David Ansen

Dudley Moore is the comic bubble beneath her solemn sultriness, and Unfaithfully Yours, though a slow starter, eventually works up a full head of comic steam. [05 Mar 1984, p.81]

It's a marvelous premise, and Crudup's serpentine performance has a venomous grace. But Jeffrey Hatcher's screenplay too often sacrifices psychological insight for bogus theatricality.

There is enough enchantment in this big, generous, flawed movie for most everybody. [24 Sep 1984, p.85]

"The Search for Spock" is everything it ought to be: solemn and shlocky and rousing and heartfelt, like all good reunions. For those whose cup of tea this is, drink deep and enjoy. [11 June 1984, p.80]

What holds the movie together is the fiercely self-contained commitment of Day-Lewis's performance and the palpable chemistry between him and Watson.

The bottom lineis that "Footloose" has a lively, sweet, infectious spirit, and for that one is willing to overlook some clunky scenes, fuzzy motivations, gratuitous brawls and the failure to evoke this town with any sociological coherence. It works because Bacon, always a fine actor, and Singer make a golden and winning couple; because Lithgow invests his ogreish character with troubled and compassionate shadings; because of Christopher Penn's scene-stealing performance as Bacon's naive lug of a friend; because the rocking sound track features hot new songs like "Let's Hear It for the Boy," performed by Deniece Williams; and because everyone, fundamentalists excepted, will identify with the kids. [20 Feb 1984, p.78]

Director Castle has studied his Spielberg well. While the movie may be composed of borrowed parts, it remains bouncy and good-natured throughout. Guest has charm and a deft comic touch, and Stewart is lovely as his girl. [30 July 1984, p.80]

Flaws and all, this may be Spike's most purely enjoyable movie, and his best looking

You cheer the good guys, gasp at the cliffhangers, hiss the villains and leave the theater with an old-fashioned sense of satisfaction. It may not be great filmmaking -- it's certainly not for purists -- but it's definitely good fun. [24 June 1991, p.60]

In keeping with a morality tale on the excesses of wealth and power, it is extravagantly confusing, grandiosely paranoid, flamboyantly absurd and more than a little fun. Though it utterly lacks the internal consistency that "good" movies require, as a wild-goose chase it maintains a certain lunatic fascination. [04 Jun 1979, p.76]

Prick Up Your Ears is a bold piece of work -- satiric, melancholy, free of cant. It's a post-Orton movie in every sense: without his work at the theatrical barricades 20 years ago a movie like this wouldn't have been possible. [20 Apr 1987, p.89]

Entertaining but farfetched, Spy Game might have looked less meretricious a few months back. But the real world has sabotaged its pretense of authenticity. Enjoy it for what it is, a fleet, handsome fantasy of globe-hopping blond demigods.

With Dillon in the movie, you might expect another girl-chasing beach movie. But the evocation of the nouveau riche club, and of adolescence itself, is closer to early Philip Roth than to Spring Break. [31 Dec 1984, p.65]

Ultimately, Quills descends into overwrought melodrama. But at its bright and bawdy best, it bubbles with subversive wit.

Director Michael Lehmann ("Heathers") nimbly keeps this airy concoction afloat.

It’s a movie for movie lovers -- playful, hip and light as a feather.

The Jerk is a kind of post-psychedelic Jerry Lewis movie -- Broad, dirty and juvenile, but definitely hip to its own dumbness. Half the jokes fall flat on their face, but when they score they're laugh-out-loud funny. Almost invariably, the best routines are non sequiturs -- off-the-wall riffs where Martin fixates with dopey brilliance on a subject that has nothing to do with the plot. [17 Dec 1979]

A powerful and moving experience -- once it overcomes its clunky, badly written and clichéd first act.

Where the original gave you something to chew on, the sequel is more interested in chewing on you.

As drama, The Dark Crystal comes fully alive only at its rousing climax, and it's hampered by the Ken Doll blandness of our hero. As a bestiary, however, it is bountiful -- a prodigious and amusing parade of things that do much more than go bump in the night. [27 Dec 1982, p.61]

While there are few huge laughs, the very lack of pushiness in Harold Ramis's direction comes as comic relief. [8 Aug 1983, p.55]

Subtlety is not the draw here: condom jokes and toilet humor alternate with car crashes and machine-gun killings. Yet the movie has a bouncy, comic-book appeal: sadism has rarely been so good-natured. [17 July 1989, p.53]

A thriller set on an Indian reservation in the 1970s, Thunderheart has both passion and power, enough to compensate for its sometimes murky plotting and a fair dose of melodramatic hokum.

It may sound sordid, but Arteta manages to bounce from brutality to comedy with only a few missteps -- and without the sweaty moralism that usually attends melodrama. The low-budget Star Maps may not be fully realized, but it's fully alive. [28 July 1997, p.69]

Presumed Innocent is a slow fuse of a movie. It never quite explodes with the resonance Pakula intends. It tries too hard to be important. But the story it tells is a good one, and once it's got its hooks in you, there's no turning away. [30 July 1990, p.56]

It's preposterous, but never dull: Scott whips the action into a taut, tasty lather.

The Stepfather has its thin, B-movie stretches, but it's a smart B movie, with a sly satirical edge. And when the bottom falls out of Jerry's dream, watch out: the movie gets downright hair-raising. [27 Feb 1987, p.79]

Director Charles ("The Mask") Russell is no James Cameron. He can produce a requisite amount of suspense and mayhem..., but his filmmaking is strictly B-movie generic. [01 Jul 1996 Pg.62]