Jungle 2 Jungle is a culture-clash comedy based upon a French film that was roundly panned when it flopped upon our shores last year. Dumb plot. Dumb jokes. The usual. [07 Mar 1997, p.08]

Metro is the kind of movie an actor makes when he's either coasting on a reputation or scrambling to recover one. The kind of movie that Murphy doesn't need to make after hitting big again with The Nutty Professor, and the kind we don't need to pay theater prices to see. [17 Jan 1997, p.9]

Reiner made another one of those stodgy courtroom pieces and forgot the first rule of a witness: Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. [03 Jan 1997, p.5]

Politicians get painted with a wide brush in My Fellow Americans, a minor comedy made somewhat special by the actors who play those combative commanders-in-chief. You'll rarely see two actors do more to make a passably fun screenplay work - and appear so effortless doing it - than Jack Lemmon and James Garner in this movie. [20 Dec 1996, p.3]

Safe is the operative word here, since One Fine Day wouldn't think of messing with its casting chemistry to take any comedic risks. Clooney is as benign here as he was dangerous in From Dusk Til Dawn. Somewhere in the middle, I bet he'll make a terrific Batman next summer. [20 Dec 1996, p.10]

Solid work from an actor long thought incapable of as much. [6 Dec 1996, p.5]

The makers of Jingle All the Way have the nerve to declare what the rest of us have only grumbled about: that the superficial reason for the Christmas season is found nestled in your wallet. Schwarzenegger's ho-ho heroics should have moviegoers gladly tapping into that source into the new year. [22 Nov 1996, p.3]

Jordan makes performing in front of a camera look as easy as everything else he has attempted in his storied life except baseball. Bugs Bunny and the gang are old pros at that. There are some genuine surprises in the special effects expertise on display. [15 Nov 1996, p.3]

Set It Off doesn't say anything especially original, but it says it loud and proud. [06 Nov 1996, p.1D]

Young, old, black, white or whatever: This is one Bus you can't afford to miss. [16 Oct 1996, p.1D]

2 Days in the Valley is a neatly folded piece of cinematic quirk.

Last Man Standing can't live up to its Japanese and Italian predecessors or even its title. [20 Sep 1996, p.5]

It's too easy to say that only fans of Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans should consider seeing Bulletproof, since it would be excruciating to anyone else. It's also unfair, because those fans would be better served to respectively watch "Happy Gilmore" or "The Last Boy Scout" another time than suffer through this latest - and possibly all-time worst - entry in the buddy-action-comedy genre. [7 Sept 1996, p.2B]

One of the best screen encores since Hollywood started depending on sequels to break even. It accomplishes what audiences should demand from a follow-up; familiar characters with a new slant to their exploits that makes us view them differently from before. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be around the Brady household, and we'll thank Sanford for that as soon as we finish snickering. [23 Aug 1996, p.5]

It all comes down to what Francis Fitzpatrick considers the division of life: those people who are miserable and those who are dissatisfied. She's the One has enough fine moments to keep an audience out of the first category. Fans of Burns' first film will fit squarely in the second.

John Frankenheimer weaves a tidy sense of dread until he reveals what should scare us in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Then the movie degenerates into the equivalent of a roadshow tour of Cats gone horribly wrong. [23 Aug 1996, p.8]

America's foremost smart aleck Dennis Miller adds grand giggles to familiar gore in Bordello of Blood. [17 August 1996, p.2B]

DeVito's pacing stunts the eventual triumphs and gives devotees of Dahl's book one more reason not to trust anyone past middle school. [03 Aug 1996, p.2B]

Simply put, Reeves doesn't seem bright enough to master all of the techno-blab he struggles to recite and pantomime in Andrew Davis' return to the thriller genre, Chain Reaction. [2 Aug 1996, p.3]

So many oddities are thrown in our faces that The Frighteners becomes measured by its occasional imaginative moments, rather than as a complete entertainment. [19 July 1996, p.5]

Multiplicity is a pleasant comedy, in the blandest sense of that adjective. It's what you call a billboard movie - a quick-pitch concept easily advertised with snappy star images, flat in its execution and merely a passing distraction to an audience. [17 July 1996, p.3D]

Victor Hugo's classic novel gets the Disney treatment and turns out more vibrant and emotion-packed than anyone might have guessed. [21 June 1996, p.7]

Is Carrey funny? Of course, because Stiller and the script allow him to be funny, at the expense of tension. [14 June 1996, p.3]

The plot, dealing with aliens infiltrating our world, still made as much sense as it possibly could, and the special effects guys really don't go to work until the last two reels. [31 May 1996, p.8]

Cohen and Pogue never get a firm grip on how they wish to play this movie. Myth or mirth? Terror or tease? Draco's fire-breathing aim is mercifully off the mark when buzz-bombing villages, but microwave-sharp when it comes to heating dinner. [31 May 1996, p.3]

Stealth is a key element of tension and, even though DePalma tosses his share of fireballs around, Mission: Impossible gets edgier when it gets quieter. The audience's rapt, empathetic silence while Hunt hangs there in peril proves how well the director does it. [24 May 1996, p.5]

Flipper is a nice movie, a safe movie for Saturday matinees, but it isn't very exciting or entertaining. [17 May 1996, p.5]

Although it's based on true incidents, Mulholland Falls never seems grounded in any semblance of realism. It's a theme park stageshow gone horribly wrong, with spasms of ultra-violence that distract us from the so-called mystery at hand, but never help us ignore those darn hats. [26 Apr 1996, p.3]