Jan de Bont

[7] Following in the tradition of Irwin Allen disaster movies like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure comes this tornadic thrill ride from director Jan de Bont (Speed). Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets) and Bill Paxton (Frailty) star as estranged scientists who fall back in love with each other while chasing tornadoes during an especially stormy couple of days in Oklahoma. Their …

[8] Alec Baldwin takes on the mantle of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan in the action-thriller The Hunt for Red October. One of the joys of this movie is seeing Baldwin, previously known mostly for co-starring in Beetlejuice, become a leading man before your very eyes. And a smart one, at that. Sharing the screen with him is Sean Connery as a Russian captain whose new …

[8] It’s formulaic, overblown and downright preposterous at times, but it’s also everything moviegoers want in a summer action movie. Speed has a tight, rapid-fire script, awesome sound design, a remarkably kinetic score, and surprisingly good acting for a movie of its type. Sandra Bullock gives a sweet, naturalistic performance as a woman stuck driving a bus full of passengers that will explode if it …

[8] Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Soldier of Orange) directs this sexually super-charged Hitchcockian thriller about a San Francisco detective (Michael Douglas) investigating a seductive writer (Sharon Stone) about a murder case that plays out similar to one of her novels. As he digs deeper, he discovers more and more reason to believe she is indeed the killer, and that his own life may be in danger. …