An almost unrelenting barrage of gore, Dead Alive is also a constant assault on the funnybone, a film in which the graphic blood-spilling is taken so far over the top that it becomes hilarious instead of disgusting.

Seeing it once is fine, but seeing it every day for the rest of your life is not recommended.

One would have to be heartless not to be engaged by Strictly Ballroom's romantic, dewy sentiment, but the predictable plot is difficult to bear, as are the broad characterizations.

The film benefits from an appealing cast, though neither Slater, Tomei, nor Perez is called on to stretch very far. Though actor-turned-director Tony Bill has proved himself adept at character-driven dramas like MY BODYGUARD, the material he's working with here is simply not up to scratch.

While the original was a rather cerebral exercise in suspense, the American version has predictably been given a more visceral dimension. The new version is more simplistic, but still works on its own level.

Obviously, gags rather than plot are central to a movie like LOADED WEAPON, but even so, neither the writing nor the acting is strong enough here. Estevez and Jackson are adequate as deadpan actors who remain oblivious to the chaos around them, but they lack the super-straight persona that makes Leslie Nielsen so effective as a dimwitted cop in the NAKED GUN movies. Often the jokes seem to barely squeak over their heads when they should fly.

Calling CHILDREN OF THE CORN II a better film than its predecessor is something like damning with faint praise, but this sequel manages to be somewhat less ludicrous and occasionally a little more chilling than the first film.

The film continually leans towards intelligence and even poignancy but then gives way to pretty pictures and nonsensical fluff.

Body of Evidence is at its most hilarious in the deadly earnestness with which it unfolds its ludicrous plot, populated by paper-thin characters who range from the underdeveloped to the simply inane. BODY is oddly conflicted by the sheer unpleasantness of its depiction of sex.

In addition to its views on the glamorization of serial murder, MAN BITES DOG offers a wicked send up of notoriously talky French filmmaking--the most unbelievable thing about the movie's narrative conceit isn't that the crew is calmly shooting a vicious serial murderer as he goes about his business, but that they've chosen to follow the unbearable Ben. His loathsome, self-absorbed monologues are torment worthy of the ninth circle of Hell, but with a cup of black coffee and a supply of smelly cigarettes he could pass at any cafe for a run-of-the-mill French intellectual.

Director Frank Marshall mounts the story as tastefully as possible, given the subject matter, but it never seems to have much point and is sometimes unintentionally silly.

The action scenes are poorly staged, the frights predictable, and the generally competent cast appears at a loss to make anything of the substandard material. Gabe Bartalos' makeup for the leprechaun is actually quite good, but his efforts go for naught.

An unusual piece of work that combines almost thriller-style suspense with an intelligent, neo-documentary approach to its harrowing subject.

Despite Jack Nicholson's galvanizing portrayal, Hoffa is a cold, remote, neo-religious pageant.

Here, some striking ideas, themes, and symbols never quite gel; the main problem is the plot, which never overcomes the implausibility of its premise. Yet the performances are solidly above average for the genre and, while TRESPASS might have been more compelling, it still displays far more style and intelligence than the average contemporary action thriller.

Thanks to a landmark performance by Al Pacino, SCENT OF A WOMAN is an agreeably watchable film. If they'd made it half an hour shorter and re-written the ending, it could have been a great one.

A schmaltzy variety-show routine inflated into a rudderless mess of a fantasy.

The final scene, when Kaffee locks horns with Jessep, more than makes up for the predictability of what's come before.

A mixed bag of mixed moods. The somberness of Dickens's oft-filmed seasonal cautionary fable works at cross purposes with the Muppets, keeping their usual gentle anarchy at bay.

There's just not enough good material, however, to sustain the comic pace.

Thematic issues aside, The Crying Game pulls off a tremendously difficult technical feat; its screenplay contains not one, but two, wrenching twists, each of which could easily derail the narrative in the hands of a lesser storyteller.

A dreary, turgid melodrama.

Aladdin is a fairy tale with an edge--a popular children's story that will have even the most media-savvy parents straining to keep up with Williams's machine-gun delivery of quips, allusions and imitations.

Harvey Keitel gives an astonishing performance here... Though hardly a film for all sensibilities, Bad Lieutenant has the courage of its own convictions, and follows them to the bitter end.

Home Alone 2 pales next to its predecessor.

Lee's biography of the slain civil rights leader treats Malcolm, not as a political rallying point, but as a fully rounded individual whose life defies reduction to symbolic status.

Francis Ford Coppola's lavish version of Bram Stoker's classic novel is a visual cornucopia, overstuffed with images of both beauty and grotesque horror.

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.