Versatility, thy name is Van Damme! So Arnold cries in End of Days? Hah! In this relentless revenge actioner, Jean-Claude not only cries, but has a drunk scene, suffers suicidal despair, does a little slapstick, and still manages to flash his ubiquitous butt. Which, of course, is what his legion of fans want to see him kick plenty of (other people's butts, that is; not his own). Van Damme may no longer generate any box-office heat (like 1998's Legionnaire, this bypassed theaters to go straight to video), but he at least gives his fans what they want. Originally titled Coyote Moon, Desert Heat recalls that guilty pleasure Road House, as Eddie Lomax (Van Damme) comes to the rescue of a gallery of colorful characters terrorized by slobbering, drug-dealing bikers and rednecks in a dilapidated desert town. And this time, it's personal. As one denizen ominously observes, "There's trouble on the hoof and it's coming this way" for the three ill-fated bullies who beat up and shot Eddie and left him for dead. Despite its desert setting, Heat is an oasis for great character actors who pick up Van Damme's considerable slack. They include Danny Trejo (Con Air) as Eddie's Native American friend Johnny Sixtoes, Pat Morita (The Karate Kid), Larry Drake (Darkman), Vincent Schiavelli (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ghost), Bill Erwin (Candy Stripe Nurses), and luscious Jaime Preslly as Dottie the waitress. The director is credited as Danny Mulroon, a pseudonym for John Avildsen, the Academy Award-winning director of Rocky. His career, too, seems to be on the ropes, but he keeps punching with some welcome eccentric touches. [+]

The idea behind Tycus is one of those high-concept brainstorms that can restore your faith in no-budget filmmaking: Rip off the "astral body racing to destroy Earth" scenario of Deep Impact and Armageddon, but replace the chest-thumping heroics and patriotism of those films with a touch of X-Files-lite paranoia. That the film fails to deliver on its premise is unfortunate, if not very surprising. Sleepy-eyed, bulked-up Peter Onorati stars as an idealistic journalist who, following a dishonorable discharge from the Army for hunting down a story too doggedly, has been reduced to taking photographs for a sleazy tabloid. When he gets a call from an old buddy he'd thought long dead, it doesn't take this ace reporter long to figure out he's onto something big. After a visit from the requisite mysterious messenger in a dark suit, Onorati quickly learns about a secret mining project going on in the Sierra Nevada, complete with plenty of armed guards, run by a goateed Dennis Hopper. It's a nice touch, if somewhat annoying, that our hero is so slow to pick up on what's obviously going on, and the cheap sets and special effects aren't tacky enough to annoy. The audience is asked to swallow a lot of implausible narrative touches, though-most stunningly, that no one besides Hopper and his crew have noticed a killer comet heading our way. Which makes Tycus no better or worse than plenty of other sci-fi films that are bereft of imagination; too bad after that nifty setup. -Bruce Reid.

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. [+]

On Christmas Eve 1999, two employees of the New York water company fall into a long-closed tomb beneath a water main. A Native American archaeologist (Françoise Robertson) discovers that the tomb contains the bones of a Templar, a sect of religious knights charged with protecting a golden key-the key to the bottomless pit in which the Antichrist is imprisoned. She's promptly attacked by the minion of the Antichrist, an ancient demon that possesses human bodies. Just as swiftly, she's defended by a hunky contemporary Templar, played by the increasingly craggy Dolph Lundgren. They concoct a plan to sink the key into a pit of toxic waste, and take off to a storage facility on her native reservation with the demon in hot pursuit, hopping from body to body. The Minion wastes little time in getting the action under way, but there's not a lot of imagination and almost no special effects. Lundgren intones such statements as "There is no joy in sin" and "Every human being I touch, I may have to kill," while a heavy-metal guitar wails on the soundtrack. Something of a cross between The Hidden and End of Days. -Bret Fetzer.

Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid are an unlikely couple in this unfortunate attempt at a comedy thriller. They play a pair of married spies who have taken parental leave and are vacationing in New Orleans with their year-old son. But they're called back into action to stop the sale of a shipment of stolen weapons. Ho-hum. Though both the leads have preternaturally cheery dispositions, it can't translate to the soggy script. The action is formulaic and the jokes nonexistent. The film's only bright spot: Stanley Tucci as a bumbling assassin whose wild streak of bad luck enlivens his numerous welcome appearances. -Marshall Fine.

This rewarding Hong Kong action movie has a sleek yet realistic style that lifts it above the average crime thriller. When someone attempts to take out a mob boss named Mr. Lung, the boss's brother Frank (played by the great Simon Yam) puts together a team of five bodyguards to protect Lung. At first the team is bored as nothing happens. They bicker among themselves and run errands. After a close call, they pull themselves into a ruthlessly efficient unit. Both the mundanity and the high tension of their lives are vividly evoked. Slowly, the personalities of the individual bodyguards come to light in snapshot scenes. But when the threat to Mr. Lung is resolved, their troubles really begin; one of them is accused of having an affair with Lung's wife, and the others must kill him or be killed themselves. [+]

Poor Rosanna Arquette ended up in this Van Damme potboiler about an escaped convict who moves onto the farm of a widow (Arquette) and her two kids. Stuff happens: a cop who likes her gets jealous and beats up the Muscles from Brussels (but only after handcuffing him), there's a fire in the barn, bad guys are trying to drive her away, etc. The story was first developed by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) and the late director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle). Eszterhas wrote the script, but who knows what direction this story was originally going? Van Damme's best film is still Timecop, and this is a long way from the quality of that. -Tom Keogh.

Story? What story? All a movie like Shanghai Noon needs is the amazing stunt set pieces featuring kung fu superstar Jackie Chan and the drolly caffeinated ramblings of Owen Wilson (and to be sure, that's all it gets). It's a buddy comedy about Roy O'Bannon (Wilson), a minor, borderline incompetent desperado, and Chon Wang (Chan)-Roy thinks he hears (and scoffs at) the name "John Wayne"-a member of the Chinese Imperial Guard searching for a kidnapped princess (Lucy Liu). They become reluctant partners in the Old West (Roy, who considers Chon his sidekick, is hurt to discover that the bounty on Wang's head is more than his own), brawling, drinking, bathing, and bonding and in general having mildly amusing adventures together, while eluding a posse and other random enemies. There's not a lot of focus to the plot or much motivation for characters to turn up where and when they do-just what was achieved by the much-discussed trek to Carson City, anyway? But Chan's inventively staged battle sequences (particularly an early one in which he uses flexible, resilient trees to best some Crow Indians) are predictable highlights. You'll wish there were more to some of them, but as with his many of other films, you'll want them on video to watch in slow-motion to see how he pulls them off. And in a potentially star- making role, Wilson's loquacious, hyper-self-conscious meanderings-he's funny even when his lines aren't-make him seem less like a character than a very amusing deconstruction of one. Chan and Wilson are entertaining together, even though they're both off in their own little worlds. Think of it as Butch Cassidy and the Shanghai Kid, and you won't be too far off. -David Kronke.

One of those legendary missed opportunities, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes is a movie that should have been great but wound up the victim of conflicting egos and wrong-headed choices. Based on a screenplay by Robert Towne (who took his name off it when he wasn't allowed to direct) and directed by Hugh Hudson (riding high on the basis of Chariots of Fire), the film tried to rethink the Tarzan legend of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and boy, did it have to: By casting French-accented Christopher Lambert as Tarzan, the filmmakers had to transform his white-hunter mentor Ian Holm into a Frenchman to explain those inflections in Tarzan's monosyllabic speech. The film has some amazing jungle footage and a truly touching relationship between Tarzan and the apes-but it gets pretty silly when Tarzan gets to London and hooks up with Sir Ralph Richardson, as his grandfather. -–Marshall Fine.

While the 1960 version of The Time Machine remains a science fiction classic, this adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel benefits from a dazzling CGI facelift. Digital wizardry shows us the awesome splendor of eons passing in an eye blink, while Wells's heroic time traveler-played with appealing conviction by Memento's Guy Pearce-is given a stronger motivation for piloting his time machine 800,000 years into the future. Long after New York City has crumbled and the moon shattered by a nuclear accident, Pearce finds a new home with the peacefully primitive Eloi, after confronting the subterranean Morlocks (courtesy of Stan Winson's monster shop) and their evil overlord (Jeremy Irons in wicked, pigmentless makeup). Trading Wells's social commentary for pure adventure, director Simon Wells (the author's great-grandson) maintains the story's legacy of wonder, despite a few hokey embellishments. Catering to a younger audience, this Time Machine is fun without being particularly distinguished-a treat for the eyes, if not the brain. -Jeff Shannon.