Writer-director Stephen Sommers has created a strong and moving adaptation of Mark Twain's classic story about a rebellious boy.

Writer-director Stephen Sommers has made a conventional literal film, in which the acting of the two leads never rises above the mediocre, thus failing to endow the tale with the stirring mood that it deserves.

I admired the performances, and Sommers' sense of time and place, and I hope the movie guides more people toward the book -- which contains values that sometimes seem as rare today as when Jim was first teaching them to Huck.

'90s Disney adaptation has some peril, violence.