Really just an update of the kind of hapless grade-Z effort that once played the bottom half of a drive-in double bill.

Another one of those high-gloss treatments of domestic strife that want to have it both ways. Sitcom-slick, melodrama-edgy.

A further dose of "been there/done that."

The best news the G rating has had since the ratings system was instituted in 1968.

It's fun to talk about...but the price you pay is enduring its excesses and pummeled-home thematic points.

The material has enough meat to enable charitable viewers to drift in and out, but the result is too arch to conjure up much affection.

Likely one-week box office wonder.

One of those movies in which pacing, dialogue and the right actors enliven a familiar story.

Bless me, Father, for I actually laughed once during this gosh-awful spinoff...about as funny as an oozing fever blister.

A weeper poised to endure as one of the dominant independent features of the year.

Only a grouch wouldn't be a little tickled.

Neither the actors nor their characters engender much affection.

If you drop the "c" in hockey you get a perfect description of Mystery, Alaska.

The plunk-ing of a rap/disco soundtrack onto a movie about debtors' prisons and 18th century British highwaymen?

A minimally tolerable excuse to splice one or two perfunctory scenes between song cues.

Visual pyrotechnics and dark humor aside, Three Kings rules because it dares to dig for such truths, whether banal or significant.

Kasdan hasn't lost his touch at gathering terrific ensemble casts, although the performances are uneven.

What it isn't ... is a particularly compelling contribution to the impressive and by now enormous collection of Holocaust movies.

The cumbersome wrap-up, which follows a four-year narrative gap, seems too fanciful and bogs down what has been a stronger second hour.

While entertaining with its swipes at everything from health food to the Latin pop craze, the semi-sweet story is about as deep and meaningful as a groupie grope.

Tested my own love of the game more than anything since the time Roseanne screeched the national anthem.

Thinking isn't going to do anyone a bit of good during Blue Streak. Turn off your brain instead and you might enjoy it.

A singular accomplishment so specifically keyed to Spacey's talents that it mandates going out on a limb to say it contains the performance that will ultimately be regarded as "the one."

There is no tension here. Actually, The Minus Man is minus a lot - intensity, a point of view, maybe even a point - and that equals an unsatisfying film.

Love Stinks is what bad network TV comedy would be like if there were no censorship and less talent.

Has the refined taste to crib from classics like "Double Indemnity."

The scariest thing about this appalling and seemingly endless movie is that you paid for your ticket and now have to sit through it.

Reeks of the kind of atmosphere that makes you reach for the Lysol.

A substandard ebony-and-ivory buddy pic.

Dramatically empty Norse warrior adventure.

A mongrel of a movie.

Allen Daviau's cinematography is so striking that the movie would probably play better with the sound off.

It's a case of laughing at Brooks but not necessarily with him.

Close your eyes during this miserable romantic comedy.

Dead-carcass spinoff of Jay Ward's animated TV favorite.

Begins sinking in the shallow end almost at once.

Mirren is about the only reason this slow-moving revenge tale tingles at all.

The beauty here is in the set-up, which offers Hugh Grant a role to match his star-making turn in "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

Aside from the "Nutty Professor," this is the funniest Murphy comedy since the Reagan Administration.

Susan Sarandon has never looked better in her 29-year screen career than she does here.

We are happy to report there is intelligent life in feature animation beyond planet Disney and the gaseous ball of foul language known as South Park.

The filmmaker keeps upping the ante with surprises until the plot-twist beaut that concludes the picture - a shocker that, upon reflection, is probably the one ending that wouldn't have fallen a little flat.

The movie-calendar equivalent of last July's "Six Days, Seven Nights," this star-powered romance overcomes a shaky start to outpace that passable confection by several runaway laps.

This Lynch-ian knockoff is moodily monotonal, but the sameness is wearying.

Allison Janney is tacky incarnate as Barkin's good-time gal pal. When she shows up, Drop Dead Gorgeous comes most to life. [23 July 1999, Life, p.12E]

If you want to see actors hang from metal stairs, here's your funhouse. If you seek chills, stick with the twigs in The Blair Witch Project. [23 July 1999, p.12E]

A precisely modulated and mostly mesmerizing 2¾-hour suspense movie, in part because it's one of the most bravely disturbing screen works ever attempted about thoughts withheld by even the most devoted marriage partners and the ramifications of voicing them.

The suspense becomes so unbearable that it's easy to overlook questions about whether anyone in such circumstances would continue filming.

Amusingly macabre. [16 July 1999]

The usually peppy troupe is simply going through the show-biz motions rather than rocketing to where no Muppet caper has gone before. [14 July 1999, p.12D]

The presence of "Election's" Chris Klein as the male contingent's most sensitive member only emphasizes how much smarter that high school comedy was.

This has to be the raunchiest full-length animated feature since Fritz the Cat, which got an X rating in 1971.

There's some heavy-duty Oedipal stuff going on underneath all the running gags about Hooters restaurants. [25 June 1999, Life, p.8E]

This is entertainment worth thumping your chest over. [18 June 1999, Life, p.2E]

Almost by himself, Jackson transforms the film's final chapter into a serviceable view -- faint praise, perhaps, but a crumb to savor, given what has come before. [11 June 1999, Life, p. 6E]

There is enough mirthful good will generated to justify even another sequel. May we suggest: "License to Shag," "You Only Shag Twice" or "Thundershag."

Engrossing up to a point, the movie ends up being another mild disappointment from a filmmaker who last put it all together with Passion Fish -- seven years and four movies ago. [04 Jun 1999]

Its deadpan wit, ingenious fairy-tale premise and superbly accomplished cast will leave you feeling positively oxygenated.

Terry Gilliam's “12 Monkeys” can teach The Thirteenth Floor a little something about how to have fun with time travel. And with one number less. [28 May 1999, Life, p.7E]

Let the killjoys squawk. Lucas has proved he has the Naboos to pull it off again. And again. And again.

The major flaw, the clash of acting styles, is at least fascinating to observe. [14 May 1999, Life, p.8E]

The movie is so aggressively ingratiating that it's probably not to be fully trusted, yet it works suprisingly well on its own limited terms[14 May 1999, p. 8E]

A soulless spectacle.

It's an unholy mess.

In the movie's high point, (Jeremy) Northam conducts an antagonistic interview with the boy, who eludes well-placed lawyerly traps.

Cronenberg can create alternative worlds like few other filmmakers, and that's a real achievement. If he learns to make us care about them, he'll really have something. [23 April 1999, Life, p.8E]

When it comes to eloquently telling it like it is, Election puts the nation's political pundits to shame.

The distractions are more satisfying than the romantic main course. [23 April 1999, Life, p.8E]

Top-flight cast.

Spend 60 years in jail with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, and you'll understand why they call it the pokey. [16 April 1999, Life, p.5E]

Here's Jackie Chan playing twins separated at birth, though not as separated as English is from the actors' lip movements in this silly, speedy, wretched dubbed action goof. [16 April 1999, Life, p.8E]

This dark comedy comes off more giddy than gritty.

Bale tends to be overwrought and self-conscious as he wrestles with his demons, here in both '60s flashbacks (the liveliest segment) and in the 1977 present, in which punk clubs and easy women represent temptation. [09 Apr 1999]

The only possible reasons to do this concept again is sheer laziness (it's easier to borrow an idea) and pure greed (it's cheaper to borrow an idea). [2 April 1999, Life, p.6E]

Fortune is smiling down on veteran filmmaker Robert Altman with Cookie's Fortune.

While the attractive cast is willing, the translation into '90s teen culture is weak -- like a clueless adult's notion of cool.

Even if a lot of adults have problems following this picture 100%, look for computer-savvy teen-agers to guarantee this sometimes original but too often derivative time-killer a shelf life.

Artful it's not. But it's awfully affable. [26 March 1999, Life, p.9E]

Clean up the language, and this little roach of a movie could play the bottom half of a double bill with Rowan and Martin's “The Maltese Bippy.” [26 March 1999, Life, p.9E]

This movie is a howler as well -- possibly even intentionally -- but if it is a black comedy, the joke is overextended by far too many arms and legs. [19 March 1999, Life, p. 13E]

Works best as a ponderous metaphor for life's uncertainties. As a lighthearted comedy, the force, alas, is not with it. [19 March 1999, Life, p.13E]

Thankfully, this time Eastwood flirts (and ogles) but stops just short of going completely over the top. [19 March 1999, Life, p.13E]

No abomination but forgettably mediocre. [19 March 1999, Life, p. 13E]

Two films in one: an intriguing child-disappearance mystery and an uncommonly affecting domestic drama realized by four terrific central performances.

Even if this movie wasn't based on a computer game, Starship Troopers' reputation would still have just shot up another 50 notches. [19 March 1999, Life, p.11E]

The original was a Midol moment, this is a Prozac exercise. [12 March 1999, Life, p.8E]

Because De Niro's performance is aptly ''Scorsese-aggressive'' while Crystal effectively underplays, one can easily sit through this bottom-line disappointment with a smile painted on, waiting for belly laughs that rarely come. [5 Mar 1999]

A half-funny, half-ugly comedy about underworld ineptitude. [5 Mar 1999]

While the film comes to a mildly clever conclusion, it feels like a bottle of vintage champagne that never gets to pop its cork at midnight. All that fizz potential wasted. [26 Feb 1999]

More amusing than a lot of expensive Hollywood comedies [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

The two m's in 8MM could stand for "messy melodrama." [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

Consider The Other Sister emotional quicksand. [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

From morning traffic jams to passive-aggressive bosses who justify their existence by making yours miserable, Space gets it right. [19 Feb 1999]

The finale, which utilizes vintage home movies to show us the real people we've just seen portrayed, packs a wallop. [19 February 1999, Life, p.13E]

An air of self-congratulation hangs over the empty tank of gas called Jawbreaker, as if writer-director Darren Stein just can't wait to dazzle us with the gaudy visuals he's soldered onto a standard-issue black-comedy script.

Blast feels positively timely if not downright positive about the human race's ability to endure. Forget radiation. Fraser and folks actually survive three decades-plus of Perry Como music. [12 February 1999, Life, p.8E]

At least this movie has flashes of humor, thought nearly all come courtesy of Newman. [12 February 1999, Life, p.8E]

Imagine viewing Men in Black through the fog of a brain-embalming hangover and you won't have to buy a ticket to this piece of space junk. [12 Feb 1999, p.8E]