If the movie finally doesn't know when to quit, its flaws are those of enthusiasm and heart. The central character may be a bus, but the story is really saying, "walk a mile in my shoes." [16 Oct 1996]

The Chamber merits some respect for daring to be gloomy, for facing the capital punishment issue head-on and for the quality of Gene Hackman's performance. [11 October 1996, p.1D]

It isn't an unabashed movie-movie like the chest-thumping "Braveheart" or a cool, clinical semi-documentary like "The Battle of Algiers". There are elements of both here and they just don't dance. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]

The movie tries to juggle motherly love sentiment with wanna-be snappy ripostes with a violent streak that extends to threatening a grade-schooler with blinding and busted kneecaps. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]

Douglas prances and chants with crimson-haired tribesmen who look like they were styled by Dennis Rodman. He talks a good game. (Why does he kill? "Because I've got a gift.") But he is trapped by the same undernourished script as the rest of the cast. Secondary characters are fleshed out so little, they should simply wear labels that say "kitty snacks." [11 Oct 1996]

Excitingly edited and evocatively scored, Microcosmos adapts big filmmaking techniques to tiny creatures. You get thrills, slapstick and even romance. [11 Nov 1996]

Some caper movies build suspense, while others tweak the genre with tongue lancing cheek. But this lesbian caper pic (how's that for a rarefied subgenre?) often pulls off both feats in the same scene, even simultaneously. [04 Oct 1996 Pg.04.D]

Thing's opening hour is fast-paced, though not fast enough to obscure the reality that "American Graffiti" and "Diner" had sharper writing and certainly more psychological depth. [04 Oct 1996, Pg.01.D]

The Glimmer Man is strictly a bummer, man. [07 Oct 1996, p.3D]

Blethyn is so astonishing that you forget you're seeing a performance.

Darkly comic 2 Days in the Valley is Tarantino lite and low-fat Altman. And that's not bad. It leaves you filled but without that bloated feeling. [27 Sept 1996]

A ludicrous medical thriller operating on the supposition that readers and moviegoers have forgotten about "Coma". [27 Sept 1996]

A robustly imaginative sleeper

The First Wives Club has a femme casting coup for the ages, and sometimes it only takes the right performers interacting to give sprightly fluff indispensable showmanship. [20 Sep 1996 Pg.01.D]

Obviously armed with more gangster-of-love opportunities playing Pablo Picasso than he had playing Richard Nixon, Anthony Hopkins ends up opting here for wit over full-blooded passion, but it proves to be enough. [23 Sep 1996]

This is a noisy, sadistic and just plain dull rendering of a too-often-told tale about a mysterious drifter who rides into a lawless outpost and pits rival gangs against each other. The plot, based on Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic Yojimbo, isn't so much dusted off by writer/director Walter Hill (Wild Bill) as propped up. [20 Sep 1996]

An untreacly family film is a true rare bird. [13 Sep 1996]

Bulletproof is both offensive and depressing, from its sociopathic mix of graphic violence and slapstick to its severe career blighting of the once-formidable Ernest Dickerson. [6 Sept 1996, p.3D]

Sinbad steers First Kid past mediocrity. [30 Aug 1996]

Delivers diverting comic fluff for the bland clan's fans. [23 Aug 1996, p.8D]

Credit McGlone for humanizing and even making funny one of the most insufferable big-screen boors in recent memory. Cheating on his wife, doing what he can to undermine his older brother's already rocky marriage, McGlone is setting himself up for a fall. Burns' lower-key acting style makes him a cool straight man during their frequent bandyings, into which dad Mahoney (also abandoned by his wife) always adds his own two cents. You probably have to love a guy who claims that his failure to believe in God isn't enough to keep him from being a good Catholic. [23 Aug 1996]

The movie keeps switching focus without ever getting its bearings, and when Brando exits earlier than expected, there's little but mayhem to fall back on. Moreau and mayhem are synonymous, to be sure, but we already know this going in. [23 Aug 1996]

Costner and Russo show they're up to par. [16 August 1996, p.D1]

Though the music is helping market the movie, it's really an omnipresent backdrop to the two intersecting stories. Audibly and visibly, Kansas City nearly equals Ed Wood for period verisimilitude. Yet it's also character-driven, in particular by the women stars. [16 Aug 1996, p.4D]

Even our bony host the Crypt Keeper, who never met a pun he didn't like, might declare Bordello just plain whore-ible. [16 Aug 1996, p.4D]

The movie meanders without a rudimentary sense of the dramatic, yet it remains intermittently interesting thanks to a surprisingly voluminous cast of usual suspects from the world of independent cinema. [14 Aug 1996 Pg.09.D]

For director/co-writer John Carpenter, it's a chance for career renewal. For eyepatched lead and co-writer Kurt Russell, it's a fitfully amusing lark, a harmlessly retro career move and a second audition for any future Rooster Cogburn parts. [09 Aug 1996, p.3D]

Emma is the peak of the recent Austen pack and a star-maker, too -- an antidote to a summer in which even good movies have subordinated writing and characters to special effects. [02 Aug 1996, Pg.01.D]