Jackie Chan, acting as writer and director as well as star, was quick to follow up the huge success of his contemporary action hit Police Story with a film that, despite a number of excellent action sequences, comes off as second-rate Jackie. Busted down to motorcycle cop due to his unconventional tactics and tremendous property damage, Jackie finds himself the target of the vengeful mobster he put out of business in the first film while simultaneously hunting down a team of bomb-happy extortionists and trying to salvage his unraveling love life (poor Maggie Cheung, who winds up almost as bruised and battered as Jackie). Jackie is chased by radio-controlled cars armed with bombs (à la The Dead Pool), ambushed in a playground in a terrifically choreographed tour-de-force where he single-handedly battles a dozen armed baddies while leaping through a jungle gym of obstacles, and makes his last stand in a fireworks warehouse just itching for a light. The generic story generates little interest and even the half-hearted slapstick misses the spark of his better work (such as the spectacular, stunt-filled follow-up Supercop), but Jackie is magic on the screen, a gymnastic dynamo with the clean-cut charm of the boy next door. The postfilm montage of outtakes is a painful reminder not to try these stunts at home. The American version features a rock-tinged score and sloppier dubbing than usual. Jackie again provides his own voice. -Sean Axmaker.

There is trouble in Izmer. With the emperor dead from an assassin's poison, the 16-year-old princess Savina (Thora Birch) inherits not just the throne but also the royal scepter, which has the power to command gold dragons. With a youthful idealism, she decides all people should be equal, from lowly commoners to the ruling-class, magic-wielding mages. This doesn't sit well with the mages, so Archmage Profion (Jeremy Irons) leads a revolt in the Council against Savina's rule, forcing her to relinquish the royal scepter. In order to maintain her power, she decides she needs the rod of Savrille, which can control red dragons. To retrieve it, she hires two bumbling thieves, Ridley (Justin Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans), and an apprentice mage (Zoe McLellan). The true trouble in Izmer is the fact that it's a poorly imagined world that cribs more from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark than it does from the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game that shares its title. Director Courtney Solomon optioned the rights to the game in 1991, when he was 21, and should have spent the years since then drafting a coherent script. Mediocre special effects take precedence over story, and the actors try to make up for that by hamming it up. Irons, in particular, covers his embarrassment by chewing the scenery and spitting it out. [+]

As he proved with The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, and Fly Away Home, director Carroll Ballard has a gift for creating exhilarating movie experiences. And although Wind received only mixed reviews when released in 1992, it's a technically astonishing film that does for yacht racing what The Black Stallion did for horse racing-it puts you right into the action with breathtaking camerawork and gripping excitement. Matthew Modine and Jennifer Grey star as experienced sailors determined to win the prestigious America's Cup yacht race. Their love for each other is put to the test when she's removed from the crew and joins up with a maverick designer (Stellan Skarsgård) whose new boat design represents the cutting edge of sailing competition. Eventually Modine leaves his millionaire sponsor (Cliff Robertson) and reunites with Grey, and their race against the Australian World's Cup champion leads to a thrilling climax on the high sea. Cinematographer John Toll (who later won back-to-back Oscars for Legends of the Fall and Braveheart) takes his cameras where no sailing movie had ever gone before, and the results are nothing less than spectacular. -Jeff Shannon.

High-octane gas, pumped out by the buoyant maestro of Hong Kong action, Jackie Chan. In this outing, the irrepressible Chan plays a Hong Kong cop teamed up (gloriously) with a Chinese inspector played by Michelle Yeoh (a. k. a. Michelle Khan). The plot ranges all over Southeast Asia, culminating with Jackie hanging from a helicopter ladder high over the streets of Kuala Lumpur. This one's notable for the ingenuity of the stunts, and for allowing two of Asia's top female stars to do their bad thing. The great Maggie Cheung (Chinese Box) plays Chan's girlfriend, who has a tendency to pop up at the most inopportune moments; and Yeoh executes a hair-raising motorcycle jump onto a moving train-an absolute jaw-dropper. Originally released as Police Story III, the picture was rereleased in America as Supercop in 1996, after Chan's U. S. [+]

Three days in the summer of 1863, at a place called Gettysburg. Although it received a theatrical release, this four-hour depiction of the bloody Civil War battle was shot as a made-for-television film. But no taint of cheapness or shortcuts should stick to this magnificent picture (well, except maybe for those phony-looking mustaches). Based on Michael Shaara's book The Killer Angels, this film takes a refreshingly slow, thorough approach to the intricacies of battle. In ordinary circumstances, those intricacies might seem of importance only to fans of military strategy or Civil War enthusiasts, yet in Gettysburg they come across as the very stuff of life, death, and unexpected heroism. If the film has a problem, it's that it climaxes too early: the first long segment, detailing the struggle of a "civilian soldier," Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), to hold his ground against long odds, is an enthralling piece of moviemaking. Daniels, in a heartbreaking performance, does his best film work. Other cast members include Tom Berenger, Sam Elliott, and Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee. Richard Jordan, in his final role, gives a powerhouse performance as Confederate general Lewis A. [+]

A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella "The Body" (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches, and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes, and the raucous comradeship of best friends. Set in the 1950s, the movie indulges an overabundance of anachronistic profanity and a kind of idealistic, golden-toned nostalgia (it's told in flashback as a story written by Wheaton's character as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss). But it's delightfully entertaining from start to finish, thanks to the rapport among its young cast members and the timeless, universal themes of friendship, family, and the building of character and self-esteem. Kiefer Sutherland makes a memorable teenage villain, and look closely for John Cusack in a flashback scene as Wheaton's now-deceased and dearly missed brother. A genuine crowd-pleaser, this heartfelt movie led director Rob Reiner to even greater success with his next film, The Princess Bride. -Jeff Shannon.

James Bond's fourth adventure takes him to the Bahamas, where a NATO warplane with a nuclear payload has disappeared into the sea. Bond (Sean Connery) travels from a tony health spa (where he tangles with a mechanized masseuse run amuck) to the casinos of Nassau and soon picks up the trail of SPECTRE's number-two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), and his beautiful mistress, Domino (Claudine Auger), whom Bond soon seduces to his side. Equipped with more gadgets than ever, courtesy of the resourceful "Q" (Desmond Llewelyn), agent 007 escapes an ambush with a personal-size jet pack and takes to the water as he searches for the undersea plane, battles Largo's pet sharks, and finally leads the battle against Largo's scuba-equipped henchmen in a spectacular underwater climax. This thrilling Bond entry became Connery's most successful outing in the series and was remade in 1983 as Never Say Never Again, with Connery returning to the role after a 12-year hiatus. Tom Jones belts out the bold theme song to another classic Maurice Binder title sequence. -Sean Axmaker.

Despite a typically haphazard plot, Highlander: Endgame is a marked improvement over previous sequels. This is the "torch-passing" chapter, in which the Immortal Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) passes his life force to his heroic brother, Duncan (Adrian Paul, star of the 1993-96 Highlander TV series). These appealing stars make a fine onscreen duo, and Paul is a terrific choice to keep the franchise alive-strikingly handsome but possessing enough gravitas to make the prospect of future sequels unexpectedly promising. The movie is incoherent to the uninitiated, but established fans will be reasonably impressed by Endgame's cagey mix of romance, swordplay, and history-spanning action. While the movie's chaotic construction is regrettable, the frequent battles (including dazzling work by Honk Kong action star Donnie Yen) are adequately impressive, and Douglas Milsome-cinematographer of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket-ensures that every scene is strikingly photographed. All in all, Highlander: Endgame is surprisingly worthwhile. -Jeff Shannon.

Larry Cohen scratched out some of the most memorably offbeat exploitation films of the 1970s, including two of the most energetic blaxploitation action classics: Black Caesar and its sequel, Hell Up in Harlem, which made a star of Fred Williamson. In 1996 they reunited for this tribute to the good old days and producer-star Williamson brought along a few of his fellow 1970s blaxplo icons: Jim Brown (Slaughter), Pam Grier (Foxy Brown), Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and Ron O'Neal (Superfly). They play old friends and former members of a neighborhood gang in economically depressed Gary, Indiana, who reunite when a new generation of gangbangers using their old street name, the Rebels, turns the city into a war zone. It's great fun to see the old faces back on the screen-Williamson is still buff and tough, and Brown and Grier have become more charismatic with age-but they're let down by a slack script and lazy direction despite an almost nonstop barrage of gunfights and back-alley brawls. Even with revved-up 1990s firepower, the film never really captures the explosive energy of the films that made their reputations. You're better off seeing the originals. Paul Winfield and Isabel Sanford also star, and Cohen casts cult faves Charles Napier, Wings Hauser, and Robert Forster in supporting roles. -Sean Axmaker.