Bill Cosford

This third (and, I would guess, last) installment does what few sequels do. It actually extends the story into its logical destination rather than merely recycling familiar characters and situations. It's not terrifying. It is an audacious first film. It is fully as dreadful as fans might hope. Don't miss it. [22 May 1992, p.G5]

The film has fun. In a way, Creepshow is a horror for grownups. It is grownups, after all, who understand that horror stories must be fun; if they're not, then they're just horrifying, and who wants that? [15 Nov 1982, p.D3]

B-movies are the great anchor of American film. They're what we do best. And Night of the Comet, like Blood Beach and The Howling before it, honors the form even as it fails to transcend it. Things go bump in the night, characters exchange improbable dialogue and a good time is had by all even as the world comes to an end. [28 Nov 1994, p.B6]

The Year of the Dragon is full of florid language, saddled with Cimino's bogus insights and no more true to Chinatown than Heaven's Gate was to the prairie. But The Year of the Dragon is also robust and fast, violent and alive. There's an uneasy sense of the spurious about Cimino's art, but that's what he's making nonetheless. This is either a ya-hoo's delight or the best gangster fantasy since Once Upon a Time in America (long version); maybe it's both. [16 Aug 1985, p.D1]

The single redeeming feature of Child's Play is the manner in which the doll is slowly transformed into semi-human form. Scene by scene it turns into a half-pint, rubbery version of Jack Nicholson. And that's scary. [09 Nov 1988, p.D6]

The film works as contemporary fable, cautionary tale and perversely driven love story all at once. There's a gratifyingly wide streak of humanism running through it. And there's that "chemistry." Malkovich and MacDowell, bubble, bubble. Yes, indeed. [26 Apr 1991, p.G11]

Under Siege is never at all convincing -- everything about the battleship (except the exterior shots) seems small and understaffed. There are supposed to be 30 bad guys, but they appear to outnumber the crew, and the interior scenes of the battleship's command stations are barely more ambitious than Star Trek's bridge. [12 Oct 1992, p.C3]

So TRON is an adventure story, with the requisite (and understated) love triangle at its heart. But it is also a story of remarkable special effects, and this is the stuff you haven't seen before. [09 July 1982, p.C1]

Lean on Me is one of those movies that you know is swollen with hyperbole, but that you want to like anyway. Freeman provides a big reason. [3 March 1989, p.5]

The World According to Garp is another of those films that fairly cries out for Robert Altman, who makes movies the way John Irving writes books. Altman doesn't seem to be making movies any more, so this is as close we're able to get to Garp, and it's not close enough. [23 July 1982, p.D10]

No one creates fantasy like George Lucas, and there's nothing quite like a big, cornball fantasy to start the summer. This one is the biggest yet, and it is hard to imagine anyone not being entertained by it. It is, as we used to say around the galaxy a long time ago, a tour de force. [25 May 1983, p.D1]

The Search for Spock should be great fun for Trek fans; it's splendid junk when it works. But if you can't hum the theme from memory, Trek III is likely to be just another way to kill two hours. [1 June 1984, p.D1]

Inside Benny and Joon, a love story that celebrates dysfunction and the cutes, though not necessarily in that order, there's a character drama whispering to be let out, but that's no help. Long before you get around to liking this little movie, you'll hate it. And that's always a problem. [16 Apr 1993, p.G5]

What Spielberg does is use the Lucas tricks to propel an old-fashioned fantasy, played broadly enough so that the laughs come as easily as the thrills. [23 May 1984, p.B1]

Carpenter creates an atmosphere in Thing; it's a weird one, an odd landscape and clearly alien territory, but it's entertaining nonetheless. And for those who have not been to a creep show in the last couple of years, The Thing has some very nasty surprises. [25 June 1982, p.D1]

The premise is marvelous, the music more than adequate (assuming you're a metal fan), the performances appropriately dumb. And it's seasonally funny. [28 Oct 1986, p.D5]

Two predictable disappointments here (among many): As usual, these high school kids appear in fact to be played by folks who have left college well behind them; and, sadder, Just One of the Guys was directed by a woman -- women filmmakers being a worthy cause under almost any circumstances -- yet betrays no higher consciousness regarding kids and sex roles than Porky's 3. [30 Apr 1985, p.B3]

No ears for dialogue around here, either: Several characters observe that the invention "blew my socks off," an expression so odd that we expect it to lead to a comic payoff. But there is none, and there's not much to the movie, either. [30 Sept 1983, p.D1]

Rocky III looks good -- a lean film with a bit of muscle. Stallone makes it eminently watchable. And that's probably more than we should have expected. [28 May 1982, p.C1]

The story may be slim, but Carpenter deserves some credit. He makes more of the car-as-villain than one might expect, largely by filming the Plymouth in high style. [10 Dec 1983, p.B5]

The good news is that Aliens is scary and mean and just about everything a fan of the original could want. Bad news? There's a too-campy line of forced dialogue during the climax. And that's about it. This is your grade-A sequel, the movie equivalent of a hot "summer read." Aliens is 137 minutes long, and never drags. A solid hour goes by before there is any action, but the picture is never coy, either. [18 July 1986, p.D1]

Uncle Fester, missing for 25 years, has mysteriously returned -- isn't enough to drive the picture. It's all one note, really. Lovely note. But just the one. [22 Nov 1991, p.G10]

Ballard made The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf, and he's good with spectacle;: His second-unit crew this time found ways to shoot the controlled violence of big sails in good wind that take the breath away. But the rest of Wind is just out there flapping. What a mess. [14 Sep 1992, p.C5]

Cujo is one of those nightmares that does not require even the suspension of disbelief. Anyone who can accept that there are dogs, people and cars that don't work can be scared silly by this movie. And, of course, the caveat: Anyone who takes a young child to Cujo needs to have his head examined. [15 Aug 1983, p.C6]

The sad thing about Rising Sun is that for all the controversy surrounding the book, it plays as just another cop drama set against an alien landscape. As so often happens in Hollywood these days, the alien locale is Los Angeles, an L.A. under assault from within and without. Rising Sun the movie doesn't have all that much to say about that condition. It sticks to the safe stuff. [30 July 1993, p.G4]

"Ghost movies" have been a Hollywood staple at least since It's a Wonderful Night, and this is one of the better of them. It's a tearjerker, though. Go prepared. [13 Aug 1993, p.G5]

Obsession is central to the film's thesis, such as it is. The characters don't converse so much as hold forth, and Greenaway presents the landmark buildings of Rome tableaux with a devotion that seems quite fierce. Dennehy is eye-rolling good as the tormented Kracklite. But what does it all mean? [20 Nov 1987, p.D6]

Ironweed is the love story of two bums, the swan song of a haunted man, a character study of abiding humanity. It's a sad movie. Beautiful, too. [12 Feb 1988, p.C1]