It's not that Bedtime Stories is bad, it's just entirely and thoroughly adequate.

GILDA LIVE is simply "The Best of Gilda Radner," as the comedienne reprises her most popular characters from TV's "Saturday Night Live" (then at the peak of its initial success). Radner fans may find this a welcome compilation, but there's little here that wasn't done better on the TV show.

Before it takes a sudden turn and devolves into a bizarre sort of romantic comedy, Steven Shainberg's adaptation of Mary Gaitskill's harrowing short story about dominance, submission and the twisted sexual dynamics of the work place is a brilliantly played, deeply unsettling experience.

Ellis' slight film has its charms, and the backstory he concocted to lead into the original 18-minute short is effective. But the film lags badly in the middle.

The film is shamelessly presented by Miramax as "The Project Greenlight Movie," and writer-director Pete Jones's big break may ultimately prove a liability.

While there is nothing Earth-shattering about director Patrick Read Johnson's first film, it is often quite entertaining. SPACED INVADERS makes fun of just about every outer space film ever made, and throws in some Three Stooges-like mayhem for good measure.

Hines and Crystal succeed in creating a new buddy team that ranks with the likes of Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

The end result is a film that tries to do too many things at once and does none of them quite right.

We've come a long way from the filthiest people in the world: Who knew Waters could be so bland?

The fact that it's based on a true story doesn't make it feel any less trite.

Unfortunately, for all its credentials and the virtuoso performances of its three leads, this lengthy movie doesn't add up to much. It fails to explore its themes--love and hedonism, freedom and commitment (political and sexual)--in depth, floating haphazardly from scene to scene without emotional or intellectual development.

The first-rate cast is lost at sea.

The two stars have their comedy routine down to perfection, though Carvey, in a series of unflattering closeups, looks old enough to play Garth's father.

Intended as more than a simple genre flick, SUGAR HILL aspires to something like classical tragedy, but it's weighed down by its sense of self-importance.

Overall, how funny you find it will probably depend on whether or not the mere sight of Stiller sucking in his cheeks, widening his eyes and striking preposterous poses makes you laugh uproariously.

Jamal's comedy of family dysfunction is essentially a sitcom episode writ large; it's not subtle, but it's good-natured and hits its marks with ruthless efficiency.

Tediously predictable thriller.

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.

Melodramatic.

Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.

There's a certain built-in poignance to the end-of-an-era proceedings here, regardless of how frostily they're dramatized.

Overall, this is the kind of thing that gives literary adaptations their bad name.

Although Rabid is full of interesting ideas, they are not particularly well developed or presented by Cronenberg's unfocused script.

Once you get past the lengthy, graphic geyser-of-liquid-excrement gag, it's not as irredeemably vulgar as it might have been.

Director John Hough, who made his mark in several episodes of the popular television series The Avengers, keeps things moving at a brisk pace and stages the scenes of horror with considerable panache.

This loud, overlong and thoroughly exhausting fantasy, based on Milan Trenc's slim children's book, purports to introduce youngsters to the wonders of New York City's American Museum of Natural History, but in fact aims squarely at hyperactive kids who can't sit still or stand a moment's silence.

What charm the movie has is almost entirely due to Grant and Barrymore -- the master of smarmily irresistible self-deprecation meets the sweetly vulnerable queen of awkward self-sabotage. While they have no romantic chemistry, they're certainly appealing.

An extraordinarily predictable and uninviting western directed by McLaglen in the John Ford vein but with none of the Ford atmosphere, complexity, characterization, or inventiveness.

Stranded somewhere between exuberantly bad and merely boring, THE INDIAN RUNNER is a bloated resume film hobbled by a script as slight as the Bruce Springsteen song upon which it's based.

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

Milos Forman's film is a series of incredible simulations that never quite cohere into a movie.

Despite its ample flaws, Men at Work is never boring and often is a lot of fun; however, it would have benefitted from the pruning of a few of its misfired visual gags, particularly those involving excrement.

While kids of all ages will want to see it, the movie is loud and occasionally brutal, and while the body count is relatively low, it's still pretty scary stuff.

Swaddled in terms so trite and cliched that they're almost guaranteed to bring out the closet cynic in even the most sympathetic viewers.

Although phenomenally well-acted, the film's leisurely pace ultimately makes it feel as oppressive as the tropical heat and humidity that gradually turn the characters into slow-moving heaps of damp, dirty rags.

Despite fine performances from its lead actors, The Border fails to involve the viewer at more than a perfunctory level.

In Ducastel's and Martineau's hands all the unpleasantness blows away like a kiss on a soft summer breeze, a light wind that nevertheless leaves a vaguely unpleasant scent in its wake.

Ippoliti's sharp cinematography helps salvage this below-par production.

Despite some lovely performances (though, sad to say, Patricia Neal's isn't one of them) and charming moments, this meandering ensemble piece and its Tennessee Williams-ish finale is oddly out of character.

While NECESSARY ROUGHNESS admittedly traverses highly familiar territory, with few surprises, it does deserve to be appreciated as a genuinely entertaining, albeit old-fashioned, college football yarn that's great fun to watch.

Director Tom Mankiewicz brings little innovation and no surprises to Dragnet. It simply doesn't come off, and the viewer will be left with an empty feeling, a vacuous notion that somehow the laugh scenes slipped by unnoticed. They were never really there.

The formulaic mechanical plot machinations benefit greatly from the presence of the vivacious Stiles, gravely beautiful Blair and personable Lee, who radiates fundamental decency without seeming like a sap.

While not very original or even very skillful, THRASHIN' (a skateboarding term for aggressive, gutsy skating) isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.

Exotica sounds terrifically lurid and interesting, but like most Egoyan films, it's far more interesting in the telling than in the watching.

A taut, literate tale of civilized men pitted against implacable nature, encumbered by a meaningless and not especially enticing title.

It's an overblown campfire tale that doesn't know when to stop.

It's sad to see such subtle, wrenchingly emotional work expended on such trifling material.

It's all pure, brainless fluff, but it's unpretentious and "Wannabe" is damnably catchy.

The supporting cast's comic abilities smooth over many -- if not all -- of the movie's flaws.

While far from being one of Harryhausen's best films (the quality of which had little to do with his abilities), the movie has superb effects that are worth a look for his fans.

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

Though many characters are dispatched in various gory ways, the film gives them more to do than the have-sex-and-die victims of past entries. Director Adam Marcus and writers Dean Lorey and Jay Huguely give them some personality, and the acting is also generally better than in the previous Fridays.

Visually the production is good, primarily because of the Texas exteriors and a lot of period autos, indicating the BONNIE AND CLYDE influence had not played out as yet. But the story drags in this Depression-era melodrama.

Desperate-to-shock slice of sleaze life.

While Grazia's story is too reminiscent of such films as "Blue Sky" (1994), which also draws an all too easy connection between mental illness and the oppression of high-spirited housewives, the evocation of provincial life in a tiny village that's wholly dependent on the sea is splendid, and recalls a number of classic Italian films.

The lack of opposing viewpoints soon grows tiresome -- the film feels more like a series of toasts at a testimonial dinner than a documentary.

Luc Besson is a masterly director of stylish, thrilling, and humorous action set pieces, and this film's bravura opening and closing sequences are two of the year's best.

Clearly designed as a cult film, this messy trifle is not without its charms. These include the affably weird Goldblum, Lithgow's deliriously overstated mad scientist, and a band of alien invaders who are not emissaries of a vastly superior race, but beer-swilling mediocrities in Hawaiian shirts.

Run Ronnie Run! is an unfortunate mistake, but it's still better than actual reality programming.

The lead girls are easy on the eyes, and comic Faizon Love, who plays one of Matt's non-surfing, sumo-wrestler-size teammates, nearly steals the show when the girls teach him a few of their better moves.

Beverly Hills Cop III is a flat-out action comedy in which the action is unimpressive and the comedy so mild it seldom hits the mark; for a series only into its third installment, Beverly Hills Cop III is shockingly toothless.

Aside from the racial twist, this is pretty conventional fare, but it's consistently diverting.

The book featured lots of sexy scenes, but the film adaptation is, at best, cool and dispassionate. Mitchum's facial expressions seem to fall into two categories: sullen and sour.

This version moves like a freight train, but suffers from a debilitating charm deficit. Wahlberg is no Michael Caine and Norton delivers what must be the sourest, most lifeless performance of his career to date.

Yes Man isn't without a few simple charms, but it ends up being about as funny, profound, and memorable as the average bumper sticker.

Competently directed by respected film editor Stuart Baird, it's a glossy production with plenty of Things That Go Boom, courtesy of producer/demolition expert Joel Silver.

Director Joseph Ruben's best efforts can't keep Gerald Di Pego's puzzle-picture script from toppling into absurdity as it lurches from melodrama to psychological thriller with supernatural overtones to full-blown exercise in X-Files-style nuttiness.

Sporadically funny... occasionally very funny.

Thought-provoking but proceeding at a crawl, the film suffers from performances that are virtually all pitched to the same note of existential ennui -- thank goodness, then, for Rush, who's arrives like a wake-up blast of compressed air.

Nelson is most believable in a nonhoofing role.

Stovall's film could have been a little shorter and a lot tighter.

One promising note, however, was that the character of Freddy Krueger had recovered some of the evil edge he lost in previous installments.

It lacks the emotional impact and suspense of its predecessors and is spoiled by a disappointingly inane ending. What ultimately saves the film are its extraordinary sets and phenomenal Oscar-winning visual effects.

As senseless as the story is the film contains several memorably creepy scenes, as is to be expected from any film in which mannequins spring to life.

YOUNG GUNS is simply not a very good movie--western or otherwise. Fusco's script provides little character development and muddies the narrative with some unlikely supporting characters. Still, it proved to be popular enough to lead to a television spinoff and a sequel in 1990.

Not even the always reliable Diane Lane can save this one.

This early Hitchcock talkie shows none of the mastery that would subsequently make the director an internationally recognized genius.

The plot is much the same as in the Ernst Lubitsch original, with everything played for laughs and Brooks at his funniest in impersonations of Nazis. What's missing is the relevance of the 1942 film, released while Germany occupied Poland.

Not a terrible movie exactly, just a dark, edgy idea relentlessly worn down into mildly diverting blandness by the mega-wattage presence of stars Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.

This otherwise amiable family film plods whenever the action returns to dry land.

This curious blend of fact and fiction is ultimately worth the trip -- just don't forget to pack the Advil.

This failure is especially surprising because Zwigoff not only reunited with "Ghost World's" writer, ingenious graphic artist Dan Clowes, but he aimed to satirize a rarefied sphere both know all too well: the art world.

This by-the-numbers (no pun intended) psychological thrill ride is efficient and utterly soulless.

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.

Funny but far-fetched entertainment from director Minnelli, who doesn't need to rely on strange plot devices to make a good movie.

It's a chamber piece that probably should have stayed where it started, in regional theater.

Nathanson's script has a disheartening let's get on with it air, and the film feels like marathon training...

Most of what goes wrong here can be blamed on the script, which provides little of the smart and snappy dialog needed to pull off a film like this.

Fans may be disappointed that some of the show's secondary characters, like Lizzie's pal Miranda, are AWOL from this Prince and the Pauper-style escapade, and some of the scenes involving Gellman are disappointingly flat.

In real life the opportunity to make amends is rare, though the attempt may produce great art. In The Kite Runner, we get neither.

Writing, directing, and starring in WISDOM, Emilio Estevez was in over his head. It's a well-intentioned project that shows a certain promise and visual flair, but fails to come together as anything more than an expensive film-school thesis project.

A perfect example of how a top-flight cast can compensate for unimaginative filmmaking.

This slick remake of the ebullient original falls short of being the film it could have been, despite the presence of master filmmaker Wilder and his engaging costars.

A frustrating lack of details compromise this much-needed look at how the promise of American diversity failed a community of Somali refugees in a large Maine town.

Pacino is a one-man three-ring circus, blustering, capering, cursing, raging and weaseling his way through this predictable morality play like a trickster Satan on speed.

What it lacks are the dramatic underpinnings and emotional core that made the original film an engrossing mystery as well as a cinema classic.

Good direction and fine performances keep the pace of this lengthy film moving and prevent the material's descent into maudlin sentimentality.

Ultimately, LEGEND--a pet project of Scott's that took years to research, shoot, and edit--is done in by the director's ambition. What might have been a pleasantly innocuous children's story becomes an enormous, lumbering FX machine into which the actors, particularly a nervous Tom Cruise, seem to disappear.