Gary Arnold

Its toxic recipe consists of prurient exploitation steeped in dankly pretentious imagery. [01 Jun 1992, p.D4]

One detects flickering intentions of enlarging on the formula material -- especially in the byplay between the actors playing narcs -- but the prevailing mood of the entertainment is decidedly bargain-basement. [11 Oct 1979, p.D15]

A generous entertainment of its kind, Any Which Way mixes plentiful portions of gauche, robust action and comedy with frequent musical interludes. [17 Dec 1980, p.E1]

Ice Castles has been shamelessly, and none too slickly, engineered to empty the tear ducts of customers primed to blubber at the sight of a Pavlovian cliche. [03 Feb 1979, p.D7]

Mr. Mom has its share of bright lines and funny moments, but if you bring anything beyond trifling expectations to this role-reversal farce, starring Michael Keaton and Teri Garr as a couple obliged to switch homemaking and breadwinning duties, it will be difficult to avoid feeling shortchanged. [20 Aug 1983, p.C1]

Even before it begins laying waste to the reputations of cast members, Firestarter is promptly exposed as a derivative embarrassment of a conception. What could be better calculated to illustrate King's recent decline than a "new" thriller whose devices have been poorly cribbed and patched together from "Carrie" and "The Fury"? As a matter of fact, "Charlie's Fiery Fury" would be a catchier bad title than Firestarter.

A more modest, down-to-earth disappointment than Firefox, it benefits from a fair amount of incidental entertainment value, much of it supplied by a distinctive and often humorous supporting cast. [18 Dec 1982, p.C4]

One is hard-pressed to isolate any feature of Now and Then that isn't stale from movie overtime and sentimentality. [20 Oct 1995, p.C17]

Smokey and the Bandit is an unexpected good time, a playful, wisecracking and curiously revealing example of All-American escapist entertainment. [29 July 1977, p.B1]

Lamentably short of sense and acting skill but extravagantly long on choreographic combat, Revenge of the Ninja supplies a mock-bloody feast of acrobatic punching, vaulting, cutting and thrusting for presumably insatiable martial arts fans. [28 Sep 1983, p.B11]

Neither triumph nor fiasco, Strange Brew leaves plenty of room for improvement, but I hope Thomas and Moranis get the chance to demonstrate that they've learned a lot from the mixed assortment of nuttiness in their first movie comedy. [30 Aug 1983, p.B4]

Obliged to launch the hero on an effective counterattack down the stretch, Wallace goes through the motions proficiently enough for exploitation thriller purposes. He should have quit while he was ahead, but Halloween III demonstrates a reasonable ability to control comic-horror effects on his first derivative try. [27 Oct 1982, p.D9]

In short, Magic is unworthy of its name. It's frightfully feeble and obvious. [11 Nov 1978, p.F11]

At best, the filmmakers are guilty of wholesale confusion. For lamentable example, the plot degenerates into a hopeless tangle of loose threads and discarded hooks, beginning with the initial vicious teaser, which identifies Pam Grier as a drug-crazed prostitute who guns down a pair of unwary young patrolmen in their squad car. [7 Feb 1981, p.C1]

You find yourself chewing over Laura Mars after the lights come up. Unfortunately, it's the kind of chew that leaves your jaw feeling tired and your mouth tasting sour. [03 Aug 1978, p.B6]

Ricochet, the latest explosive, cynical thriller from Joel Silver, best known for engineering the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard blockbusters, should keep action freaks overstimulated for the next few weeks. [08 Oct 1991, p.E5]

The conventions that worked for High Noon break down in the high-tech atmosphere of Outland and the story seems trite and dinky. [23 May 1981, p.C6]

Harry Hamlin remains in a depressing, narcissistic low gear in King of the Mountain. Part of the problem is a blah role: Steve is not a protagonist of many words, or even many revealing looks. [06 May 1981, p.E7]

One of the peculiar attractions of Easy Money is that it's suggestive enough to keep you amused even as it takes goofy, capricious detours. It's not what you'd call a classic or a class comedy act, but it has the kick of an embryonic pop phenomenon.

Shabbily photographed and raggedly assembled. Caddyshack is hanging evidence that Ramis wasn't prepared for the assignment or clever enough to fake it...Ramis proves unable to sustain a single frayed thread of plot continuity, and none of the prominent cast members -- Chevy Chase, Murray, Rodney Dangerfield and Ted Knight -- enjoys opportunities decisive enough or direction competent enough to generate a little comic momentum and help prevent the gratuitous material from falling in a stinky, dismembered heap.

While Airplane II, proves to be a breezy and tolerably consistent follow-up to its successful prototype, a parodistic copy that relied less on jokes from the original might have seemed a shade fresher. [11 Dec 1982, p.C1]

Indeed, you come out of Back Roads feeling more familiar with the configuration of Sally Field's spinal column and chestbone than the character she's struggling to embody.

Biographical stinker that insists on remaining unreasonably disjointed for 2 1/2 hours. [28 Jan 1983, p.D1]

Peckinpah is a filmmaking heavyweight, but in Convoy all he's doing is fighting off the boredom and frustration that grow out of coping with stupid material. [28 June 1978, p.E4]

The bitchery may be funny for its own sake, but it causes the film to lose touch with its real heroine and genre. Moreover, the Christie plot ends up so drastically foreshortened that you'd swear a reel must have been misplaced, although the sluggish direction of Guy Hamilton doesn't make one anxious to see it restored.

Parker's fatal misjudgment is failing to recognize that a solemnly expressionistic movie presentation of themes from "The Wall" tends to magnify its inherent lack of dramatic substance.

While it's fitfully, harmlessly diverting, Breaking Training never overcomes the handicaps that derive from its fundamentally derivative character. [04 Aug 1977, p.B11]

An entertaining mishmash of skits which finds Mel Brooks back in lively form, both for better and for worse. The only consistent thing about this burlesque miscellany, which incorporates skits about the Dawn of Man, Moses, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition and the French Revolution, is its inconsistency.