Final Analysis is overwrought, overwritten, overscored pseudo-Hitchcockian drivel. With more twists than Lombard Street has curves, this San Francisco-set psychological thriller is the biggest disappointment of the new year. [8 Feb 1992, p.3D]

There are occasional missteps. The movie's pacing is uneven. The scandal is overblown...But the performances are excellent, and the sentiment is honed to ugly perfection.

Had the writing matched their performances, Fried Green Tomatoes would be this year's Driving Miss Daisy. As it is, it's an absorbing period mystery and a hapless social comedy. Half of it works. [24 Jan 1992, p.28

Spike Lee's cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson demonstrates he has the juice to be a top-notch director with Juice. His directorial debut commands respect. What it needs is a deeper story to match its fine acting and visual panache. [17 Jan 1992, p.5]

Aside from a few nifty computer-generated "trip" sequences and a foul-mouthed nun (Amanda Plummer) who advises her torturer to turn the other cheek before flattening him, Freejack has little to recommend it. [18 Jan 1982, p.1D]

Silver wrote The Hand that Rocks the Cradle as a graduate thesis at the University of Southern California film school, and the movie's derivative nature shows it. The Hand that Rocks the Cradle has the viciousness of The Stepfather. DeMornay's live-in nursemaid recalls Michael Keaton's malicious tenant in Pacific Heights. The entire picture stinks of Fatal Attraction, a movie that begins as an ethical exploration and ends as a mad slasher movie. [10 Jan 1992, p.5]

Prince of Tides brims with earnest emotion, but it's packed as tight as a can of sardines. There's no room for the actors to breathe, to relax, to reflect on the events around them...Despite numerous flaws, this is an unusual and special movie, a throwback to an era when big pictures were made about little people in the throes of everyday crisis. [25 Dec 1991, p.1D]

Stone's riveting three-hour movie freely mixes black and white and color documentary footage with pseudo-documentary and dramatic footage, so the line between real and fabrication is constantly blurred. [20 Dec 1991, p.7]

Levinson's Bugsy is painted against a vast tableau as sprawling as his Avalon and Rain Man. Bugsy is his most sophisticated film to date, a celebration of an outlaw's scheme to turn sand into gold; not for profit, but for love of a woman called Flamingo. [20 Dec 1991, p.24]

What ultimately is so distressing about The Last Boy Scout is that, despite its loathsome attitude, it is an outstanding action thriller. It sets its sights a hair above the gutter and hits bullseye every time. [13 Dec 1991, p.5]

Hook is so enormous, so cumbersome, that it resembles a complex machine inching its way across the resplendent three-moon Neverland landscape. It's a brilliant technical achievement, but it hasn't much of a soul. [11 Dec. 1991, p.3D]

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of the finest installments in the saga. [6 Dec. 1991, p.5]

My Girl isn't a must-see, it isn't as lyrical or as deeply moving as it should be, but it is a rare family film. It addresses serious subjects with honesty and earnestness. And it has a heroine worth crying for. [29 Nov 1991, p.5]

Beauty and the Beast flows effortlessly, its images sweeping past with unprecedented fluidity. [22 Nov 1991, p.6]

It's all art direction and no content. There's nothing for Morticia and Gomez to do. [22 Nov 1991, p.7]

Leigh's characters merely act in a goofy and irritating fashion until their dramatic pay-off scenes. This uneven style cheats fine actors out of the chance to shade their roles rather than rely upon black-and-white emotions. [6 Mar. 1992, p.10]

Romances such as Frankie's and Johnny's work better in the artificial environment of the stage than the "real" world of movies. The couple's bond seems phony from the start. [11 Oct 1991, p.7]

Ricochet isn't worthy of Lithgow's or Washington's talents. But having committed to the movie, these actors have gotten what they deserved. [05 Oct 1991, p.3D]

Perhaps the NCAA should investigate how Necessary Roughness ever made it to the big screen. The movie-making team that fielded this fiasco would receive more sanctions than the universities of Florida, Oklahoma and Houston combined. [27 Sept 1991, p.13]

The Commitments is a noisy, gritty, foul-mouthed movie with strong Irish sentiments and accents as pungent as stout. [13 Sep 1991, p.20]

Even an ear-splitting sound track of gunfire, explosions, rock 'n' roll and revving engines can't drown out one noise that should deeply disturb film fans the sound of Butch and Sundance spinning in their Bolivian graves. [27 Aug 1991, p.3D]

Caton-Jones' North Sea sensibilities seem askew for Doc Hollywood. He's operating from movie memories, and movies rarely have been kind to Southerners. With Doc Hollywood, which already is exaggerated, he overplays its hand. [02 Aug 1991, p.19]

Return To The Blue Lagoon is as pretty as a travel brochure and just as thin on substance and entertainment value. [02 Aug 1991, p.13]

Whatever raffish charm Reeves and Swayze exhibit is lost in the superficial gloss of Iliff's screenplay and Bigelow's direction. [12 July 1991, p.7]

Take away the quality look of this movie and the sensitive performance of Ford (he makes Phil Donahue look brutish), and there's a plot shamelessly tugging at heartstrings. It comes complete with a beagle puppy and a freckle-faced child, raising the saccharine level. [10 July 1991, p.1D]

Like Top Secret and other less inspired efforts made by Zucker, brother Jerry Zucker and pal Jim Abrahams, The Naked Gun 2 is consistently amusing without being outright funny. [28 June 1991, p.6]

Reynolds can't sustain the movie's pacing, nor can he blend the disparate elements of this sweeping epic. Yet, there are touches that make Robin Hood enormously entertaining. The battles with flaming arrows, catapults and a forest city of catwalks and tree houses under siege are masterfully recorded. [14 June 1991, p.6]

Enormously engaging. [7 June 1991, p.7]

The movie is too unwieldy and densely packed. The superb performances by Snipes, Sciorra, McKee, Turturro and Jackson can't overcome its sprawling nature. [7 June 1991, p.6]

At the film's beginning, each of these characters seems hopelessly dated and repressed. It's as if they walked out of a 1940s romance. Yet that's the beauty of Only the Lonely. Innocence has its virtues, as Columbus' bittersweet comedy demonstrates. [24 May 1991, p.14]

Switch is a movie in search of an ending, much like Edwards' other lesser comedies. It covers an incredible amount of ground without getting anywhere. [10 May 1991, p.6]

Toy Soldiers is a lame-brained action-adventure casting a quintet of Tiger Beat heartthrobs as prep school pranksters battling Colombian narco-terrorists who overrun their alma mater. [26 Apr 1991, p.12]

Deceptions drive A Kiss Before Dying. Too bad they're too implausible to impart any sense of believability in this bloody fantasy. [26 Apr 1991, p.10]

It's not that the man who brought us Rocky Balboa doesn't fit into a funny movie, it's just that as the lead of rollicking Oscar, he's cast beyond his capabilities. [26 Apr 1991, p.6]

Mortal Thoughts is limited both by its scope and its structure, a relentlessly long Q&A session that relates what happened through a series of flashbacks. It grows tedious at first, then becomes frustrating as the women bungle their alibis and the truth is revealed. [19 Apr 1991, p.6]

It defies convention. It breaks taboos. It isn't a pleasant experience, but it is challenging. [21 June 1991, p.7]

The young Tianbai, Zheng Jian, is as demonic as a flesh-and-blood Michael Myers. Yet Ju Dou is grounded in the stark reality of turn-of-the-century China, where Confucian law has governed life for generations and where adultery is punishable by ostracism or death. [19 Jul 1991, p.7]

Rather than embellish the original movie, the filmmakers have merely strived to re-create it. [22 Mar 1991, p.6]

Cool yet engrossing story of Merrill's fall from grace for refusing to cooperate with HUAC. [15 Mar 1991, p.7]

Finally though, it is Van Peebles who runs New Jack City aground. The film ends up being slightly long, both in terms of time and self-righteousness. Van Peebles is to be commended for making such a hip morality lesson, but New Jack City's finale, which is predictable and trite, could have been handled more creatively by a more daring director. [12 Mar 1991, p.1D]

Audiences get what they pay for: suspense, chills and a bloody resolution as Sleeping with the Enemy charts its predictable course with Martin tracking Laura to small-town Iowa where she's being courted by a patient, polite, fuzzy-bearded drama teacher named Ben. But the picture doesn't delve deeply enough into the problem of spouse abuse. [08 Feb 1991, p.7]

It's a simple and obvious story, to be sure, but it's moving. Jed, the dog who plays White Fang, has agate eyes and a face as expressive as a human's. He is beautiful to watch and very well-trained. [21 Jan 1991, p.3D]

Van Damme, who co-wrote the script, set out to make a punch-packed, entertaining action film, and succeeded. [18 Jan 1991, p.10]

Not Without My Daughter is so patriotic that it plays like propaganda from the U.S. Defense Department. [11 Jan 1991, p.7]

These are the rules: When watching The Bonfire of the Vanities, you don't think of Tom Wolfe. You think of Dr. Strangelove. Only then will you embrace what little there is to like in this sprawling, seemingly racist, absurdist-revisionist twist on The Bonfire of the Vanities. [21 Dec 1990, p.20]

Schepisi & Co. appear to have forgotten a tenet of film making: A moving picture needs to move to succeed. [21 Dec 1990, p.6]

This tender tale of two sisters coping with their free-spirited mother in innocent 1963 is just too cute. It needs some chinks in its gossamer-glazed armor. [14 Dec 1990, p.12]

The Rookie is the most brain dead action-thriller Eastwood has ever directed or starred in. It plays well as a comedy, but that isn't its intent. [07 Dec 1990, p.6]

Leave your taste in the car and check your mind at the door. If nothing else, Predator 2 delivers one thing: buckets of blood, which is probably why a lot of people will see it. [23 Nov 1990, p.6]

Borrowing liberally from Arthur and A Fish Called Wanda, the Little Lady ekes out a few good chuckles at its climax by combining slapstick with broad satire of British manners. [21 Nov 1990, p.1D]

While the first half of The Rescuers Down Under is breathtakingly magnificent, the second half is slower than a sloth. [16 Nov 1990, p.7]

Gary and Martin Kemp, better known in pop music circles as Britain's Spandau Ballet, are superbly, diabolically creepy as the Krays. They give the film its otherworldly, yet street-smart and gritty, sense of being. [09 Nov 1990, p.7]

Utterly satisfying as a musical work (and despite a climax lifted straight out of an old Star Trek episode), Graffiti Bridge doesn't do much for Prince's screen ambitions. [03 Nov 1990, p.1D]

Don't waste time by drawing comparisons between Romero's black-and-white original and Savini's spoofy vision. Romero's work, shocking at the time mostly because of its extreme gore and bleak finale, seems dated and narrow when viewed now. Savini's Night of the Living Dead, with its phosphorescent colors and loopy, frenetic pacing, is vastly more entertaining. [19 Oct 1990, p.12]

Avalon is a crowning effort by Levinson. He could stop making movies today and be satisfied with his Baltimore trilogy. [19 Oct 1990, p.6]

If the saccharine quality of movies could be translated into seismic activity, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael would level Los Angeles. [12 Oct 1990, p.13]

Memphis Belle is the most superficial, jingoistic, stereotyped World War II movie in years. [12 Oct 1990, p.6]

Belushi is the Clydesdale of formulaic comedies. He performs as expected with little artistic invention. He carries Mr. Destiny amiably, although a more resourceful actor might have provided the additional gloss this formulaic comedy so sorely needs. [12 Oct 1990, p.12]

Henry & June is a sumptuous film, more deeply shaded and richly appointed than Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. While it fails to capture the lovers' emotional evolution, it does project their individual concerns. [05 Oct 1990, p.6]

A suggestion: Mr. Pyle should stop writing screenplays Pacific Heights is more tedious than a lease's fine print and tour the country lecturing on the dangers of landlording. [28 Sept 1990, p.6]

A disastrous follow-up to Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, one of the seminal movies of a generation. [28 Sep 1990, p.7]

Narrow Margin cares more about characters than pyrotechnics or double-digit body counts. Its emphasis is on relationships, dramatic situations and settings, and how these combine to create a deeply satisfying yarn. [21 Sep 1990, p.6]

State of Grace is smooth and persuasive but ultimately as senseless as the lives it shows. [05 Oct 1990, p.7]

Death Warrant holds more interest than many of its genre. [21 Sep 1990, p.7]

Eastwood is absolutely the wrong actor to play Huston, called John Wilson in White Hunter, Black Heart. Eastwood is tense and tightly coiled, while Huston was gleefully bombastic. [12 Oct 1990, p.7]

Hardware runs more precisely, it crawls aimlessly as the robot, pieced together from household appliances, attempts to slice, dice, drill and saw Jill to death. There's no tension, no suspense, no climax. [14 Sep 1990, p.7]

Darkman is a spectacularly ill-conceived combination of Batman and The Phantom of the Opera. [24 Aug. 1990, p.6]

Foley's screenplay and direction constantly require viewers to re-evaluate the trio and their relationship with one another. This works as long as the dialogue is tolerable, which isn't long enough. [07 Sep 1990, p.6]

It's appropriate that Men at Work's writer, director and co-star, Emilio Estevez, has cast himself as a garbage collector. His new movie is trash. [25 Aug 1990, p.1D]

The Witches is a delectably creepy movie guaranteed to keep night lights burning bright.

Taking Care of Business is the funniest movie Charles Grodin, Jim Belushi and director Arthur Hiller have made in years. [17 Aug 1990]

Mo' Better Blues is not only about artistry unfulfilled. It is artistry unfulfilled. It is perfection without a meaningful plot. It lopes along, pleasantly, never reaching fruition. [03 Aug 1990, p.18]

How much you enjoy Presumed Innocent depends on whether you read Scott Turow's exhilarating legal thriller about a prosecutor charged with murdering a colleague who was briefly his lover. If you haven't, director Alan J. Pakula's adaptation will leave you dazzled and drained long before the final twist. If you have, you'll appreciate Pakula's faithful, though overly restrained, approach to Turow's 1987 novel that sold 1-million hardback copies and spent 44 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. [27 July 1990, p.6]

A well-intentioned but negligible story elevated to the charming through elegant performance and direction. It probably wouldn't work with any other players, but it gets high marks here. [27 July 1990, p.7]

The SEALs remain as elusive in the movie as they are in real life. They don't offer much information about the secret force, nor do they show us what it's like to be in it. The script sounds as if it has been declassified with all the juicy stuff taken out for security reasons...What it's left with is a series of explosive action scenes, music videos and scant dialogue tied loosely together around a weak plot. [20 July 1990, p.6]

Arachnophobia is a movie spun as carefully as a cobweb, and a whole lot more likeable than you'd expect from a film about creepy crawlers chomping on townsfolks. Credit first-time director Frank Marshall for the success as he expertly wrangles cast and spiders into an entertaining, three-star movie that moves so swiftly along that there's barely a minute to catch your breath. [20 July 1990, p.18]

But the movie is more than just a rehashing of the tried and true jokes. All the old charm is still there, but there's also a whole new setting and a whole new look. [6 July 1990, p.6]

RoboCop 2 moves fast and looks great. How much you like it depends on your tolerance for machine-gun mayhem. [22 June 1990, p.6]

Alda's accomplishment is to bring humorous reality to this predictable but charming movie about a young woman named Betsy Hopper (Molly Ringwald), who has been encouraged to lead an independent life by her parents until it comes time for her traditional wedding.

Like its predecessor, Gremlins 2 is a fun, roller-coaster ride of fiendish pranks and spilled gremlin innards. [15 Jun 1990, p.6]

Fire Birds is Top Gun without wings. Without personality. Without sex appeal. Nicholas Cage is no Tom Cruise. Sean Young is no Kelly McGillis.

Cadillac Man's beginning and ending are superb. (The hearse sequence is classic.) But the movie, like most of the salesmen's waists, sags heavily at its midpoint. [18 May 1990, p.6]

Action director John Badham has made the ultimate smash-and-crash chase movie. It's practically brain dead. It uses a hackneyed premise to string together as many stunts as possible, all the while borrowing from Badham's, Gibson's and Hawn's movies. [18 May 1990, p.7]

Q & A marks Lumet's return to stride after Family Business, Running on Empty and The Morning After. When he deals with New York, cops and corruption, he can't be surpassed. [27 Apr 1990, p.6]

Miami Blues is reminiscent of Demme's Married to the Mob and Something Wild. It has a superb sense of place. It savages Middle American tackiness. Regrettably, Miami Blues is even more mainstream and less developed than Married to the Mob. Its characters' lapses of logic and the holes in Armitage's script require a forgiving audience. The blood-letting at its conclusion necessitates a strong stomach. [20 Apr 1990, p.19]

If only lead actors Johnny Depp and Amy Locane could sustain the perverse pleasures Waters envisions. [6 Apr 1990, p.7]

Kids will probably enjoy all the nonsense, and even attending adults have one consolation: There are worse things to sit through. Just rent Howard the Duck if you don't believe it. [31 Mar 1990, p.1D]

Let's face it: Caine could do a lambada movie and it'd be worth seeing. His work in the new suspense thriller A Shock to the System carries us past the movie's bad direction and muddled script. [24 Mar 1990, p.2D]

Blue Steel is a horror movie masquerading as a cop thriller. It's a compelling, preposterous mixture of Fatal Attraction and Halloween, about a rookie cop who becomes romantically involved with a psycho killer. [16 Mar 1990, p.7]

Hook is largely failed by his earnest, workmanlike cast of boys who seem painfully aware that Lord of the Flies is an Important Movie. [16 Mar 1990, p.12]

Most of the time the film slides along on funky music, lively dance and snappy street-style dialogue. Other teen comedies feature more hair-raising plots and spectacular stunts; other teen comedies are far more sexually explicit. House Party has a wistful, almost naive, air that runs counter to the broad-based perception of young blacks as hardened and hopeless, one step away from doing hard time. [9 Mar 1990, p.6]

This movie is one of the biggest surprises of the new year: a tense suspense thriller, with darkly comic elements, that celebrates American excess while ridiculing it. [09 Mar 1990, p.23]

Though the movie version of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale isn't as powerful as its source material, there are enough stark, unnerving images here to give the effort an Orwellian potency all its own. [17 Mar 1990, p.1D]

Glory ends with a flourish, although much is left unsaid. [12 Jan 1990, p.21]

Revenge, adapted from Harrison's novella, is the sickest of male bonding movies. It is about friendship and betrayal, and how men must uphold their dignity at the expense of all else. Particularly women. [17 Feb 1990, p.1D]

Chainsaw III is competent enough when establishing its premise, but thereafter violates almost every shock-movie convention. The film's visual effects are often ghastly, although there is probably less gratuitous gore here than in any Friday the 13th movie. [17 Jan 1990, p.4D]

The wise viewer will avoid any serious consideration of subtext here. Internal Affairs isn't that deep. Working from a screenplay by Henry Bean, Figgis takes these early scenes and does nothing with them. After a while, the film simply loses its direction and stalls in a morass of formulaic cliches. [13 Jan 1990, p.1D]

Sidewalk Stories is a comedy of forgotten pleasures. It harkens back to the purest form of cinema to silently record what passes for society today. [16 Feb 1990, p.11]

Otomo's masterwork uses its brilliantly detailed images to illustrate an epic commentary on the choices that face society and the possibilities for destruction in the near future. [15 Jun 1990, p.7]

Always is meant to be a fantasy. But it is far too sappy to ignite the imagination. [22 Dec. 1989, p.6]

Stallone and Russell don't bore. As verbal sparring partners, they provide plenty worth watching.

Movies like Miss Daisy purport to be humanistic or aimed at a higher consciousness, but they're as self-righteous and silly as the one-dimensional characters they depict. [12 Jan. 1990, p.7]

It's a feather-light fantasy bouyed by faith, hope and good will. [15 Dec 1989, p.12]

The Wizard does have a half-baked germ of a story at its center, but it's never developed because director Todd Holland turns his movie into one long commercial whose climax is the unveiling of a new Nintendo game - just in time for Christmas, boys and girls. [15 Dec 1989, p.7]

The payoffs are big, even though heavy-handed direction by Lumet (Prince of the City, The Morning After) and a smart but sometimes soggy script by Vincent Patrick threaten to weigh the actors down. [19 Dec 1989, p.5D]

Writer-director Shelton builds his story around Starr's and Long's scandalous affair, capturing Long's unprecedented bid for a fourth gubernatorial term and his fight against Louisiana's voter registration law, which disenfranchised illiterate blacks. Through Long's eccentric and purportedly immoral behavior, Shelton captures the last gasp of American innocence when public officials could do as they pleased with minimal scrutiny by the press. Handsome, fulfilling, though not entirely perfect movie. [13 Dec 1989, p.1D]

She-Devil is insipid. It is a hustle-bustle comic fantasy that insists on shoveling forced humor down viewers' throats. The movie is devoid of charm. [8 Dec 1989, p.6]

You're safe this Christmas. There are no more obnoxious, senile or terminally stupid relatives to go around. Clark Griswold has invited them all to his house. Know what? They're no more fun to watch at his place than they are at yours...This sort of predictable, lowest-common-denominator humor is entertaining to a degree. It fulfills expectations. [1 Dec 1989, p.7]

An absolute masterpiece in the Disney tradition. [17 Nov 1989, p.11]

Goldberg has honorable intentions. But like Tammy Faye's make-up, it's impossible to see beneath his movie's overwrought facade. [27 Oct 1989, p.7]

Although The Bear is as handsome as Quest for Fire - the story of an Ice Age tribe moving up the evolutionary ladder - it is also as turgid. [27 Oct 1989, p.12]

Newman is terse and quietly assured as Groves. He gives Fat Man and Little Boy its rigid backbone, its sense of purpose. Regrettably, he spends a fair amount of time off screen and away from Los Alamos. [20 Oct 1989, p.6]

The Fabulous Baker Boys has winning performances, but the film's real success is how truthfully it portrays these people and their music. [13 Oct 1989, p.6]

Its logic is so simple, its emotion is so heartfelt, its editing and composition are so fluid, it seems to be a perfectly-crafted contemporary drama. Yet, in retrospect, it's a difficult movie to stomach. The problem with Brothers' script is that he and Yates paint characters with unbelievably broad strokes. [06 Oct 1989, p.12]

The film unfortunately does a poor job bringing any perspective to Monk's complex music and personality, but it is a remarkable record of his performance style and relationship with other musicians. [02 Mar 1990, p.12]

Like most of Hill's movies, Johnny Handsome plays like an outline: a good idea in need of development. [29 Sep 1989, p.7]

While there is an undeniable beauty in the film's images and a measure of energy from the exotic perfume of the people and places, Black Rain is in the end a cop movie, with a particularly pedestrian story to boot. [22 Sep 1989, p.6]

Like its predecessors, A Dry White Season is too reserved to effectively depict the hell of South Africa. Its most powerful moments occur in the courtroom, in jail cells and morgues filled with dead black children when its starched white protagonist is safely off-screen. [06 Oct 1989, p.6]

While there isn't much mystery to this mystery - only a handful of suspects are interviewed - there is a compelling sense of helplessness underscoring the lives of all its characters. In that sense, Sea of Love is a gender bender Looking for Mr. Goodbar, a disturbing allegory for the '80s when the fear of AIDS and sexual violence only deters a percentage of the singles population from making its appointed meat-market rounds. [15 Sep 1989, p.6]

From its treacly theme song to its final, hackneyed image, Shirley Valentine misses the mark. The second half is considerably brighter than the opening sequences, but that is faint praise, indeed. [22 Sept 1989, p.7]

The Package has its shortcomings - notably its disjointed beginning and some implausible miscalculations by the conspirators toward the end - but it generally hums at a healthy clip with twinges of Big Brother paranoia. [25 Aug 1989, p.12]

This movie misses its mark, never becoming the suburban satire promised on the poster. It doesn't offend, it bores. Most people, even diehard John Candy fans, will want to wait for the video release. It shouldn't be a very long wait at all. [18 Aug 1989, p.12]

It's amazing how much slobber $ 20-million will buy. [28 July 1989, p.6]

Lethal Weapon 2, which is based on a story by Warren Murphy and series' originator Shane Black, is nearly as good as the original. It has its flaws. The story too closely parallels the original, a Golden Triangle conspiracy that had more mercenaries running around Los Angeles than the Third World. [08 July 1989, p.1D]

Jerry Lee Lewis' rise and repeated falls from grace are the makings of a great movie waiting to happen. Great Balls of Fire isn't that movie. [30 June 1989, p.18]

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids pulls some familiar plot - and emotional strings. It's a tad too predictable. But it's resourceful and well-crafted. It's the type of movie that works on one level for parents and another for kids. Both will be pleased. [23 June 1989, p.12]

Batman is perfect summertime fare. Its secret is levity hidden in a dark and troubled soul.. [23 June 1989, p.6]

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is an uneven mix of shopworn comedy and talky space adventure...If it's moderately engaging, it's because the material is familiar and never taxing. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier goes where no man has gone before. Barely. [9 June 1989, p.12]

Things are kept fast, loose and very violent. Renegades makes a grand effort not to be boring, but at the expense of believability and logic. [03 Jun 1989, p.1D]

Pink Cadillac is the most amiable and mindless Eastwood comedy in years. That it's even marginally entertaining is a substantial feat, given John Eskow's predictable script, which has more pings than the Caddy's engine. [30 May 1989, p.1D]

Swayze exhibits virtually no charisma, although the terpsichorean skills he demonstrated in Dirty Dancing appear to have translated well to martial arts. He can kick box like a champ. He sweats handsomely in the sunset. He is able to flex his buns, which are shown naked more than once. [19 May 1989, p.6]

These are minor quibbles with a stunning achievement. For All Mankind rewrites history, creating a single glorious adventure from a generation of giant leaps for all mankind. [20 July 1990, p.7]

Davis is the perfect empty-headed, enameled-nail airhead Valley inhabitant, and she is so sweet in whatever she does it is difficult not to like her. Expect nothing more than a few laughs and a break from the heat, and Earth Girls Are Easy will not disappoint you. [10 June 1989, p.1D]

Though Chocolat never fulfills the plot it promises, Denis makes many low-key but powerful observations about racism and the lines it can draw between us. [12 Aug 1989, p.4D]

There is a sweet gentility about Beth Henley's work as a playwright and a screenwriter, even though her best efforts stumble badly when they move from stage to screen. [16 May 1989, p.1D]

Dream Team might strike some viewers as insensitive, particularly after the care that was accorded persons with psychological disorders in Rain Man. But crass fun is a major component in Dream Team's tasteless charm. In fact, what this movie needs is less taste and lower regard for standard plot formulas. [07 Apr 1989, p.6]

There are some laws of nature we might as well accept: Gravity exists, the world is round, and movies with Pia Zadora, Robin Leach, Dr. Joyce Brothers and Annette Funicello are not funny. [24 March 1989, p.7]

Chevy Chase only knows how to play Chevy Chase. Unless he jettisons his smug routine and learns to act, he will always be his and his movies' biggest liability. [17 March 1989, p.6]

Miraculously, Chances Are has some engaging moments despite its saccharine script and Emile Ardolino's (Dirty Dancing) sluggish direction. [10 March 1989, p.10]

Lean on Me is the type of cloying, crowd-pleasing drama you can't help but like - a little bit - even if its situations are contrived and its direction is stilted.

The Fly II has virtually no surprises, unless you think of the revolting transformations and gruesome deaths as somehow revelatory. [17 Feb 1989, p.10]

Her Alibi isn't a tremendous movie. But it's pleasant and entertaining in a corny, old-fashioned way. [3 Feb 1989, p.10]

Three Fugitives, which for all purposes is one extended chase, has a few chuckles, though nothing to justify its existence.[27 Jan 1989, p.11]

Aggressively inane. [14 Apr 1989]

The material fails the execution and performances. [13 Jan 1989, p.7]

Beaches, adapted from novelist Iris Rainer Dart's hankie-wringer, is truly horrid. Its only redeeming qualities are heartfelt performances by Midler and Barbara Hershey, as pen-pal buddies since pre-adolescence. [13 Jan 1989, p.6]

The title sounds like just about all you need to know: another stupid premise-heavy comedy. However, director Richard Benjamin and a sharp cast have managed to make a silly premise if not believable, then plausible and funny. [17 Dec 1988, p.1D]

As if these weren't enough subplots to juggle, screenwriter McPherson revives the romance between boat captain Steve Guttenberg and Antarean Tawnee Welch. This sort of interspecies romance presumably violates Florida law and certainly counters any attempts at efficient storytelling. [23 Nov 1988, p.1D]

This tale of prehistoric cuteness (sort of a Clan Of The Care Bears) is mostly dreadfully slow when it is not being overbearingly cloying. Bluth has done much better work in the past and certainly will again. This isn't it. [18 Nov 1988, p.7]

Ho-hum animation, ordinary characters and a plot that included the kidnapping and the terrorizing of a little girl leave one wondering if Disney can create even the slightest bit of its old magic. [18 Nov 1988, p.7]

A Cry in the Dark reaches out from the screen to make an emotional connection that doesn't let go until the final credits. It is a wonderful film. [16 Nov 1988, p.1D]

This chiller has its predictable and unpredictable moments. As random, brutal murders on film go, Halloween 4 does do a creditable job of setting up the terrifying scene, only to have something unexpected happen. [28 Oct 1988, p.7]

Indeed, there's so much cutting between Hackman on the ground and Glover in the sky, the overwhelming feeling at the end of Bat 21 is relief that the viewer was able to get through the ordeal without a dose of Dramamine. [21 Oct 1988, p.6]

What begins as an unflinching account of the victim's hospitalization, interrogation, feelings of anger and fear of intimacy, eventually succumbs to courtroom theatrics.[14 Oct 1988, p.6]

Punchline, a movie about the pain and sacrifices of being a comic, is a lot less pretty and less believeable than it should be. It's also a lot more manipulative.[7 Oct 1988, p.8]

It's to Crystal's, King's and Williams' credit that they give engaging performances considering the cliched nature of the script. And, it's a measure of first-time director Winkler's fortitude that he plows through the material and keeps Memories of Me bouncing along when a less imaginative director would have abandoned the picture to its own devices. [07 Oct 1988, p.9]

Salaam Bombay brilliantly reminds us, with barely a trace of sugarcoating, that there must always be room for the children. [23 Dec 1988, p.8]

Crossing Delancey is a generously friendly comedy, well-acted and directed. Irving's graceful performance and Riegert's solid one bring depth to what is essentially another light comedy.

Distant Voices, Still Lives is both a personal and social portrait. It often flows without dialogue, eloquently relating a tragic story that words could not describe. [10 Nov 1989, p.13]

Running on Empty, for all its implausibilities and pseudo-radical bourgeois banter, is an unusually engaging movie. [14 Oct 1988, p.10]

Monkey Shines is just humdrum theater fodder that exploits the problems of quadriplegics for a cheap buzz of fear that it can't even deliver. This movie could make the apes sorry that we're related. [29 July 1988, p.9]

Even Pee-wee seems subdued. The man-child whose suit cuffs are intimate with his ankles and elbows is growing up. Kids may still adore him. But adults will find his persona worn at the edges. [23 Jul 1988, p.1D]

John Hughes didn't have an idea for a summer film this year, but he went ahead and made one anyway. The Great Outdoors, Hughes' latest extrusion from his script factory, has almost nothing to recommend it, save a lovely performance by John Candy, one of the most likable actors anywhere. Candy is untouchable; when the film is good, you want to see more of him, because he's mostly the reason. When the film is not so good (which is often), you don't blame him. [17 June 1988, p.7]

For all its shortcomings and long speeches, The Presidio is to be credited for trying to reach beyond formula. Hyams and screenwriter Ferguson (Highlander, Beverly Hills Cop II) have aspired to make more than a mismatched buddy movie. But the task has proved too intricate for them to achieve. [10 June 1988, p.6]

Funny Farm is one of the dullest, most predictable movies in Chevy Chase's and director George Roy Hill's spotty careers. It's on par with Chase's Modern Problems and Hill's A Little Romance. This picture is not destined to be fondly remembered in their memoirs. [3 June 1988, p.8]

The saddest part of the film is that Hogan, after creating an entertaining character, chose to plug the character into a cheap formula whose hoped-for solution is, I suspect, a big chunk of the $300-million the first film was able to milk worldwide. I can see at least a few interesting movies using the Dundee character and Australia: Crocodile Dundee II is not one of them. [27 May 1988, p.6]

It's a stunning, dazzling motion picture that somehow, almost unaccountably, has the magnetism of a slab of corned beef. [20 May 1988, p.6]

Powaqqatsi is a melange of images and music, so beautiful and mesmerizing that it's completely possible to overlook Reggio's message. [09 Jul 1988, p.1D]

Above the Law is action trash. But it's great action trash, running fast and furious from the first frame to the last. It's entirely possible - in fact, advisable - to forget the movie's right-to-left-wing political swings and just watch Seagal rage. [22 Apr 1988, p.7]

To enjoy 18 Again, I would have to be 8 again. That was about the age of the young man sitting next to me, and he had a great time. I didn't. [08 Apr 1988, p.6]

Director Bridges coaxes nothing from his smooth-faced star, which is surprising in view of his previous films - Urban Cowboy, The China Syndrome, The Paper Chase - all of which had strong leads (John Travolta, Jane Fonda, Timothy Bottoms). Bright Lights, Big City is certainly an improvement over Bridges' last film, Perfect, but this material requires more intensity than Fox can muster. [5 Apr 1988, p.1D]

Biloxi Blues is sweet, nostalgic and readily forgettable. But it is entertaining. And in this case, that's all that is required. [25 Mar 1988, p.7]

Stand and Deliver does what it promises. It delivers. [30 Mar 1988, p.1D]

Vice Versa shouldn't be happening to Judge Reinhold. He's too wonderful to be squandered on a movie plot that could have been shaped by a roomful of third graders with magic markers and lined paper. [11 Mar 1988, p.6]

Frantic is an engrossing character study, but as a thriller it sometimes relies on cliches. For starters, the whole mess is triggered by a case of mixed-up suitcases. A drug shipment? No, worse: a device that could give some Arab bad guys nuclear weapons. Several action scenes are lifted from the Hitchcock style, but they don't capture the master's sense of suspense. Polanski weaves in moments of dark humor amid all the intrigue. [01 Mar 1988, p.1D]

It's unfortunate a picture as lovingly envisioned and beautifully rendered as Hope and Glory has to struggle to find a resolution. [25 Dec 1987, p.7]

Ironweed doesn't work despite the stellar performances of Nicholson as former baseball pro Francis Phelan and Meryl Streep as his pal, Helen Archer, the former musician whose booze-ravaged voice still bears the air of cultivation. [12 Feb 1988, p.5]

A half-baked FBI drama in the 48 HRS.-Lethal Weapon buddy-buddy mode. [12 Feb 1988, p.7]

More than a little has been lost in the translation. Screenwriters Richard Maxwell and A.R. Simoun have created a horrific Indiana Jones adventure with Davis being portrayed by Bill Pullman, an actor who does a poor imitation of Michael Douglas doing a poor imitation of Harrison Ford.[6 Feb 1988, p.2D]

Dark, heavy and plodding, with imaginative sex and a strong sense of magnetism between its characters. [26 March 1988, p.1D]

As hollow as it is hip. [5 Feb 1988, p.8]

Good Morning, Vietnam moves fitfully, as it should. Like Tin Men and Diner, there's an underbelly of sadness here. Audiences expecting an all-out Robin Williams comedy may feel shortchanged. The banter in Good Morning, Vietnam is lively, but its mood has the melancholy bitterness of truth. [15 Jan 1988, p.6]

Director John G. Avildsen and screenwriters Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue do an amiable job balancing humor and pathos while investigating the ultimate nightmare of every sexually active unmarried adolescent. [16 Jan 1988, p.1D]

Rarely has a children's picture been so stagnant, so bereft of passion. [18 Dec 1987, p.8]

Overboard is predictable, yet charming. Russell exudes a natural earthiness that lends itself to this type of material. Hawn plays gamely along. While Overboard recalls director Marshall's (Nothing in Common) sitcom days, the movie is shot with the sort of graininess that can never be mistaken for television. It could look a lot better. [18 Dec 1987, p.7]

Although Throw Momma From the Train has its moments, it's largely a leaden affair. A trifle amusing, perhaps, but never worthy of the talents of DeVito and co-star Billy Crystal. [11 Dec 1987, p.7]

Spielberg's Empire of the Sun dispels with the sugar coating that turned Alice Walker's searing novel about racial and sexual subjugation into "The Color Purple: The Coffee Table Edition." Yet, Spielberg retains a sense of innocence in this ambitious, visionary tale. [10 Dec 1987, p.6]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles puts on the miles without many smiles. The journey hardly seems worth the trouble. [27 Nov 1987, p.6]

Three elements rescue Three Men and a Baby from its inherent shallowness: its casting, pacing and its infant. Nimoy capitalizes on parental instincts without being cloying or cute, so after viewing Three Men and a Baby's tender moments, it's practically impossible to dismiss the movie as mere fluff. [27 Nov 1987, p.7]

After his hit-and-miss starring role in Purple Rain and the so-bad-it's-funny Under the Cherry Moon, Prince has come into his own as a film maker by doing what he does best: putting his consummate musical and performance talents into a vehicle that smokes from wire-to-wire. [29 Dec 1987, p.3D]

Hiding Out is a hip movie. Hip but slow. It's an adult comedy hiding in an adolescent concept, burdened by humor that can be very knowing or nauseatingly sophomoric. [06 Nov 1987, p.3D]

A relatively inane movie about good will and unfounded distrust. [06 Nov 1987, p.3D]

While The Hidden never manages to meld Aliens with Blue Velvet - that appears to be Hunt's intention. It has a kinky charm that fuels it full throttle throughout. [30 Oct 1987, p.5D]

Carpenter returns to his roots, which is to say he's gouging eyes and summoning demons. He's doing it in a wonderfully rough-hewn, low-budget style that fondly recalls Halloween, the granddaddy of slasher movies. [24 Oct 1987, p.1D]

No Man's Land takes the showroom approach. It doesn't get its hands dirty. It embellishes what you'd see if you stood in the waiting room of a Porsche dealership and peered into the service bay. A little more grease is in order. [23 Oct 1987, p.3D]

Cher rips through this material, dragging the audience behind her. It's because of her that Suspect is so intoxicating and that the lapses in Roth's script are practically forgotten in the excitement. [23 Oct 1987, p.1D]

Neophyte Joanou's camera is airborne so often it gives the impression Three O'Clock High was filmed between traffic reports by Chopper 8. It's an example of virtuoso film making solely for the sake of virtuosity. [9 Oct 1987, p.3D]

Scott retains his sense of mood and tension. Despite the script's predictable and flawed nature, he elevates Someone To Watch Over Me to the point that it emerges as a surprisingly satisfying piece of filmed entertainment. [9 Oct 1987, p.3D]

It is sophomoric, yet very funny. And until its weepy, reconciliatory ending, it moves with locomotive force. It's the type of movie that makes critics feel guilty about liking it, yet there's no refuting its charm. [02 Oct 1987, p.1D]

There's a lot of money in the sets, costumes, cinematography and soundtrack of The Big Town, but the movie has no soul. [29 Sep 1987, p.4D]

An unwholesome but entertaining blend of Grand Guignol and High Tech. Hellraiser is ghastly fun, for the most part, but it is unconscionably silly. [21 Sep 1987, p.1D]

For all their bantering about being losers on the verge of falling in love, there's very little chemistry between Ringwald and Downey. [21 Sept 1987, p.1D]

The Principal almost has something to say about inner-city high schools, public education in the '80s, and race relations. It never deals with these issues, and a good cast is abandoned in the parking lot. [21 Sep 1987, p.1D]

A near-flawless thriller. [28 Aug 1987, p.1D]

It waffles. In the end, it emerges a distinctly pro-soldier, possibly anti-war movie that supports America's overseas doctrine, whether it be right or wrong. One shudders to think what they might create if asked to portray the United States' current role in Central America. Their film certainly wouldn't dare make a statement, bother to educate or entertain. And most importantly, it wouldn't take sides. [29 Aug 1987, p.1D]

One of the finest pictures released this year. [13 Nov 1987, p.1D]

Moving away from the gag-based comedy of his films with Chong, Marin has discovered a richer humor of character and circumstance, and although old habits surface long enough to permit unfortunate lapses in continuity and consistency, he proves surprisingly adept at his new mode. [24 Aug 1987, p.1D]

As the story lumbers on, the noose around Farrell's neck tightens and No Way Out gets funnier. Not by design, however. [14 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Unfortunately, Can't Buy Me Love is not particularly funny. Rash is so concerned with exploring the abhorrent high school caste system - making a teen comedy with a conscience - that the story ultimately becomes leaden and pedantic. Add to this the movie's predictability at every turn, including an ever-so-tidy conclusion, and you end up with something that's little more than a nice try. [14 Aug 1987, p.3D]

Dekker's notion of pouring comedy and horror into the cinematic Cuisinart and leaning on the starter switch doesn't work here. [14 Aug 1987, p.D1]

If the movie has nothing important to say, so what? Neither do most surfers. [14 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Back To The Beach, starring the early '60s most popular teen-agers, Frankie and Annette, combines the campiness of a college reunion, the corniness of a high school musical, and the values of Mister Rogers. The film's only redeeming quality is that it knows it … and manages to laugh at itself occasionally. [10 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Who's That Girl is a stern test of your MQ (Madonna Quotient). It is quite possible to hate this movie before the animated credits sequence is over. [10 Aug 1987, p.1D]

A contrived finish only serves to resolve the dangling threads of a story that ought to end with a huge laugh, not a self-conscious giggle. [7 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace doesn't attempt to disguise its sentiments - no more so than Greenpeace - but neither does it lose the campy spirit of the 1978 original. Although never as stylish as the first movie, it shows verve and a modest wit. Superman IV is not as funny as the first sequel, but it isn't as violent, either. [27 July 1987, p.1D]

Writer-director Luis Valdez's movie is an example of just how tedious a bio-pic can be. [24 July 1987, p.3D]

This sequel has neither the tingling anticipation of Spielberg's '75 original, nor the excellent 3-D effects of the third film. [22 July 1987, p.2D]

Director Roth, working from a screenplay by Dan Guntzelman and Steve Marshall, makes this material about as interesting as a dirty joke told v-e-r-y slowly, in pidgin French. [13 July 1987, p.1D]

The roller coaster of events more than compensates for the film's inane dialogue. Innerspace is the stuff summer adventure is made of. [1 July 1987, p.1D]

Despite its commercial leanings, Dragnet is consistently entertaining. Its acting is flawless and its tone is refreshingly reverent toward the old Dragnet series. [26 June 1987, p.1D]

A pleasant surprise. It's a gentle, unforced adult comedy that capitalizes on situations rather than gags. [19 June 1987, p.1D]

Withnail and I is one of those pictures that manages to be consistently amusing and grating at the same time. It stirs some good memories while pointing to the aimlessness of an era. [2 Oct 1987, p.5D]

The Witches of Eastwick is a theme park without a theme. Like Nicholson and his co-stars, Miller doesn't have a lot on his mind. He just wants to have fun. His movie is organized mayhem, a strange and funny tour de force. [15 June 1987, p.1D]

Predator has a certain comic-book quality that, combined with its parody of movies like The Magnificent Seven, is very appealing. It provides the action, suspense and technical wizardry that summertime audiences crave. [12 June 1987, p.1D]

The Believers is the type of movie that generates shocks more successfully than it tells a story. [10 Jun 1987, p.1D]

This is a fun picture, even if it's overly sentimental and has the feeling of an extended Amazing Stories segment. Director Dear is a master Spielbergian craftsman. Now, all he has to do is demonstrate some originality to establish himself as a quality film maker. [5 June 1987, p.1D]

Benji the Hunted lacks the charm of the previous films, and although the production values are excellent, the film makers are saying, "We did it for the money." What else is new? Film makers named Stallone, Norris and Schwarzenegger do it all the time. There is no reason not to expect it of Benji's owners. [19 June 1987, p.3D]

While The Stepfather doesn't transcend the limitations of most slice-and-dice movies, it comes close. And has fun trying.

Too often, the movie relies on the contrived situations endemic to gangster movies, rather than explore new routes to tell the story. Yet, there is an undeniable visual power that places The Untouchables in the class of The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in America. [3 June 1987, p.1D]

Beverly Hills Cop II is practically a carbon copy of the original movie, which, at the very least, exhibited a glimmer of invention. The sequel is superior only in terms of technique. It looks slicker and sounds better; more like a music video. Its tone is fractionally more reserved. And there isn't the unsettling clash between humor and violence. [22 May 1987, p.1D]

Gardens of Stone is not a great picture. But it is a good one, made by a visionary director who strives to address film as literature. This is an absorbing companion piece to Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which treats the war in allegorical terms. [12 May 1987, p.1D]

The particular genius of My Life As a Dog is its ability to capture the joy, fear and fantasy that make pre-adolescence so beguiling. [18 Sept 1987, p.3D]

Extreme Prejudice is an exceptionally bad movie, despite a powerful introduction in the tradition of Hill's bloodiest ventures, Southern Comfort, The Long Riders and 48 HRS. [24 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Project X is a predictable, sappy Save The Monkeys movie. [17 Apr 1987, p.1D]

The Secret of My Success is Ross's most engaging romantic comedy since California Suite. Interestingly, it uses some of the best elements of his less successful movies: the pictorial splendor of Pennies from Heaven, the fusion of music and image in Footloose, the unbridled comic delivery of Protocol, the sense of character from Max Dugan Returns. [10 Apr 1987, p.1D]

It is a fairly conventional cartoonish farce, like his 1986 horse racing comedy A Fine Mess. And despite Blind Date's emphasis on excess, its final cut seems uncommonly restrained. [27 Mar 1987, p.4D]

It's not an art film, although it's an extremely intelligent piece of filmmaking. [27 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Writer-director Levinson returns to Baltimore (his home town) with a perceptive, rueful comedy called Tin Men. It is about male camaraderie and revenge, and it, too, uses its setting as a statement. Baltimore, circa 1963, represents hope, transition and a fading American Dream. [13 Mar 1987, p.1D]

Like Hi and Ed, Raising Arizona has a few problems. The repeated slapstick chases and fights are a little wearisome, and the final showdown between Hi and the biker is badly overdrawn, and gratuitously violent in the DePalma- Cronenberg style. Still, there is something appealing about a film that lists "baby wrangler" among the credits. And little T. J. Kuhn is liable to start a "critter boom" all by his lonesome. [10 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Lethal Weapon is harder-edged than Beverly Hills Cop. It never forgets that it's a detective story, an action-adventure with a dash of cheer. Its climax can stop pacemakers at mid-beat. Trash rarely has been this much fun. [06 Mar 1987, p.1D]

Mannequin may be loosely described as a variation on Ron Howard's Splash, but with none of that film's charm or wit. [14 Feb 1987, p.5B]

While the movie's technical aspects are first-rate and Stallone manages more than a monosyllabic performance, Over the Top can't overcome its sense of deja vu or provide any reason for Hawk's suitability as a parent. [14 Feb 1987, p.5B]

Evidently, Schrader didn't believe strongly in his own screenplay, and that lack of faith proves fatal. [06 Feb 1987, p.1D]

Like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Rafelson's Black Widow is seriously flawed despite several compelling scenes. It plods to a contrived resolution, piling implausibility upon implausibility, rarely pausing to account for the incredulous events that transpire. It is the type of movie that squanders potential at every juncture. [7 Feb 1987, p.5B]

Radio had a mystical power that television never has been able to re-create. Its sound effects and faceless voices stirred the imagination and quite often the heart. Allen captures its essence with an anguished broadcast from the scene of an accident, an attempted rescue of a young girl wedged in a well shaft. [20 Feb 1987, p.1D]

The two women seem genuinely comfortable with each other, and it shows in their unselfishness and timing in a film that moves from verbal humor to slapstick. [30 Jan 1987, p.4D]

The only highlights in this farce are Wallace Shawn's brief comic turn as the killer's attorney, and Mark Margolis' portrayal of a man who'd rather fight than let Terry into his phone booth. I applaud his integrity. [16 Jan 1987, p.3D]

Estevez has said that Wisdom is at least partly a comment on American celebrity-worship. He focuses on the media blitz that surrounds the nationwide manhunt for John Wisdom and his girlfriend, but he is merely reworking tired cliches. Like the youngsters in the dum-dum 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean, John Wisdom is a rebel without a cause. [3 Jan 1987, p.5B]

Oliver Stone's Platoon is the most sobering Vietnam War epic ever made. It is an unqualified triumph for its honesty, its artistry, its brutality and its frank portrayal of a nation - our nation - divided by ideology, poverty, racism and drugs. [25 Jan 1987, p.1E]

The Mission, grand prize winner at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, recognizes the bounds of the picture experience and strives to stretch beyond. [16 Jan 1987, p.1D]

Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight is a superlative elegy, a bluesy, melancholy movie dedicated to expatriate jazzmen Bud Powell and Lester Young. It captures the essence of their music, moving with the smokey, meandering rhythms of bebop. [03 Feb 1987, p.3D]

This 1984 movie starring Daryl Hannah and Aidan Quinn is simply perfect. It's gritty. It doesn't stoop to being overly predictable. And it just makes your heart swoon a little.

Superbly directed by John Huston and acted with extraordinary charisma by Caine and Sean Connery. [14 Mar 2002, p.19W]

Catch 22 will be remembered as a screamingly terrifying and funny interpretation of Joesph Heller's classic work. [27 July 1970, p.42]

The cinema grew up when Penn crafted this movie. Beatty was never better playing boyish insecurity while Faye Dunaway was a smoldering newcomer. Essential viewing for film lovers. [27 Sept 2001, p.14W]

No other movie has so masterfully conveyed the folly of nuclear warfare, or poked such savage fun at a military that wages it. Stanley Kubrick's coal-black comedy has a timeless quality that will probably extend beyond disarmament. [6 Aug 1995, p.2B]

Once impressive, the special effects seem dated now. [15 Nov 1991, p.18]

A memorable doomsday drama. [28 Sep 2000, p.13W]

Never a dull moment, which, considering the film's length is saying something. [04 Jan 1987, p.6E]

Guilt and obsession combine to create the most personally revealing effort of his career. [Restored version; 13 Dec 1996, p.5]

For craftsmanship, fine acting and excellent direction, Them! tops practically all previous such fiction. It offers excitement, humor, suspense; also, romance which, however, is reduced to a minimum. [20 Jun 1954, p.11C]

The filmmaker who counted A Place in the Sun, Giant, and The Greatest Story Ever Told among his epic works made this rather intimate Western in which character dominates the landscape. [18 Aug 2000, p.9W]

Forget the last hour of Pearl Harbor. LeRoy's depiction of Jimmy Doolittle's air raid has all the excitement and patriotism that Disney's publicity machine couldn't buy. [13 Sep 2001, p.13W]

Lifeboat is one of Alfred Hitchcock's weakest films, yet it remains a notable experiment for its ability to maintain a sense of action despite its cramped setting. [9 March 1990, p.10]

A bit dated in its feminism, making some jokes even funnier. [08 Mar 2001, p.17W]

Fonda's comedy instincts are in top form as a herpetologist duped by a con artist (Barbara Stanwyck) in a screwball comedy from director Preston Sturges. A vintage example of pratfalling into love. [16 May 2002, p.11W]

The greatest animated film of all time...one of the truly monumental cinematic accomplishments of all time. Each frame was lovingly hand-drawn, rather than the stylized mechanics of computer animation that brought back the art form in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. The effect is astounding, especially when the animators' attention to detail and four years of painstaking effort is considered. I'm not ashamed to admit that at a recent screening - right around the sound of the first "Heigh Ho" - I wept, awed by the artistry and savoring a rich historical and emotional experience. [2 July 1993, p.8]

It is brilliant and spectacular to a superlative degree with scenes that are nothing less than astonishing in their magnificence. [16 Apr 1936, p.2]