Arachnophobia (PG-13)
This horror-comedy about an invasion of
poisonous spiders isn't a relentless, primal scare-a-thon like ''Jaws''
or ''Alien.'' It's an updated version of a '50s B movie -- ''The Blob'' done
with craftsmanship and wit, and with a campy, throwaway edge. Jeff
Daniels is at his most appealingly square as Ross Jennings, a
straight-arrow physician who moves his family to the
white-picket-fence community of Canaima, Calif., only to see the town
besieged by an army of creepy-crawlies. ''Arachnophobia'' will make you
jump a few times, but it doesn't use spiders to play with your your
mind. It's cheery and presentable: a gross-out flick even Grandma
could love. B+
Presumed Innocent (R)
Did Rusty Sabich (Harrison Ford) murder Carolyn Polhemus (Greta Scacchi), the femme-fatale prosecutor who enflamed his dreams and then dumped him? That's the question that
practically flashes in neon in this adaptation of Scott Turow's 1987
best-seller. What's missing is everything that made the book such a
galvanizing read: the cinematic detail, the mysterious, subtextual
interplay of personalities in the courtroom. Turow's twisty narrative
remains absorbing, but it has been reduced to the level of an utterly
typical and arbitrary whodunit, complete with a new red herring every
15 minutes. Harrison Ford has little to do but scowl for two hours. B-
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