Bill Cosford

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]

The movie is at its most chilling, oddly enough, when one or another chase isn't going on. The real fun begins when Ryan becomes desperate and goes for help to his old pals in intelligence. This is prime Clancy material -- high-tech surveillance, computerized image enhancement, Intelligence with a capital "I." [5 June 1992, p.G5]

Hot Shots isn't quite that bad, but given the material -- the military mind is certainly, in military parlance, a target-rich environment -- it ought to be funnier. [31 July 1991, p.D1]

It's a big, likable movie without quite enough jokes, but the stars take turns with the burden, carrying the thing in relays. They're fun to watch. [16 Dec 1986, p.D4]

For a while, director Joe Dante spins some daft gags off the situation, and Hanks and Fisher deliver their droller lines with a deadpan sincerity that produces genuine unease. But it turns out that there isn't really much of a script here, and soon The 'Burbs has devolved into a slow build to the big anti-climax. [17 Feb 1989, p.10]

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]

Penny Marshall proves deft at blending the silly stuff with enough action to generate a bit of suspense; the mix is that of Beverly Hills Cop. And the script, though the work of a whole crowd -- almost always a bad sign -- has marvelous moments. [10 Oct 1986, p.D1]

The writing is good and the direction rarely flabby, but the real strength of Buckaroo is in a large and enthusiastic cast, led by Peter Weller, who plays the title character with a perfect deadpan. [11 Aug 1984, p.B7]

Soapdish is a spoof of soap operas, and the problem should be apparent from the start: It is very, very difficult to parody that which dwells already in the land of self-parody. [31 May 1991, p.G5]

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 film is cold, and despite the principals' considerable thrashings, utterly uninvolving. The overarching theme, gunplay notwithstanding, is tedium. [02 Jun 1989, p.5]

Homicide fails, finally. But its early success is so complete that the film is a must-see anyway. It changes the rules for cop movies. And when it is good, it is brilliant. [18 Oct 1991, p.7]

If the story were not already stupid and cynical, the casting would kill the film in any case. Garner is utterly lost as a top sergeant; he doesn't even swear well, and some of the movie's most uncomfortable moments are those in which he tries. [16 Mar 1984, p.D10]

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

Supergirl was directed by Jeannot Szwarc, whose previous big credit was Jaws II. The two films have something in common beyond their status as sequels to successful originals; both have a curiously flat, almost stale feel about them. And both are as disposable as Supertissue. [21 Nov 1984, p.C1]

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]

Crazy People is one of those sky-high-concept titles, you know? A film with that title had better deliver, had better be stone crazy, wacky to the bone, nuts. With a title that blunt, you don't want to wind up with warmed-over farce of the sort that used to cast Dudley Moore opposite a tall, blond beauty....Uh-oh. [11 Apr 1990, p.D1]

In New Jack City, director Mario Van Peebles seems determined to show that he can make a movie as shallow and violent as any white Hollywood hack. No problem: He did it. [8 Mar 1991, p.G12]

Douglas' performance is surprisingly dull, and he has a script to match (by Diane Thomas). Moral: Remaking Raiders is harder than it looks. [04 Apr 1984, p.B6]

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

What goes on in Streets of Fire is not quite stupid -- it's saved from that by the remarkable love for style of its director, Walter Hill -- but the film doesn't show an intelligence to match its style, either. [04 June 1984, p.C6]

This is also the first of the s-and-s films to give sex nearly equal time with disembowelment, a story concept we can only cheer. [6 Sept 1983, p.B5]

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]

Beaches is the never-less-than-maudlin soap opera about two childhood pen pals who meet again as adults, enjoy triumphs and endure failures, and wind up watching their story climax via a Fatal Illness straight out of Terms of Endearment. It's what used to be called a "women's picture." [13 Jan 1989, p.C5]

The unfortunate aspect of Class, which is glossier than Private Lessons and marginally more believable than My Tutor, is that its laughs are built around the suffering of a prime candidate for intensive therapy. Thus while the kids are watching one movie -- boy loses virginity, ya-hoo -- adults in the audience will be watching another -- wife and mother has an emotional breakdown at the hands, literally, of a 14-year-old. The latter, of course, is not funny. [25 July 1983, p.C6]

"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]

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]

This is what we call a movie-movie, a movie that throws nuance and self-consciousness and artiness to the wind and concentrates on the slam-bam. It's richly entertaining, it's big, it moves fast. [10 Aug 1984, p.C1]

The movie is full of holes, but there's never time to worry about them, and everyone's having too good a time ducking in and out of the subplots anyway. [23 Oct 1987, p.D5]

There's nothing wrong with remaking a classic, of course. But the movies aren't theater, where the relative economies of scale can mean countless versions of one good play. The movies are more rare -- so much money, so few chances. Sinise and Malkovich used this chance to remind us how good the story is, and in the process showed us how good they can be. I'm not sure we needed the reminder in the first case, and the second is hardly a revelation. [16 Oct 1992, p.G5]

The Star Chamber has the slippery feeling of a movie made with optional endings, and the narrative sag of pulled punches. You can tell it was meant to be a thoughtful action picture, a B-movie with smarts. But it's too slick, and ultimately it's too careful. [6 Aug 1983, p.7]

Now that it has been set to film, it seems somehow dated as well. The greed of the 1980s, thematic backdrop for Mamet's original, is presumed gone. Glengarry Glen Ross looks almost . . . quaint. [02 Oct 1992, p.G5]

Parker is flashy and gory and fun as usual. If only there were more to the thing. Then Angel Heart might not seem so dumb. [06 Mar 1987, p.D1]

Damage is the kind of film that reminds us what Hollywood still cannot do. There aren't many kinds of movies that Americans don't make better than anyone else, but Malle shows us again that when it comes to murmurs of the heart, we still have a way to go. Be careful with this one: It will break your heart. [22 Jan 1993, p.G5]

Greystoke has its many pleasures, and despite its bobtailing at the hands of the bottom-line-watchers, it has the sweep of epic. [30 Mar 1984, p.D1]

Nelson is immensely appealing, and Busey plays off him well. The two of them ride around, locked into the wacky feud and having a bit of fun with Old West mythology. The movie is sad, entertaining and often beautiful. [25 Mar 1983, p.C1]

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]

Though Mermaids moves in familiar circles, it tells its story (which is as much about mom's coming of age as the kids') in a nice mix of daft comedy and dramatic set pieces. It's a kind of Terms of Endearment without the tearjerking. [14 Dec 1990, p.G5]

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]

Splash is funny and gentle and quite entertaining, and there isn't a cynical moment in it. And unlikely as this may sound, Splash suggests that we had better keep an eye on Ron Howard, director. He is something special, too. [12 Mar 1984, p.C6]

Mazursky never makes the case for his hero's disaffection, and Cassavetes is not one of those screen presences for whom we are willing to fill in the blanks. [24 Sep 1982, p.D2]

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]

The script remains the big problem, however -- all its roots are showing, and they are very old. In Lucy's day, a story like this would end with restoration of the comfy stereotypes -- Dad would get his job back at the plant, enhanced by his new appreciation for what Mom has gone through, and Mom would forsake her business success, more sure than ever that her place is at the sink. That's just what happens in Mr. Mom. In Hollywood, time stands still. [27 Aug 1983, p.5]

Each of those fine actors has put in a performance or two; each has made a mark. Each has made a mark here, too, if one counts dark blots on the resume. Reynolds is good; they're awful. Perhaps this is because Reynolds was directing them. He may be too nice a guy. There must be a reason. [26 Apr 1985, p.D1]

Unfortunately, The Corsican Brothers isn't very funny. This does not exactly make us nostalgic for other, less purposeful C- and-C films, but it does serve as a sad reminder that their first, Up in Smoke, for all its excesses, was funnier than anything they have been able to manage since. [30 July 1984, p.C5]

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 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]

The Ice Pirates is a Star Wars knock-off tricked out with cheesy special effects and nonstop gags, and it's almost entertaining despite itself. It's as if someone wanted to try the Airplane! formula on space epics, and nearly got it right. [20 Mar 1984, p.C7]

That's what happens when film noir goes bad -- and this is a failed noir, so packed with double-crosses and red herrings that after an hour or so you just get tired. Who did it? Who cares? Let's just head home and get some rest. We can try to figure it all out tomorrow. [24 Apr 1992, p.G5]

Watching Eastwood and Costner is a pleasure (even though they don't have much screen time together). In Costner's case, it's an unexpected one. Give him a role with weight, apparently, and he can carry the load. [24 Nov 1993, p.E1]

Though there's some wit on the fringes (including splendid use of a Reagan stump-speech line), the whole thing plays a lot like a Miami Vice via Star Trek. [7 Oct 1988, p.E10]

When the action founders on cliches and implausibilities, there are only the characters to fall back on. And this time, they're papier-mache. [13 May 1983, p.C2]

Nothing here for the time capsule, make no mistake. But the Boz seems to have found a calling. [21 May 1991, p.C1]

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]

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]

It's more fun than you'd figure, this sendup aimed at two distinct generations, only one of which ever took Annette or Frankie seriously. You wind up, by the end, thinking of them both as awful good sports. [08 Aug 1987, p.B1]

This movie Mozart seems little more than a wild and crazy music-maker, whose biggest problem was that his compositions had "too many notes." And that, as Forman's Mozart might say, ain't much. [20 Sep 1984, p.C1]

Agnes of God may not seem half so profound on the screen as it did on stage, but if that is the case, it is so because Jewison's direction illuminates rather than conceals the story's essence. And this Agnes is not just a filmed play; it's a real movie, and a fine piece of work. [27 Sept 1985, p.D1]

Unfaithfully Yours turns mildly manic in its last half-hour or so, but it's not enough to redeem that first hour, when Moore and Kinski go through familiar motions in search of something special. For too much of their movie, what they're looking for isn't there. [13 Feb 1984, p.C6]

De Niro is solid in a role that requires little more than righteous indignation. The stretch, however, is by Sam Wanamaker in the role of a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in getting his Hollywood clients out of trouble by feeding them names to inform on. Wanamaker himself did 10 years in exile in England rather than answer a congressional subpoena after publicly defending the Hollywood Ten among other witch-hunt victims. The film is worth seeing if only for a look at him in this role -- these days, when the word hero is tossed about with something approaching desperation, Wanamaker gives us a glimpse of the real thing. Maybe he should have directed this one. [15 Mar 1991, p.G5]

When it comes time to paint a view of Southern California from the perspective of outsiders looking in and expecting miracles, Nava's touch is marvelously sure, the satirical edge all covered in chrome. Nava's is the kind of talent that a low budget cannot hide. [30 Mar 1984, p.D6]

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]

Though the filmmakers have clearly done their homework, and clearly care, they don't find much remarkable in the story of Ritchie Valens. Even given the short life at hand, La Bamba is as schematic and predictable as it is likable. [24 July 1987, p.D1]

Chase and D'Angelo are clever and naturally funny, and they're well-matched. And yet the movie is dumb, so dumb it must have taken some work to make it that way. Perhaps next the Griswalds should make a forced march through a Hollywood executive's brain. [27 July 1985, p.B3]

Very few moviemakers, I think, could have done the thing quite this well. At the end of Avalon, which is more than two hours long and does not move quickly, the extended and fractious immigrant Krichinsky family has bloomed into fabulous life, the characters deep and rich. [19 Oct 1990, p.G5]

Honkytonk Man is Clint Eastwood's long, long ramble through the American Southwest in search of period, in search of character, in search of self-control. As a director, at least, he never finds the latter -- among the many things wrong with his latest film is that he apparently could not bring himself to slice away any of the flab. [22 Dec 1982, p.D18]

Octopussy is not very good. Though there's a good car- and-train chase scene and the usual schedule of narrow escapes, this one has fewer adventure sequences and less drama even than the last half-dozen. There are more gimmicks. [10 June 1983, p.12]

This is one mean little movie, fully deserving of some sort of warning badge to keep out the faint of heart and blue of nose. It's not, by any stretch of the imagination, pornography, so disregard the onetime X (the film is being distributed without a rating). But make no mistake: Henry will give you the creeps. [10 August 1990, p.G13]

The best things about this movie are first-rate comic performances by Young, Sherilyn Fenn (as Assante's worshipful secretary), Kate Nelligan (Assante's absurdly faithless wife), and by Assante himself. We knew he was a great straight man, but who would have guessed he had the timing for this? He has it. And Fatal Instinct has its moments. [30 Oct 1993, p.G1]

Though there is certainly more to the film than its voluptuous second half -- Babette is an agent of redemption in more ways than one, for instance -- there's no overlooking the simple appeal of the climactic serving. [10 Feb 1988, p.D6]

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]

Penn and Oldman booze and brawl and fight a losing battle. Their worst enemy, alas, is their director's self-indulgence. [05 Oct 1990, p.G5]

Director Coline Serreau has a deft touch with sugary material. Her Three Men and a Cradle is a slick, confident comedy that moves from point to predictable point without a surprise, but moves so gently and gracefully that it seems by the end something more than it is. [23 May 1986, p.D5]

Though the quality of animation remains dismal, Care Bears II has many pretty pictures; they just don't move very well. Kids under five, particularly little girls, seem enthralled nonetheless. [31 Mar 1986, p.D6]

Like Midnight Express, for which Stone received an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation, Salvador is better movie than document. But if Stone's style is entirely too florid for history, it is grimly arresting by Hollywood standards. Whatever else, Salvador is an original. [9 May 1986, p.D1]

Ivory's version of A Room With a View is impeccably turned out and wonderfully funny once the rhythms are established, which does not take long. The performances are splendid, from Helena Bonham Carter's moon-faced Lucy to the Cecil of Daniel Day Lewis (who can also be seen in a role so different -- the loutish punk of My Beautiful Laundrette -- that it hardly seems possible he is the same actor). As expected, Maggie Smith (as Charlotte) and Denholm Elliott (George's free-thinking father), nearly steal the film. [4 Apr 1986, p.D1]

When he means to be funny, Balaban has a wicked way about him. When he means to scare, he's just like the rest of the pack. Still, there's something wonderfully subversive at work in Parents. Be warned. [17 March 1989, p.11]

Those opening minutes, in which Hawn plays a heavy, are some of her best work. The rest we've seen before, a lot. Overboard is overlong, and stale as can be. [18 Dec 1987, p.D6]

A Dry White Season hits with the force of its convictions, and it hits hard. But it could have been more. [06 Oct 1989, p.G5]

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]

The essence of the movie, and the key to its success, lies in the innocent rhythms of old-fashioned screwball comedy. [21 Sep 1984, p.D1]

Footloose is for an audience that wants something easy to think about, a conflict in which the two sides are easy to distinguish and an "enemy" who is easy to look down upon. It's for the folks who like to skip dinner and go right to the cream- filled finale, and though not quite evil, it's as silly as can be. [1 Mar 1984, p.D12]

For all its flaws, Bob Roberts is a singular achievement, a political film in a time when moviegoers want anything but. It's a bold move. Vote Tim. [18 Sep 1992, p.G10]

To the extent that it has a serious theme, the film is about the tug of mortality and the demands it makes on simple humanity -- courage, selflessness, the sharing of wisdom. There's not enough of this, not by far. But it's something. The rest of Cocoon -- The Return is hash. [23 Nov 1988, p.D1]

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]

Barfly is a perfectly incorrigible comedy, a movie of unusual shape and unpredictable moves. [25 Nov 1987, p.D9]

Local Hero is almost magical, it is so unexpected. It is whimsy raised a power or two by the skills of a filmmaker who looks at life slightly askew. He sees enchantment in small, off- center encounters, and gets the enchantment onto the screen. [05 Apr 1983, p.D5]

It's beautiful, too. Westerns just don't work without scenery, and Bruce Surtees, the cinematographer, shoots postcards. [28 June 1985, p.1]

There's always something happening at the edges of The Flamingo Kid. And unexpectedly, considering the genre, there's something happening at the center, too. [21 Dec 1984, p.D1]

Schepisi and his writers don't get what they should have from the business of traumatic culture shock; they spend too much time on twaddle. [13 Apr 1984, p.D1]

The picture is schematic and awkward, made in movie-of-the-week style and laced with implausibilities and ham- handed set pieces. Still, someone deserves a nod for making Gramps the hero of an action potboiler. It's an idea, and in the Hollywood of the '80s ideas are very rare, very special things. [31 Oct 1985, p.6]

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 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]

Three O'Clock High is one of those ideas that must have sounded wonderful at one point, and to be fair it still sounds better than the pop-out plots of most teen-explo projects. It turns out, however, to have surprisingly little range. Once the story is under way, there's nowhere for it to go but home room, lunch and out the door. [13 Oct 1987, p.C7]

It's a nifty piece of work. The tension builds nicely, the convoluted plot doubles back on itself, and for once the music score doesn't give everything away. Nothing groundbreaking here, understand. But a lot of fun. [01 Oct 1993, p.G5]

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

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]

Operative marketing concept: There are thousands, not just one, born every minute. [5 Aug 1986, p.B5]

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]

Imagine for a moment Lord of the Rings peformed by puppets and hydraulically operated monsters against a background of realistic fantasy, and you have an idea of The Dark Crystal. It's the kind of film that children may take for granted, but that adults are transfixed by; there is much oohing and aahing in the seats. [20 Dec 1982, p.B8]

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]

Keaton is funny when she's tough, and funny when she's soft; the Baby Boom combination, for all the film's calculations and shameless cooing (the baby's dubbed, for pity's sake), is quite appealing. [7 Oct 1987, p.D8]

Make no mistake, Racing With the Moon is a modest film; that's one of the reasons it works so well, being a meticulously made miniature. And it's a joy. [28 Mar 1984, p.C7]

It's all as foolish as can be, and tedious in the bargain. The Clan of the Cave Bear acts as a parody of the earlier, more accomplished Quest for Fire, but since even that film was funny despite itself, this is not much of an accomplishment. On the evidence, it is hard to tell which way Hannah, who was Ron Howard's mermaid in Splash, is traveling on the old evolutionary ladder. [27 Man 1986, p.C6]

As time goes on, and more King comes to the screen, The Shining, once widely disparaged, looks better and better. At least that film translated some of King's terror; subsequent adaptations, Pet Sematary included, do little more than animate the gore. [24 Apr 1989, p.C6]

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]

The result is a kind of quiet epic of rural life, redolent of the Taviani brothers' Tuscan reveries. And though Jean de Florette is whole enough to stand on its own, there's unfinished business at the end -- enough to hook us. [25 Sep 1987, p.D5]

The idea that there is evil under the sun and amongst the verities out there in the clean-living heartland is not exactly new to fiction. Neither is the one about the bad seeds, the homicidal children. In combination, however -- the combination in Children of the Corn-- the elements have a perverse novelty. [19 Mar 1984, p.C6]

It is surprisingly dull...Sheen and Sweeney appear dazed, or merely bored, throughout, as if they had ODd on the film's determined sleekness. The director, Peter Werner, is best known for his work on installments of Moonlighting. Alas, his TV roots are showing, and No Man's Land seems like nothing so much as a "special, two-hour episode" from the little screen. [29 Oct 1987, p.7]

An almost-horror film called The Hunger has in common with Flashdance an apparent obsession with style over other considerations, and the result, though weird, is no more satisfying. [02 May 1983, p.C6]

Woody Allen's new movie, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, will not make you cry, as Annie Hall and Manhattan were capable of, and it won't make you cringe, as Stardust Memories almost demanded. It is not screamingly funny, romantically piquant, bitter or even, in most ways, unusual. With the exception of a single recurring image--that of Allen as an amateur inventor of the early 20th Century, flapping about in various homemade flying machines--there is not even anything of the absurd in this film. It's just an engaging Woody Allen movie, in which much of the humor is familiar and the tone is as moistly appealing as the title suggests. [18 July 1982, p.L3]

The movie comes to rest on Voight and, to a lesser extent, on the views of the train itself, which looks great thundering through the snow. Voight is nearly as impressive in appearance, tricked out with some menacing scars and a gold tooth, and he gives his part a reading quite unlike his previous work. [22 Jan 1986, p.D7]

In the hands of Brian De Palma, not to mention Hitchcock, Jagged Edge might well have been a serious film. It is no less a thriller for lack of lineage, however. It's ferocious hack work, not believable for an instant, and never boring, either. [4 Oct 1985, p.6]

Firefox is no masterpiece, and it's not even a startling picture within its genre -- Cold War mischief. But it's briskly entertaining and, until the nyet-effect of all those stereotyped Russians catches up with us, even believeable. [21 June 1982, p.B4]

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]

It's a movie of surpassing flatness, all surface, all monotone. Pace? It's as if the director, Alan J. Pakula, had dialed in half speed on the first day of shooting and never checked the throttle again. [27 July 1990, p.G5]

The Bear is a big, polished children's film, nothing more. [27 Oct 1989, p.G5]

White Hunter, Black Heart looks good, but it's as humorless as Eastwood himself increasingly appears to be. [21 Sep 1990, p.G5]

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]

I suppose if you haven't seen Rocky or its many imitators, The Karate Kid might have its modest charms; there's a good bit of man-to-boy philosophizing in it, on the order of "To thine own self be true," and that's harmless enough. But there's a measure of laziness in this whole idea that is dismaying, that borders on cynicism. One wonders what went through the minds of the filmmakers as they prepared to make a film that has been made so many times before. By the look of The Karate Kid, some quick-play box-office may have been the highest aspiration. [26 June 1984, p.B3]

This is mildly amusing, and the scenes with Niven -- his last, and reportedly dubbed by impressionist Rich Little when Niven's illness had taken the strength from his voice -- are poignant. But there is no restoring the force that made the earlier Panthers work. [12 Aug 1983, p.C5]

It's not awful; it isn't dull. But The Golden Child is a kids' film, and there are times when Murphy himself seems uncomfortable, as if he knows he's making a movie he wouldn't pay to see. [13 Dec 1986, p.B1]

Could Lorenzo's Oil have been better? Easily. Does it still have real power? No question. [22 Jan 1993, p.G4]

It's genuinely terrifying, as scary as it is unexpected. [22 May 1987, p.D5]

Remarkably, director Albert Magnoli is able to use a single moment of melodrama to give this story a measure of depth. And from that point on, Purple Rain is improbably successful at tugging on the heartstrings as well as shaking the rafters. It winds up a love story, and one with power. [27 July 1984, p.D1]

There's power in this story, even if much of it does owe to a greatly sentimentalized time rather than to genuine virtue. In its new, leaner version, Ward's film does seem twitchy at times -- we're not always sure how the characters got to where they are, emotionally or physically. But it's sweet, too. [14 May 1993, p.G4]

That's what's wrong with Sweet Dreams. Its insights into this sudden, shortlived star are no more profound than those of a tabloid expose; it's bad-marriage gossip. [17 Oct 1985, p.B6]

Though there's a scene of racial discomfort (nothing more serious) and a few rather flat-footed references to anti-war feelings back home in Hamburger Hill, the sense of time and place is missing altogether. Hamburger Hill is an all-purpose war movie with the requisite noble message -- war is hell, and futile, too -- but it could be set anywhere. In those parts of the world where local audiences will not accept an American adventure movie with the Vietnamese as vanquished foe (parts of Southeast Asia were shown Rambo with subtitles that portrayed it as a anti-Japanese commando raid from World War II), Hamburger Hill will play with few problems...Unhappily, neither screenwriter Jim Carabatsos (who did Heartbreak Ridge for Clint Eastwood) nor director John Irvin is able to provide the story any tighter focus, either. [28 Aug 1987, p.D1]

The movie is happy and bright and thoroughly nice, and every now and then it's loud and funny and at least as large as life. And it could have been larger, and better. [22 Feb 1983, p.C5]

This is a silly movie, yes. But since it works as a humorous homage for students of Hitchcock and his B-movie masterpiece, and since it works as a high-grade slasher film for the rest of the audience, there's no hating it. In fact, this is the most likable gore film in years. [04 June 1983, p.D4]

Turner's performance is intriguing -- now we know that she can play not only a sexpot (Body Heat) but a sexpot hiding in a career woman's suit-and-tie and posing as a fleshpot. This is pretty interesting. [19 Nov 1984, p.C1]

JFK is staggering in its power. [20 Dec 1991, p.5]

Out of Bounds is a jazzy, raffish looking movie. It flirts with punk. It's also a fundamentalist summer-teen thriller, with two kids on the lam from everyone, and in L.A., too. The movie wants it both ways: stylish, safe. Mostly it's dumb. [28 July 1986, p.D5]

This is a movie that didn't have to be well made --its emotional impact has been assured by the daily news. But Jaffe took care. He made a solid Hollywood movie of a story that is terribly sad. He plays the heartstrings like a virtuoso, and that's not always a bad thing. [07 Feb 1983, p.C6]

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

This lovely movie, impeccably made in nearly every way, has entirely too much right about it to be resisted. [21 Feb 1986, p.D1]

It's a ridiculous story to be sure, filled with holes and not remotely plausible, but director Mark L. Lester knows enough to keep the speed up, and the dumb stuff is flattened by action. It's the kind of movie in which the audience waits happily for the little heroine to be cornered by villains, all to cheer at the inevitable roast. Lester, at least, is stylish enough to get away with it. [12 May 1984, p.C1]

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]

After you've seen Dave, go back and watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And be manipulated by a master. [07 May 1993, p.G5]

Giles Walker's direction is TV-slick and the performances predictably smooth. But there is nothing here you haven't seen many, many times before. [12 Nov 1993, p.G18]

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]

Only the quips aren't funny. Not much about the script is amusing at all. Worse, the director, Herbert Ross, who once had a reputation for grace, has been growing clumsier for years and now seems to have lost his timing. [14 Sept 1993, p.E6]

Hershey isn't bad in the role of the victim; she looks durable and acts like a survivor. And Furie does throw in a couple of nifty scares between the rapes, which are gratuitous and disturbing. The rest of the film is by-the-numbers B-movie thriller. [09 Feb 1983, p.D6]

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]

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]

As played by the sublimely dazed Keanu Reeves (Ted) and Alex Winter (Bill), the boys are appealing at first, but their witlessness wears thin quickly. So, too, the movie. Ignorance may indeed be a happy state, but you wouldn't want to live there, and even this short visit seems much, much too long. The film acknowledges its empty-headedness early, when the boys meet Sock-rates. [20 Feb 1989, p.C-6]

In the hands of director John Lafia, who uses many tricks of the genre (none of them his own), this is all less horrifying than it sounds, and a good deal funnier. [09 Nov 1990, p.G5]

Ward does manage to pump the film with tension in the climactic, will-the-Indians-beat-the-Yankees sequence, and I found Major League hard to resist in its last 20 minutes or so -- even though it's sappy enough to make Levinson's prettifying of The Natural seem positively dour by contrast. Maybe it's just the season. [7 Apr 1989, p.1]

The Rookie groans loudly and often under the load of its cliches. [07 Dec 1990, p.G11]

Nearly everything that is right about Smooth Talk would have been impossible to obtain by conventional Hollywood film- manufacture. The film's appeal, including that of the performances, is in nuance and intermediate shades. That appeal is considerable, another reminder of the possibilities of the American independent film. [25 Apr 1986, p.D1]

Like Apocalypse Now, The Killing Fields tries to show the Southeast Asian war as a lethal spasm of recent history, wholly predictable but nonetheless quite unexpected, and all the more terrible for those elements. And like Apocalypse Now, this film succeeds in the almost surreal business of recalling a nightmare. At its best, The Killing Fields is unforgettable. [18 Jan 1985, p.D1]

Burden of Dreams would stand on its own as a "how-the-film- was-made" documentary and as an inquiry into the strange nature of film as the most collective of art forms. Fortunately for Blank and for us, the film that Herzog wound up finishing, Fitzcarraldo, is a triumph artistically as well as logistically. [15 Oct 1982, p.D1]

It's one of those movies made by hard-core techies, meticulous about the "period" details and utterly neglectful of pretty much everything else, including such nuances as plain old plot. [15 Sep 1990, p.E6]

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 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]

This movie runs in great, lazy circles, covering its implausibilities with gags, and finishes with the let's-get-it-over-with patness of a movie- of-the-week. Goldblum's performance is the key: We never do figure out who he is beyond the easy guess that his cuckoldry was well-deserved. Sometimes he's in charge, outfoxing the thugs, and sometimes he's helpless, and a lot of the time he's just along for the ride. [12 March 1985, p.B4]

Desert Hearts offers its central romance virtually free of moral clutter. Deitch tries neither to justify her characters' actions nor to place them in the context of the "forbidden"; she deals instead with intimacy, pieces of their lives. [18 Apr 1986, p.D5]

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]

The movie is just self-conscious enough to get some bad reviews, and it's going to draw some walkouts. Pay no attention. There's something wonderful here...It's a fascinating film. [3 March 1989, p.6]

The best-developed theme in 2010, in fact, is anti-climax. Many scenes have one, the entire movie seems to be one. And we still don't know what the deal is with that monolith. [7 Dec 1984, p.D1]

Road House makes Cocktail look like a documentary. [19 May 1989, p.6]

The Freshman isn't big at all, but it's no bauble, and it's no genre piece. It's quite unhinged, in fact -- the film seems continuously on the verge of spinning off into madness. It never does, which is kind of too bad. But it's never dull, and it's never cute, and it's not at all what Brando thought it was. [27 July 1990, p.G5]

It's a gentle, occasionally smart little comedy about what happens when three furry spacemen, eager for female companionship after what seems to have been a long voyage from the planet Jhazzala, land in the backyard swimming pool of a recently jilted manicurist in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. [02 June 1989, p.DW5]

Poltergiest is no nonstop scream express; at times it pulls its punches (Spielberg wants that PG rating), and at times its effects are bigger than life and less than terrifying. But like Spielberg's Jaws, which was a perfect genre movie, Poltergeist does what it's supposed to do about as well as it can be done.

At times it doesn't make a lick of sense, and at times it's as shaky as a Poindexter memory. But it's full of goofy developments and paranoid fantasies; it's the perfect movie for its place in time. [14 Aug 1987, p.D1]

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]

Flight of the Navigator is a cheerfully unaccomplished little movie, a kind of E.T. for kids that recalls the Disney live-action films of a generation ago. E.T is not the only movie borrowed from here; there are echoes of Back to the Future and most of the rest of the last decade's science-fiction fantasies, though Flight of the Navigator is generous in acknowledging its sources. It's a happy knockoff. [31 July 1986, p.C5]

This is a B-movie through and through, and no less fun for that. [29 Sep 1989, p.G12]

This is a nearly universal theme and might provide the spine for a funny comedy. [29 July 1983, p.C1]

It seems very much an exercise in time, place and character, without much soul, as if Demme expected the period to provide most of the romance. [17 Apr 1984, p.B5]

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]

It helps that Raw Deal works, for a time at least, as a first-rate cop movie. It is violent to excess -- more graphic by far than Stallone's films, and bloodier, too -- but it's a real movie. [07 June 1986, p.D1]

Young Guns II looks good, and offers -- for those in its audience who, against all odds, might care -- a mildly interesting theory on what really happened to Billy the Kid. And if this is what it takes to keep the Western alive, if not yet prospering, ride on, Guns, ride on. [01 Aug 1990, p.D1]

Given the talent involved -- Bigelow, Curtis, Red -- you figure Blue Steel will break out, show something new. Never happens. It's just a tough little thriller with a long string of plot holes. [16 Mar 1990, p.G5]

There are plot holes here wide enough to steer a 747 through, and dialogue leaden enough to stall a B-52. [12 Nov 1992, p.F3]

Because of James Belushi, Taking Care of Business is bearable. Even funny. [17 Aug 1990, p.G5]

But whether even kids will be able to take The Outsiders seriously is a hard question. Whether by fidelity to his source or by director's embellishments, Coppola has come up with a story about tough kids who appreciate sunsets and recite Robert Frost from memory, about members of a mid-American urban underclass who ponder their situations with the dispassionate acumen of sociologists. The Outsiders is about "greasers" who are not greasy, and it seems likely that even kids will see through it. [29 March 1983, p.5]

What makes the story seem larger and more important than it is are the quality of the performances -- uniformly first-rate -- and the deftness of the director, Neil Jordan, for opposing the several cultures and thereby causing a clash. [8 Aug 1986, p.D1]

The movie takes you over, shakes you for a couple of hours and then turns you back out into the street, limp. You've grown to know a lot about its characters. But when you think about them, you realize that you don't want to know this much. They're hollow men, on both sides. [15 Aug 1986, p.D1]

Richly enjoyable on its own terms: modest, funny and sad. It is Woody Allen at the top of his art. [28 Jan 1984, p.D1]

Much of the big-surf footage is stunning; some of it is terrifying. But is it worth sitting through North Shore to get to the big sets? No way, dude. [14 Aug 1987, p.D5]

What Salaam Bombay! thus lacks in polish it makes up for with deadpan authenticity. Watching the film is like being a witness to an event that is dark, intimate and frightening. There's something voyeuristic about the experience, and something deeply compelling as well. [17 Mar 1989, p.6]

The new Steven Seagal film is, of course, almost unbelievably stupid and vile, but there's something else going on as well this time. Something new. Something . . . tedious. [16 Apr 1991, p.C5]

That final half-hour bears the scars of frenzied re- editing, and it's still overblown -- purple and heaving. And when Hill loses control, he loses it everywhere. Hill, who usually makes half a good movie, might make a good whole one if he ever stuck to a genre and had some fun. But he doesn't do things simply. More often than not, his movies simply do not work. [24 Apr 1987, p.D1]

There's an odd meeting of pathos and caper-comedy in Family Business, an uneasy blend of comedy and drama that never does seem to figure out what it's up to. The movie darts in one direction, then another. When it loses its way, it slows to a plod. It's a bust. [15 Dec 1989, p.5G]

Missing in Action is thus never especially compelling, even as a B-movie, because it is never remotely believable. Nonetheless, Norris' appeal is so quiet and uncomplicated that, although the film exploits the issue of MIAs as thoroughly as any movie has to date, Missing in Action is never offensive. [20 Nov 1984, p.D1]

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]

Dick Tracy is light on its feet where Batman clomped and wheezed, and it's fantastic -- that's the word -- where Batman was merely well designed. [15 Jun 1990, p.G5]

Alice is certainly handsome to look at, and as usual Allen's camera is placed impeccably -- if he's overrated as a screenwriter, Woody Allen has yet to receive his due as a director. Still, what's wrong with Alice is in the script, and Allen wrote that, too. [25 Jan 1991, p.G5]

Brooks as Brooks is the funniest observer of contemporary mores in Hollywood. Brooks behaving himself, as in Defending Your Life, is just another clever fellow. [05 Apr 1991, p.G5]

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]

There's good stuff around the edges of the film -- all that word play and all those visual gags demand that you pay attention lest you miss something even in the slow scenes. But at the center, no magic. [01 Aug 1986, p.D1]

Leigh is obviously a major talent of the English film resurgence, which may already have peaked but nonetheless offers hopes of its own. His loose way of making films -- the wandering camera, the scenes that seem to invent themselves as they go along -- somehow accommodates a genuine comic intelligence, which usually requires the tightest of controls. [2 June 1989, p.7]

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 film is all very wistful, and at its best moments has an exquisite mystery to it, the lure of the memory play. And even when it isn't working, there's Turner to watch. That's something. [10 Oct 1986, p.D1]

Parts of House are certainly meant to be funny, and other parts draw laughs the way the tools move, without the apparent intent of their creators. As haunted-house tales go, House is something of a bust. [4 March 1986, p.B5]

What we have here is a story out of early American history as retold by American pulp fiction, staged by a director with a sure touch for melodrama. [25 Sep 1992, p.G5]

It's fun seeing what these two can do when they're inspired, but it's awful having to sit through what happens when they're not. [21 Dec 1984, p.D10]

As is usual for this durable genre, victim and villain are well matched. Though House on Sorority Row does not have a single screeching-cat red herring, and though power tools are not employed, it does have a classic of low camp, a scene in which a girl who has just been nearly brained by a falling corpse repairs immediately and alone to her bedroom, where she changes into a baby-doll nightie and stands with her back to an open window. [23 Feb 1983, p.B4]

I'd have thought you'd get more for $3 million. The dialogue here is among the worst in modern big-budget memory; even the cliches are lame. [20 Mar 1992, p.G5]

Betsy's Wedding is as "high concept" as they come -- it's all in the title, and once you know the cast, you pretty much know where it's going and how it will go. And still, it's cute, in a forlorn, co-opted sort of way. [22 Jun 1990, p.G5]

So Doc Hollywood is warm and cuddly and not at all loathsome. It is much better suited to television than to the big screen, though it does serve to showcase Warner, who is attractive and engaging. And durn it all, you just can't hate it. [02 Aug 1991, p.G5]

At a little over two hours, Black Rain is a good half-hour too long, and the style gymnastics are eventually wearying. But Scott's work is always fascinating to watch, even as it grinds you down. And Douglas now has something heroic about him that enhances, if it doesn't quite transcend, the plot-by- numbers. It's fun watching the two of them volley. [22 Sep 1989, p.G5]

Rose made the perfectly splendid and terrifying Paperhouse, a film-festival thriller from 1988, which Candyman resembles not at all. Paperhouse scared you because it was quiet and subtle and eerie. Candyman is just Barker stuff -- all hook, no suspense. [19 Oct 1992, p.C6]

Sneakers is tremendously entertaining when the team is working to breach unbreachably secure institutions. [11 Sep 1992, p.G5]

It's not much, Boiling Point. But it's not what you expect, either. At this time of year, when the big news is Indecent Proposal, that's saying something. [19 Apr 1993, p.C5]

The knock on movies like Wildcats used to be that they belong not on the big screen, but on TV. But times have changed. Wildcats isn't good television, either. It's just Goldie Hawn's latest. [10 March 1986, p.C6]

It's too civilized by half and never quite funny enough. [31 Jan 1986, p.D1]

It doesn't ask much of anything except that you come along for the ride. Riding with Byrne is pretty much a hoot. [09 Nov 1986, p.K1]

The effects are well-made and gruesome; the set is 'used-car tech,' a la Alien -- a space station that looks real and lived- in. Even the music is OK. But good gore only works in movies when the story is good, and this story is stolen, almost scene for scene. [01 Jun 1982, p.C6]

Blake Edwards returned to direct this time, and seems to have made the miscalculation that Benigni could carry the movie. One with less noble lineage, maybe. But the Pink Panther movies, largely because of Edwards' own brilliance at physical comedy, are very hard acts to follow. [01 Sep 1993, p.E3]

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]

Brother's Keeper is fascinating. It doesn't answer all the questions, but it illuminates life in a small, strange and in some ways wonderful place. [16 Nov 1992, p.C3]

Every now and then, there is even a funny line, as when the wife of one officer insists on joining the force herself: "We can wear matching uniforms, share ammo -- everything that makes a marriage work." [24 Mar 1986, p.D7]

No Small Affair, while no big movie, confirms that it is possible to tell a story about a kid in love without depending on the French-tutor contrivance or the girls'-locker- room giggle. [09 Nov 1984, p.C10]

Kudos to the production team for finding a perfect chimp for the lead role. Little Virgil has a look of such perfect solemnity and clearness of intent that not only do we not doubt that he could fly a plane, but we begin to suspect that he could craft a better script as well. [17 Apr 1987, p.D1]

If the idea was merely to make a high-gloss entertainment about the last days of mob glamour, Bugsy succeeds. But it leaves one final question unanswered: So what? [20 Dec 1991, p.G5]

The Hotel New Hampshire, in which John Irving's novel comes to the screen, is such a mess that it does not feel like a film at all. It's a kind of endurance contest, an epic bout with the cutes, in which the audience is made to confront a long, quirky line of performers playing oddball "types," and is then given only a handful of platitudes by which the explain the experience. "Sorrow floats" is the story's most profound statement, though there are others. [3 Apr 1984, p.C5]

When the film isn't borrowing, it's collapsing of its own weight, slight though it may be. [28 Jul 1996, p.B4]

These are things to keep in mind while the movie lumbers along from retread situation to punchleszs comic setup. Pirates looks cheap and runs long; it moves fast only when it is scrabbling for a shred of charm. [18 July 1986, p.D3]

Campion tells this longish story with a reverent touch and a painterly eye, tipping over into artiness only occasionally. [20 Sep 1991, p.G5]

Minimalist, yes; post-modern self-conscious, to a fault. But giddy, fanciful and at times simply obvious. [21 Nov 1986, p.D10]

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]

Whoopi Goldberg gives a first-rate performance in Clara's Heart, enough to atone for the sins of her Fatal Beauty period. But it's nifty work in a lost cause. The movie is sickly sweet, shot through with the kind of confectioner's sentiment that Hollywood used to crank out on assembly lines until the formula slid into disuse. [21 Oct 1988, p.E10]

Navy Seals is all action, no talk, and it never slows down enough to let you see how dumb it is. But the sudden lack of enemies in a world gone crazily, treacherously peaceful is a problem for Hollywood. [20 July 1990, p.G5]

Beauty and the Beast is so funny, exciting and suspenseful that its obvious moral (appearance can mean nothing; it's what's inside that counts) is engaging rather than perfunctory. [22 Nov 1991, p.G11]

The story was adapted by Laura Esquivel from her novel, a bestseller in Mexico. Arau, the actor turned filmmaker, tells the story with the equivalent of a saucier's night out -- the film is physically lovely, and never so sumptuous as when it is concentrating on Tita's creations in and out of the kitchen. [02 Apr 1993, p.G4]

There's not a dull moment in the thing, and it's dumb as dirt. But who can resist? It's the ultimate guilty pleasure, the kind of movie that in years to come, when they're chronicling the decline of our culture, will turn up as an exhibit. [23 Nov 1990, p.G5]

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]

F/X doesn't have the surprises when it needs them. [8 Feb 1986, p.C7]

At several points, Strange Brew is so unhinged that it works -- when it looks as if Hosehead the skunk/dog will be late for Oktoberfest, he jumps into the air and flies there -- but as Bob and Doug seem to concede in the film's opening, they are simply not interesting enough to carry a movie. Neither is anyone else involved, and there you are: small beer. [29 Aug 1983, p.C6]

Burton is a first-rate stylist, but this time he's actually better at suggesting the inner life of his characters. [19 June 1992, p.G6]

It's good work in aid of very little. Smithereens is often fascinating, but it is never satisfying. And by the end, when Wren seems about to be billed for her sins, it's hard to care much one way or another. [28 May 1983, p.D7]

It is a masterpiece of design. The animated backgrounds are voluptuously illustrated, and the action often proceeds at dizzying speed, while an elaborate fabric of subtle visual cues steer the narrative. [25 Nov 1992, p.E1]

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

The whole thing means to come down to big, round tears and mass sniffles, but though Spielberg invokes as many golden-era cliches as he can recall, he never gets the romance really working. It's tough being compared to Spielberg, and perhaps unfair if you happen to be Spielberg, but this is easily his least substantial film to date. Some tears, yes. No sparks. [22 Dec. 1989, p.G5]

Real Men is too goofy for its own good, but not nearly funny enough. [21 Oct 1987, p.D5]

Best of all, though, Part Deux lampoons the cinema of cheerful ultraviolence without mercy. You've probably seen the coming-attractions trailer in which Topper, having emptied his quiver, uses a live chicken as an arrow. The film tops that easily a few scenes later, when Topper's gun jams and he simply throws a handful of cartridges at some bad guys, all of whom are instantly slain. This is the genuine article: good spoof, no prisoners. [21 May 1993, p.5]

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]

SpaceCamp is perfectly harmless and perfectly dull, but it comes at a time when NASA could use an esteem booster. For all those who get just a touch queasy at the Top Gun lesson, in which shooting down planes in peacetime is presented as role-model behavior, SpaceCamp offers a nonviolent corrective. [6 June 1986, p.D6]

It's hard to figure how the combination of director Carl Reiner, comedian John Candy and a movie with the title Summer Rental could come to nothing. [10 Aug 1985, p.D7]

Haynes is clearly gifted; his film is certainly troubling. But it's also wickedly funny in spots and deft with its lampoon in others. Watch this guy. [06 Sep 1991, p.G10]

Sounds like Dirty Harry, looks like Dirty Harry, plays like Dirty Harry. The big difference is that Norris is not so mean as Eastwood, nor so interesting. Eastwood's Harry is flawed, even philosophical in his grumpy way; Norris' Sarge is just a nice guy who can kill you a hundred different ways. [06 May 1985, p.B6]

Cage plays his part in exactly the mode of the maimed swain of Moonstruck -- his voice is flat, his jaw slack, his eyes glazed over. He knows it's junk, and he just can't help himself. [26 May 1990, p.E1]

The good-heartedness and skill of Ron Howard, director, have become something to be reckoned with. Cocoon, for all its failures -- and its dependence on hokey effects is a major one -- suggests that Spielberg is not alone out there. [21 June 1985, p.C1]

"Overworked" is the word for much of the movie. The Mean Season has the feel of a project much tinkered with, so that it seems both laborious and scattered. For a melodrama it moves too slowly, and for a thriller it is too obvious; you can see the seams, see the film's gears move when its works should be invisible. [15 Feb 1985, p.D1]

Scorsese and Zimmerman seem to be building on Andy Warhol's proclamations about the nature of celebrity. What they've added is the sourness of it and the pointlessness, and their King of Comedy, for a while darkly funny, winds up being terribly sad. It's the most unpleasant fine film in years. [20 Mar 1983, p.L1]

here are strange sensibilities at work here, yes. Just not working hard enough. [23 July 1993, p.G7]

The film sequences of Earth from orbit, of the moon from the lunar lander, then of Earth again are breathtaking. They're disquieting, too -- the feeling of remoteness seems to boil up from the moon's surface as the explorers hop and stumble about in the lunar dust. You get that sense, during these best moments in the film, of the remarkable achievement it was. The thrill is back, in other words. [1 June 1990, p.G9]

These are small subjects here, and intimate ones, and they are handled with great warmth. [27 May 1982, p.B5]

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]

In the spirit of The Howling and a half- dozen imitators since, My Science Project is salted with in- jokes and sly gags about its subject, beginning with a reference to The Time Machine and extending to far more subtle clues. John Stockwell, as Harlan the hero, is at least as interesting as the rest of the generation of teen-throb actors already widely referred to as the brat pack. [13 Aug 1985, p.B13]

My Chauffeur has moments of pure daffiness, unhinged stuff. But it is also the most ineptly made comedy in years, so badly made that it is ultimately unwatchable. [20 March 1986, p.B6]

Glory leaves you with not just the sense of its characters' triumph over injustice, but their destruction by the very system that empowered them to begin with. There's no escaping that story, either -- even if Glory doesn't really tell it. [12 Jan 1990, p.G5]

Hackman, with the force of his inelegant personality and his gift for dramatic understatement, makes it go. He has saved a lot of movies, and this is one. [25 Aug 1989, p.G5]

The movie never feels as strong as its ideas. It has a kind of movie-of-the-week gloss to it -- no weight, no power, all going-through-the-motions. There are a couple of reasons for this, and both involve Hoffman in the title role. [02 Oct 1992, 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]

It's about a weird little kid, and it's an engaging mix. It is successful in recreating the frissons of adolescence and in slapping the myths around. The film also sports an ending that is pure tearjerker, but at least it earns the mush. [2 Apr 1986, p.D6]

Director Daniel Petrie Jr. does a journeyman job, though he lets the air out of the thing at the end. [26 Apr 1991, p.G5]

The Hitcher has a certain weight. It's not junk, and Harmon is neither a hack nor a beginner just taking his genre shot. His movie is arresting in surprising places, and it never really lets us off the hook. There's something here worth seeing, and something about Harmon as well. What will he do next, and can he top this? [27 Feb 1986, p.8]

Midler sweeps into scenes with divine force, and Tomlin plays off her co-star with a barrage of comic nuance. Tomlin is playing parts, Midler is plying shtick, and it's wonderful. [10 Jun 1988, p.D1]

Applegate is fun to watch; I'll bet she can act, though nothing here tests her. Stephen Herek may even be able to direct. But on this evidence, who could tell? [08 June 1991, p.E5]

And because it is less bound by formula -- less stupid, if that can be comprehended -- than Porky's, Screwballs is funnier. That is not saying much, but Screwballs was not conceived as a film for scholarly inquiry. If you like naked women posing as high-school cheerleaders, your moment has arrived.

Chuck Norris, whose action dramas are often unintentionally funny, edges into spoof territory with Firewalker, and the result is inadvertently dull. It's a curious cycle, a kind of primordial rhythm of bad moviemaking.[2 Dec 1986, p.B4]

At its heart, however, Soul Man is a one-gag story propelled by sitcom material; there are times you'd swear you were watching Lucy. And because the filmmakers really aren't up to their premise, the movie ends on a note of forced harmony that's enough to make the blood run cold. It's a reminder that even good white liberals still aren't sure how to act around black people. Which, come to think of it, would make a fine, socially "relevant" comedy. Perhaps Hollywood will make it someday. [27 Oct 1986, p.C4]