The movie is a mess from start to finish. But then again, this jerky, haphazard approach is part of the movie's goofy charm.

While Death is fun, there's something cool and removed about it, which makes it feel ultimately like an exercise in special effects. It's more clever than affecting, its narrative tactics more like entertaining detours than a mounting drama. That shortcoming is redeemed by the movie's grim relentlessness.

A pretty dry cracker.

Landau and Wuhl give especially heartfelt performances under the obviously sympathetic direction of Barry Primus, who based the story on his own attempts to finance a project.

This is fun and there are few kids who won't have a good time of it. But it's no Honey, I Shrunk . . . The first movie was more interesting and inventive, with the tiny kids facing the jungle terrors of a giant lawn and the aerial attack of a zeppelin-sized bee.

Technically, Bakshi's work is uneven; some of the characters in his Cool universe are hilarious, while others are flat.

By its own deliriously rock-bottom standards, "Universal" ain't half bad. Of course, you have to be big on bloody slaughter, kickboxing, infrared gunning and impaired acting. But "Universal" executes its subtle-free mission with surprisingly watchable efficiency.

Splendid... It's a great movie about making do.

Never mind that Best Intentions, which was filmed both as a six-part TV miniseries and a three-hour movie, is occasionally uneven and sometimes confusing. It remains a rare August pleasure, a film for grown-up audiences that challenges and enriches.

Adapted by Craig Lucas from his Broadway play, "Prelude" is worth watching for the human interaction, and for the pleasure of watching a love story with engaging partners.

The movie benefits from a stylish, high-gloss look, a hit-filled soundtrack and up-to-the-minute dialogue (there's even a Korean shop-owner joke) that feels winningly off the cuff.

Filled as it is with unforced errors, A League of Their Own isn't a perfect picture, but it is irresistibly ebullient with not one, but nine Babes on base.

But this hackneyed stalker-rama, which pretends to be a call for gun control, ultimately is little more than an excuse to turn the bad guy into a human colander. The better to strain the moral pasta.

To come out of the summer haze and enter the dark (and cool) wonder of Batman Returns is a pleasure not to be denied. Even more than before, this cartoon opera about cloistered personalities bathes exultantly in moody blues, gothic music swirls and a symphony of character tragedy.

Clearly Oz sees Housesitter as a screwball caprice, but the Muppeteer-turned-director delivers a stale couple's counseling movie. The message -- if your partner is a deluded liar, then you might as well be too -- must have been thought up by Pinocchio.

The main problem with Patriot Games, though, is that the inevitable confrontation between Ryan and Miller takes forever to materialize. In the interim, Noyce gets bogged down in the mass of technical detail -- the inside-CIA baseball -- that is such an integral aspect of Clancy's books. On the page, Clancy's research is impressively exhaustive, and if by chance you become bored, you can always skip ahead. But a movie doesn't afford us this luxury. Some of what we're shown about the inner working of the intelligence network is fascinating, but sometimes it can become an irritating distraction. You just want to cut to the chase.

Unfortunately, director Randall Miller can't put an original spin on the familiar material; he just doesn't have the offbeat comic gifts that the Hudlin brothers brought to the rap duo's first film outing in House Party.

Though the film has its moments and Goldberg is a riot, Sister Act is far from inspired.

Far and Away is such a doddering, bloated bit of corn, and its characters and situations so obviously hackneyed, that we can't give in to the story and allow ourselves to be swept away.

Ironically, Alien is not a bad movie. In fact -- here's the rub -- it's too interesting to make an exciting summer flick.

Cro-Magnon-dumb...Less funny than your own funeral.

It's an obscure experience, partly alienating, partly enthralling; it weaves a spell that is frightening, irritating and invigorating all at once.

A wham-bam encounter, it gives you everything you (presumably) want, sets itself up for another sequel, and it makes sure you don't recall a thing about it in the morning.

As the movie progresses, it deepens emotionally and becomes less of a detective thriller and more of a character study, and it's to Franklin's credit that he never allows his hard-boiled style to soften. Thematically, the movie doesn't make a strong statement, but it is strikingly expressive in its details.

Its toxic recipe consists of prurient exploitation steeped in dankly pretentious imagery. [01 Jun 1992, p.D4]

Scriptwise, you'll be left thinking "if it only had a brain." Like last year's "Hardware," this British effort is simply too talky. Those who seek deeper meaning will enjoy the astrological and satanic explanations, even if they make no sense.

The movie loses all authority, despite wonderful work from cinematographer Peter Menzies and composer Patrick O'Hearn. In screenwriter Daniel Pyne's hands, every character becomes a disappointment. Even Dafoe loses his zest as the movie progresses.

Producers David and Jerry Zucker have shown with "Airplane," "The Naked Gun" and "Top Secret" that they are inspired film parodists. Brain Donors suggests that they are clumsy plagiarists.