Date of release: June 15, 1990
Rotten Tomatoes: 65%
Metacritic: N/A
Why it's underrated: "Dick Tracy" was considered a commercial disappointment on release, and criticized in many corners as being a "style over substance" affair. In some sense they were right, but what style it is. The film's fully-realized visual world is cracklingly alive, with the superb art direction and top-notch prosthetic makeup effects helping to paper over some of the screenplay's more obvious deficiencies (too many cooks in the kitchen, as they say). In addition to the pitch-perfect Danny Elfman score and memorable original songs by Stephen Sondheim, the cast, too, is mostly terrific (even Madonna comes across reasonably well as blonde bombshell Breathless Mahoney), with star/director Warren Beatty and especially supporting players like Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Glenne Headly and William Forsythe memorably bringing Chester Gould's two-dimensional comic-strip characters to life.

- Chris Eggertsen