Paul Tuerpé

The world's most famous team of astronauts-cum-superheroes returns in the effects-heavy sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. As the story opens, Sue Storm (aka The Invisible Girl [Jessica Alba]) and Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic [Ioan Gruffudd]) prepare for their upcoming, superhero-studded wedding celebration. But Reed cannot stay focused on the nuptials -- he's distracted by wire reports of a bizarre, comet-like object hurtling toward the Earth with tremendous force, triggering brownouts, blackouts, tropical storms, and various other climatological disasters. When the said object hits the island of Manhattan, destroying much of the city in its wake, its identity becomes resoundingly clear. "It" is actually a "he" -- a psychotic villain known as The Silver Surfer (voice of Larry Fishburne) who intends, for some unascertainable reason, to destroy much of the Earth, just as he obliterated dozens of planets before it. Feeling compelled to rally their old gang and save the day, Sue and Reed summon Ben Grimm (aka The Thing [Michael Chiklis]) and Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch [Chris Evans]) to take on the Surfer -- and end up battling not only him, but an obnoxious Army general (Andre Braugher) and the cantankerous Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), who has broken out of his icy prison that held him captive at the end of the first movie. Tim Story returns to direct this sequel. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A hard-drinking, hard-living cop assigned the task of transporting a small-time criminal to the nearby courthouse finds that a simple, 16-block drive can be the longest ride of his life in director Richard Donner's urban action thriller. Hung-over, has-been cop Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) has seen better days, and all that the force expects out of him these days is to stay out of trouble while he's on the clock. Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) is set to testify before a grand jury at 10:00 a.m., and it's up to Mosely to make sure that Bunker makes it to the courthouse in one piece -- a job that Mosely estimates will take a maximum of 15 minutes. A black van has been trailing the pair unnoticed, though, and after stopping off at a nearby liquor store to pick up some breakfast, Mosely emerges from the store just in time to save Eddie from the lethal bullet of a determined assassin. When backup arrives in the form of Detective Frank Nugent (David Morse), Mosely quickly realizes that the detective on Nugent's team is the same cop that Bunker is set to testify against. Now faced with the tough task of dodging bullets and eluding a massive onslaught of corrupt cops, Mosely must keep Bunker alive long enough to get him before the judge and ensure that justice is served. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A man hoping to make his way back to the big time starts by heading back to middle school in this comedy. Roy McCormick (Martin Lawrence) is one of the most successful coaches in college basketball, but he's just as famous for his hair-trigger temper as he is for molding winning teams. When an outburst of anger during a game escalates into an embarrassing public indecent, McCormick loses his job and is banned from college sports. Looking for a way to rehabilitate his image, McCormick takes a job coaching the basketball team at the middle school he used to attend, only to discover his players are a handful of misfits and losers with no skill on the court. Can McCormick mold the kids into a winning team -- and make himself into a better man along the way? Rebound also stars Wendy R. Robinson, Breckin Meyer, Horatio Sanz, Megan Mullally, and Patrick Warburton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This teen psychological thriller marks the feature film debut of respected television producer and director Daniel Sackheim. Leelee Sobieski stars as Ruby Baker, a high school student who is devastated when her parents Grace and Dave (Rita Wilson and Michael O'Keefe) are killed in a tragic car accident. With her younger brother Rhett (Trevor Morgan), Ruby is sent to live with the legal guardians chosen by her parents, their best friends Terry (Stellan Skarsgård) and Erin Glass (Diane Lane). The Glasses live in an opulent Malibu mansion where Ruby and Rhett are promised all of the finest luxuries money can buy and a lavish new rich-kid lifestyle. Before long, however, Ruby begins to suspect that her new caretakers are not what they appear on the surface and that the couple's financial woes may force them to harm her or Rhett in order to cash in on their sizable life insurance policies. The Glass House was written by Wesley Strick, screenwriter of Cape Fear (1991), Wolf (1994), and The Saint (1997). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Ted Whittaker (Todd Andrew Bryand) is excited about the fact that he's about to be a father until the day that it hits him: he was a very difficult child. Wracked with panic that his own kid will be just as rambunctious as he was, he calls up his father (Tim Conway) to follow him around for the day and behave just the way he did when he was a boy. What results is a light-hearted role reversal and an eye opener for this father-to-be. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

The Alien Nation series continues with this made-for-television science-fiction thriller. In keeping with the original premise, the film is set in the near future on a planet Earth that is integrated with aliens. Alien detective Francisco and his human partner Sikes return, this time to investigate a mysterious child and her keeper. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

Two unlikely friends -- a boy and a killer whale -- are reunited under potentially dangerous circumstances in this sequel to the successful family adventure Free Willy. Jesse (Jason James Richter) has finally found stability and contentment with his foster parents Glen and Annie Greenwood (Michael Madsen and Jayne Atkinson), but he is confronted with a new emotional challenge when his birth mother (a drug addict who abandoned him when he was young) dies, and his troubled half brother Elvis (Francis Capra) comes to live with the Greenwoods. Jesse also deals with new feelings when he develops a serious crush on Nadine (Mary Kate Schellhardt), the goddaughter of Randolph (August Schellenberg), an animal trainer at the theme park where Jesse helps out. But a much bigger problem is on the horizon when the safety of Willy, the killer whale he befriended and helped return to the wild, is threatened. An oil spill spoils the ocean environment where Willy and his family now live, and an unscrupulous owner of an oceanarium, Wilcox (M. Emmet Walsh), attempts to capture Willie and put him back into captivity as a performing attraction. While Free Willy featured Keiko, a trained whale who (ironically) was living in captivity when the film was shot, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home instead utilized mechanical models and digital animation to bring "Willy" to life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Superstars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover return with director Richard Donner for Lethal Weapon 3, the third in the phenomenally successful action series. In this film, Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is only eight days away from retirement and his partner Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) once again manages to get them both into hot water with the both LAPD and the bad guys, who this time are Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson) and a gang of hoodlums selling armor-piercing bullets. Joe Pesci returns as the fast-talking schmuck Leo Getz. A new addition to the cast is Rene Russo as Lorna Cole, a sergeant from internal affairs sent to investigate Riggs and Murtaugh, but who ultimately ends up falling in love with the caffienated Riggs. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

John Candy plays Jack Gable, a soap-opera writer who finds himself trapped inside his own television program with a magic typewriter in this toothless comedy. Jack finds himself embroiled in protecting his beloved Laura (Emma Samms), an actress who plays Rachel Hedison in Jack's show -- "Beyond Our Dreams" -- from having her character being killed off by the program's producers, the Sherwoods (Jerry Orbach, Renee Taylor). Laura has recently broken off with her co-star and lover Dennis (David Rasche) and is heading off for a weekend with Jack. As Jack unloads Laura's luggage, he conks himself on the head and knocks himself out. He awakens in a town bearing a name similar to the town in his soap opera. Dennis is on hand, but as his character in the show -- Dr. Paul Kirkland. Jack realizes that he has found himself in an alternative world made up of his soap opera world -- particularly apparent when he is recognized as Jack Gates, "the Wolf of Wall Street." Jack then meets Laura, who, in this soap opera world, is actually Janet Dubois, the daughter of a late biochemist who invented a pill that allows anyone to eat whatever they want and not gain any weight. The unscrupulous Hedison family (Raymond Burr, Charles Rocket, Dylan Baker) want to steal the formula for the pill and make a fortune for their pharmaceutical company. Jack then discovers that he can exit and re-enter the show at will and can alter the narrative of the show however he wants by typing up new plot points on his typewriter. In order to save Laura's character from the Sherwoods, Jack re-writes the show to save Janet by having his own character come to her rescue at the last minute. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Lethal Weapon 2 reteams Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as, respectively, "loose cannon" LA detective Martin Riggs and Riggs' partner, the cautious family man Roger Murtaugh. The villain this time is a South African diplomat (Joss Ackland) who doubles as a drug dealer. Though Riggs knows what's going on thanks to characterless character witness Joe Pesci, he can't touch the villain because of "diplomatic immunity." After perils too numerous to mention, Riggs and Murtaugh shoot it out with the heavies on the deck of a South African cargo ship. Lethal Weapon 2, of course, contains as one of its comic high-points a now famous suspense scene: Mel Gibson agonizingly attempting to extricate a terrified Danny Glover from a booby-trapped toilet seat. Gibson, Glover, Donner and Joe Pesci would be reunited three years later for Lethal Weapon 3 and in 1998 for Lethal Weapon 4. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard of levels to increase his network's ratings -- even if it means mounting outrageous programs to retain an audience, such as "Robert Goulet's Cajun Christmas" and Lee Majors in "The Night the Reindeer Died," with an AK-47-toting Santa. Cross plots his foulest move, however, for the Christmas holiday, when he will force his office staff to mount a live production of A Christmas Carol on national television -- and thus work through Christmas Eve. Cross's life is turned upside down with visits from three ghosts: a craggy-faced cabbie known as The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen); the sugar-plum fairy Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) (who gets her jollies by bonking Frank across the face with a toaster oven); and, eventually, the caped, headless Ghost of Christmas Future, who will send Frank sliding into a crematory oven -- just before he gives the sleazoid one last chance to redeem himself. Along the way, the spirits carry Frank to scenes from his past, present, and future (per Scrooge) and impart a glimpse of how he became so thoroughly rotten. The radiant Karen Allen co-stars as Frank's girlfriend, Claire Phillips, and the film packs in cameos from countless celebrities -- among them, Mary Lou Retton, John Houseman, Jamie Farr, and, in a truly grisly and tasteless bit, John Forsythe. Richard Donner directs, from a script credited to the late Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

LA cop Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), whose wife has recently died, is a loose cannon with a seeming death wish. This makes him indispensable in collaring dangerous criminals, but a liability to any potential partners. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), a conservative family man who wants to stay alive for his upcoming 50th birthday, is partnered with Riggs. As Riggs gets to know Murtaugh and his family, he begins to mellow, though his insistence on using guerilla tactics to catch criminals is still (put mildly) above and beyond the call of duty. The main villain is The General (Mitchell Ryan), a drug dealer responsible for the death of the daughter of one of Murtaugh's oldest friends. The General is also in charge of a deadly, militia-like gang of smugglers. Adding fuel to the fire is The General's chief henchman, played with all stops out by Gary Busey. Moviegoers familiar only with the relatively tongue-in-cheek Lethal Weapon sequels may be amazed to find out how dangerous and unpredictable Riggs is in the first Lethal Weapon -- and how likely it seems that Murtaugh might not survive until fade-out time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Involved in a minor accident at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) ends up with a fractured leg. Over her protests, she is whisked off to a nearby hospital for treatment. You guessed it: A murder occurs--the victim is the head of the hospital--and Jessica must spend most of her forced confinement doing her trademarked amateur sleuthing. 1940s film favorites Martha Raye and Eddie Bracken show up in featured roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide