Trading in his thinker's cap for a craftsman's apron, Lee is content to carve a little something out of nothing much - the result is as dismissible as it is diverting. [Apr 12, 1996. pg. C.2]

Despite its lapses in credibility, the screenplay does offer both wit and numerous surprise twists, as well as all that non-stop action. And it's a nice change to see an action movie in which the hero, Russell's Grant, isn't some muscle-bound squinter. [15 Mar 1996]

Wong Kar-Wai makes gifted use of a hand-held camera in Chungking Express; little seems to have been shot with anything else. That, linked with a clear taste for chiaroscuro imagery, makes for a fast-paced film that combines visual flair with story lines that are subtle enough to leave the most important things unspoken. [15 Mar 1996]

Nominally set in some rural American backwater, The Neon Bible is a hellishly muddled reprint of Davies' personal canon - muddled enough to turn all his past virtues into present transgressions. [19 Apr 1996]

After the first five minutes of Down Periscope, though, you'll be more likely be thinking Voyage to the Bottom of the Dregs. As with Ellen DeGeneres's Mr. Wrong, this is the sort of film you expect a big TV star to do before he's successful, not after. [01 Mar 1996]

Freed from the tiresome constraints of plot and character, Rumble in the Bronx is the distilled essence of action entertainment. [27 Feb 1996, p.D1]

Mary Reilly comes across as too much brooding atmosphere and too little story. [23 Feb 1996]

Broad, loud and crammed full of costumed characters and stage asides about the poverty of the script, it's typical pantomime, with a thin plot on which to hang the over-the-top performances and light-hearted musical numbers (by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil). [16 Feb 1996]

Broken Arrow conforms faithfully to the tongue-in-cheek, post-Die Hard action genre, with the usual spectacularly choreographed action sequences and rudiments of a story line. Even considering the meagre demands of the genre, though, character and plot seem woefully underbaked and the reliance on improbable solutions soon makes the groans of incredulity outnumber the gasps. [9 Feb 1996, p.C1]

The shipwreck comes too late to rescue movie from endless banalities. [02 Feb 1996]

Restoration is a middling thing, indifferent good, albeit much enlivened by Robert Downey Jr., who did act Merivel with the full vigour of his profession. [31 Jan 1996]

Mr. Holland's Opus is all heart. I suppose a brain cell or two might have helped to win over laggards such as me, but no matter. It sure means well and, in a note-perfect world, strikes its basic chords with a naif's true conviction. [19 Jan 1996]

For all his daring, the brazen creator maintains control - there's aesthetic order in the disorder, and calculated reason in the madness. Seldom has it felt so good to seem so lost.

A swashbuckler that plays like an over-dressed serial on a slow Saturday afternoon. [22 Dec 1995]

An intense story about an all-powerful Chinese crime lord and his extended family. [26 Jan 1996]

This three-hour opus, bearing only the eponymous title of Nixon, is an intriguing ramble through the social psychology of man and country alike. Indeed, the simple dialectics that both animated and marred Stone's earlier work are redeemed here precisely because they're invested in a single, complex personality - consequently, this film is more character-driven than any of its predecessors. [20 Dec 1995, p.C1]

No, the film may not be quite as luminous as the cast, but it's good - very good, in fact.

The terror sequences (not only animals but monsoons and earthquakes and quicksand) are scary until they get monotonous: after a while, you have a sense you're watching a clip reel from every Hollywood disaster flick ever made.

Poised, delicate, powerful, hovering between poignancy and pealing laughter, it is a feast formed by skill and serendipity.

Damned if this sugary confection doesn't come with a creepy crust. the odd sense that these aging boomers, ever eager to stall the march of time, are competing with their own daughter in the maternity sweepstakes - I'll see your child, and raise you one. [8 Dec 1995, p.C1]

Visually impressive, splendidly performed, thematically significant, this is a movie in full possession of every key cinematic asset except one -- a solid script. Casino is a polished vehicle with an untuned engine.

There's a giddy, absurd charm to the story, in which the strange setting only enhances the comfortable familiarity of the narrative and characters.

These days, when presidential bouquets are named Gennifer Flowers, and when we all know what Jack Kennedy did beneath the White House covers, this sort of Capra-corn, even in the guise of light comedy, just doesn't have the same taste. More salt, please, and hold the butter.

For devotees of the genre, the bad news is the best news: Bond is back and nothing has changed except the stuntman's canvas - it's bigger than ever, duly pumped up to Schwarzeneggarian standards.

The movie is a competent formula kid flick stuffed to the dimples with movie deja vu, a sop to those Hollywood-bashing politicians who want old-fashioned family values on their celluloid. [17 Nov 1995]

The result is a curious mix - a picture that simultaneously seems meanderingly loose, affording the cast plenty of performing space, and suffocatingly tight, choking off the audience from any interpretive engagement.

Director Steve Oedekerk, who also wrote the script, simply provides a frame for the string of Carrey sight gags, which come fast and constantly. Some work, some fall flat, but the overall momentum is never allowed to flag seriously.

Fans of Allen, the comedian, will be glad to hear there are more chuckles here than in his last film, "Bullets Over Broadway." Fans of Allen, the plot craftsman, will find a lot less discipline and imagination in the writing. In truth, Mighty Aphrodite is mighty slight.

The film is significantly inept even when Crawford is not on the screen. [03 Nov 1995]

At best, Leaving Las Vegas is pure alchemy -- it makes of flawed humanity a hymn, and of forlorn hope a beacon.

There's are nagging problems with the script, which feels like it has lost a few pages during its rewrites. Instead of an orderly, inexorable pressure of events, we get a surfeit of red herrings, followed by the rather uninteresting killer simply stepping out of hiding.

The movie features Eddie Murphy as a vampire who is both cool and sucks. The same evaluation might apply to the entire film, which is neither as good as it might be nor as bad as you might expect. The long- in-the-tooth Dracula story, which has been updated and set in the black community of contemporary Brooklyn, is a pulpy mishmash of horror and comedy, equal parts the product of its comedian star and its creepshow director, Wes Craven. [1 Nov 1995, p.C2]

Doomed to be cool, but not very deep. Some of this movie is grossly amusing while some of it is just plain gross. [24 Nov 1995]

Hackman is unexpectedly hilarious. With protruding top teeth and a professorial beard, he's a motormouth, badgering and abusing one minute, wheedling and fawning the next.

Talky, crude and sexist, Mallrats is significantly less funny, a flatulent sequel to the director's small start.

Growing-up films are bad enough without a shameless all-girl rip off of Stand By Me. [20 Oct 1995]

The lows never last too long - something invariably jumps out to recapture our interest or prompt a chuckle.

Strange Days, then, isn't nearly strange enough. Once the premise has lost its promise, and Fiennes's brave attempts at characterization are sacrificed to pseudo-dazzle, everything appears awfully humdrum and, yes, distinctly dated. So dated that in the crowded and pat climax, as the ball drops on the year 2000, all that's missing is Dick Clark himself - damn, it's out with the old and in with the older. [13 Oct 1995]

The latest offering from the serial scribe who scripted Showgirls has another femme with an overactive libido and not much else. [13 Oct 1995]

Like the stationary figures it portrays, Kicking And Screaming is alive at the edges; it comes with a vibrant border of trenchant asides, tossed-off remarks that blend the solace of protective irony with the sterner stuff of hard truth.

A bland, workaday detective flick that should have been much better than it is.

Giddily impudent in its execution, pummelling in its message, To Die For is finally a comedy black enough for the tabloid television age.

It's intriguing, appalling, savvy, nasty, grossly unsettling -- you may not like what you see, but you'll definitely be affected by the sight.

There's nothing even mildly intriguing, or remotely galvanizing, about Showgirls.

If you like your archetypes writ large and your sentiment over easy, then Unstrung Heroes is the flick for you. [15 Sep 1995]

This is an adaptation that must have been hard to screw up, yet screwed up it has been. If the movie is far from dreadful, it's even further from the searing experience it could have been.

Take nothing seriously - not the action, not the gore, not the plot, not the theme. Instead, view Desperado as it's meant to be seen - a comedy - and you're in for an unalloyed treat; heck, you're in for one of the funniest flicks of the year.

Respectable by the tube's standards, even a cut above dumbed-down Hollywood, but hardly the stuff of creative renewal.

The Usual Suspects filled me with a highly unusual urge - to be a true "reviewer," to rewind the projector and figure out this humdinger once and for all.

Virtuosity never lacks for energy, its pacing is appropriately breakneck, its bangs are as big as Nagasaki - but finally it can't escape its limitations as a genre picture. [5 Aug 1995, p.C11]

It's difficult to give a damn about this collection of whiners, autocrats and philanderers. [4 Aug 1995]

Winkler is a singularly boring director, forever telegraphing his scenes by tracking the camera behind a rustling bush or pulling the lens up close on his villain's eyes or gun. As a result, the film feels enervated and predictable when it should be energetic and surprising. It's a testimony to the abilities of the perky Bullock that she's entirely believable, but even she can't paper over the movie's many holes of logic. [28 July 1995]

Operation Dumbo Drop is at times lost on four-year-olds, but it serves up what Disney summer flicks should - adrenalin and sugar. [28 Jul 1995]

The Indian in the Cupboard unfolds with absorbing logic to tell a tale in the best of children's story tradition. [17 July 1995]

It's not acting, it's not moviemaking, it's not cooking, and it's hardly watchable. [17 July 1995]

There's obviously a huge appetite for humour this broad, and I wish I shared it. Instead, like a picky vegetarian at a Texas barbecue, I felt out of place, hungry, and a little sad. Not altogether different, perhaps, from a certain British actor on a seedy Sunset Strip. [14 July 1995]

Taut, zippy chase for a nubile alien. Smart enough not to take things too seriously, Species is not this planet's proudest export, but even aliens would give it at least one thumb up. [07 July 1995]

The Arthurian legend has received a wide variety of treatments over the years, but this safe, sanitized American version drains the juice smack out of a notorious romantic triangle. [07 Jul 1995]

The direction may not be flashy, but it is controlled and confident; the frames unfold with a no-nonsense, nuts-and-bolts realism that, in this era of laser-blazing Batplanes, seems downright welcome.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is not the heart-warming, life-affirming, feel-good hit of the summer. Let Pocahantas and Casper provide the hugs and lessons. The Power Rangers, as usual, are on hand to kick intergalactic butt. [30 June 1995]

Unwilling to offend, the scribes have committed the greatest offence of all - they've neglected to tell a story, airbrushing out anything remotely dramatic.

Todd Haynes' Safe grips you with its air of antiseptic malevolence and leaves you gasping. You feel as disoriented as the protagonist, a young housewife suffering from 20th-century disease. [11 Aug 1995]

Alas, Schumacher doesn't ride on the momentum; worse, he's not an action director, and the film grinds to a dead stop every time it tries to speed up.

A film of deceptive narrative wisps and intricate thematic curls.

Without Spielberg's technical pizazz, and with a gummy mixture of homage and spoof, Congo chokes on its own tongue in cheek.

Through it all, actress Posey strikes attitudes and preens across the glib surface of the film, and though her campy excesses are tolerable for a brief time, the performance becomes an exercise in overkill. [13 Oct 1995]

The film version, competently directed by Clint Eastwood and beautifully acted by Meryl Streep, isn't about to mess with a popular formula - this is a straight-up adaptation as faithful as a fawning spouse.

The movie is pallid, bloated and light enough to evaporate from the mind 10 minutes after you leave the theatre. [26 May 1995]

After all the cyberspace chat is over, after all the cyberpunk sets are unveiled, what we are left with is a tired theme afforded a banal treatment. [26 May 1995]

Despite a formidable effort and occasional grace, there's something cowardly about Braveheart -- it's an aspiring giant with a diminutive soul.

Polished, intelligent, impeccably well-bred, it's an upscale kids' flick designed to appease the fears of discriminating parents: If those stubborn tykes refuse to crack a book, then this is the next best thing - Young People's Masterpiece Theatre. [11 Aug 1995, p.C2]

En route, the plot gimmick degenerates from clever to dumb, then gets forgotten entirely, and the last act simply poops out - the climax is a Bigger Bang that plays like the saddest of whimpers.

Hartley gives us quirkiness in place of connection and usually forgets to put the thrill in the thriller, which is precisely what's endearing about this Amateur. [12 May 1995]

It's a downbeat flick forged by an upbeat talent - despite the angst in the frames, you can feel the joy of the framer. [23 June 1995]

Nope, this picture doesn't bear thinking about, but, if you resist that nasty temptation, setting all your mental gauges at Dead Slow, the flow of the action will see you through.

For a screwball comedy, it takes a long time to wind up, and Kline's Frenchman is an outright cartoon. But Ryan manages to hold attention. [6 Oct 1995, p.C2]

How refreshing then to find a movie with an honest-to-gosh dysfunctional family at its core, a family utterly Tolstoyan in its unhappiness, utterly Dostoevskyan in its despair. [16 Jun 1995]

His take on metaphor is painfully literal, his approach to style is hilariously Hollywood. In lieu of black-and-white realism, we're given visual shtick. [02 May 1995]

But Turteltaub surprises us. He has the kind of unerring comic touch - easily able to carry his audience from smart dialogue to heart-tugging emotion to something awfully close to slapstick - that should serve the movie world well.

George Huang's Swimming With Sharks purports to give us the goods on the big bad egos who run Hollywood, but it lacks both credibility and coherence. [06 May 1995]

Although director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female, Reversal of Fortune, Barfly) does a workmanlike job of stirring in the grimy New York atmosphere, the picture only surges to life when Cage strides on camera. [21 Apr 1995]

As a captivating bauble, a tribute to a romantic legend, Don Juan DeMarco shines. But as an exercise in performing artistry, a gift from a living legend and an heir apparent, it positively glitters.

Powered by a Scottish writer, a Scottish director, and the rugged beauty of the Scottish Highlands, this is clearly a labour of love, and the passion gets right up on the screen.

Jefferson in Paris isn't merely wooden; it's concrete. Nor is it simply bad; the thing is astonishingly bad. Sure looks pretty though. [08 Apr 1995]

Then I remember another law that says fat dumb guys are always likable, so I'm really trying my best, and I pretend to laugh once or twice, but it's hard. [3 Apr 1995]

Although director Taylor Hackford ("An Officer and a Gentleman") handles the usually cumbersome flashbacks with impressive delicacy, he can't stop the narrative from sinking under its own melodramatic weight.

Wayans will do anything for a laugh, and twice if necessary. If Carrey wears a broken front tooth in Dumb and Dumber, Wayans has two front teeth capped with gold. If Carrey sells a dead bird to a blind child, Wayans shaves the heads of a blind boy and his seeing-eye dog. [24 March 1995]

Watching this is a feature-length exercise in frustration - comedy that promises to be amusingly black stays uniformly grey; sentiment that looks to be credibly bittersweet winds up badly soured. We're constantly tantalized and perpetually disappointed, but don't despair - there's one terrific bonus...Toni Collette.

After a great start, Wolfgang Petersen's intelligent medical thriller is infected by some nasty germs, resulting in the all-too-common Actionitis. [10 Mar 1995]

There's a risk of taking The Brady Bunch too seriously but, please, let's not think of it as funny, then or now. [18 Feb 1995]

Ultimately, Just Cause is just middling. And that's a shame because, for two blistering acts, it promises to be a suspense thriller worthy of the name. [17 Feb 1995]

Billy Madison is so singularly stupid that "Dumb and Dumber" looks (almost) like a beacon of braininess and taste in comparison.

Thanks to him, The Quick and the Dead is more than moribund. How much more? Let's just say that there's motion in the picture. Indeed, speaking of accomplishments, Sharon Stone appears clad throughout an entire feature - gee, give a gal a gun and there's no telling what she can achieve.m [10 Feb 1995, p.C1]

Just sit back, plug in, and enjoy the shocks - so adroitly administered, so sweetly sensational. [24 Feb 1995]

In the Mouth of Madness may leave your spine a little short on tingle (any amount of irony always dissipates the scares), but it compensates by neither insulting your grey matter nor sparing your funny bone. In a genre more brain-dead than not, that's an awfully attractive trade-off. [03 Feb 1995]

Before Sunrise is a film that first startles you with its simplicity, then bowls you over with its complexity.

The narrative line itself rambles increasingly down a path toward tawdry melodrama, defeating the impact of the handsome visuals and finely etched performances. [13 Jan 1995]

No doubt about it, Nobody's Fool is endowed with a lot of cinematic smarts - from the star's poise to the director's wiles to a lambent cameo from the late Jessica Tandy. And those smarts, part trickster's magic and part craftsman's guile, work their transforming art to perfection - seldom has a shallow pool looked so refreshingly deep. [13 Jan 1995]