Sleepwalkers is badly plotted and unimaginatively conceived, though not without a number of seat-squirming scenes.

An animated feature with political agenda -- a didactic cartoon. But that doesn't interfere with its being a whopping good time.

The film, which begins with a single, gorgeously sustained eight-minute camera move, is blissfully out of touch with contemporary trends in moviemaking...surprising, both in style and narrative.

A punky, futuristic effort by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, it is a tasteless variation on "Sweeney Todd" set geographically near the border of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

For the most part, it's a provocative one-on-one between racial opposites Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Their relationship -- or perhaps, their ongoing collision -- is the best part of the movie.

It's resounding bunk, candied over with the lush music of Johnny Clegg and hyped to death by director John ("Rocky") Avildsen.

And you thought the Mapplethorpe show was shocking....But then incongruity is fundamental to comedy, and at least "Ladybugs" has that, if nothing else, going for it.

A premise is about all The Cutting Edge has, and what a tired one it is.

What we have here is a movie with not just one, but a family pack of psychos.

The performers all seem to be relishing this sendup, but we're always aware that it is a vehicle better suited to the stage. In trying to open it up some for the screen, Bogdanovich and scriptwriter Marty Kaplan have presented the original play as a series of flashbacks that come upon Caine as he sweats out the play's Broadway opening. All this does is slow the opening and delay the close.

Merchant and Ivory have regathered many of the cast and crew from their earlier films to work on this reproduction to exquisite effect.

This solo project by first-time producer/director Edward James Olmos makes itself out to be hard-hitting, social commentary. But it's too longwinded and cliched to deserve that description. [13 Mar 1992, p. N47]

The movie, however, is Pesci's. In that courtroom, he gets on a roll and stays rolling until the end. There's no one better with that New York-New Jersey corridor accent.

Unfortunately, the VR special effects are few and far between in a film short on plot and long on derivation.

For about 15 seconds at the beginning, the new MGM film Once Upon a Crime is a thorough delight. Then that adorable little lion stops roaring.

The screenplay, contrived to suit the genre, is likewise replete with stock characters. Still, many of the actors manage to bring dignity, humor and even finesse to these tired roles. Gooding has the angelic good looks of Isiah Thomas and invests Lincoln with courageous sweetness. It's too bad the part isn't better developed.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man isn't a movie. It's an identity crisis. The previews would have you believe it's a zany comedy. But the jokes are too far and few between. And if it's a comedy, why is John Carpenter directing it?

Myers, who created the original characters, has to make a feature film out of a teeny sketch. With cowriters Bonnie and Terry Turner, he fares better than you'd expect.

The pleasure we take from Medicine Man comes not only from the actors or the engrossing progress of the narrative, but from every aspect, including Donald McAlpine's ravishing cinematography and Jerry Goldsmith's luscious score.

Another day, another inept homage to "Vertigo."

It may be longwinded here and there, but Mississippi Masala jumps with life. There's an ebullient, lusty mood to it. The characters have a crazy, eccentric rhythm of their own. It's fun to watch them be.

A drama about strong, giving, funny women, Fried Green Tomatoes seems plucked from the same patch as the play-turned-movie Steel Magnolias. It's not exactly a successful hybrid, but you could get a craving for it anyway.

Dickerson's point in this passable but rather routine picture is that no one is exempt from the spidery grip of frustrations brought on by poverty and a life of depressed opportunities; that, given these circumstances, anyone can pick up a gun as the only answer to his problems.

Rush is a powerhouse movie but not a cheap one. It hits you hard, but never below the belt.

You know you're in trouble when the cars in a science fiction movie look like those golf carts with football helmets on them. That's if the presence of Emilio Estevez wasn't already enough of a tip-off...Though the action is nonstop, it's so unengaging that we might as well be watching a blank screen.

This anti-feminist parable is both a labor and a pain.

Davis's sensibility is much more fully developed, more authentic and much less self-consciously referential than the Coens' was at the same stage. She's not just playing around with film noir, or paying homage to it -- she's using it for a new kind of edgy, grunge realism; using it to look at sex and love and murder; using it for real.

Little in this movie makes real sense; and characters (particularly Dafoe and Delany) seem to bump regularly into each other. But there's something transcendentally appealing between the lines. This is a film to be savored for its nuances rather than its story.