Bill Cosford

The sole mystery is the apparent collapse of Carpenter's skills as a storyteller. Prince of Darkness is shapeless and almost utterly lacking in rhythm, as if it had been slashed and then badly reassembled, like a Carpenter victim. [28 Oct 1987, p.D8]

This might well have been a more exciting movie if it had been made as a flat-out potboiler with a tough guy in Selleck's role. But Selleck's very weakness -- he is so relaxed and easy- going that we never quite believe he could be in trouble -- makes the movie hard to hate, too. [14 Dec 1984, p.E18]

There's a delightfully promising premise behind Halloween III -- something's wrong with the kids' masks -- but somehow Wallace gets sidetracked, and the movie wanders away. [30 Oct 1982, p.D5]

The entire Nightmare on Elm Street oeuvre has been hailed by critics as a fascinating exercise in id projection and Freudian cant, which helps explain why criticism is in low regard. A better reason to see Dream Warriors, if indeed there is one, is that it's really pretty gross and neat. [06 Mar 1987, p.D2]

Lester's film is so clearly about getting even rather than about troubled youth or any other societal problem that it seems, like Death Wish II and a hundred others, a waste of that energy. [16 Nov 1982, p.B4]

It's a dreadful bore. [23 July 1993, p.G5]

There's a lightheartedness to the film that belies its genre, however. As one of the dimmer of the dwindling party says, after the body count has reached three, "You gotta look on the bright side of things." April Fool's Day eventually does, but the mild satisfaction of its climactic twist does not redeem the tedium of the first 88 minutes. [29 Mar 1986, p.B4]

Its situation and its sight gags are marvelous, recalling the best of Spielberg's 1941. But like that movie, The Money Pit is disconnected; pieces seem missing, and subplots seem to have been abandoned in a rush. [28 Mar 1986, p.D5]

Ricochet would be utterly unremarkable (in the small universe of violent and atmospheric cop dramas that make no sense) were it not for the cast, which includes some A players. [07 Oct 1991, p.C1]

The original was good enough so that a residue of curiosity about the Freelings remains; we want to know what happened next. But a sequel is a sequel is a sequel, and this amiable movie is very much a II. [23 May 1986, p.D1]

From time to time, the film is funny in a cheap sort of way. The rest of it's like the characters -- older than you'd think, older than it has to be. [28 Sep 1990, p.G5]

The movie runs short of material and loses its comic edge about halfway through, but it's still just jumpy enough to keep you interested -- though the rap-video parodies are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. [15 Mar 1993, p.C6]

George Burns gets to play both sides of the cosmic fence in Oh God! You Devil, which is actually Oh God! III, and it's this device alone that saves the film, which might otherwise be unbearably cute. [12 Nov 1984, p.C1]

When it's working Blind Date is frenzied and very funny. It's a return to form for Blake Edwards, who has made a good many bad movies over the past 10 years. And in Willis and Basinger there is the kind of team that, back in the good old days, would have launched a series -- not sitcom/sitdram, but big-screen. [27 Mar 1987, p.D1]

Class Act is a comedy. A deeply flawed one, too: The last half-hour is a mess, as the sly gags of the early going give way to a seemingly endless and perfectly artless chase sequence. [05 Jun 1992, p.E5]

Heartburn doesn't have enough good inside semi-fiction to be of much interest to the Washington cognoscenti, and it's not enough of a movie to stay in the memory of the outside-the-beltway crowd more than an hour or two. What it is is a chance to see our two most celebrated actors at work for a while between films. [25 July 1986, p.D1]

The movie isn't really about America and Japan at all; it's about set-ups for gags. [14 Mar 1986, p.D2]

The performances are standard brat-pack; you could rotate the casts of anything from Risky Business to About Last Night . . . into the picture and it would stay exactly the same. [6 Nov 1987, p.D1]

Jennifer 8 is handsome, dark and menacing, as you'd figure a big-budget whodunit about a serial killer ought to be, but it's also clean out of control. It's one of those thrillers in which the real suspense is over how long it will be before you say, "Oh, come on." [6 Nov 1992, p.G5]

Before it's done, Hello Mary Lou has touched most of the bases, flirting with taboos (incest, locker-room lesbianism, fingernails on the blackboard) and purloining effects from the Nightmare on Elm Street series. It's a badly made film, as awkward as can be, and long stretches of it make no sense whatsoever. Nor does it manage, as the better slasher films do, to re-create a high-school milieu of even passing authenticity. [21 Oct 1987, p.D5]

Barkin's performance is deranged and wonderful. You won't see anything else like it at the movies for a long, long time -- at least until Edwards returns to the gender-swapping theme. When he does, perhaps he'll make it funnier. [10 May 1991, p.G5]

There are not as many jokes as a 95-minute movie needs, however, and most of the good one-liners are doled out to the supporting players rather than to Dangerfield, who goes ahead and rolls his eyes anyway. He's a good sport about it, but his fans are going to wish instead for one of those "concert" movies, such as the ones that showcase Richard Pryor. And those without an abiding affection for Dangerfield are going to wonder what the rest of us have been laughing about. [23 Aug 1983, p.C5]

Doctor Detroit is Dan Aykroyd's first big solo vehicle, and it has some traditional Motown problems: It sputters and wheezes and lurches, never does run smoothly, never does satisfy. In the spirit of products from another troubled industry, this is a raucous comedy that just doesn't have very many jokes. [10 May 1983, p.B5]

The special effects used to illustrate these drawbacks are remarkable, but the movie around them isn't. There's precious little chemistry between Chase and Hannah, there's not much real menace in the over-the-top performance by Sam Neill as a CIA assassin, and there's nothing but a skin-deep gloss to Carpenter's direction. [03 March 1992, p.E4]

Basically, it's an inversion of an already proven formula, a kind of Fatal Attraction's Revenge, with every bit of business save the parboiled rabbit, and you can see the ending coming up Main Street. [08 Feb 1991, p.G5]

The film rarely makes any sense, and the climactic confrontation is incomprehensible. [10 May 1991, p.G5]

It's fluffy stuff, lovingly made and instantly forgettable. [20 May 1988, p.5]

The film's one great asset, a real surprise, is Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. He grabs something of the Little Tramp's innate grace and anarchic wit, and he runs with it -- pratfalls with it and waddles off into the sunset with it. [08 Jan 1993, p.G5]