David Ansen

I'll take the Disney any day, in spite of the fact that the characters are cardboard, that the dialogue belongs in a deflated cartoon balloon, that the ending is hopelessly murky and that the acting -- by Schell, Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux and especially Ernest Borgnine, Robert Forster and Joseph Bottoms -- is abysmal. The magic of Peter Ellenshaw's production designs disarms the critical mind: the child in me had a dandy time. [24 Dec 1979, p.79]

The Turning Point has its flaws - some overwritten scenes and lapses into staginess and sentimentality - but they are those of heady excess and are easily forgiven. One has the sense of a project perfectly matched to the people who made it. [28 Nov 1977, p.97]

Fortunately, whenever the movie starts to sag, Depp flies to the rescue. It’s a truly piratical performance: with his flamboyantly fluttering fingers he steals every scene in the movie.

Expect to be confused for 10 minutes. Then sit back and enjoy the ride.

With an arsenal of cool f/x at their disposal, the Wachowskis have come up with a dizzyingly enjoyable junk movie that has just enough on its mind to keep the pleasure from being a guilty one.

In Wildcats, Hawn remains a pre-eminently delicious comedienne, even if the notion of a "Goldie Hawn movie" is becoming perilously predictable. [17 Feb 1986, p.68]

Directed, with neither prurience nor sentimentality, by Alan Clarke, the film is a celebration of the survival instincts of two game, practical girls, but a bleak wind blows just below the surface. [03 Aug 1987, p.67]

We're here for catty one-liners, movie-star camaraderie and fur-flying vengeance, and, in spite of a regrettable wimpiness that creeps in toward the end, that's what we get.

Copycat is satisfyingly tense, but the disgusto factor is balanced by its obvious theatricality--neatly captured in the contrasting performaces of Weaver and Hunter, the one playing neurotic standard poodle to the other's tightly wound terrier. [6 Nov 1995, pg.86]

Jumpy and ironic, Downey is a quicksilver delight and Kilmer is funny as the gay Perry. But Black’s inventive, self-conscious script--heavy on voice-over narration--can be too clever for its own good. The movie is baroque fun, but exhausting.

Kasdan has made a winning if overly pat first feature notable for its keen ear, its preference for character over plot and its refreshing modesty.

Poison's rich layers of juxtaposed images can't be easily digested in one viewing. The acting is uneven, the lighting sometimes dim, the tone at times deliberately awkward. But this suggestive, discordant movie takes you places you haven't been.

The self-deluded, 21-year-old heroine, can be an awful pain, but her meddling misjudgments are redeemed by her wit, grace and budding moral intelligence, and it's Gwyneth Paltrow's triumph that we always keep sight of that potential as she blithely plucks all the wrong heartstrings in town.

Director Sam Raimi, working from David Koepp's screenplay, wisely anchors his big action-adventure flick on Maguire's modest but beguiling persona.

At its screeching, wall-breaking best, “T3” achieves heavy-metal slapstick.

Mandoki's gripping film may pull on the heartstrings too knowingly, but it's hard to forget the sight of the village’s children lying silent and still on every rooftop, praying the recruiting soldiers below will pass them by.

Domestic violence has never been more savagely portrayed on screen.

It's basically a mindless paean to goofing off, with interludes of dubious seriousness. [16 June 1986]

Living Out Loud is far from seamless -- the last third of the movie has a choppy rhythm and an ending that doesn't quite work -- but it's alive in all the ways that count.

Intelligent, deadly serious, made in a spirit of patriotism and protest, Redford's movie is more civics lesson than drama and doesn't pretend otherwise. It is what it is: a call to action.

The Chosen is slowly absorbing and ultimately powerful, because it takes the time to reveal its characters in all their quirky complexity. [27 May 1982, p.100]

Gets too earnest for its own good. But Billy Ray and Terry George’s screenplay, taken from a John Katzenbach novel, is expertly plotted.

Wouldn't it have been more fascinating if, just once, they had to argue, as all debate teams must, against their own beliefs? That would have really tested these amazing kids' mettle--and the movie's too.

Ameche and Mantegna play off each other with lovely comic finesse. In the old shoeshine man's slightly befuddled dignity and the young hustler's inappropriate bravado, Amechi and Mantegna discover a delightful and touching dance of the Old World and the New. Odd couples are a dime a dozen in movies; these two make Things Change rare coin. [31 Oct 1988, p.72]

Director Donald Wrye handles this chestnut with restraint, scoring points about media madness and the fear of success without getting messagy. [05 Feb 1979, p.79]

For sheer off-the-wall audacity, Tim Burton's demented Beetlejuice certainly demands respect, even if it's more enjoyable in concept that in execution. [4 Apr 1988, p.72]

With Rachel Portman's music tugging too hard for tears, the movie sometimes comes dangerously close to being the soap opera McPherson worked so hard to disguise.

Children of Men leaves too many questions unanswered, yet it has a stunning visceral impact. You can forgive a lot in the face of filmmaking this dazzling.

Funny, sentimental, cheerfully bawdy story of a wedding reunion that stirs up a hornet's nest of old loves, lusts and jealousies.

Rosen's film has none of Baskshi's visual razzle-dazzle, but it is loaded with character, and it has the relentless momentum of a good war movie. [20 Nov 1978, p.79]

It's amazing how a sense of humor can turn a formula film into a frolic.

It's worth the price of admission just to hear Vilanch bouncing ideas off of a revved-up Robin Williams.

Badham's not-inconsiderable accomplishment is to have produced a decently entertaining romp composed entirely of borrowed parts. But however much one regrets to admit it, the movie is fun. [02 June 1986, p.75]

As tempting as it is to ridicule Rocky III, the disarming fact remains that Stallone has created a very potent populist myth. It worked for him before, and it works for him again. Just as Sinatra can endlessly reprise My Way and still raise goosebumps, so Stallone can turn out shameless variations on his Believe-in-Yourself miracle play and still get the old adrenaline pumping. [31 May 1982, p.70]

The Rock and Scott work up some nice comic chemistry, but it’s the dependably warped Walken who steals the most scenes. The frenetically edited fight sequences will satisfy the blood lust of the target audience.

There's not much depth to the charaterizations, but they're uncommonly vivid for a horror movie. You believe that these wildly disparate people are friends, and the growing sexual affection between Sutherland and Adams is conveyed with a nice, understated warmth. [18 Dec 1978, p.85]

Ron Howard's version is--no surprise--a funny, audience-friendly entertainment that's ultimately less scathing satire than conventional Hollywood romantic comedy outfitted in trendy new clothes.

It's an engrossing tale, and Weir's languid, sun-dappled images are at once seductive and unnerving. Yet there's something hollow at the core, an unearned sense of importance, a reliance on mere mood to suggest mytsical depths. Why does Weir - and why should the audience - so easily accept these vanished schoolgirls as adolescent oracles, some sort of pagan Cassandras? The symbolic burden of Hanging Rock inevitably suggests the use of the Marabar Caves in E.M. Forster's "A Passage to India," but the comparison only points up the shallowness of Weir's conception. His movie is stylish and entertaining, but what he is pushing as metaphysical profundity is closer to metaphysical mush. [5 March 1979, p.105]

Ironweed is strong stuff. [21 Dec 1987, p.68]

What stays with you finally is not the mystery's byzantine twists and turns, which are fun but don't resonate very deeply. It's the time, the place, the palpable feel of community. [2 Oct 1995, p.85]

Movies that make mental illness cute and poetic tend to give me the heebie-jeebies, and this one doesn't help its case by being evasively vague about the nature of Joon's condition. That said, it should be granted that Benny & Joon is one of the more palatable and inventive examples of this suspect genre, its inherent sappiness leavened by screenwriter Barry Berman's wit and director Jeremiah Chechik's clever use of familiar silent-comedy routines. [26 Apr 1993, p.64]

This new-wave fairy tale revels in unlikeliness and is not afraid to take its inspiration from sources as disparate as Diva, Madame Bovary and The Prince and the Pauper. The collision of inimical styles is its theme. Fortunately, even when the mile-a-minute plot is careering all over Manhattan, the movie seems to be following some cracked and sweet internal melody of its own. Which may be why this featherweight concoction lingers in the mind longer than you'd think possible. [08 Apr 1985, p.85]

The secret of Volcano's success as a better-than-average disasterama is its nonstop pace.

Zorro, the Gay Blade doesn't have an offensive or pretentious bone in its body; it's one of the few comedies around that can properly be called cute. That's no put down. [3 Aug 1981, p.50]

Brilliant, but shallow.

There's no point in overpraising The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. It'd a scary but predictable genre piece that telegraphs its every move.

Indeed, their most inspired moment is a total non sequitur -- a parody of "Jaws" involving a Baby Ruth bar and a pool full of terrified swimmers. Nonetheless, between Dangerfield's jokes, which charge like rhinos, and Chase's droll backhand swipes, there are just enough laughs to keep this harmless farce rolling to the eighteenth hole. [11 Aug 1980, p.69]

Night and the City hits a false note at the finish. Forgive that and relish the movie's snappy, low-life high spirits. [19 Oct 1992, p.67]

There are times when you wish the movie was a mini-series. This is meant both as a tribute, for the Ganguli family is so engaging you'd be happy spending much more time with them, and an acknowledgment that a tale this expansive doesn't always fit comfortably within the constraints of a feature-length frame.

If Forgetting Sarah Marshall doesn't reach the inspired heights of "Knocked Up" or "Superbad," it runs a very respectable second.

Much of Patriot Games is routine: good guys and bad guys running around with heavy artillery. But at its best moments, Noyce and Ford snap the genre back to life. [8 June 1992, p.59]

There's a great story here, but it feels like American Gangster hasn't been mined for all its riches.

A mostly successful attempt to resuscitate a series soiled by silliness, sloppiness and Joel Schumacher.

Hooper doesn't dig very deep into its Hollywood subject, but it's a good example of decent, no-frills filmmaking that lets a surprising amount of feeling seep through the cracks of its all-action formula. [21 Aug 1978, p.67]

Gremlins 2 has its horror-movie side, but the grisly is definitely subordinate to the gags. Only a snob could resist such a generous level of lunacy.

Whether you regard her as a symptom or a cure for a culture still locked in its eternal battle between the puritanical and the prurient, [Madonna's] out there at the barricades. In Truth or Dare, she's at her button-pushing best.

Ninety minutes into this massive movie the attack commences, and the spectacular images come hurtling like fireballs. This is, let's be honest, what we're here for, and what most Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movies serve up best: the poetry of destruction.

Working Girls has its shortcomings (the madam is too caricatured, the script occasionally reads like rehashed research), but the film, a fiction with the conviction of a documentary, fascinates and provokes. [06 Apr 1987, p.64]

Richard Benjamin's first film as a director, My Favorite Year, is a valentine-shaped satire with a tone of courtly rowdiness all its own. [04 Oct 1982, p.77]

Fletch Lives feels like TV, but at least it's clever, unpretentious TV. [20 Mar 1989, p.83]

The simplicity of Sicko's argument is also its power.

It's hard not to be impressed by Kerry's courage and calm leadership--and to wonder if that guy will show up again.

Blood Diamond only skims the surface of many important subjects--the script doesn't begin to explain what the civil war was about. But if it opens a few eyes, it will have done its job.

Bizarre, edgy and haunting tale.

It may be clumsily made, shamelessly contrived and utterly cynical in its calculated uplift, but there's no getting around it: the damn thing is funny.

Recklessly perched on the edge of the ludicrous, this examination of a destructive erotic passion unfolds with an unsettling mixture of steam and mordant iron.

Shot with gritty flamboyance by Robby Muller, cast with a fine eye for fresh, tough-guy faces, To Live and Die in L.A. may be fake savage, but it's fun. Friedkin can still cook up a good set piece: there's a tense, comic three-way chase in the L.A. airport, and a bravura car chase designed to evoke memories of "The French Connection." [11 Nov 1985, p.80]

A finely polished, stirring court-martial drama that retells the true story of three Aussie soldiers who are put on trial for the murder of Boer prisoners of war and condemned to death by the British, who hypocritically deny that they were acting on Kitchener's orders. [15 Sep 1980, p.104]

What this version offers is the chance to watch Russell Crowe and Christian Bale—two of the more charismatic, macho leading men around--duke it out psychologically, while another fine but less well-known intensity artist, Ben Foster, steals

The journey requires patience and the willingness to suspend your expectations of what a Burt-and-Goldie movie ought to be. This is a movie about what happens to a Fun Couple when they're not having fun. [27 Dec 1982, p.61]

Thanks to Ejiofor's wonderful performance--his easy, commanding body language wordlessly convinces you of his character's nobility--and Mamet's knowing take on the arcane world of Brazilian jiujitsu, Redbelt never loses its muscular hold on your attention.

Ratner's version is friskier, shallower-and more fun.

In its sweet, witty and modestly sentimental way, it delivers the romantic frissons that many star-studded, would-be blockbusters of the heart lumber in vain to achieve. [30 Apr 1979, p.81]

A twisted comedy for twisted times, this movie made me happy. Go figure.

Moment by moment, Sea of Love holds you in a tight grip. It's a stylish diversion, though it never gets much below its self-consciously "hot" surface. [18 Sep 1989, p.81]

This one is all about the boys. But as glad as we are to see them, watching the third installment is like attending a college reunion too soon after the last one: after the initial welcome, there's not all that much to say.

It's a testament to his (Amenabar's) cinematic flair that he has taken as daunting a subject as euthanasia and turned it into a crowd-pleasing movie. It's also an indication of what feels wrong here. I can't deny that I was moved, but it all goes down a bit TOO easy.

At times Southern Comfort seems like a kind of war game itself--an academic exercise, perfectly executed but a little cut and dried. Still, it's an exercise passed with flying colors. The objective is sighted, the mission accomplished, the audience properly pummeled. [05 Oct 1981, p.78]

Director Payne, who adapted Tom Perrotta's novel with Jim Taylor, has an authentically dire view of human behavior, which he expresses in crisp, edgy and sometimes startlingly raunchy style.

Great Expectations has great style; that's not everything we want from the movies, but sometimes it's almost enough. [2 February 1998, p. 61]

For about 15 gonzo minutes Dante supplies the most audaciously uproarious satire of the season. If only Eric Luke's script had prepared us more adroitly for this turnabout. The early stuff is aimed at the kids, the payoff can be properly savored only by adults, the finale is limp. But the blast of silliness is inspired. [29 July 1985, p.58]

This handsomely shot movie, with its throbbing Philip Glass score, has a kind of perverse integrity; its mixture of the art house and the hothouse is pure Schrader. I'm not sure whom this movie is made for, but you've got to admire the chutzpah of the man who got it made. [23 Sep 1985, p.68]

I'm not sure what kids are going to make of Bee Movie. The shiny, vivid computer-animated images pop off the screen with the vibrancy of the Pixar movies, but the understated, throwaway humor is pure Seinfeld: adult, observational, feasting on the small ironies of human (make that "beeish") behavior.

Director Jay Roach ("Austin Powers") has a keen sense of comic timing, and the script keeps finding clever new ways to mortify our poor hero.

As a genre movie, The Kingdom delivers atmosphere, heroic American derring-do and some decent thrills, though director Peter Berg's approximation of a jerky documentary style suffers from its proximity to the more textured "Bourne Ultimatum."

Though they’re full of undeniably spectacular moments, great production values and unusual ambition, a simple thing has gotten lost in these sequels: they’re not much fun.

Like a box of sampler candies, Radio Days offers a wide assortment of bite-size goodies. They can't all be to your taste, but the sweetness lingers from the best. [02 Feb 1987, p.72]

It’s not a particularly sexy movie. What’s shocking to Schrader is not Crane’s promiscuity, but his obtuseness. It’s the story of the unbearable lightness of Bob.

Shelton's strength is character, streetwise wit and funky, lived-in sexuality. Snipes, one of our most versatile young actors, gets to demonstrate his wonderful comic chops, and Harrelson, whose goofiness is part of his scam, partners him beautifully.

Forster's solid, unpretentious movie hits its marks squarely, and isn't afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. Only a mighty tough viewer could fail to be moved.

Silly as it is, The Contende has a lurid zest that keeps you hooked, and a rambunctiously good cast.

Packs an irresistible emotional punch.

There’s much to argue with, but this unconventional, oddly beautiful film resonates in unexpected ways.

Thematically, The Krays bites off more than it can chew: It's hungry for significance. But the horror of the twins' tale holds you in its clammy grip: it's a high-class creep show. [26 Nov 1990, p.80]

A tale this outrageous would seem to demand a more freewheeling style, but Shelton never really lest his hair down. His movie peaks too early: it feels over when Long loses the gubernatorial election; the last half hour seems redundant. But if Blaze isn't quite the movie it could have been, it's much too good a tale to pass up. [18 Dec 1989, p.68]

Let's face it: Culkin's self-reliant suburban warrior has entered a whole generations pop mythology. He's their Knight in Shining Parka, safely beyond criticism.

A far more accomplished anthology than Creepshow, Cat's Eye assumes an honorable but not exalted position in the multimedia King empire. But expect as many giggles as goose bumps. [06 May 1985, p.73]

Zemeckis has always relished technical challenges; once again he pulls them off with high style.

As much as I enjoyed its cheap thrills and its exquisite craft, Dressed to Kill left me wanting something more from De Palma.He has begun to borrow from himself -- one crucial twist is lifted shamelessly from "Carrie" -- and his jokey disregard for psychological plausibility (most evident in his disastrous "Obsession") is beginning to seem just lazy. It may seem unfair to ask for more depth from De Palma when his surfaces give so much pleasure, but from a director this prodigiously talented one expects miracles. Dressed to Kill takes his series of Hitchcockian homages about as far as they can go. It's exhilarating dead-end moviemaking, and one eagerly awaits his next move. [4 Aug 1980, p.61]

Like any reunion, Texasville is filled with awkward moments. But it's a friendly gathering -- funny, a little sad and worth the visit. [01 Oct 1990, p.70]

A return to form after the flat "Life Aquatic," Darjeeling has a lightweight, coloring-book charm that deepens and darkens after these odd, privileged ducks are thrown off the train.

The Border has the air of a project marred by studio compromises -marred but not broken. Warts and all, it has more passion, texture and bite than anything Richardson has done in a long while. [01 Feb 1982, p.72]

Builds dread masterfully, but don't expect solace or "fun." This is not for those who like mysteries neatly resolved.

Impersonal Hollywood filmmaking at its most paradoxical. It keeps you glued to your seat, and leaves no aftertaste whatsoever.

Columbus's Harry Potter has many delights, but the magical alchemy that the book seemed to achieve so effortlessly eludes it.

Demme has lots of fun, and, aided by a fresh, talented cast, he artfully modulates his moods from raunchy farce to somber pathos. [17 Oct 1977, p.102]

Frankie & Johnny is a hard movie to dislike. Marshall and McNally have a real fondness for their characters and a deep trunkful of showbiz savvy. The playwright's delicious one-liners detonate with precision timing. The supporting characters, expertly played, have the kind of instant familiarity of regulars on a favorite TV sitcom. [14 Oct 1991, p.68]

Holofcener gets the milieu beguilingly right, but the abrupt ending leaves you wanting more.

A glossy, engrossing piece of work. Yet the story feels worked up, inorganic. [10 June 1985, p.88]

The peril of making a movie about monochromatic people is that you'll make a monochromatic movie, and Brooks hasn't entirely avoided this problem. Basically, his imagination doesn't include other people: the audience is trapped inside one insanity and starts to crave variety. Still, few comics cut so close to the bone of daily life, and that's to be cherished. [25 Feb 1985, p.85]

Under the reins of Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen"), the Alien franchise has lost none of its taste for acid-spewing, flesh-impaling, entrail-dripping gore.

The latest Star Trek is the most down-to-earth, and certainly the funniest, movie in the series, further evidence of the show's amazing durability. [1 Dec. 1986, p.89]

There's almost nothing you haven't seen before in this slick, preposterous, but occasionally exciting thriller. An angry Ford absorbs, and dishes out, massive punishment for a fellow his age, while Virginia Madsen is sadly wasted as his wife.

Birch's confidence as a director ebbs and flows throughout -it's odd that she can direct the complicated musical numbers so well and bungle the action scenes so badly. Yet in the end it's hard to resist the movie's bubble-gum romanticism. There's even a dream sequence in which the heroine sings to a vision of her fantasy boyfriend, who appears in heaven in a silver-lame biker's outfit. What can-you say in the face of such sublime silliness but hooray for Hollywood? [14 June 1982, p.88]

In spite of the fact that everything turns out exactly as you think it will, director Curtis (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) Hanson's movie, written by Denis O'Neill, is a tense, satisfying entertainment. [30 Sep 1994, p.69]

The movie, which ricochets between farce and poignancy, casts just enough romantic pixie dust to leave you smiling. It's certainly not the last word on the subject, but it's an amiable start.

Beverly Hills Cop is no masterpiece, but it uses Murphy to maximum effect. At its best, the movie is exactly as brazen, charming and mercurial as Murphy himself, which is to say it is unimaginable without him. [3 Dec. 1984, p.81]

It doesn't try to knock your socks off. But if quiet integrity and grave charm count for anything, Brest has made an important debut. [14 Jan 1980, p.86]

Sometimes flat, The Human Factor is nonetheless a lucidly impressive return to form for the 73-year-old director. It's not really a thriller at all, but an understated, uncompromising dissection of an event: an anatomy of the murder of a soul. [11 Feb 1980, p.82]

Even when the film capitulates to its predictable feminist battle cry, director Howard Zieff maintains his poise, demonstrating the gift for light comic timing he showed in Hearts of the West. But the best reason for seeing Private Benjamin is Goldie Hawn, who proves herself a comic leading lady of the first order, a Cinderella in reverse who could charm the brass off the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [20 Oct 1980, p.84]

This movie's got a real story to tell, and the sheer urgency in its voice wins you over. [02 Oct 1978, p.85]

It's all kept light and funny, but underlying the broad sight gags is a movie that actually has something to say about competition, fathers and sons, machismo and caffeine.

It's the casting of Iraq vet and non-professional Jake McLaughlin as Specialist Bonner, who fought alongside Deerfield's son in Iraq, that strikes a deeper emotional chord. His scenes with Jones, fraught with a complicated mix of bitterness, concern and guilt, are the best things in the movie.

A fanciful, featherweight, mostly charming concoction predicated on the old romantic myth that there is one true soul mate out there for us all.

Slides gracefully between comedy and pathos (it aims for tragedy, but doesn't quite get there).

You may emerge more exhausted than elated. Nolan wants to prove that a superhero movie needn't be disposable, effects-ridden junk food, and you have to admire his ambition. But this is Batman, not "Hamlet." Call me shallow, but I wish it were a little more fun.

For all its violence - the movie has an almost fetishistic fascination with the destructive power of gunfire - the mayhem in The Gauntlet is as harmless as a comic book. You don't believe a minute of it, but at the end of the quest, it's hard not to chuckle and cheer. [02 Jan 1978, p.59]

A one joke movie? Perhaps, but it's such an engaging joke that anyone who loves old movies will find it irresistible. And anyone who loves Steve Martin will be fascinated by his sly performance, which is pitched exactly between the low comedy of The Jerk and the highbrow Brechtianisms of Pennies From Heaven. [24 May 1982, p.85]

As ludicrous as the dialogue by screenwriter/director Walter Hill may be, the film's visual scheme is hypnotic. Dark, moody and muscular, its style gets under your skin even if your brain rebels. [21 Aug 1978, p.66]

No better children's film has appeared all year, but my bet is it'll be the grown-ups, not the kids, who come away with a lump in the throat.

Though the tale is told with crisp sangfroid and a wonderful twist, there's hardly a scene I haven't seen somewhere else.

It's a picturesque tale that, hobbled by its episodic structure, never achieves full steam.

Still, even if the movie's vast reach exceeds its grasp, it's a spellbinding history lesson. The Good Shepherd demands you watch it like a spy: alert, paranoid, never knowing whom you can trust, or who will stab you in the back.

Strictly as exploitation, Bad Boys is a pretty slick piece of work. It's overlong and short on characterization. But it's unsentimental about its teen-age hoods and unsparing about the nastiness of juvenile jails. [28 Mar 1983, p.73]

Small in scale, grittily realistic, charged with a fierce intelligence about how people live on the other side of the law, the film makes few concessions to an audience's expectations, but it has an edgy, lingering intensity. [03 Apr 1978, p.91]

Imagine "The War of the Roses" remade as a James Bond fantasy, with appropriately high-tech weaponry, and you have some idea of what Doug Liman's heavily armed comedy has in store.

An engaging and touching flight of fancy. [17 July 1995, p.60]

A mix-and-match crowd-pleaser that shouldn't add up, but delightfully does.

Gillespie’s movie walks a delicate line through a minefield of potential bad taste. Directed with patient, low-key sensitivity, it never goes for a cheap laugh at its protagonist’s expense.

In the hard-driven, sitcomish Broadway production, these colorful disasters too often seemed willed and self-conscious. The difference here, under Bruce Beresford's direction, is the unalloyed pleasure of watching Spacek, Lange and Keaton devour these juicy parts with lip-smacking relish. [22 Dec 1986, p.75]

Using the distinctive cinematographer Barry Sonnefeld, who shot "Raising Arizona," DeVito gives his comedy a crisp, colorful pop look: you can almost see the broad cartoon outlines drawn around the figures. [14 Dec 1987, p.69]

A thick stew of sex, violence and suspicion, Lee's movie -- spiked up with a virtually nonstop soundtrack -- definitely has the power to jangle your nerves.

Q & A is an uncommonly ambitious thriller, but it rarely goes solemn -- it's a raw, rude Cook's tour of the New York underworld, from transvestite bars to precinct offices to Mafia mansions -- with a violent side trip to San Juan thrown in. [07 May 1990, p.65]

If the movie is a mess, it's a vital, entertaining mess -- the most interesting film Jewison (F.I.S.T., In the Heat of the Night) has made in years. [22 Oct 1979, p.102]

There's no denying that Emmerich's film, though a good half hour too long, keeps us watching.

Scene by well-crafted scene. Mamet holds you in a tight grip. But this movie is troubling. His intricate murder mystery plot may be overdetermined -- it doesn't leave enough room to satisfactorily explore the richly suggestive themes of identity, loyalty and betrayal. Gold's transformation seems willed by artistic fiat. The bleakness of his ending is a kind of intellectual cop-out: it reduces all that we've seen to hollow ironies. Homicide plays like a house afire: what it adds up to may be less than it seems. [14 Oct 1991, p.70]

Speed Racer creates a timeless, visually seductive world suspended somewhere between the pop '60s and the sci-fi future.

Full of invention, but under the colorful icing is a slightly stale cake.

It’s sad to see such stunning work self-destruct. You walk out haunted by the movie that might have been.

Scott's finesse can't entirely disguise the mechanical nature of Nicholas and Ted Griffin's script, which has one too many twists for its own good. Fun while it lasts, but it's a bit of a con job itself.

"The Final Frontier" is not as witty as the last installment, nor as well made as "The Search for Spock." But it has the Trek essence in spades. [19 June 1989, p.63]

For the most part, however, Beaches is lean cuisine. It's not quite good enough to ring with any authenticity and not quite tasteless enough to be a glitzy, trashy wallow. But it has one enormous, undeniable asset: Bette Midler. [26 Dec 1988, p.66]

Working from an intermittently clever script by Diane Thomas, director Robert Zemeckis, a talented Spielberg protege (Used Cars), sets his sights on fun and proceeds to blast away at our defenses. Some of the fun is real, but much of it seems grimly willed, which tends to be more exhausting than entertaining. Douglas himself is a less than ideal choice as a hip Indy Jones adventurer -- there's no sense of self-enjoyment in his swagger. But Turner more than compensates. [16 Apr 1984, p.93]

Brando's performance is enormous fun, but it's not just a joke. He's hilarious and gently mesmerizing at once, and director John Frankenheimer savvily adjusts the tone of his movie to fit Brando's daft brilliance...Let's face it -- this is one nutty movie. It's not exactly "good," but I sure had a good time.

It's hobbled by the too-familiar conventions of the musical biopic: with so many chapters of Charles's life to cover, Hackford's movie never finds a rhythm, a groove, to settle into. It wins its battles without winning the war.

But if the endpoint is a homiletic given, the journey itself is more charming, and less sentimental, than you might suspect.

There are just enough fresh, funny gags and witty throwaways to keep the 88-minute MIB2 percolating -- it fulfills its end of the bargain: a good time will be had by almost all.

American Flyers is too accomplished not to wring tears, but you may want to kick and scream before you succumb. [09 Sep 1985, p.90]

After the taut and troubling Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood's A Perfect World feels like a breather. As usual, you can expect solid, no-fuss craftsmanship, but it's best to set your expectations down a notch.

For those who believe that movies are a proper place to explore the riddle of sex, no holds barred, this movie is de rigueur.

Ritt and DeVore don't capitalize on their fairy-tale structure; they let the magic dribble away. The moviegoer knows from the start that this isn't a story about real people and accepts the fact. [16 Mar 1981, p.97]

Relieved of his courting duties, Allen gives his funniest performance in ages.

The preposterousness of the premise (concocted by writers Perry Howze and Randy Howze) is the appeal of Chances Are. The problem is the execution. Where "Heaven Can Wait" seduced you into belief with its expert comic timing and romantic urgency, director Emile ("Dirty Dancing") Ardolino's fantasy grows increasingly labored as it piles improbability upon psychological impossibility. [20 March 1989, p.83]

In the antic, melancholy comedy The Royal Tenenbaums, the singular Wes Anderson (“Rushmore”) abandons his native Texas for a storybook vision of New York.

Wonderfully cast and acted, Parents establishes an intriguing comic metaphor about the dark side of the nuclear American family but unfortunately doesn't know where to take it. In the end, the wafer-thin script capitulates to the routine horror-movie conventions it's been battling against. But at least until then it puts up a good fight. [13 Feb 1989, p.79]

Unlike some other Landis movies, the harmlessly silly Three Amigos never wanders too far afield in pursuit of a laugh. It's a well-wrought giggle machine. [15 Dec 1986, p.83]

Iceman may boil down to a disappointingly sentimental/mystical concept, but Schepisi is such a fluid, exciting filmmaker that you remain thrilled by his images even if you're dismayed by the direction the plot takes. [16 Apr 1984, p.92]

Films about great theatrical divas (so temperamental! So divine!) all strike familiar notes. This Somerset Maugham adaptation is no exception. But Annette Bening, playing the queen of the '30s London stage, makes it worth another go-round.

Has a quiet sense of community, a wry, unsentimental sweetness, that grows on you. It's a patient movie for impatient times.

Zoo avoids any taint of exploitation, but it errs on the opposite extreme. I came away from it wanting a little less Art and a lot more simple reportage.

The Hunger is slick, silly and not without thrills. [09 May 1983, p.85]

Not every movie -- even one based on an unproduced Kurosawa screenplay -- has to be about Life itself. Oh well, enjoy it for the thrills, and don't worry about trying to keep a straight face. [30 Dec 1985, p.62]

For all its shortcomings, The Human Stain is an honorable, sometimes moving attempt, better at evoking the poignancy of Silk's autumnal affair than exploring the moral ambiguities of his deception.

Part satire, part love story and, in its lurid deprogramming scenes, pure horror story. Not everything jells, and one never fully believes the hero's transformation from skepticism to subservience. Yet Kotcheff has again delivered a compelling entertainment and one savvy enough to raise more questions than it answers. [25 Oct 1982, p.119]

Under the Cherry Moon is not recommended for seekers of good taste, but if you're looking for a giddy, outre night at the movies, Prince is your man. [21 Jul 1986, p.65]

The demands of the historical epic form seem to hobble Jordan's imagination. He's a director who's at his best when he can follow the dark logic of his own subconscious.

Neither hilarious nor horrible, Junior is the first would-be Arnold blockbuster that coasts on charm.

The film, adapted by Jeffrey Alan Fiskin and directed by Ivan Passer, captures Thornburg's tense, moody vision of life on the California edge, but it runs into trouble as a mystery. Fiskin has radically altered the last third of the book and has come up with a new ending that is far too ambiguous, abrupt and silly. One feels let down that so much comes to so little...Yet the film's sad twilight glow lingers. Cutter and Bone and Mo get under your skin. [6 Apr 1981, p.103]

Alternately beguiling and bloated, witty and warmed over, smart and pandering. The majority is likely to swoon; the minority will squirm their way through it.

Robert Zemeckis's movie is frustratingly uneven. When it's good, it's very good. And when it's not, it can be as silly and self-important as bad '50s sci-fi.

As anthropology, it's fascinating, and everything about the production is first class. But the human drama at the heart of this movie is stillborn.

A schizoid action flick bogs down in lofty intentions.

Fails to rouse any passion. A potentially great subject is frittered away, though this being a Scott movie, there's style to spare.

Body of Evidence won't be remembered for classic plotting or brilliant legal gambits. But give it its due: it holds one's attention.

Beresford's nice little movie seems so afraid to make a false move that it runs the danger of not moving at all. [07 Mar 1983, p.78B]

Paternity evades every serious issue it raises and blows a nice opportunity to be something more than a pleasantly run-of-the-mill entertainment. [12 Oct 1981, p.99A]

The peculiar thing about Into the Night is that while it fails to deliver the conventional goods, it succeeds as an unclassifiable mood piece, a quirky voyage into seedy all-night Los Angeles. There are nice cameos from Bruce McGill as Pfeiffer's surly brother, and from David Bowie as a deadly hit man. It's good to see Goldblum in a leading role, even though he is kept on a tight rein; Pfeiffer is alluring and touching, like a precious object made from base parts. For the first time in a Landis movie, real pain reaches the surface. Propelled by B. B. King's haunting blues, this oddball movie sneaks under the skin. [11 March 1985, p.70]

Hyams's attempt at a cosmic conclusion is about as earth shattering as yesterday's weather report. [10 Dec 1984, p.94]

Barring one dreadfully trumped-up climactic scene, they've managed to avoid the usual asylum-movie cliches.

Noyce orchestrates the suspense with impressive visual flair, using the constricted setting to great advantage. But an hour into the tale impatience sets in when it becomes clear that neither he nor screen-writer Terry Hayes has anything more in mind than pressing our fear buttons. Ultimately, this is just a waterlogged damsel-in-distress movie. [17 Apr 1989, p.72]

Arthur is not the best comedy of the season, which is a pity because it has the best comic team--Dudley Moore as a childish, perpetually soused millionaire named Arthur Bach and John Gielgud as his snobbish, reprimanding and adoring valet, Hobson. [27 July 1981, p.75]

Under Buddy Van Horn's nonchalant direction, the Eastwood/Peters romantic chemistry is rather low voltage, but they both seem to be enjoying themselves. Keep your expectations modest, and you will, too. [12 Jun 1989, p.67]

What makes you giggle your way through much of the movie isn't the jokes--Jonathan Gems's script is surprisingly feeble, and Burton's comic timing is often flat-- but the sheer, oddball chutzpah of it all. [23 Dec 1996]

This sweet, sometimes clunky chick flick is a likable teen romance, but not likely to arouse the giddy swoons Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey generated back in ’87.

Guts, wit and soul, these suburban kids have it all: Babysitting outdoes even John Hughes in flattering its target audience, and for this it will doubtless be amply rewarded. [13 July 1987, p.60]

Employing an unconventional structure full of funny flashbacks and talking-to-the-camera monologues, Singles is brimful of clever bits and likable performances. Why, then does it seem so weightless? Something slick and generic has slipped into Crowe's work: too much of "Singles" feels like television. His sympathy for the youth culture now feels not so much uncanny as canned. You want to like a movie this inventive, this friendly, and you can't deny Crowe's talent. But "Singles" is all approach: it never seems to arrive. [21 Sept 1992, p.78]

This scary, eye-opening documentary looks back from a post-9/11 vantage point to see how Ike’s prophecy has come horribly true.

A romantic comedy for an era of diminished expectations.

What Scott brings to this, for him, surprisingly conventional genre moving is a superb sense of mood, seductive settings and a nice feel for the comedy of colliding social classes. Yet for all its tension and style, the movie feels thin. The obligatory violent ending is a real letdown: implausibly plotted and much too familiar. And while there's nothing wrong with Berenger's solid, witty performance, he's a little bland. [12 Oct 1987, p.84D]

What keeps this movie honest is the characters, each of them a mass of conflicting instincts, virtues and vices. You know Gonzalez Inarritu comes from outside Hollywood because he doesn't divide the world into heroes and villains.

Stone creates such a sizzling, raunchy, vital world that the cliches almost seem new.

There is one reason, and only one, for anyone to check out Vertical Limit. The hanging-by-a-fingernail mountain-climbing sequences are spectacular.

The nimble Hanks again proves his delicious way with a double take; Long is nothing if not likable, and Godunov is a supremely silly narcissist. If the filmmakers had trusted these performers more, and stuck closer to reality, things might have turned out better. Instead of a real-estate fiasco anybody could roar at in recognition. The Money Pit has been inflated into a noisy destruction derby. [21 Apr 1986, p.82D]

The spectacle played out in Levinson's lyrical, dark-hued images never achieves the emotional whiplash the movie's after. Levinson's somber elegance and Toback's volatile aggression don't quite mesh: perhaps what this story needed was the fleet, gaudy ferocity of a Sam Fuller. Bugsy never makes the transition from the filmmakers' heads to the audience's gut.

Sweetness is not a quality one normally associates with Clint Eastwood, but true sweetness is precisely what Bronco Billy aspires to -- and occasionally achieves. At once sentimental, arch and harmlessly good-natured, Eastwood's latest is a romantic comedy in which Clint appears as the fast-drawing, trick-riding star of his own Wild West show. [23 June 1980, p.77]

Hero unfolds with zest and confidence, yet as genuinely enjoyable as it is, it doesn't fully come together. For one thing, its satire of the heartless media is hardly novel anymore. [05 Oct 1992, p.73]

This is funny? Yes, as Pryor does it--not as knee-slapping farce, mind you, but as the painful comedy of endured humiliation of which he is the master... But it's high time Pryor stopped redeeming badly made movies and surrounded himself with talents equal to his own. [12 Apr 1982, p.87]

You can convince yourself you're having a good time watching Big Business. The idea seems so funny you smile in anticipation of the jokes, but the laughter is strangely tinny. It's a harmless concoction, but so mechanical it vanishes from your head the instant it's over. It should have been so much more. [13 Jun 1988, p.74]

As the proud, independent young author, Hathaway is both subdued and alluring--it's her most mature performance. The movie goes down easy, but there's a thin line here: is this an homage or a parasite?

Like "Airplane!", the film is teeming with funny ideas. Unlike "Airplane!", the majority do not come off...Top Secret! is mildly amusing at best. [25 June 1984, p.69]

Ridiculous, and oddly unforgettable.

Not a fiasco, a disaster or a scandal. But not as funny as it should have been, and not the trenchant office satire one was led to expect. As a comedy built on the juicy soil of revenge, "9 to 5" falls between two poles. It's not wild or dark enough to qualify as a truly disturbing farce and it's too fanciful and silly to succeed as realistic satire. Politically and esthetically, it's harmless--a mildly amusing romp that tends to get swallowed up by its own overly intricate plot. [22 Dec 1980, p.72]

This Man in Black is, frankly, a bit of a wuss. As a love story, Walk the Line can seduce. As a biopic, it treads awfully familiar Overcoming Adversity turf.

Torn between celebration and sendup, CB4 misses its big target as often as it hits. Still, it's hard not to chuckle when Rock, in a slow-motion lovers-running-in-the-field montage, trips and falls under an excess of gold chains, or when he experiences a nightmare vision of his future in the Hip Hop Retirement Home.

The heart of the movie is in the Rocky-Rusty relationship, and as long as Bogdanovich sticks with Cher and Stoltz, his film is genuinely moving and largely free of cant. Far more problematic is the portrait of the biker gang who, for all their rowdiness, are about as threatening as Santa's elves. [04 Mar 1985, p.74]

The movie tries too hard. Too bad. This coulda been a contender.

Ready to Wear is all appetizers: the main course never arrives. Still, the critical savagery puzzles me. Altman's movie may be indefensible, but it's not unenjoyable. The fun of it is entirely superficial, like skimming a gossip column.

As well-crafted and sensitive as it is, the movie remains one step removed from inspiration.

Crossroads is an uneasy hybrid. The script, by 26-year-old John Fusco, wants both to offer authentic homage to the great Delta musicians and to appeal to the teen market. [24 March 1986, p.77]

I respect it enormously, but it feels like an art film in search of a movie.

Nightmarish scenes are intercut with interviews with the real men. These could be more probing, and the film's urgency can tilt toward shrillness, but nobody else has made the disaster of Guantánamo so painfully vivid.

Richard Donner's sequel is more than eager to please -- it's desperate.

Shorn of its inside references, it's a very mixed bag - pleasant but overlong, funny when Steve Martin is on hand and stultifying when Frankie Howerd goes into his Mean Mr. Mustard routines, full of wonderful music that too rarely reaches the boiling point and pathos that sinks to bathos. [31 Jul 1978, p.42]

Pitched too broadly to get very deeply under your skin. Still, there are some smarts at work here, and it will make you laugh.

Shortbus tends to work better in its first, comic half, than in its second, more serious stretch, where the characters' trials and tribulations flirt with soap opera. The actors, formidable with their clothes off, aren't always as expressive fully dressed.

A patchwork affair held together by spit, a prayer and the volatile, baby-faced charm of Richard Pryor. [15 Aug 1977, p.77]

If you can overlook the obvious flaws -- a bumpy beginning, a villain whose motive is both too obvious and hard to swallow -- The Bodyguard has its flashy, shallow pleasures. There's some wit in Kasdan's script, and plenty of dread in the big Oscar-ceremony climax (reminiscent of "The Man Who Knew Too Much"). When it works, it's like watching a paranoid edition of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." [30 Nov 1992, p.80]

Since somebody this year was bound to make a movie called Valley Girl, let's be grateful the job fell to director Martha Coolidge, who has a light, satirical touch, and screenwriters Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane, whose modest exploitation movie is thoroughly good-natured. [09 May 1983, p.85]

Tony Bill's first film as a director has moments of genuine charm and humor, it doesn't overinflate the adolescent agonies of its 15-year-old hero, Clifford Peache (Chris Makepeace), and it has a nice feel for the indignities and intimidations of a boy's high-school life. But it rings true only when it stays in the classrooms and hallways of the Chicago public school to which Clifford has just been transferred. When it follows him home to the posh hotel where he lives with his father (Martin Mull) and his grandmother (Ruth Gordon), My Bodyguard suddenly feels like a pilot for a bad sitcom. [25 Aug 1980, p.74]

This fragile, precious chamber piece, co-written with Susan Minot, rarely seems worthy of the high style lavished upon it. [24 Jun 1996 Pg.83]

Gangs is a dream project Scorsese has wanted to make for 30 years. You have to honor its mad ambition. But sadly, it feels like a dream too long deferred.

Only the first half of Johnny Dangerously really works, but then such nonstop silliness is almost impossible to sustain. [14 Jan 1985, p.53]

The Reader can feel stilted and abstract: the film's only flesh-and-blood characters spend half the movie separated. But its emotional impact sneaks up on you. The Reader asks tough questions, and, to its credit, provides no easy answers.

Nair and Witherspoon pull back from the ferocity of Thackeray's portrait: they're afraid we won't find Becky Sharp likable enough. Yes, she's the most brilliant, bold and vibrant creature in this social panorama, but she should also be chilling.

Kloves doesn't want to play by conventional romantic comedy rules, but he hasn't quite figured out what to replace them with. After the first seductive hour, which dances on the edge of comedy and melancholy, The Fabulous Baker Boys grows increasingly frustrating. The audience is enjoying Klove's hip, knowing update of romantic conventions, but the director seems to think he's making "realism": he misjudges the gravity of his story, and his touch becomes more ponderous. [23 Oct 1983, p.84]

When the satire stays focused on Streep or her snooty Brit assistant (Emily Blunt), "Prada" is malicious fun. But the central story about how smart, idealistic Anne Hathaway, as Miranda's drably dressed new assistant, loses her soul in pursuit of success and great shoes is dramatically anorexic.

Hughes may deserve more plaudits as a social worker than a filmmaker, but you have to admit his hokey situation plays. The reason is the five terrific young actors, who bring more conviction to these parts than they perhaps deserve.

Violence belongs in Dracula - the problem is simply that Badham is not good at it. Virtually every big action scene is confusingly staged and clumsily edited. It is particularly sad to report that Olivier is terribly misused. [23 Jul 1979, p.70]

Though The Bounty is almost willfully perverse in thwarting audience expectations, and though it ends anticlimactically, you can't dismiss it. You know you've seen something. A spell, however faint, has been cast, like the one the island casts on the Bounty's crew. [14 May 1984, p.81]

The change of locale to Washington, D.C., Venice, Calif., and New Orleans only re-emphasizes the fact that this sleek comic-strip mix of violence and romance could take place anywhere except in the real world.

Andy Tennant's flimsy but generally likeable comedy is tailor-made for Smith's cheerfully suave comic style, and the movie goes out of its way to avoid any hint of sleaziness.

Peaks early, then descends into portentous nonsense.

Those who haven’t seen “Lock, Stock” will probably get a bigger kick out of Snatch than those who have. The second time around, what seemed spontaneous can sometimes feel strained.

Escape From New York gets more conventional as it goes along, settling for chases and narrow escapes when it could have had wild social satire as well. Carpenter has a deeply ingrained B-movie sensibility--which is both his strength and limitation. He does clean work, but settles for too little. [27 July 1981, p. 75]

The Falcon and the Snowman lurches about awkwardly, withholds crucial information and lacks a strong point of view. It is nonetheless fascinating, a kind of darkly comic illustration of the banality of contemporary evil. Penn is reason enough to see the film. [04 Feb 1985, p.15]

In Parker's hands, Billy's story has become a virtuoso horror show-an exercise in emotional manipulation designed not merely to arouse chills but to turn the audience into avengers. Despite the remarkably controlled, honestly conveyed performance of Davis, Billy finally seems far less vivid than his prison friends-Randy Quaid's highly combustible American roughneck, the superb John Hurt's strung-out English junkie. Parker captures their camaraderie well, but he fails to convey any sense of day-to-day prison life-so keen is he to get to the assaultive highlights. [16 Oct 1978, p.76]

In trying to appeal to a wide audience, quirky material has been forced to fit a formula that can't really contain it.

What charm, quirkiness and warmth the movie possesses is due largely to them (Cage and Leoni).

Under the direction of special-effects whiz Douglas Trumbull, Brainstorm provides lots of good cheap thrills and a juicy performance by Fletcher as a passionate scientist. But Trumbull is consistently more at home with technology than with the human drama (can Walken rescue his relationship with his wife, played by the late Natalie Wood?), and the spectaculariy cosmic ending leaves too many key questions unanswered. [10 Oct 1983, p.94]

It's an expertly made film that, scene by scene, holds your attention. But both emotionally and intellectually, it doesn't add up.

While this accomplished film holds you in its grip, it doesn't convince. The revelatory urgency that made Selby's book a literary scandal is long gone. [14 May 1990, p.75]

I Am Legend can't seem to make up its mind just what kind of movie it wants to be.

It's obviously a dangerously stretched premise, but writer-director Andrew Bergman keeps the plot rolling so fast you don't really mind. Bergman, who wrote "The InLaws" and "Blazing Saddles," mixes his comic punches well, from low slapstick to English-major jokes to Jewish social satire. [12 Oct 1981, p.99A]

This flirts dangerously with the cornball. But for the most part The Natural is rescued by its fine polish: the gravity balanced by wry, sneaky humor, the rosiness tempered by darkness and disquiet, the fairy-tale vision dressed up in impeccably detailed period dress. [28 May 1984, p.77]

Of the three, Real Genius comes tantalizingly close to being a real, and interesting, movie. If only Coolidge weren't hemmed in by the formulaic plot. [26 Aug 1985, p.62]

This material is charged enough without piling on the melodrama and the lip-smacking violence. The movie too often sacrifices reportage for razzle-dazzle.

The Final Countdown is clunky, square filmmaking, but it's rarely boring, and the screenwriters come up with a final mysterious twist that saves the movie at the last moment from a disastrously anti-climactic turn of events. [18 Aug 1980, p.85]

The most incendiary movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time. It's a mess, but one worth fighting about.

Damon's Ripley is considerably different from the charming sociopath in Patricia Highsmith's novel or the smooth lothario played by Alain Delon in the 1960 French thriller "Purple Noon."

The period details are dryly elegant and painstakingly authentic. Yet the film feels underfed - there's not enough meat on the bones of the plot to warrant such opulence. [30 Jan 1978, p.55]

The Razor's Edge is a pretty lame movie, but you've got to salute Byrum and Murray for their bravely unfashionable commitment. For better or worse, they mean it. [22 Oct 1984, p.99]

Forman's decision to stick to the surface is probably, in the end, a wise one. Kaufman always wanted to keep us guessing, and this movie respects his wishes.

A movie of arresting pieces that don't harmonize into a satisfying whole.

The story is predictable, the science is dubious, the dialogue leaden and the acting indifferent. No matter. When Frankenheimer brings on his garish monster, it's as if the audience had never seen one before. Fear and tremblings shake the seats. [18 Jun 1979, p.54]

The trouble with Sudden Impact is that it has the makings of a fascinating, multileveled melodrama, but settles for crude, comic-book detail. Eastwood doesn't want to let down his Dirty Harry fans, but at the same time he wants to take this character into deeper and murkier waters. The result is curious, a disquisition on the justice of revenge written with a spray can. [12 Dec 1983, p.109]

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension doesn't play it safe. For that alone you may want to bless its demented little heart. Buckaroo Banzai may not work, but that's the risk of high-wire acts. At least it's up there trying. [20 Aug 1984, p.75]

There is some elegant and clever filmmaking in Rising Sun. But ultimately Kaufman and Crichton are a bad fit: trying to transcend the material, the director loses the novelist's crude but compelling urgency.

There's something decidedly mechanical about this intermittently gripping movie's bleak view of human nature.

Hollywood rarely mounts these lavish period epics anymore. It's nice to see them try, even if the result is somewhat less than heart-stopping.

Director Guy Hamilton's movie is rather more effective as an advertisement for Majorca than as a thriller, and the idea of Ustinov as Poirot remains more enticing than the reality, but you could do a lot worse. Think of it as a languid cocktail party with a terrific guest list. [22 Mar 1982, p.85]

You cannot accuse Wolfen of dullness. Though he hasn't the least interest in developing his characters, Wadleigh keeps you on your toes with a steady diet of dismembered bodies, red herrings (make that Red for the terrorists and Indians) and the sheer lunacy of the concept, which must be seen to be disbelieved. [03 Aug 1981, p.51]