For all his legitimate laments and pithy documentary moments, Moore gloats too much over his treasure. Where Moore makes his mark is basically where he shuts up and, like a good documentarian ought to, lets the subjects do the talking.

The story holds a potential for sap that is mostly unfulfilled thanks to Beresford's stately approach, the stars' better judgment and the protagonists' sharp wits. Admirably, Driving Miss Daisy takes the road less traveled.

This We're No Angels isn't funny and it isn't smart -- it's a dumb show, almost literally, in fact. So few lines have been written for these actors that you almost believe that the script intentionally parodies their renowned inarticulateness.

The Wizard is not only tacky and moribund, but it teaches gambling and bad sportsmanship.

The idea of Sean Connery and Dustin Hoffman as a father-and-son act is daft enough to make Family Business an object of curiosity. [15 Dec 1989, p.E1]

Blaze is a celebration of the sporting life, as zesty as Cajun music and as tickly as a feather boa.

The movie's message is murky and out of whack. Seidelman's style of comedy trashes everyone. The movie's jokes, which cover everything from dead rodents to geriatric incontinence, are cartoony and sour and misanthropic. And the flukiest thing is that they're misogynic too. It's hard to imagine that a man could have been as ruthlessly coldblooded as Seidelman has been about Ruth's unattractiveness. The network of women workers that Ruth establishes to help her nail her husband runs on pettiness and rancor -- it's a coalition of resentment. In "She-Devil," Seidelman divides the world of women between the envied and the envious. She has a message for the Ruths of the world, and it's not a pretty one. She tells them that the best they can hope for is payback.

Director DeVito, who never did know when to quit, manages to be as clever as he is vicious. His first movie, "Throw Momma From the Train," seems almost lyrical in comparison to the ruthlessness of this vehicle.

Chase presides amiably over this uneven but affable slapstick comedy.

Future II bombards you with more brand-name advertising than three hours of prime-time TV could muster, although repeat filmmakers Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis put a humorous twist on everything.

The movie is an orgiastic celebration of big, sloppy emotions; it's the film equivalent of "Feelings." And what we're supposed to take from it is a renewed faith in the indomitable strength of women. But with all this big acting and all these stars elbowing for space in front of the camera, the film comes across as something quite the opposite of what was intended, not a tribute to femininity but a kind of grotesque parody -- a corn-pone variation on "The Women."

With its callow cast and playful tone, there is nothing dangerous about Forman's variation on the novelist's schemes.

Eddie Murphy's directorial work is amateurish at best. And as a performer he looks as if he is in agony, as if his mother made him stand in front of the camera for punishment.

With 10 writers gnawing on it, there is little originality left in the story.

The great thing about Mystery Train is its open-endedness. It's a generously scripted ride that gives equal berth to all its characters, then cuts them loose with unfinished business, which also leaves them alive and drifting in your thoughts for a long time. That doesn't seem like a bad achievement at all.

The Little Mermaid is only passable. Even at its highest points, it cannot claim a place next to even the least of the great Disney classics.

My Left Foot is gloriously exultant and hilariously unexpected...Sheridan and his great young star have universalized their broken hero.

The title, of course, leads one to expect the long-awaited movie version of David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, but the actuality is closer to tattered but dopily diverting remnants from The Karate Kid, Road House and Rocky IV. [14 Nov 1989, p.E3]

Nothing in Dad moves below the surface. When the inevitable tragedies come, they take their expected forms. And because we have at least some susceptibility and human feeling, we give the expected response. What we are responding to, though, is not so much the film as the issues it raises.

An alert, rousing interpretation of "Henry V," Branagh beats down the doors of high art and drags the sleeping bard into the light of modern day.

It's certainly harrowing to sit through. Talk about your grizzly misadventures.

It is a middling gun play that asks and answers the persistent question: Whither testosterone?

Fat Man seems unsure of which human story to concentrate on.

Whiny, quirky and urbane.

A lot of this stuff is irresistible. In the early going especially, the movie's infantilism is snappy and surprising. But this is a great idea for a sketch, not a feature, and if Heckerling had resisted padding it out, it might have made a brilliant short. A comedy can ride only so far on high concept. It has to deliver the jokes, and this one doesn't.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is a prime example of the principle of diminishing reruns.

A thoroughly enjoyable entertainment that should play just about everybody's strings right. Kloves proves to be quite a plucker.

Neither federally admonishing nor irresponsibly romantic, Cowboy stays high without being highhanded.