This lighthearted summer entertainment will give kids a vicarious kick while the elaborate visual effects help keep parents intrigued.

Style has seldom pummeled substance as severely as in Cool World, a combination funhouse ride/acid trip that will prove an ordeal for most visitors in the form of trial by animation.

In an equally damning commentary on the acting and Roland Emmerich’s direction, Lundgren and Van Damme are both more realistic as stoic cadavers than they are once their memories start to return.

Gas, Food Lodging is filled with the kind of personal, small-scale rewards indie filmmakers seem best at delivering. Lensed on location in Deming, NM, on a budget of about $1.3 million, Allison Anders' fresh and unfettered pic [from Richard Peck's novel Don't Look and It Won't Hurt] emerges distinctively as an example of a new cinema made by women and expressive of their lives.

An epic story of mismatched love shaped in the most intimate terms, the Ingmar Bergman-scripted The Best Intentions packs a sustained emotional wallop that lightens its three-hour span.

Thanks to a magnetic cast and intelligent adaptation, "Prelude to a Kiss" has made a solid transfer from stage to screen. Back in the 1930s or '40s, this sort of sophisticated, literary-oriented treatment of a simple romantic idea would have been the norm.

The film might have worked if the thoroughly selfish characters were striving after something.

Penny Marshall’s gangly fourth film benefits from a fresh, unusual subject, the joy of baseball being played by women having the time of their lives and a wonderful central performance by Geena Davis. Downside includes contrived plotting, obvious comedy and heart-tugging, some hammy thesping and a general hokiness.

Although it exists primarily to send an audience into a bloodthirsty frenzy and has major credibility problems in the bargain, "Unlawful Entry" is still a very effective victimization thriller. Strongly following the "Fatal Attraction" pattern--to the point of having a very similar climax--well-crafted concoction trades in the sorts of elemental concerns and fears that get people mightily worked up. This, combined with controversy pic may engender based on its prominent plot element of excessive police violence, gives it the potential to become a summer sleeper hit.

Burton has once again managed to pursue his quirky personal concerns in the context of broadly commercial entertainment, although the idiosyncracies of the villains clearly interest him far more than the programmable heroics of the title character and the related mandatory action sequences.

Davis Steve Martin Universal's HouseSitter, a tediously unfunny screwball comedy, is a career misstep for both Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. Hawn is grating as the kind of giggly flake she played two decades ago on "Laugh-In," and Martin is more obnoxious than endearing as the New England architect whose life she invades. This looks like a B.O. dud.

Society is an extremely pretentious, obnoxious horror film that unsuccessfully attempts to introduce kinky sexual elements into extravagant makeup effects.

Mixing elements of Trading Places with a Three Stooges short, this latest test for rap duo Kid 'n Play scores low on the SAT spectrum but should connect with a narrow range of older children and younger teens, at whom it's clearly aimed.

It’s a divine concept, and after a weak start director Emile Ardolino milks it for all the laughs it’s worth, while deriving requisite warmth from solid performances by Goldberg and Smith.

Handsomely mounted and amiably performed but leisurely and without much dramatic urgency.

A muddled effort that offers little more than visual splendor to recommend it.

Encino Man is a mindless would-be comedy aimed at the younger set. Low-budget quickie is insulting even within its own no-effort parameters.

Lethal Weapon 3 is all about chases and comedy schtick, and in this case the sum of the parts really adds up to more than the whole.

Working for the most part in straightforward style, director Carl Franklin achieves considerable suspense by pitting the frailties of each party against the other.

Suicide, hints of lesbianism, murder, staged accidents and every other applicable melodramatic contrivance is dragged in. Unfortunate thesps take it all very seriously, while technical aspects are emptily polished.

Split Second is an extremely stupid monster film, boasting enough violence and special effects to satisfy less-discriminating vid fans.

The plot shifts as often as the desert in White Sands, an absorbing, tightly coiled thriller not always easy to follow, with a fine cast, no-fat direction by Roger Donaldson, and nasties belonging to the all-purpose CIA-FBI consortium of evil.

The title Brain Donors sounds like a horror film and for those expecting a comedy, it is.

Convoluted and mostly unconvincing as a portrait of the drug underworld, Deep Cover [based on a story by Michael Tolkin] still carries some resonance due to its vivid portrait of societal decay and a heavyweight performance by Larry Fishburne.

Newsies was made with care and affection by choreographer-turned-director Kenny Ortega. But the writers have created cardboard cutouts instead of flesh-and-blood characters.

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is an idiotic horror potboiler.

Drawn in brilliantly verdant colors immediately inviting the viewer into a special world, FernGully is certainly simple enough for any youngster to understand, yet is sufficiently hip around the edges to contain the sap.

Mercilessly satiric yet good-natured, this enormously entertaining slam dunk quite possibly is the most resonant Hollywood saga since the days of "Sunset Blvd." and "The Bad and the Beautiful."