Tom Hanks stars in this sporadically funny, extended sketch piece about a gaggle of suburban neighbors so preoccupied with mysteries taking place behind the closed doors of a newcomer that they go to extremes to look inside. The film is essentially a simple satire from director Joe Dante, for whom suburbia has been ripe territory for such comic-horror stories as Gremlins, Explorers, Matinee, and Small Soldiers. Of all Dante's movies, The 'burbs has the least story material to go around, and it depends heavily (and with modest success) on the comic powers of its cast--including Bruce Dern as a paranoid nut, Hanks as a Mr. Normal-type who loses perspective, and Rick Ducommun as Hanks's neurotic best friend. These appealing people hold one's attention, but by the end of the film, with nothing much having happened, even the cast can't mitigate an empty feeling. --Tom Keogh