Since the first chapters debuted as a direct-to-video release in 1990, this sprawling sword-and-sorcery epic has delighted fantasy fans with its ancient prophecies, lost kingdoms, enchanted swords, dragons, and wizards. The tangled story line borrows heavily from The Lord of the Rings, the Star Wars films, and numerous other fantasy works. Six mismatched characters find themselves thrown together to protect the land of Lodoss from imminent destruction: Parn is the impetuous young warrior with heroic potential who typifies the genre; in place of the usual spunky girl, there's Deedlit, an elf with magical powers. They're joined by Etoh, a young priest and healer; Ghim, a dwarf-warrior with a heavy heart; Slayn, a wizard in training; and the rascally thief Woodchuck. Their allies include the dashing lord of a desert realm, a mercenary and her Berserker companion, and a benevolent, Arthurian king. They're pitted against an array of villains that includes human warriors, an evil sorcerer, dragons, kobolds, zombies, and Karla, the mysterious "Gray Witch" [sic]. An elegant art nouveau sensibility runs through the designs of Lodoss War, especially the extravagant armor of the warriors. But the film lacks a coherent plot, probably the result of producing so much animation in a short time with multiple directors. Characters are forever dropping in and out of the story: the initial villain, the evil emperor Beld, is replaced by his henchman, Ashram, who is superseded by the dark sorcerer, Wagnard. The last three episodes build to a titanic climax that leaves a lot of plot points unresolved. [+]

Only Joel and Ethan Coen, the fraternal director and producer team behind art-house hits such as The Big Lebowski and Fargo and masters of quirky and ultra-stylish genre subversion, would dare nick the plot line of Homer's Odyssey for a comic picaresque saga about three cons on the run in 1930s Mississippi. Our wandering hero in this case is one Ulysses Everett McGill, a slick-tongued wise guy with a thing about hair pomade (George Clooney, blithely sending up his own dapper image) who talks his chain-gang buddies (Coen-movie regular John Turturro and newcomer Tim Blake Nelson) into lighting out after some buried loot he claims to know of. En route they come up against a prophetic blind man on a railroad truck, a burly, one-eyed baddie (the ever-magnificent John Goodman), a trio of sexy singing ladies, a blues guitarist who's sold his soul to the devil, a brace of crooked politicos on the stump, a manic-depressive bank robber, and-well, you get the idea. Into this, their most relaxed film yet, the Coens have tossed a beguiling ragbag of inconsequential situations, a wealth of looping, left-field dialogue, and a whole stash of gags both verbal and visual. O Brother (the title's lifted from Preston Sturges's classic 1941 comedy Sullivan's Travels) is furthermore graced with glowing, burnished photography from Roger Deakins and a masterly soundtrack from T-Bone Burnett that pays loving homage to American '30s folk styles-blues, gospel, bluegrass, jazz, and more. And just to prove that the brothers haven't lost their knack for bad-taste humor, we get a Ku Klux Klan rally choreographed like a cross between a Nuremberg rally and a Busby Berkeley musical. -Philip Kemp.

Wildly romantic, daringly exciting, Michael Mann's film of James Fenimore Cooper's novel created a new babe magnet out of Daniel Day-Lewis, he of the heaving pecs and flowing mane. As Hawkeye, he plays an American settler raised by the Mohicans who is forced to serve as a guide for British adventurism in upstate New York. But the British have been outflanked by the French (and their Indian allies); then British honor is betrayed when a band of renegades assaults them during their retreat. Mann captures the viciousness of this era's hand-to-hand combat in startling battle scenes. But he also invests the film with heartfelt romance, as the feelings swell between Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. The ending is a stunner, a long, nearly wordless sequence of battle and loss. Strong performances all around, particularly by Russell Means as Chingachgook and Wes Studi as the evil Magua. -Marshall Fine.

Toy Soldiers is a slick dose of high-concept absurdity, and lots of fun if you don't think about it afterward. Adapted from a novel by William P. Kennedy, it's got the swift momentum that's a specialty of screenwriter David Koepp, whose later credits include Jurassic Park and Spider-Man. Matching Koepp's narrative energy is director and cowriter Daniel Petrie Jr. , who wrote Beverly Hills Cop, and whose big-screen career stalled after this crowd-pleasing debut. The hokey plot involves a class of prep-school misfits (led by Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton) who use their rebellious ingenuity to foil Colombian terrorists who've taken over their school. The lead villain (Andrew Divoff) demands the return of his extradited drug-lord father (one of the prep students is the residing judge's son), and the inevitable showdown provides a heady mix of nonsense, graphic violence, and military muscle. It shouldn't work but it does, especially if you've got a tolerance for Die Hard clones that barely pass inspection. -Jeff Shannon.

At least someone, somewhere, involved in this disposable Ape Man entry bothered to read the famous Edgar Rice Burroughs books on which the character is based. What was done with that information, unfortunately, amounts to nothing. Tarzan (vacantly handsome Casper Van Dien) and Jane (nondescript Jane March) head back to the jungle homeland and encounter pillaging baddies led by Steven Waddington (used better as a more complex nasty in The Last of the Mohicans). Director Carl Schenkel's film gives Tarzan back his long-absent status as an articulate gentleman, and it contains elements of Burroughs's feverish imagination, but it dully ticks off the "adventures" without any thrilling sense of fun. Schenkel is so inattentive to detail that he would have us believe no one raises an eyebrow at the sight of a man morphing into a humongous cobra (not that the Xena-level effects help). It's blandly amusing watching Van Dien plug away ineptly at both his heroics and English accent, though this is ultimately an empty diversion for completists only. -Steve Wiecking.

Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman) directed this 1993 epic about Chicano gang wars in the California prison system and the differing and tragic paths of three boyhood friends. Half-brothers Paco and Cruz grow up with their cousin Miklo in Chicano Los Angeles, and each in turn is influenced by their violent environment and the prevalence of drugs on their streets. Cruz becomes an artist but winds up tragically addicted to heroin, while Miklo serves time for murder and Paco becomes a cop, setting the stage for a confrontation between the two when Miklo is released from prison. The film strives for an epic feel but takes too long to set up its interweaving stories. It is notable, however, for some fine acting on the part of Benjamin Bratt and Damian Chiapa, as well as smaller roles by Billy Bob Thornton, Ving Rhames and Delroy Lindo. Its depictions of life in the California prison system are harrowing and powerful, and serve as the centerpiece of this urban drama. -Robert Lane.