The plot of Gleaming the Cube is far from original, but the skateboarding sequences are exhilarating and add a great deal of excitement to otherwise routine material.

About 10 minutes into DEEPSTAR SIX, it becomes clear that the film is yet another uninspired variation on ALIEN. The mechanical screenplay and flat direction fail to build suspense, and the characters are routinely drawn. While the technical work, relying heavily on miniatures, is competent, the rendering of the monster is hardly worth the wait.

Despite the participation of Moonstruck screenwriter John Patrick Shanley, a fine cast, and director Pat O'Connor, The January Man is a disappointing movie that plays like something that had languished at the bottom of Shanley's desk drawer since his student days.

Funny, touching, and ultimately tremendously buoyant--reflecting the optimism engendered by the short-lived 1980s economic boom—Working Girl is a "feel good" movie with some intelligence.

Hurt's performance is remarkably assured, and Davis beautifully captures her character's insouciance. Less than perfect is Turner, whose capable performance presents a figure somewhat hollow at the center.

The obsessive lust that drives Higgins to horrific extremes in Hellraiser was almost enough to carry that film, but Hellbound has no such straw to cling to, and the film collapses into a bloody mess of bravura set pieces that never add up to a satisfying whole.

Fueled by a brilliant performance from Bogosian, TALK RADIO is an intense experience that will leave most audiences feeling drained.

This interminable melodrama purports to be a warm, humorous, and moving look at the relationship of two women over the course of 30 years. In reality BEACHES is a trite, maudlin, and terribly superficial effort of the sub-made-for-TV quality, an insult to anyone who has ever befriended another human being.

Pfeiffer is a revelation in her part, almost stealing the film. Her relative stillness, masking internal unrest, makes her character seem more authentically "period" than her co-stars, who have adopted no formal period mannerisms.

Rain Man rises above the banality of its concept--another buddy movie crossbred with a road picture--to become a genuinely moving and intelligent look at what it means to be human.

Directed by Muppet manipulator-actor-director Oz, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is an amusing comedy whose strengths and weaknesses both stem from the broad treatment of the material. In going for easy, lowest-common-denominator laughs, Oz loses much of the subtlety and occasionally dark humor of the orginal.

An extremely funny movie that presents a torrent of insightful gags at breakneck pace, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka features many of the stars of the old "blaxploitation" movies, adding weight and authenticity to Wayan's film. In offering up this affectionate parody of the old movies, Wayans also turns a satiric eye on black culture in general--but in an inoffensive, lighthearted manner.

Schwarzenegger proves to be mildly amusing, but DeVito seems to be coasting on his past reputation as an audience pleaser.

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.

A continuous stream of verbal and visual gags that come so fast, you don't have time to realize how bad/old/corny they are.

Luckily, Towne has assembled a marvelous cast who somehow manage to keep the film moving, despite their obvious confusion over just what it is they're supposed to be feeling.

Neither Scrooged nor Murray, who is front and center throughout, is particularly funny.

Each character weighs the dilemma, and each has at least one breast-beating soliloquy on the subject, as COCOON II goes for poignancy in attempting to deal with the weighty issues raised in its funnier, more-upbeat predecessor. It's a commendable effort, but the result is a pretty dreary movie.

Bluth, a former Disney animator, understands that the greatest Disney films take us on an emotional journey in which all our hopes and fears are played out in a vivid fantasy world where anything can happen. The Land Before Time continues that great tradition.

Although Oliver & Company is fairly entertaining and better looking than the average Saturday morning cartoon show, the computer-assisted animation is relatively stiff and inexpressive.

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.

The film is flushed with bright light and cartoon hues, nicely accenting the fast-paced stew of incidents.

A combination of fresh twists, worn cliches, and frenetic camerawork, this film offers a premise that adults may not subscribe to--namely, that even Santa gets old, tired, forgetful, and in need of replacement. Still, the character with a heart of gold aims to entertain the young set and generally hits his targets.

Buoyed by a good cast, strong direction, and excellent effects, Child's Play almost works. Unfortunately, the screenplay is full of plot holes, lapses of logic, and missed opportunities.

Carpenter is trying for a satire of advertising and consumerism under late capitalism, and although the film is great fun at first--especially when depicting the world through Nada's glasses--it rarely rises above the intellectual level of a comic book.

The best of the sequels to Carpenter's seminal slasher movie...Directed with flair by Little, who does not blatantly ape Carpenter's style, the movie delivers a number of effective chills without relying too heavily on the kinds of tired tricks and bloody gore that have made this genre a boring cliche.

Hackman turns in his usual solid performance, and Glover is strong as the pilot who develops a deep empathy for the officer, although the device of having the men interact almost entirely by radio limits development of their relationship.

Given a distinctly playful treatment by Russell, who crams some kind of phallic imagery into almost every frame, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is solid, campy fun--much more entertaining than any of the director's "serious" films. Russell (who also scripted) enjoys himself with all kinds of fetishistic images, from a naked Amanda Donohoe slithering around in green body paint, to a white bra- and panties-clad Catherine Oxenberg suspened over a pit as a sacrificial offering to the great white worm-snake--whose flickering tongue is, no doubt, firmly in his cheek.