LOS ANGELES -- The following are brief reviews of recent film releases by Los Angeles Times critics.


Bullets Over Broadway (R). Woody Allen's spirited satire of the theater, set during the Prohibition era, is consistently enjoyable, thanks mostly to a glorious star turn by Dianne Wiest as a Norma Desmond-ish prima donna. The tiptop cast includes John Cusack, Tracey Ullman, Jennifer Tilley and Chazz Palminteri.


Century (Unrated). English writer-director Stephen Poliakoff's flawed but ambitious and distinctive account of the crucial final year of the 19th century for a brilliant medical researcher (Clive Owen) benefits from a superb cast that includes Charles Dance, Miranda Richardson and Robert Stephens.


Cobb (R). Like its subject, both the greatest and the crankiest baseball player who ever lived, this ambitious new film by writer-director Ron Shelton tends to get out of hand, its lack of sharp dramatic focus exacerbating problems in both casting and structure. Tommy Lee Jones stars as the erstwhile Georgia Peach, with Robert Wuhl along for the ride as a hard-working sportswriter.


Death and the Maiden (R). Roman Polanski's film of the Ariel Dorfman play stars Sigourney Weaver as a woman tortured by a fascist regime confronting her possible torturer, Ben Kingsley. It's compelling as a horror movie rather than as an existential morality play about justice and revenge -- which is the way it was intended.


Disclosure (R). Adapted from Michael Crichton's pantingly contemporary novel about sexual harassment in the workplace, this unexceptional potboiler offers few surprises, not in Barry Levison's direction nor in the acting of Demi Moore and Michael Douglas as predatory female boss and vulnerable male employee. The special effects are exciting, but the film forgets to clear up key plot points that the novel crisply disposes of.


Dumb and Dumber (PG-13). Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels star as a pair of low-wattage buddies. The film abounds in potty jokes and gross-out gags, but the real joke is that grown men are actually doing this stuff. Carrey and Daniels go all the way with the ridiculousness; they really get inside the buddies' euphoric blankness.


Heavenly Creatures (R). The most celebrated criminal case in New Zealand history is turned into an accomplished, adventurous piece of business, burning with cinematic energy, by director Peter Jackson and stars Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet. A study of adolescent passion and hysteria told from the inside, it allows audiences to surrender to the madness as much as its protagonists.


Hoop Dreams (PG-13). A look at the lives and careers of a pair of Chicago high school basketball players. A combination of luck, pluck and pure hard work has turned this into a landmark of American documentary film.


Interview With the Vampire (R). A devil's bargain was made when Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt were cast in this atmospheric version of Anne Rice's sweepingly popular book. Director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game") and his team have done a gorgeous job with the visuals and the mood, but that miscasting has resulted in a fatal anemia where emotion is concerned.


I.Q. (PG). This overly contrived romantic comedy has one good idea: to cast Walther Matthau as Albert Einstein. Matthau is as amusing and dryly sage as you would expect, but the outlandish and often appallingly underhanded contortions he and some genius pals go through to play cupid to Einstein's pretty niece (Meg Ryan) and a likable auto mechanic (Tim Robbins) are frequently uninspired and unfunny.


Junior (PG-13). The prototypical American studio comedy, as slickly commercial as the audience-pleasing director Ivan Reitman can make it. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a man who becomes pregnant, Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson are suitably impressed, but the film, unable to work up a comic head of steam, never manages to be more than lightly amusing.


Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (PG). Hollywood's third pass on the adventures of Mowgli (Jason Scott Lee) is old-fashioned family entertainment filtered through more recent action flicks -- gunplay and fireballs and vehicular peril abound. Director/co-writer Stephen Sommers uses scores of animal "performers," stunning locations and effects to create an opulent adventure yarn.


Ladybird, Ladybird (Unrated). Crissy Rock, a British stand-up comic, plays a mother whose six children are taken from her by the social services in this powerful but deadeningly depressing Ken Loach film.


The Last Seduction (R). A career-making performance by Linda Fiorentino as a woman with the coldest heart in 12 states makes this another success for director John Dahl, the modern master of film noir.


Legends of the Fall (R). Having more in common with the screen version of Edna Ferber's "Giant" than the Jim Harrison novella it is nominally adapted from, this is highly romanticized, old-fashioned sentimental filmmaking of a type we haven't seen for awhile. Starring Brad Pitt in a glamorous star turn as one of three brothers in love with the same woman, well played by Julia Ormond, this lumbering epic makes an easy target, but director Edward Zwick has infused it with so much glossy watchability it is difficult to pull the trigger.


Little Giants (PG). A big treat; a warm comedy for all ages about two very different brothers (Rick Moranis, Ed O'Neill) who assemble equally different kinds of teams in a competition to determine which one will represent their small Ohio town in the Pop Warner junior league.


Little Women (PG). Director Gillian Armstrong brings to vibrant life Louisa May Alcott's 1868 classic novel of female solidarity in a handsome production that combines immediacy and accessibility with an impeccable sense of period. A wonderful, superbly acted entertainment, featuring an ensemble cast headed by Winona Ryder, Gabriel Byrne and Susan Sarandon.


Safe Passage (PG-13). Susan Sarandon's Mother Courage performance is the only reason to see this drama with its pile-up of family crises. She plays the mother of seven boys; her husband is played by Sam Shepard.





U.S. ratings: (PG) -- Parental guidance suggested; (PG-13) -- Some material may not be suitable for children under 13; (R) -- Parent or guardian must accompany viewers under 17.