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]