exhilarating look at the way politics work in a big city, and you better pay attention or you'll miss something...Then, something happens, and it's like being lost on some triple-decker expressway interchange with no idea of how to get home. I think the problem is that there were too many writers with too many different ideas of what they wanted to tell, and the result is it eventually takes a wrong turn into an emotional and intellectual muddle...That first hour is so terrific, with minor exceptions, and the cast is so good, that "City Hall" is still well worth seeing, but ultimately it may leave you with the empty feeling of lost opportunities. [16 Feb 1996, p.3E]

The story is predictable from start to finish, but there's ample fun getting there. Director Ken Kwapis lets the orangutan set the tone, and it ends up a slapstick ensemble comedy. [12 Jan 1996, p.3E]

Unfortunately, not enough sequences work well enough to sustain interest. At its best, "Menace" is a searing parody of both stereotypical filmmaking and American race relations. [18 Jan 1996, p.7F]

A generally effective revenge thriller. [12 Jan 1996, p.3E]

Richard III is a movie, and a marvelously entertaining one. McKellen calls it a "translation." It is also a homage to Shakespeare, and to the enduring power and universality of his unrivaled genius. [02 Feb 1996, p.1E]

Cutthroat Island ranks up there with other ill-advised movies such as The Scarlet Letter and Waterworld. At least the Harlin-Davis opus is meant to be fun. [22 Dec 1995, p.12D]

The elements never quite combine into a cohesive compound, and a lot of the dialogue - particularly Calamity Jane's - might have worked on the page, or even on the stage, but has a phony theatricality when uttered by people with cameras in their faces. [01 Dec 1995, p.3E]

Araki does manage to make the movie interesting and somehow, believable. He taps so effectively into the culture of teens with nothing to do that the subsequent action - the hyper-violence and the gore - isn't so hard to accept. [22 Nov 1995, p.7E]

Finally, in Strange Days, written by ex-husband James Cameron and Jay Cocks, she has a script that is worthy of her intense and intensely personal visual style. The result is a mind-blowing visionary thriller set on the last day of the 20th century in smoldering Los Angeles, a kind of "Blade Runner" for the millennium. [13 Oct 1995, p.3E]

The plot of Jade is so ridiculous, its dialogue so dreary, that nothing can save it - not seriously talented actors, not a revered director, not $ 40 million worth of movie-making muscle. [13 Oct 1995, p.3E]

Enjoy the sharp humor and the performances of the leads, but don't look for a great movie. [08 Sep 1995, p.E3]

Director Melanie Mayron (Melissa of thirtysomething) has created a relatively winsome movie specifically targeted to a long-neglected group of youngsters. That said, Baby-sitters isn't great stuff, and adults might find themselves annoyed at the obvious plot holes and questions. [18 Aug 1995, p.3E]

CLICHE - in words, music and pictures - soars to new heights in A Walk in the Clouds. [11 Aug 1995, p.3E]

Under Wincer's intelligent direction it is a feel-good family adventure pitting man's bravery and humanity against the vicissitudes of nature and the inhumanity of war. [28 Jul 1995, p.3E]

Living in Oblivion is a hip, funny, at times oddly sweet little movie that suggests Tom DiCillo has a bright future. [11 Aug 1995, p.3E]

This is not a great movie - sometimes, soaring orchestral music tries to evoke emotions that don't quite rise out of the drama itself - but it is a good, kind-spirited one that should please both parents and children. [14 July 1995, p.3E]

The tone of Nine Months bounces back and forth between farce and sentimentality, and it doesn't always bounce true - the final screaming scene in a new-moon crazed hospital delivery room, for example, goes on way too long. And yet, when it is funny, which is fairly often, Nine Months is very funny. Occasionally, it's hilarious. [14 July 1995, p.3E]

Superb actors and the best special effects money can buy can only go so far when you have a second-rate script sprinkled with unintentional laugh lines. [07 July 1995, p.3E]

A generally entertaining schmaltzy melodrama, as long as you are not overly reverent about traditional versions of the Arthurian legend and can get over William Nicholson's sometimes clumsy dialogue. [07 Jul 1995, p.3E]

The father-daughter chemistry between Pullman and Ricci seems good. And the ghosts - who look sort of like the result of 24 double exposures a second - are engaging, courtesy of the computer and animation wizards at Industrial Light and Magic. [26 May 1995, p.7C]

All in all, it's better than your average boy-meets-girl techno-thriller - but only just. [30 May 1995, p.5D]

Despite its flaws, Little Odessa haunts the memory. [30 June 1995, p.3G]

If you're looking for down and dirty, Kiss of Death delivers the goods. [21 Apr 1995, p.3E]

This film fails, and for several reasons - not the least being that movies about bickering police partners who fight crime with snappy wisecracks and serious weaponry just might be the most overused plot of the last 15 years. [12 April 1995, p.3E]

Exotica is a little hard to believe, but if it catches you, it holds on tight. [24 Mar 1995, p.3E]

This movie comes from Disney and director Steven Brill, who brought you The Mighty Ducks. But Heavyweights has neither the action nor the emotional wallop of Ducks, though Ben Stiller tries so hard he's scary. [22 Feb 1995, p.5F]

The movie is generally entertaining, although toward the end director Arne Glimcher and a couple of screenwriters try so hard to make everything fit neatly together in a formulaic package that they end up losing credibility. [17 Feb 1995, p.7E]

In the Mouth of Madness is not a bad movie, and it maintains a fair amount of suspense for an hour or so. Then it sags, mainly because it has no real payoff, neither dramatic or visual. [03 Feb 1995, p.3F]

The Secret of Roan Inish glows with a misty, lyrical beauty, helped no little by the cinematography of Haskell Wexler. Once again, writer-director Sayles ("Passion Fish") succeeds in creating a mature, complex film that touches the heart without using any Hollywood tricks. [14 Apr 1995, p.3E]

Benton and novelist Russo are particularly good at bringing out the grit and grace of small towns, where concern for one's neighbors and sheer nosiness are two sides of the same coin. But above all, Nobody's Fool is another triumph for one of our greatest and most enduring movie actors. [13 Jan 1995, p.3E]

PRESUMABLY this zombie flick is supposed to be funny, since it's about as scary as "Little Women." [18 Jan 1995, p.6F]

Ready to Wear is loads of fun, witty and audacious, but you have to be on your toes to follow a serpentine script (by Altman and Barbara Shulgasser) that cleverly interweaves 10 or 12 plot lines. [24 Dec 1994, p.3F]

Fred Schepisi directs smoothly, from a script by Andy Breckman that has some clever lines and notions but could have used a little tinkering. [23 Dec 1994, p.3F]

The Jungle Book is, in a sense, a movie for children, but it is one that adults should love as well. [23 Dec 1994, p.3F]

This action comedy, with not much of either, was written and directed by George Gallo, who wrote a much better movie in "Midnight Run." It's an original, but it seems like a remake. [02 Dec 1994, p.3F]

Fitfully, someone will say or do something very funny, but much of the time passes in a rather laborious way. This movie should have been a lot better than it is. [27 Nov 1994, p.9C]

Be prepared to think, talk and no doubt argue about the movie after seeing it. Is that what Mamet intended? Maybe, but does that make it worthwhile? [11 Nov 1994, p.3E]

Given the mood of so many of today's movies, it might be a pleasure to see an old-fashioned love story. But I think movie-goers have changed, and the peculiar coincidences, the large plot holes and the absurdity of so much of the story line combine to make the story more silly than sentimental, more ridiculous than riveting, more foolish than fulfilling, more maudlin than anything else. [21 Oct 1994, p.3G]

The River Wild is an exhilarating thriller, and Streep is memorable as a former whitewater river guide who has to summon up all of her old skills to save her life and the lives of her husband (David Straithairn) and son (Joseph Mazzello). [30 Sep 1994, p.3G]

This droll, leisurely paced movie might alternately be titled "The Only Good Man in Africa." [09 Sep 1994, p.3F]

Fresh is a brilliant first feature by young writer-director Boaz Yakin. It works superbly on at least three levels: as a portrait of the sad toll that ghetto life takes on promising children, as a story of the tenacious moral bonds that can hold a family together, and as a down and dirty thriller. [02 Sep 1994, p.3H]

A competent but hardly exhilarating crime flick that is definitely not for the squeamish. [07 Oct 1994, p.3G]

This summer's first really bad major movie has finally arrived, and it's time to celebrate. There's been a lot of mediocrity, but until Color of Night there'd been nothing deeply rotten on the grand scale of "Last Action Hero" or "Hudson Hawk." [19 Aug 1994, p.9F]

Kids between the ages of 5 and 10 probably will enjoy this one, and there isn't much (some mild bathroom humor) that parents will find terribly objectionable, except its stupidity. [12 Aug 1994, p.3H]

Eat Drink Man Woman is a piquant delight. [02 Sep 1994, p.3H]

There is much to like about this film, good performances and writing, enough true laughs for the comedy label and enough true love to keep the romance fans happy. To top it all off, the soundtrack uses Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra at all the right moments. Try to leave this movie without humming one of the tunes on the way home. [29 July 1994, p.5F]

Elijah Wood Jr. is excellent as a boy who goes looking for a new father and mother. A fairly amusing, very light fantasy from Rob Reiner. [14 Aug 1994, p.14C]

The movie has a hallucinatory intensity that is skillfully mixed with light-comic relief and straight-faced farce. It never takes itself too seriously, and never veers too far in the other direction by surrendering to self-parody. [01 Jul 1994, p.3D]

The movie is a little too long, and sinks briefly into the doldrums when it turns overly serious in the last half hour or so. But Little Big League recovers nicely, and the ending is terrific. This is one of the few recent movies that parents and children would enjoy together. [03 Jul 1994, p.16C]

The story is inane, the characters generate little sympathy and director Howard Deutch never gets this movie up to a decent running speed. [22 Jun 1994, p.5F]

The movie goes on a little too long, partly because of one of those we're-not-finished-yet second endings that seem obligatory these days. But, as mindless comedy, the movie is highly entertaining. [10 June 1994, p.3H]

Reeves seems less blissed out than conked out, as if he had sustained a heavy blow from a loose surfboard. [27 May 1994, p.3H]

Like so many great stories, Maverick should belong in memory, because taking it to the big screen again is a major disappointment. [20 May 1994, p.3E]

Despite a solid cast and a few interesting visual moments, Surviving the Game is just a routine action picture. [21 Apr 1994, p.5G]

The movie falters because Waters' screenplay is too shallow and brief to provide sufficient underpinning. [15 Apr 1994, p.3D]

A sexy, edgily funny suspense film set in a small Western town, could be a symbol of the plight and the tenacity of independent American film makers. [22 July 1994, p.3F]

It's not quite up to, or maybe down to, the level of the first two movies. But the movie rolls to a wildly funny climax at the Oscar presentations, where Drebin is mistaken for Phil Donahue. Surely, there are enough belly laughs and knee slaps to make this film worth your time. And stop calling me Shirley. [23 Mar 1994, p.6F]

But what The Paper does best is capture the flavor of a newsroom at its craziest, when, say, you are five minutes past deadline on a breaking story, it's July and the air conditioning is broken, two editors are yelling contradictory commands at you and a workman is standing on your desk putting holes in the ceiling with a deafening electric drill. [25 March 1994, p.3H]

The screenplay is good and the direction, by Ted Demme (nephew of "Silence of the Lambs" director Jonathan Demme) is taut. [11 Mar 1994, p.3G]

This is a strange, sweet movie, one that takes awhile to unfold but eventually becomes irresistible. [4 Mar 1994, p.3F]

Ultimately, what saves this movie is its sense of humor, not to mention its good humor, which is not the same thing. You find yourself rooting for these characters, although at times you wouldn't mind giving them a little slap up side the head. [18 Feb 1994, p.3F]

This movie bogs down under heavy-handed, simplistic preachings about the environment and numerous scenes of utterly gratuitous violence. [23 Feb 1994]

Ultimately, however, the only real problem with the new version of "The Getaway" is that Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger just don't seem very believable as tough professional criminals. You just know they are only a shower and a manicure away from dinner at Spago. [11 Feb 1994, p.3E]

Blank Check, which was written by Blake Snyder and Colby Carr, directed by Rupert Wainwright and filmed with grace and style by cinematographer Bill Pope, is definitely a guilty pleasure, but more the latter than the former.

ROMEO Is Bleeding is an interesting mess. A very self-conscious contemporary take on the film noir genre, it is so dark (both photographically and psychologically) and derivative that at times it seems like a parody. [2 March 1994, p.6F]

Comedies, in general terms, are easy to evaluate. If you laugh a lot, it's good. If you don't, then it isn't. Well I didn't and it wasn't. [02 Feb 1994, p.6F]

THE WAR ROOM would have been a great motion picture if either James Carville or George Stephanopoulos had been elected president - or if there were more involvement of Bill Clinton. Although none of those occurred, the documentary on the 1992 campaign, from the Democratic side, is interesting, sometimes amusing and always has a sense of immediacy.[14 Jan 1994, p.7F]

This animated feature is not a perfect movie, but it's an enjoyable one. Like the animated TV series it is based on, it strikes a balance between the adult darkness of the recent Tim Burton movies and the childish silliness of the old TV show. More than anything, this version of Batman recalls the original Bob Kane comic books of the 1940s: dark with light touches, cartoony yet realistic. [31 Dec 1993, p.3F]

The things that made "Wayne's World" work at all - freshness, spontaneity - are missing from this losing sequel. [10 Dec 1993, p.3F]

Schepisi, with his camera always moving, has the knack of keeping the viewer as slightly off balance as Guare's story does, and the result is a fascinating motion picture. [21 Jan 1994, p.3F]

Snappy writing, excellent acting and sharp editing make this comedy zing as the Addams family finds love, lust and lichen growing in its midst. [19 Nov 1993, p.3F]

Sean Penn is excellent as a lawyer who gets in way over his modish curls, but the movie belongs to Pacino, who gives a remarkably controlled performance as a Wise Guy desperately trying to get smart. It's one of Pacino's best roles. [12 Nov 1993, p.3G]

A SURPRISING number of good, long, serious, thought-provoking movies have opened in the past few weeks. This isn't one of them. But if you're looking for a break from heavy fare, this fluffy serving of junk food might be just right. [12 Nov 1993]

AS cotton-candy, pap movies go, Look Who's Talking Now! offers plenty of smiles, a few laughs and a terrific pair of talking woofers. Not since Mr. Ed have animals with a verbal attitude been so engaging. [5 Nov 1993, p.10E]

Ruby in Paradise is a fine, quietly moving look at a young woman's voyage of discovery. It is most memorable for the feature-film debut of Ashley Judd in the title role, but the rest of the cast is excellent, as well, and Gregory Nunez (Gal Young 'Un) directs from his own script with heartfelt clarity. [26 Nov 1993, p.3F]

On the whole, Flesh and Bone is effectively clean and mean. [05 Nov 1993, p.10E]

On a scale of 1 ("Men in Tights") to 10 ("Naked Gun"), I'd give "Fatal Instinct" about a 5. [31 Oct 1993, p.9C]

In the hands of some Eastern European masters, stop-motion animation has created some fine adult animated films, like Jan Svankmajer's spooky version of "Alice in Wonderland." But The Nightmare Before Christmas is basically a charmless and muddled tale that aims at a target somewhere in the vast gulf between Franz Kafka and Walt Disney and hits nothing. [22 Oct 1993, p.3E]

THOROUGHLY predictable "inspirational" movies like Rudy are like pop-art rituals. We know almost to the letter what is going to happen, but, if the movie is well made (which "Rudy" is), we experience at least some of the emotional catharsis that would be evoked by a truly original and compelling work of art (which "Rudy" definitely isn't). [15 Oct 1993, p.3E]

Decent performances from Emilio Estevez and Denis Leary can't rescue this movie from its weak screenplay and predictable story. [21 Oct 1993, p.7G]

Farewell My Concubine is a work of passion and compassion, another great work by one of the so-called fifth-generation of directors who are making the Chinese cinema one of the best in the world. [29 Oct 1993, p.3F]

Director Mike Figgis waited about an hour and 48 minutes too long to decide to make this a comedy. [8 Oct 1993, p.3E]

Just when you've decided it's just another queasy thriller about a woman-hating serial killer, and you're beginning to wonder if Hollywood isn't making too many of these nasty little things, Malice winds up and delivers a terrific curveball. [01 Oct 1993, p.3EV]

THIS may be movie-watching at its least painful. The characters are likable but flat, the script is snappy but shallow, the story is cute, the scenery pretty and the stars fetching. No brain food here. [1 Oct 1993, p.8EV]

The Good Son is cheaply manipulative in a way that can make you angry. [24 Sep 1993, p.3EV]

Great works of literature seldom become great movies, as witness the competent but plodding recent screen adaptation of Wharton's "Ethan Frome." The Age of Innocence is a brilliant exception. [17 Sept 1993, p.3F]

Needful Things is the best Stephen King movie in years. It is, in a sense, a black comedy, but you have to be a little sick to laugh. I laughed. [27 Aug 1993, p.3F]

The Son of the Pink Panther is little more than a mess. Roberto Benigni, a funny-looking Italian actor, has his moments. [31 Aug 1993, p.3D]

The Thing Called Love, Phoenix' final movie, should not be used as a memorial to his career; "Stand By Me," "Running on Empty" and "My Own Private Idaho" are much better examples of his talent, which was considerable. [12 Nov 1993, p.3G]

There are no false Hollywood dramatics, no musical cues telling us how we should feel about this boy's battle for dignity and a place in the world. The director lets complex emotions flow naturally out of believable action and dialogue in this very faithful adaptation of a fascinating memoir. [20 August 1993, p.3F]

Holland, working with a largely English cast, brings a different - European, perhaps - sensibility to the film, and I think it works. [13 Aug 1993, p.3F]

Hearts and Souls is an only intermittently entertaining reworking of an ancient Hollywood formula. [13 Aug 1993, p.5F]

The first 10 or 15 minutes of The Fugitive are so skillfully assembled they should be taught in film school. [6 Aug 1993, p.3E]

The Wedding Banquet is sweet and touching and, at times, very funny. [27 Aug 1993, p.3F]

It's a pretty good movie. Ironically, the more even-handed treatment of the Japanese, although probably fairer, may have robbed the tale of some of the single-minded xenophobic nastiness that probably gave the book its trashy energy. [30 July 1993, p.3F]

The problem with Mel Brooks these days is the same one Woody Allen would have if he kept making Bananas over and over. [30 July 1993, p.3F]

Helped by dozens of throw-away sight gags, and almost every minor comedian who has ever appeared on the seminal television comedy series, Coneheads is surprisingly funny. [23 July 1993, p.3F]