Just like the popular (and more graphically violent) video game it's spun from, kung-fooy and kartoony Kombat shoves plot and personality aside to focus on action cloaked in mystic mumbo-jumbo and gloomy mock-gothic graphics. [21 Aug 1995 Pg. 03.D]

There are seven 13-year-old sitters in all, and Melanie Mayron (directing her first theatrical feature) doesn't always flub it when any two interact. But the film's nature and even its title peg it as an ensemble work, and Mayron's group footage looks like crude camcording of a ninth-grade picnic. [18 Aug 1995, p.11D]

Look out for everything, and listen, too, because Suspects is one of the most densely plotted mysteries in memory.

Michelle Pfeiffer has made a lot of memorable movies, including many that undeservedly failed to connect with the public. Never, until Dangerous Minds, has she had to flail her way through a movie beyond all redemption, including even the prehistoric "Grease 2". [11 Aug 1995, Pg.04.D]

In the wine-drenched romance A Walk in the Clouds, Keanu Reeves is like a flat root beer. Decent, honest, but no fizz. [11 Aug 1995, p.4D]

Babe, a live-action fable about a valiant pig who conquers prejudice like a barnyard Jackie Robinson, is in a league of its own when it comes to enchantment.

Whatever reason Denzel Washington may have had for deigning to grace a melodrama as scummy as Virtuosity, the actor has wound up with something that is even worse than 1991's Ricochet in his otherwise creditable filmography. [4 Aug 1995, p.4D]

A two hour aquatic pursuit pic with bruising stunts, fun-to-watch performances, a dozen good chortles and imposing Panavision renderings of post-apocalyptic crud, Waterworld clearly has the makings of a cult movie.

With admirable techno-savvy, the film upgrades the paranoia-propelled thriller and downloads it into the '90s. Reminiscent of a slew of films, including The Pelican Brief and The Fugitive, The Net - ploddingly directed by Irwin Winkler - is frustratingly average in almost every other respect, however. [28 July 1995, p.5D]

The movie just gets by on heart and a conversation-stopping finale. [28 Jul 1995, p.5D]

The film bobs along like a designer balloon, pumped with wry observations on Marky Mark and Mentos ads. But none of the other cartoonish characters command like twinkly Silverstone.

Melissa Mathison, who wrote E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial and co-authored The Black Stallion script, isn't one to louse up a modern classic with overkill. [14 July 1995, p.1D]

Dark Territory is back to familiar territory, and the payoff is moronically comfy [17 July 1995, p.6D]

Writer/director Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) delivers his usual slapstick and sap shtick, but the sitcom-slick results fall flat. (It's also based on a French farce - bad sign.) [12 July 1995, p.1D]

By the time the prey turns hunter, however, the tale becomes overly predictable. And it never taps Kingsley's potential as a ruthless father figure to the beauteous, almost-sympathetic creature. Still, Species is a kick to the finish, groaner ending and all. If anyone could make E.T. forget all about phoning home, it's Sil. [07 July 1995, p.12D]

Knight is a medieval festival for the eye and ear, with rich blue hues and stirring fanfares. [07 Jul 1995, p.1D]

"The Right Stuff" will endure as the more ambitious movie, but this book-faithful, 2-hour team effort shrewdly keeps its eye on the ball.

Despite haunting moments in this fabricated fling between a headstrong Native American and an English sea captain, the film isn't as chirpy or majestic as recent Disney fare. [16Jun1995 Pg. 01.D]

With Todd Haynes' direction suggesting a Twilight Zone full court press, this uncommonly rigid movie is either bloodlessly objective or so subtly droll that the joke is beyond comprehension. But given that Haynes previously utilized a cast of Barbie dolls in the brazenly daring Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, it's tempting to give him the benefit of the doubt. [21 June 1995, p.7D]

With an ace pop mechanic like Joel Schumacher now in charge of our hero's bruised psyche, the patient not only survives but thrives in the garishly garnished but never groaningly gruesome Batman Forever. [16 Jun 1995, Pg.01.D]

The Postman (Il Postino) is slight, but it's tough to imagine anyone not liking it.

As in "Arachnophobia", director Frank Marshall can't decide whether he's making a thriller or a laff-it-up lark. [09 Jun 1995, Pg.03.D]

Richard LaGravenese's flashback script craftily tones down Waller's wind, adds a germane subplot and strengthens the novella's framing device. [02 Jun 1995, p.D1]

Hollywood, never one to let a retro idea die, has entrusted the premise to Carlo Carlei, a young Italian filmmaker whose stylistical flourishes in 1992's Flight of the Innocent seem doubly grotesque when employed toward such flea-laden material. [02 Jun 1995, p.2D]

You can have a better time title-scanning "Johnny" pics in an alphabetical video guide than you can enduring the latest Blade Runner knockoff. [26 May 1995, p.3D]

Tempers moments of despair with deliriously romantic passages abetted by James Horner's traditionally lush score and photography by John Toll ("Legends of the Fall's" Oscar winner).

A Little Princess is the first of its progeny to blend brains with entertainment. This stylish sleeper easily outpaces the studio's starchy updates of "Black Beauty" and "The Secret Garden", and even betters Shirley Temple's 1939 take on Frances Hodgson Burnett's Princess perennial. [18 May 1995, 12D.]

Put to the sequel litmus test, queasily spectacular Vengeance would only rate a footnote without a strong original to exploit - or a protracted telephone-terrorist subplot to steal from Dirty Harry 1. [19May1995 Pg.01.D]