This serpentine variation on CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON was a shrewdly-conceived, well-marketed hit. With a better cast than this kind of material usually gets, and pretty good direction by Luis Llosa, the movie provides some lively, suspenseful entertainment, even if it remains not much more plausible than, say, GODZILLA. Snakes just don't do the things the big anacondas in this movie do. After a prolog in which a man on a boat on a tropical river is terrorized by some unseen creature, killing himself rather than facing it, on the Amazon River in Brazil, we meet documentary filmmaker Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) and her scientist partner Dr. Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz) are preparing to head upriver to look for a mysterious lost tribe of Indians, the People of the Mist. (About whom you can promptly forget.) Also on the boat ...

At the time of its 1995 theatrical release, ‘Waterworld’ was the most expensive movie ever made, coming in at over $170 million and the money is, in fact, on the screen. Their millions spent on exceedingly well-executed special effects, ‘Waterworld’ is nothing if not an eyeful. The principal problem with ‘Waterworld’ is that all of those bucks were spent on a fairly familiar post-apocalypse tale, albeit presented here in a brand-new variation. The set-up is that, centuries before the story proper begins, the polar ice caps have melted--shown in an effect that wittily utilizes the Universal logo at the start of Chapter 1--leaving all known land submerged well beneath the seas. The few survivors live in floating fortress-cities or exist as lone sailors. One of the latter, the Mariner (Kevin Costner), has gills behind his ears, only interacting with full humans ...

title: The Rock function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close(); <br> studio: Hollywood Pictures MPAA rating: R starring: Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage. Ed Harris release year: 1996 reviewed by: Kim Wilson A renegade Marine General (Ed Harris), appalled by the military's policy to deny families of soldiers killed by friendly fire any benefits, takes over the historical landmark Alcatraz Island and threatens to launch a deadly experimental nerve gas into the heart of San Francisco if his demands for $30 million are not met. Involuntarily enlisted from prison by the FBI to assist agent Goodspeed (Cage), a chemical weapons specialist is Mason (Connery). The only person to have escaped from Alcatraz, Mason was later captured and held for years without trial as a political prisoner. The charge of Mason and Goodspeed is to infiltrate the General's well armed defenses and deactivate the rockets armed with the lethal gas.

title: Bullitt function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close(); studio: Warner Bros. Home Video starring: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall, Simon Oakland, Norman Fell release year: 1968 film rating: Two and a half stars sound/picture: Three stars reviewed by: Abbie Bernstein If you want to know why 'Bullitt' is still considered a classic three decades after its theatrical release, forward right up to the car chase in Chapter 14. The sequence is a mini-movie in itself, with a moody build-up that accelerates into a grueling, fierce and very convincing duel on real streets. Watching this sequence reminds you that, once upon a time, film action tried to make you imagine what it would be like if you were part of it. This is not to denigrate the strides made in action or effects, but in your heart of hearts, you know you're never going to pilot the Millennium Falcon. Yet, the automotive combat between San Francisco police detective Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) and ...