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Dying Young was director Joel Schumacher's stab at an old-fashioned tearjerker — and something of an embarrassment all around. The blatantly manipulative and sanitized tale of Roberts' involvement with the terminal leukemia patient she's tending to not only failed with the critics, it didn't get much box office either (nor was it ''rediscovered'' by video or cable audiences), which should have suggested to moviemakers that audiences want to see Roberts in a more effervescent atmosphere than what this gender — reversed Dark Victory provided.

So casting her to play Tinkerbell in Hook certainly must have seemed to make some sense. While prerelease rumors (fueled by her last-minute cancellation of impending nuptials to Kiefer Sutherland) depicted Roberts as too flaky to regularly show up on the set, she provided Steven Spielberg's misbegotten updating of Peter Pan with its only bright moments. In fact, the one scene where she assumes human dimensions is the best thing in this otherwise sodden film.

After that came a two-year layoff (aside from a cameo as herself in 1992's The Player), marriage to Lyle Lovett, and a much bruited ''comeback'' in two movies that have been severe disappointments. If The Pelican Brief was a bona fide hit, that had little to do with Roberts' participation; she merely goes around looking dowdy and harried for a few hours, only flashing her trademark grin at the very end. In Brief's case, it's John Grisham, the author of the novel on which the movie is based, who's the main attraction.

In a textbook case of giving-with-one-hand-and-taking-away-with-the-other, Brief paired Roberts with another extremely charismatic star, Denzel Washington, and then refused to let them so much as exchange pregnant glances. (Washington is African-American, you know.) And while the plot twists of Grisham's legal thriller (in which Roberts' law student figures out who's behind the assassinations of two Supreme Court justices and has to flee for her life while exposing the villains) are so obvious as to verge on ridiculous, Alan J. Pakula directs with a heavy-handedness that suggests he's remaking All the President's Men. Watching this, you'd never get the idea that thrillers could be fun.

Some insiders attribute the box office failure of last summer's I Love Trouble, the latest Roberts picture on home video, to the seemingly inauspicious romantic pairing of Roberts and Nick Nolte. But the duo, playing competing reporters on a big story that lands them in hot water and (surprise) each others' arms, aren't the trouble here — it's the people behind the scenes. Cowriter Nancy Meyers and director Charles Shyer plainly intended to cross-breed His Girl Friday with North by Northwest, but their attempts to emulate their cinematic betters are hopelessly vulgar, prolix, and sometimes downright incompetent; in one scene, they imbue Roberts with Superman's hearing, enabling her to catch every word of a conversation taking place about a hundred yards from her. Their idea of witty banter is to have Nolte respond to a Roberts put-down with, ''Where did you say you were from — Bitchville?'' Mr. Hecht, meet Beavis, your new writing partner.

Once Roberts' earnest rookie character starts lightening up, her scenes with Nolte are pretty appealing, but it's too little too late. The glow that set off fireworks in the hearts of moviegoing Americans in Pretty Woman is beginning to look just a little bit softer. Pretty Woman: C+ Flatliners: C- Sleeping With the Enemy: B- Hook: C- The Pelican Brief: C- I Love Trouble: C-

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