On the whole, the eek-for-yuks trade-off is more than fair--hip without being campy or condescending to one of the better movie franchises. [1 Dec 1997, p. 84]

The picture could use a little more dramatic tension; in places it goes a bit slack, losing its way on the path to its conclusion. Even so, its refusal to push the usual buttons is one of its finest qualities. Back-alley scare stories serve their purpose, but Call Jane has something else in mind. This is a story about women getting the job done when they have no one to rely on but one another.

A tortured testament from a true believer.

Boseman is not a hugely close physical match to Robinson, except for perhaps in the power he conveys, but he’s a great choice to play the ball player, unfamiliar enough, despite a decade of small credits here and there, to feel like an athlete, not a movie star playing one.

At 2 1/2 hours, it all plays like the rough assembly of a 90-min. caper film--an anecdote told at epic length. Grier, foxy lady of '70s blaxploitation, is given little chance to radiate. [22 Dec 1997, p.80]

Edwards’ Godzilla dawdles toward its Doomsday climax; the movie could win a prize for Least Stuff Happening in the First Two-Thirds of an Action Film... It’s a concept lacking a magnetic story, a package without a product.

Director Adrian Lyne has encapsulated the cliches of three decades in a single dreadful and hysterical movie.

McConaughey's fans might be shocked to see him in this role - more likely, they'd skip the opportunity - but they ought to give his performance a shot. The dimpled demon lover proves he can be just as seductive playing Texas's creepiest, craziest cop.

This is an ambitious, handsome-looking picture that strives to capture the essence of life in the deep South in the mid-20th century in a way that makes movie sense, without excessively romanticizing it.

Grace is not as tightly wound as the best of its breed, but it is a genial way to pass the time.

The players are uniformly good, but a special word must be said for Fiennes, whose portrayal of physical awkwardness and painful taciturnity never begs either for laughs or for sympathy.

Burton has just allowed himself to be silly and have fun; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is filled with low-stakes wisecracks and kindergarten-style one-liners, but the effect works. The movie carries you along on its wriggling magic carpet of mayhem—and features one sequence of creepy-elegant-funny cracked poetry that’s classic, old-school Burton.

The Keane story is a rich parable that deserves either a wilder or a more acute telling than Burton provides here.

Good--sometimes witty—suspense. [28 Jul 1997, p. 69]

She (Blanchett) seems the only guardian of sanity in this good-old-boy Bellevue.

Normal may not be groundbreaking, but it does come equipped with a wicked spirit and some great B-movie energy.

The picture is grand and nutty and visually splendid: Vogt-Roberts knows he's gotta go big or go home, so he treads boldly.

It's hard to know whom to blame for the film's choppiness, its mixture of rage and sentimentality, the stridency of some of the acting.

Maybe it was fun to bathe in decadence back then. But this is no time to wallow in that mire.

The film is on the level, and the four principal actors—Newman, Neal, Douglas, and de Wilde—are so good that they might well form the nucleus of a cinematic repertory company. The point of the picture is as dry and nihilistic as a Panhandle dust storm.

As for the yellow handkerchief of the title, I'd have dismissed it as a cheesy device if it weren't for the fact that I'm still cherishing the eloquence of Hurt's silent marvel when he finally sees it, fluttering across the gray Southern sky.

The sensible formality of Taylor Hackford's direction has the effect of cooling the film's narrative frenzies and helping the actors dig some simple, truthful stuff out of the hubbub.

Something more surprising might have been made of this odd couple, but Van Sant, emptily employing the realist manner of his early films, is goodwill hunting in all the wrong places.

The Photograph, both thoughtful and entertaining, with a pleasurably laid-back vibe, belongs to a class of movie that barely exists anymore on the big screen. It’s also a reminder that appealing actors are sometimes the best spectacle of all.

This naive little movie hopes to prove itself the Flashdance of football.

The film offers us Mel Gibson as a new Bret Maverick, the Western gambler, as well as the old TV Maverick, James Garner, now playing a wry frontier sheriff. These two guys can make you smile contentedly even when the script is wandering and they're just sort of standing around waiting for its next good part to develop.

What he (Scott) does superbly is establish a raw, compelling reality that transcends his movie's banal premises and predictable conclusion. That permits Moore to play, and us to feel, authentic pain, isola- tion and courage--shocking stuff to find in an action movie these days. [25 August 1997, p. 72]

Despicable Me 2 is far more entertaining than the disappointingly bland "Monsters University" and as a sequel stands level with the first film, and may have the edge on it.