It's all densely imagined and more than a little goofy -- perhaps too goofy for the average American viewer.

If the film ultimately amounts to little more than a middle-aged coming-of-age story, it's richly imagined and filled fanciful touches in keeping with its passionate subject.

The movie winds up becoming "The Annette Bening Show," and she's quite good: Bening makes the most of a string of mad scenes for which any actress would kill, and the real pain she brings to the part grounds the film in something real.

A shapeless mess that falls far short of the high expectations created by Lee's first feature, SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT.

There are a number of excruciating moments that are almost too silly to mention.

Most conspicuously absent is John Travolta, replaced here by Maxwell Caulfield, who can't lift the original greaser's comb. Michelle Pfeiffer (MARRIED TO THE MOB; DANGEROUS LIAISONS) fares better as Olivia Newton-John's replacement, but the whole movie looks as if it has been slapped together to capitalize on its predecessor's success, and no doubt, it was.

The good news is that Fishburne also stars, and has recruited a talented group of actors to flesh out the cast; the bad news is that no one seems to have been on hand to help out with the rest of film.

Fluffy, candy-colored and aimed directly at tweens -- girls between the ages of 10 and 12.

Eastwood keeps things moving at a furious pace and the series' formula of having a steely-eyed "dinosaur" like Harry cutting through the red tape and vanquishing the scum of the earth remains irresistible.

We'll bet you our measly paycheck that UNDER SIEGE 3 is set on an airplane -- although, given the precipitous downward trajectory of Seagal's career, a moped or a pair of in-line skates isn't out of the question.

It's all terribly trite, but Durst does make an effort to keep his film grounded in the reality of a lot of once thriving towns like the fictional Minden.

Sweeney's seduction by the good life and the friendship that develops between these two young men from opposite sides of the tracks and on opposite sides of the law has the makings of an intriguing story. However, director Peter Werner and scripter Dick Wolf treat their story conventionally, and there are few surprises. NO MAN'S LAND's saving grace are the performances by Sheen and Sweeney.

This is a movie nasty enough to kill off the major characters twice and still manage to serve up a happy ending.

Negret brings personal experience to the material; his own family endured two ordeals by kidnapping, and he works up a painfull convincing sense of sweaty desperation.

In keeping with the tentativeness of the entire enterprise, the ending is one of the great cop-outs in modern moviedom.

A triumph of style over substance.

The story is beholden to the trendy steroid-and-TV world view: pump it up and cut it fast. Still, the dialogue, while fitfully glib, is wry and engaging, like a profane Raymond Chandler on speed. No one acts (in the Stanislavsky sense, anyway) but all perform well.

Old family secrets and fresh entanglements snake through the intricate plot like the tendrils of a particularly poisonous strain of ivy that flourishes only in the hot-house atmosphere of tiny towns, whatever the outside temperature.

The character designs, however, are much less impressive. Except for the oddly naturalistic Sinclair, the rest look like cartoony characters from one of Disney's '60s films.

Granted, it's unfair to compare an actor's precocious child persona with his awkward 14-year-old self, but Osment relies so often on his furrowed brow to convey emotion that you have to keep reminding yourself that the technique actually worked in "The Sixth Sense."

An uncommonly smart and bittersweet romantic comedy.

This tepid ghost story fails to focus on either its story or its target audience.

The whole film has a rag-tag, purposefully shambolic feel -- but this communal commitment to a DIY aesthetic is also his undoing, particularly when he allows an irritatingly manic Jack Black to run wild and virtually hijack the movie.

For all its classy cast and glum polish, this metaphysical horror picture with big things on its mind lacks the malevolent buzz that vitalized SEVEN and THE HIDDEN, two of the more obvious sources from which it draws considerable inspiration.

JAMAICA INN had many interesting incidents associated with it. Unfortunately, very little of that interest reached the screen.

A wacky, occasionally inventive road movie that fails to display the vision or the dark intensity of director Lynch's earlier work.

It may not be by-the-book history -- a relative term in any event, when discussing the ancients whose worldview embraced men, gods and monsters -- but what a spectacle!

Race to Witch Mountain isn't some kind of action watershed, or science-fiction milestone, but it most certainly is a finely crafted reboot of a franchise that was ripe for an updating.

Stone handles his huge ensemble cast extremely well.

The fact that this is somebody's real-life story up on there the screen doesn't necessarily guarantee it's an especially fresh story.

With nothing in the way of performance to cling to, the audience is left to marvel at the mounting inanity of each scene.

Shyer's direction was on the money most of the time but was just a little flabby occasionally--perhaps because he cowrote the script with Meyers and hated to lose a precious word.

A crude, artless bogey tale.

The film's seriousness of intent is unimpeachable – Forman and Carriere see disturbing echoes of the modern world in 18th-century Spain -- but the execution borders on farce.

Mark Rydell shows some fine touches in his third feature, but the result is an overlong and often-dull movie that had the rare distinction of being one of the few John Wayne westerns that gasped at the box office.

While there's little to be gained from over-critiquing a child's performance, it must be said that director Alejandro Agresti badly miscalculates the appeal of his young star; the fact he not only dominates each scene but provides the film's narration means there's not getting away from young Noya.

A privileged peek into the glitzy world of Texas's ultra-rich, minus the melodrama.

The film is dull going, even for the pre-adolescents at whom it's aimed, and feels far longer than it actually is.

wWhat doesn't entirely succeed as convincing psychodrama makes one hell of an acting exercise (it's great fun to see great actors purposely mangle the Bard's immortal words), and Levring's cast -- McTeer in particular -- run with it.

Characteristically stylish and willfully outre, and uncharacteristically watchable.

Alnoy's narrative is better suited to a trashy thriller than a vehicle for weighty political themes.

Though the story is formulaic, the bleakly naturalistic performances give it an uncomfortable sting.

An attempt by director Bogdanovich to capture his great love of early movies in a full-length motion picture.

Predictable but pleasant fluff.

Despite all the points it gains for furrowed brows and kick-ass gunfights, the film loses quite a few for being dry as burnt toast.

The film falls short even as a record of Broderick and Lane's crowd-pleasing rapport: Both have done the show so many times that every scrap of life is gone.

One of the most enjoyable films of the summer, Critters harks back to the low-budget science fiction films of the 1950s and balances the thrills with heavy doses of humor.

It's a one-gag film that rises or falls on how funny you find the sight of fat, grease-slicked Jack Black crammed into spandex pants and capering like an epileptic lamb.

This could have been--and is--a very funny film; unfortunately, most of the laughs are unintentional.

As a film, it is earnest, cliched, often awkward and unlikely to inspire anyone who isn't already thoroughly sold on its message of salvation through community activism.

You come away with a remarkable sense of the filmmakers and actors working together harmoniously as they delve into the heart of relationships between friends and lovers.

While some may object to the storytelling techniques employed by playwright and screenwriter Willy Russell to depict his title character, others will find themselves enchanted by Shirley Valentine.

Then there's the utter lack of sexual chemistry between Li and Aaliyah, sucking all the urgency out of the relationship between the star-crossed lovers.

Seductive, funny, whip-smart and ultimately tragic.

For every inspired bit -- Templeton playing chauffeur to 40 I Love Lucy-era Lucille Ball impersonators -- there's one that falls spectacularly flat.

Rather than converting messy, real-life experience into slick, formulaic entertainment, Well's script transforms it into a shapeless, internally inconsistent mess of artificial contrivances.

This sweet trifle is infinitely more enjoyable than the gross-out romantic comedies that proliferated in the wake of "There's Something About Mary."

The identity of the bad guy is ludicrously obvious; and his public unmasking relies on the dopiest contrivance in recent memory.

Screenwriter Vincent Molina takes into account changing attitudes towards homosexuality and the resulting film never feels like the kind of thing we've seen time and again in the '80s and '90s.

A deliciously bitter tale of lust and betrayal.

The payoff fizzles, but the buildup is intriguing until it topples under its own weight.

A high-wire spook show without a net -- half the fun is watching it teeter between the tastelessly amusing and the unforgivably gross.

A slick, largely empty visual exercise with vague thematic overtones about a clash between American and European culture. The Deneuve/Sarandon sex scene, however, is not to be missed by fans of either actress.

Despite the intriguing premise, Pierce is a stupifyingly unimaginative director, and the film is incredibly dull.

There are a few weak spots -- the ending could have used some fine tuning -- but otherwise its a solid sleeper: unassuming, unexpected and wholly entertaining.

What Garvy's oral history of the Students for a Democratic Society lacks in clarity and opposing viewpoints it makes up for with fascinating personal reminiscences of a turbulent time.

It's not only sexy, clever and well-acted by a fine cast of mostly TV actors, but it's also a grown-up comedyabout honest-to-God grown ups.

An acid-dipped valentine to the sometimes seedy magic of movies.

Judged against other martial arts pictures, GYMKATA is technically superior and more intelligently written and directed, but that still doesn't make it worthwhile viewing. The film has only a minimum of credibility or intelligence, but since these qualities have little or no place in the genre, that becomes irrelevant, leaving pure action--kicking, punching, and the snapping sounds of breaking bones--as the main draw.

Based on a French play by way of Broadway, Angels is both warm and sophisticated, combining witty, carefree humor with more unabashedly evil undertones. The charmingly hammy performances capture this feeling well: In addition to Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov are especially winning as his partners in crime.

Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger step into the roles originally played by Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, but their attempts to inject steamy romance into the action are undermined by indifferent direction.

A down–under fable with a sweet country-music twang.

Director Donen takes us for a few romps in the green countryside to ease the claustrophobia, but this gratuitous meandering only serves to make us realize how hidebound the story is.

It's an exercise in star turns, surrounded by elephantine blandness. The supporting cast look, and act, like refugees from Disney or Oral Roberts University, handpicked not to ruffle the star.

For all the complicated backstory, weighty themes, action set pieces and fanciful production design, the film is oddly unengaging.

Director Kevin Reynolds has no flair for action: the climactic battle is so ineptly shot and edited that it is difficult to tell who is smiting whom. While Costner is lifeless and speaks strangely (he was said to have attempted a British accent, then abandoned it during shooting), Mastrantonio is an acceptably vivacious Marian.

Overall, this is a fuzzy, unfocused drama that bites off more than it can chew, or viewers can digest.

While snowboarding enthusiasts will eat up every minute of its two-hour running time, it's thin stuff for the unconverted.

The idea is more interesting than the screenplay, which lags badly in the middle and lurches between not-very-funny comedy, unconvincing dramatics and some last-minute action strongly reminiscent of "Run Lola Run." Great soundtrack, though.

The silly script lurches from one jarring, implausible moment to another, and Marshall directs like he was wearing earplugs and boxing gloves on the set.

The movie deals superficially with Native American pride and racism in the ranks, but it's hardly about the codetalkers at all: Neither Woo nor the screenwriting team of Joe Batteer and John Rice seem to appreciate the bitter irony in a Native American soldier protecting his land by serving the very government that took most of it from him in the first place.

The glammed-up Kinski looks the same age throughout and only has three expressions: angry, wistful, and someone's-killed-my-dog.

Zizek as a larger-than-life figure who manages to engage you even when you're not entirely sure what he's going on about.

Inoffensive of this kind (except for the usual array of stock Mexicans), but wholly unoriginal.

What TOP GUN contributes to the genre is an increased emphasis on military hardware and an almost homoerotic attraction for male bodies, mostly sweaty ones.

Woody Allen is among a very few people in the history of film who have provided audiences with really intelligent humor. But even Homer nods, and never has Allen more obviously fallen down on the job than in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, a trifle that owes much to Ingmar Bergman in style and to Groucho Marx in content.

A sloppy, often goofy chiller, the film is full of references to (and outright rip-offs from) other movies, especially those of New Line Cinema, Craven's erstwhile producer.

MacDonald's novel--his first solo screenwriting credit--is full of rapid-fire dialogue but some of the characterizations are thin. Despite all the big names involved, Harper doesn't begin to approach the big leagues of hard-boiled detective films. Nonetheless, Newman gives a convincing performance.

Pare lacks charisma as Eddie, but the Bruce Springsteen-like music (by John Cafferty, who dubs Eddie's singing voice, and his Beaver Brown Band) was good enough to put the soundtrack album in the Top 40 charts.

An attempt to capitalize on the success of WILLARD (1971), this silly-sounding revenge-of-nature film is surprisingly effective.

The kids will love all the visual gags in this pleasing if lightweight Disney film.

There are a few sparkles of humor here, but this remake is an inferior product. Whereas Sturges played out his story with wit and flair, Howard Zieff's direction is flat and uninspired.

The film was directed and scripted by Douglas Heyes, who was smart enough to know he couldn't improve on William Wellman's 1939 version, so he made some changes in plot and emphasis, and put a great deal of care into the casting of secondary roles.

Ridiculous detective Randall stops a sadistic killer from working his way through an alphabetical victim list. Agatha Christie and her legendary detective, Poirot, get a not-at-all serious treatment in this unbelievably unfunny comic mystery.

A feeble attempt at comedy in the Damon Runyon mold (although based on a Louis Bromfield opus), this is a hit-and-miss affair with some offbeat casting.

Paul Muni gives another classic performance in this wonderful fantasy about a notorious gangster who is murdered by a double-crossing partner.

Damon, an underrated comic actor, is particularly good as an ultra-rationalist who'll scream like a girl and run from anything he can't immediately explain.

Scientists in an underwater lab are picked off by a monster of the deep in this cheesy hybrid of Alien, The Thing, and The Abyss.