Bill Cosford

Though this sequel is not nearly as violent as Child's Play 2, it's every bit as vulgar and preposterous, funny despite itself and vicious, too. It is, in short, of interest only to those too young to see it. [31 Aug 1991, p.E4]

There are jokes in this story of a 7-year-old adoptee from Heck, but most of them are funny despite the clumsiness of their telling. The rest aren't funny at all. [1 Aug 1990, p.D7]

The ghoulies in question are at least momentarily diverting, which is more than can be said for the rest of their movie. [26 May 1985, p.C6]

Astoundingly, considering the fall of this film series from low aim to no aim at all, the original cast remains aboard. [8 Apr 1987, p.D8]

To be fair, it must be acknowledged that there is a spectacular decapitation in the film's very first scene, and a couple of head-bashings later on, and these are enough to jolt one awake. But most of the film is so flatfooted that one longs for the batterings of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or at least the campy excesses of Fright Night. [14 Oct 1985, p.C6]

The formulae of gal-next-door and big game are followed so slavishly that it's hard to laugh at Teen Wolf even on the rare moments when it is original. The script and the direction are simply too lazy, too contemptuous even of adolescent audiences. [24 Aug 1985, p.C5]

Cobra looks and sounds as bad as it does because Stallone hired George P. Cosmatos (Rambo), a hack with no ideas, to direct, and because Stallone wrote the screenplay himself. No excuses: This movie is just the way the highest paid and hence most powerful man in Hollywood wanted it. You take a long look at the thing, you keep that in mind: This is the film he meant to make. [24 May 1986, p.D1]

Those looking to Craven for a new spin on an overworked genre are entitled to feel disappointed. [03 Sep 1984, p.B4]

The story is thick with implausibilities and, like the source, almost unbelievably turgid in the telling. [20 Nov 1987, p.B5]

Strange as it sounds, the failure of this tawdry little odyssey into mammalia is that it doesn't make any sense. The smallest effort by writer, director or producer could have meant a movie with laughs as well as the capacity to anesthetize adults. [02 Aug 1983, p.C5]

The worst thing about Encino Man is that it lacks the blockhead convictions of its predecessors, movies that at least hewed to the (il)logic of their heroes' know-nothingness -- reveled in that condition, in fact. In Encino Man, Link winds up teaching everyone Valuable Life Lessons, which has the unsettling effect of making the movie seem even dumber than it is. If such a thing is possible. Dude. [23 May 1992, p.E4]

Despite some clever stunts and Varney's energetic persona-recycling, Ernest Goes to Camp, which was directed by the same man who makes the Ernest commercials, requires heroic patience for those much over 12. [25 May 1987, p.C8]

Maximum Overdrive is the classic botch. Good idea, nice effects, bad pacing, porous script, no punch...Too bad. As usual, the premise has promise. [26 July 1986, p.C1]

Laughs are widely spaced, and hardly seem worth the trouble. [22 Apr 1985, p.D4]

Porky's Revenge is just what you'd think it is, only not as good. And folks, when a filmmaker promises a cheap, quick and dirty sex comedy and can't deliver, that's disappointment. [26 March 1985, p.D5]

A measure of redemption is offered in an opening montage and in the climactic bike-race sequence; in each, the stunts of the stand-ins are breathtaking. In all other respects Rad, which was directed by Hal Needham (a former stunt man who "directed" the Smokey and the Bandit series) is crudely made, the visual equivalent of a 10-speed with training wheels. [2 Apr 1986, p.D6]

Richard Jordan, who can be uniquely menacing (see: The Mean Season, Flash of Green) is here reduced to lampooning himself in leatherette storm-trooper garb. Charles Durning, looking wonderfully rumpled as the warden of the orphanage, does as little as possible in the heat. The skating stunts are routine. [2 Dec 1986, p.B4]

Mulcahy has style to burn, but he may well have used the script to light it, for Highlander almost never makes any sense. [11 Mar 1986, p.B4]

For the most part Blame It on Rio is witless, predictable and bland, despite Donen's fascination with the topless-beach scene (his camera combs the shore for breasts with the unsubtle fervor of a pig rooting for truffles). [18 Feb 1984, p.D7]

In Chopping Mall the conflict is merely an excuse for a repeat of the kids vs. slasher formula. Nothing heavy here, just the predictable deaths of the couples who went "all the way," the survival of the virgins, and the best exploding head sequence since Deadly Friend. [05 Nov 1986, p.D6]

Part II is even dumber than Meatballs, which was plenty dumb enough. [01 Aug 1984, p.C4]

Routine chop-sock of the non-Hong Kong school. [04 Sep 1985, p.D5]

The few bright spots in Oxford Blues, including the handsome cinematography, are like the raisins in the tapioca: They just don't help. [24 Aug 1984, p.C10]

It's still quite sexy, but hardly erotic. The director, Zalman King, not only has seen entirely too many in the goofy Emmanuelle series, he appears not to know just how stupid those movies are and so has made little more than a knock-off of them. [4 May 1990, p.13]

The jokes? Passing gas, large breasts, schoolyard double entendre -- the usual run of recess humor. On the faces of most of the cast, one can clearly read despair, occasionally even irritation. They know: If you're much over 10, Police Academy 5 isn't going to keep you awake. [23 March 1988, p.C7]

The combination of slack script and coasting star is invariably lethal, and since Blue City doesn't aim very high to begin with, the disaster is complete. Even the gunfights are staged ineptly, and the picture's one big action sequence is so telegraphed that during a preview showing, when Nelson's character finally tumbled to what was going on and muttered, "It's a setup," the audience hooted happily in derision. [3 May 1986, p.D1]

At heart, it is a Saturday- morning cartoon; the film might in fact have looked better as an animated feature. [30 Jun 1982, p.C6]

An object lesson in wasting a talented comedian. The film is so far off base that Candy winds up an action hero, and his co- star, Eugene Levy (who was even weaselier on SCTV) gets the girl. [15 Aug 1986, p.D2]

Though My Tutor contains many scenes meant to provide comic relief, there is only one that works: Hired to deflower Bobby in the early going, the local drive-in slattern is caught flagrante delicto in a well-used backseat by her fiancee, the leader of a motorcycle gang. "He hates it when I do this," she says to Bobby, and one wants to love this movie...Otherwise, alas, My Tutor is witless. It seems to take forever for Bobby to learn to conjugate, and he's pretty slow at French, too. As for the double standard, note that simple role reversal -- older man deflowering teenage girl -- produces not a softcore sex comedy, but a crime drama. And that's a different genre altogether. [23 May 1983, p.6]

Implausibly, irretrievably boring -- an affront to its undemanding genre. [28 March 1983, p.C6]

Two energetic and wonderfully physical comedians, each among the best of his generation. But in their movie, The Toy, they do not amount to much. Pryor seems unhappy about some of his lines and situations, and well he might. It's hard to know just what Gleason thinks, as he is able to deliver even atrocious dialogue with a misanthropic zest that is always appealing, but he has a right to be embarrassed, too. [20 Dec 1982, p.B7]

The setting is no longer a summer camp, but a woodsy "confinement center" for the young and deranged; it's the kind of place in which, when a slow-witted inmate begins to taunt the guy chopping wood, one is impelled, with justification, to cover one's eyes. [3 Apr 1985, p.D7]

The film was conceived and executed as a star vehicle. Wrong stars, wrong roles, not much happening here. And for George Harrison and his Handmade Films, the first big bust. [20 Oct 1986, p.C4]

Among the mysteries of Hollywood life is the terribleness of Jaws sequels; they are the very worst of a bad lot. Now comes No. 4 -- Jaws the Revenge -- and it is as wretched as it is ungrammatical. [17 July 1987, p.1D]

Hamburger, like Police Academy and a dozen others before it, is essentially a basic-training sitcom with some softcore on the side. And like the films it imitates, Hamburger is an example of a perfectly good comic premise -- there's weirdness in modern food technology, bet your syntho-chicken nuggets there is -- botched by a script aimed at just that segment of the audience that is theoretically banned from attending R-rated films. [20 March 1986, p.B6]

John Derek, who wrote and directed and filmed Bolero, failed to make Bo look sexy; managed, in fact, to make her look dull and foolish. [01 Sep 1984, p.B5]

This would all be a lot more fun if Jason were ever in jeopardy, but since we know he can't be killed -- the best one can hope to do is bottle him up and store him, like toxic waste -- the charm of the film depends on action in the margins. Part VI, for instance, had a sense of humor; II and III had a splendid variety of weaponry. No jokes this time, however, and Jason contents himself for the most part with the ax blow, the tent-pole stab and the simple head-twist. He's old, and he has lost a step. [17 May 1988, p.B4]

Nothing but Trouble used to be called Valkenvania, which gives you an idea of the filmmakers' instincts: From the obscure they moved to the generic. The movie is something of both, and not much fun on either count. [19 Feb 1991, p.C8]

The final scene is so foul that even ya-hoos have trouble mustering much applause; it's the kind of film that makes you feel dirty. As for Bronson, whose box-office appeal has faded as the viciousness of his films has increased, Ten to Midnight is a kind of milestone: It's time to write him off. [22 Mar 1983, p.B5]

The Dungeonmaster is a low-budget fantasy from 1984 on which no less than seven directors labored, and in vain. Each of the seven took one "sequence" in a series of ill-explained jousts between a computer wizard and a caped character called Mestema, who turns out to be Satan himself. Each of the "sequences" is uniformly shoddy looking. [14 Aug 1985, p.D5]

An homage to the original so shabbily made and so witless that we can only hope it disappears into history -- and fast. [06 Apr 1984, p.D1]

There's a crude energy to the opening scenes of this film, suggesting that the director might one day find a trade. The rest of it is the worst kind of trash, being not just vicious but stupid, too. Peter Fonda appears in an expanded walk-on as a pimp, his "special appearance." Fonda, O'Neal, Cara and the aforementioned Blakley; it is a long fall indeed. [6 March 1985, p.5]

It's hard to dislike Cheech and Chong, even now, in the wake of the most tedious 90 minutes of "feature" film in 1983. "The boys" have been at work on their curious subgenre -- drug references and large breasts in ceaseless combination -- for far too long now, and you can tell, watching them sleepwalk through the material, that they're tired. [10 May 1983, p.B5]

Smokey aims very low and still doesn't hit. [17 Aug 1983, p.D4]

In the guise of a loving homage, Making Contact manages to steal shamelessly and for the most part ineptly from its betters -- Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Poltergeist, Carrie. There is barely an original moment in the film, which is nonetheless almost incomprehensible. [02 Sep 1986, p.B5]