A handsome but riotously cluttered melodrama with maybe 145 subplots, it's the latest and least in a soulless string of preordained multiplex hits from the John Grisham warehouse. [24Jul1996 Pg. 10.B]

A movie that rudely flings feces at the breakfast table isn't for everyone.

It's a mess with sporadic flashes of creativity. Someone should have gone back to the drawing board. [19 July 1996, p.13D]

But when material is this fragile, virtually every scene is obligated to click for the result to become something special. Ultimately, this walking and talking comes perilously close to becoming a gab-fest treadmill. [26 Jul 1996, Pg.04.D]

My hope is that if they do a sequel, they focus on No. 4. Love the way he carries pizza wedges in his wallet [17 July 1996]

A rousing state-of-the-art cartoon capped by an aerial-combat climax that, to its credit, isn't anti-climactic. [2 July 1996, p.D1]

Phenomenon is a fantasy about super-intelligence that works best if you can switch off your brain. Those who can will reach weepy nirvana. Those who can't will find this sticky-sweet wallow a bit, well, dumb. [03 Jul 1996 Pg.01.D]

But it does mine Murphy's gifts, and the payoff is both nutty and funny. Sometimes even touching, too. [28Jun1996 Pg.01.D]

[A] socially conscious sprawler... Sayles' latest never bores during its 21/4-hour unreeling. But neither does it soar, despite finessing a complex flashback narrative set in 1957 and present-day. [21 June 1996, p.3D]

The middling result, diverting while it lasts but too silly to recommend, is merely this week's funhouse action pic. [21 Jun 1996 Pg.01.D]

Filmmakers of Bernardo Bertolucci's magnitude don't often take on sexual coming-of-age movies, but judging from the pleasures of Stealing Beauty, maybe more of them should. [14 Jun 1996 Pg.04.D]

Poor Ben Stiller can't distill the darkness, slapstick and fantasy into a consistent directorial tone, but the leads' expert give-and-take make the movie far from unbearable. [14 June 1996, p.1D]

Buried under an avalanche of action. (1996 June 7, pg. D1)

Friedberg, who previously made Nielsen's golfing video and rental car commercials, knows only the low road -- and gets lost anyway. [24 May 1996, Pg.04.D]

Stylish, brisk but lacking in human dimension despite an attractive cast. [22 May 1996, p. D1]

A summer crowd-pleaser worthy of its wind.

Coy to a fault, the movie collapses under its own weight with 90 minutes to go, despite Robby Muller's impressive black-and-white photography, which puts the film on a higher artistic plane than other equally unbearable movies. [16 May 1996, Pg.06.D]

Who, though, would assume rambunctious humor would be served up as well? Dickens meets the Beverly Hillbillies, and the movie is handsome, too. [10 May 1996, p.4D]

A cool and clinical reportorial remembrance whose very title reminds us who Solanas was. [3 May 1996, p. 10D]

Potty humor to spare. [26 July 1996, p. D4]

Though its romantic-comedy triangle borrows heavily from Cyrano de Bergerac, the film has more in common with Three's Company. A shame, since Dogs boasts more than a few stray pleasures. [26Apr1996, Pg. 04.D]

Happily, MacLaine (who can pull off these lovable eccentric dowagers while she's sleeping) and Fraser, showcasing a previously untapped flair for romantic comedy, keep Lake on her toes. [19 Apr 1996, p.1D]

The film is funnier off court than sizzling on it, the preferred balance in a broad farce that's only in it for the laughs. Irrelevant to real life but performed with enough gusto to justify somebody's 91 minutes, it at least allows the actors to hold their heads up. Not with pride, but not with shame, either. [19 Apr 1996]

Pure wish-fulfillment for Shaq-watchers who can't get enough of their 7-foot-1 basketball hero. [17 July 1996, p. 9D]

A film that wins on 'Courage' of its convictions. {12 July 1996, p. D1]

James is a stunner with a breathtaking array of eye-teasers. [12 Apr 1996]

As a forum for its actors and for the big-screen directorial debut of multi-Emmy winner Gregory Hoblit, the film is up to the job.

It's likely to be overrated by some and underrated by others, and both contingents will be wrong. One can't, however, overrate the performances, with auntie ruling the roost in more ways than one. [29 Mar 1996, p.4D]