Besides featuring some of the same actors in the same roles, what this six-gun sequel has in common with Young Guns is that it is wholly unmemorable.

The film's longer running time means more dead spots and the more elaborate stunts demand tighter scripting and less room to improvise, which is a shame since improvisation is the Reno's gang real strength. Forgiving fans, however, won't care a whit.

Bill Murray plays the secondary role of a nameless American gag writer brimming with one-liners about the absurdity of Cuban life, Dustin Hoffman has a cameo as kvetching gangster Meyer Lansky.

If you don't care about the characters, then everything's just a big, dumb joke.

The sky-high sleaze quotient -- lascivious priests, amateur porn movies, teenage hustlers and institutionalized corruption of every kind -- ought to guarantee fun for all, but heavy messages keep poking through and spoiling everything.

The generally competent B-list actors are hobbled by cliché-ridden dialogue but do their best to react in remotely plausible ways each time the script nails them with some new melodramatic contrivance.

A sprawling drama about Chicano life in Los Angeles, Bound By Honor contains powerful moments, but characters get lost in the epic sweep.

Ten tumultuous years in the history of the gay rights movement serve as the backdrop for this warm, engaging romantic comedy.

It's dramatically unsatisfying.

All in all, it's a pretty offensive movie, especially to the Americans who fought in Vietnam.

Frantically busy, largely laugh-free.

Despite considerable production support and a relatively high budget (it was shot on location in Ireland and on a massive interior set at England's famed Shepperton studios), this is easily the weakest effort in director-screenwriter Jordan's solid career.

In spite of its harmlessness and enjoyable supporting cast, Oscar is irrefutable evidence of the cynicism and insularity of Hollywood power brokers and hack filmmakers.

This unnecessary and overlong sequel fails to recapture its predecessor's zing.

Light, formulaic and soft around the middle.

Canadian-born choreographer Alison Murray draws on her own experiences as a 15-year-old runaway living in squats and on the streets, in her feature-filmmaking debut, which is a clear-eyed look at the pleasures and price of abandoning conventional mores for experimental lifestyles.

Crisply stylish and suspenseful, making brilliant use of optical special effects, Predator is one of Schwarzenegger's best.

The few good lines go to Kristofferson and the ever-amusing Kier, but Snipes's considerable energy is buried under an affectless, Terminator-style demeanor.

Supervixens is primarily for Meyer cultists, and even they may be put off by the film's length and excessive violence

Until the patently preposterous finale (you can just hear the studio suits saying, "Ya gotta make it big"), the miserable perils faced by the damp, sooty, squabbling motorists are claustrophobically convincing, assuming you accept in the first place that they escaped a fireball that looks as though it should have fried every living thing between the New Jersey and Manhattan shores.

There are some genuinely chilling scenes, but it is still a made-for-TV-ish ROSEMARY'S BABY rip-off.

You can see the outline of an interesting movie beneath the cutesy-pie characterizations and heavy-handed mockery of small-town small-mindedness, but any chance it might have had is short-circuited by director Griffin Dunne's overwhelming inability to establish a consistent tone for the admittedly off-kilter material.

If it's not an entirely wholesome portrait of the immigrant experience, it's certainly an entertaining one.

Strident and bombastic.

Even the teens at whom this plodding and predictable romantic comedy is clearly aimed are unlikely to be swept away by its contrivances.

Scott swaddles this fundamentally straightforward revenge story in a jumble of bleary freeze frames, random changes of color saturation and film stock, jump cuts and stuttering montages, splashing text from some menacing word soup onto the resulting collage of chicly disturbing images.

Pointed, unsubtle political satire.

The script gives Hall and the other cast members so many foolish things to say and do that the viewer is left wishing that they would all kill each other early on and save us the pain of having to watch the rest of the film.

Only those who really love the Bug will be willing to put up with the loose plot and over-the-top action scenes.

The whole lurid business is undeniably entertaining, but it leaves a bad taste.

Most damaging to the film, however, is Costner's dull, listless performance as Earp. He simply lacks the gravity and stature necessary to handle the mythic baggage of this emblematic American role.

Insubstantial, predictable and often dull, it's a dismaying move from director Allen Moyle, who displayed a real grasp of pulp energy in 1990's "Pump Up the Volume".

Hokey, slow-moving thriller.

The Carter and Spotnitz's credit, such weighty concerns aren't the stuff of most mainstream genre movies. But they're also not sufficiently gripping to transform a middling thriller into something truly provocative or haunting.

A harmless, if ultimately inane, fantasy-comedy vehicle for youngsta-rapper Lil' Bow Wow, a 15-year-old who's already an alarmingly accomplished scene stealer.

It's not the bomb on the plane that scuttles this film: It's the mugging, ham-fisted direction and total absence of comic timing.

It's periodically enlivened by unlikely cameos, including Lou Diamond Phillips as an undercover cop posing as a transvestite hooker and Gladys Knight as a forgotten Motown singer.

Inconsistency of tone and internal logic plagues the film throughout.

It's hard to believe that this oddly mesmerizing film, set in large part in the vast subway system that snakes its way through Manhattan and its outer boroughs, wasn't made by a native New Yorker.

Tries to be all things to all people and winds up a tedious muddle.

To make the package look fresh, there's a pile of complications.

Van Sant's film feels as dated as Hitchcock's, and Hitchcock's has the better excuse.

The humor is mostly visual -- 70s relics like Pong, Shasta and men's platform shoes compete with the sight of Ferrell squeezed into tube socks and short shorts.

It's not a pretty picture, but it's an important one.

Had it actually been told from the perspective of the scientist's daughter, as the title suggests, it might have been more appealing, but instead a predictable, amateurish script shifts the focus elsewhere.

Tediously predictable thriller.

Highly derivative of Night Of The Living Dead and filled with amateurish performances, strained comedy, and zero production values, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things does convey, nonetheless, an undeniable power in the rising-dead scenes and a genuine mood of unease throughout that most big-budget horror outings fail to capture.

Avildsen, however, is hardly a comedy director. Best known for his Oscar-winning ROCKY, he shows little sense of comic set-up and delivery. The result peters out about halfway through the film, with only touches of bizarre flavor in the rest. A ridiculous, cartoonlike score by Conti doesn't help much.

Director Amy Heckerling is gentler than Harold Ramis was, and the result is a slightly more cohesive picture that is far less mean-spirited. Lighthearted fun, pretty scenery, lots of chuckles, a few guffaws, and a lilting score by Charles Fox all contribute to making this movie a pleasant surprise.

If not exactly dull, Hopkins' stream-of-consciousness rant is nonetheless self-indulgent and crammed with bits of business that never add up to anything much.

Enthralling, darkly funny, horrifying and hopeful.

Stephens has a gentle touch and an unflagging sense of humor, but this is Rue's show: She's a natural with a million-dollar smile who deserves to escape TV land for more interesting work.

Writer-director Erik Palladino's admirably subtle bit of chronological trickery allows his small-scale drama, set in 9/11 New York, to deliver a sucker-punch of an ending.

The plot isn't much (some described it as an unsuccessful combination of Midnight Run and Betrayed), but Pink Cadillac is rich in character, containing some of the most heartfelt and engaging moments in an Eastwood film since his unjustly neglected Bronco Billy.

There's less than meets the eye in this tricky psychological thriller, one of a long line of mess-with-your-head brain ticklers in which all is not as it seems.

By now the "Ten Little Indians" method of killing characters one at a time has gotten so stale that no matter how impressive the monster is, the resulting sequence is inevitably tedious.

Works because of the utterly charming leads and a strong supporting cast.

Thematically the film is banal, and even its simple themes of alienation, loneliness, and paranoia are muddled and sapped of relevancy by the overblown treatment. Geldof is effective in the lead, and the animation sequences by political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe are interesting and well executed, though too long.

Writer-producer-director Dale Launer's breezy comedy LOVE POTION NO. 9 is the perfect date movie. It's light and fast-paced, with several funny moments and a predictably happy ending. Don't look for anything beyond that.

The film pretends to be seriously concerned about the intersection of madness and identity, but never explores who these people really are. Instead of showing two people developing genuine intimacy through tenderness and slow, hard-won honesty, we see hysterical behavior generating hysterical responses. This is less psychodrama than Harlequin romance.

The film is never dull -- no mean feat, given that it spends two hours telling a story whose end is widely known -- and features performances that range from coarsely effective to phenomenal.

Ironically, Faris' Samantha is the most convincing personality in the mix: She's a grotesque caricature of Courtney Love by way of Nancy Spungen, a vulgar, selfish monster of unbridled id, but you always know where she's coming from.

The beautiful ice-blue landscapes are really the only reason to sit through this rambling and rather silly first feature by writer-director Sue Clayton.

The original The Bad News Bears was a home run, but the sequels are little more than weak trips back to the mound.

Despite cameos by many superior comic actors and well-known celebrities, this episodic would-be laughfest comes up wanting as many of Brooks' elaborate gags fall flat.

This is silly stuff, and the gooey special effects make it ever sillier. Director Girdler--who died in a helicopter crash before the film was released--does a respectable job of making it all look rather slick and professional, but the big budget and all-star cast only add to the overall absurdity.

This gorgeously shot film is a trifle long at just over two hours; much of the racing footage could have been dispensed with, along with the sudsiest of the emotions.

Too daft by half -- it might have been better if Ken were less loony, especially because his nuttiness verges on implying that loons love large women -- but supremely good natured.

Lame and inane, but a huge hit in Spain.

Essentially a feature-length episode of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, this faithful expansion is savvy enough to stay put.

Sweet-natured charmer in its own right.

No matter that the setting is one of the most picturesque on the planet: cinematographer Jean-Max Bernard's camera would much rather linger all the skin and muscle Morel contrives to put on display.

This cross between theatrical farce and teen sex comedy is a moronic package that liberally insults the intelligence of both its viewing audience and the hapless adult actors locked into career low points.

The film's energy and style are enough to recommend it. Lovers of the original should be pleased with this effort, as should most fans of the genre.

Home Alone 2 pales next to its predecessor.

A great one for the kids.

Harkening back to a time when race relations in New York City were even worse than they seem today.

Make no mistake: This slackly paced picture doesn't gel.

Fans of the series may be disappointed to see so little of Barker's sadistic Cenobites, but while they're used sparingly, they're used to good effect.

Despite her underwritten character, Mathis easily takes top acting honors with equal parts toughness and tenderness.

An awkward amalgam of road movie, buddy comedy and melodramatic conventions, first-time writer-director Jordan Roberts' male weepie ricochets between affecting scenes and insufferably maudlin ones.

The film looks great, but there's nothing under the high-gloss veneer.

Sumptuous production values and fitfully impressive choreography notwithstanding, Newsies was a major misfire for Disney Studios.

The action come fast and thick, and the sentimentality reaches near-operatic proportions.

Atkinson's painfully unfunny turn as an insensitive gynecologist is eclipsed by Hollander's scathingly funny portrayal of belligerent auteur Proclaimer, whose wears his pretenses with such scabby aplomb that they achieve high style.

It careens from coarse comedy to smart-ass stylization to vicious violence without ever becoming convincing on any level.

A torrid and surprisingly cinematic chamber piece.

Small children should be delighted by the menagerie of chatty critters, but their parents may be less than thrilled by what the animals have to say.

Fifth entry in the "Dirty Harry" series, a definite step backwards from the fascinating and ultimately disturbing progression of Eastwood's character in Sudden Impact.

The film lacks the emotional complexity and classic status of previous Disney films.

The results isn't especially engaging, despite a quietly charismatic performance by Weiss, a relative newcomer who holds his own against far more experienced actors.

Witless farce.

This mess is no fun until the sniper starts shooting--at least that livens things up a bit.

For Hartley, the third time is definitely not the charm.

Nasty fun all around.

Good intentions can't compensate for crude technique or lack of insight, but Israeli director Dan Wolman's deserves credit for broaching a serious subject.

It would have been nice if Hardwick had a bigger budget for retakes to work out some of the supporting actors' stiffness, but he does keep the story moving, finding the humor in characters caught up in their own machinations rather than cheap wisecracks.

Berman and Pulcini, who turned Harvey Pekar's graphic memoir into the visually inventive, Oscar-nominated "American Splendor," dress this film as an anthropological field diary and add several fabulous touches.