Gary Arnold

Even the premise for this sputtering attempt at a picaresque farce seems to anticipate a vehicle prone to misfires and breakdowns. [12 Aug 1982, p.E1]

Moses has staged one totally abstract, contemplative sequence of Erving practicing by himself on a playground court at night. The succession of slow-motion, overlapping dissolves of Erving gliding and dunking in solitary grandeur is a rather pretty abstraction, but it seems to stylize his prowess in a misleading way. The transcendant thing about Erving is that he's capable of performing feats in competition and in real time that the rest of us only dream of doing while playing one-on-none.

You're obliged to take your fun where you can find it during this coyly coarse-minded, near-wreck of a musical, and there's precious little to be found watching the costars gather moss in each other's uneasy company. [23 July 1982, p.D3]

Sounds hard to mess up, but Death Hunt is so unconvincing that you never once stop asking yourself, "Why is this manhunt necessary?" [27 May 1981, p.B6]

Writer-director Dearden, who earned his gruesome credentials as the screenwriter on Fatal Attraction, underlines his leading lady's lack of rudimentary skill by leaving the soundtrack full of dead air and amateurish articulation during numerous conversations. He's also repeatedly drawn to Hitchcock allusions that slip out of his grasp. [26 Apr 1991, p.E1]

Exorcist II seems to have evolved out of delusions of cinematic grandeur shared by Boorman and writer William Goodhart. It's obvious that they wanted to contrive a metaphysical thriller that would be astonishing and spiritually inspiring, but their thought processes are so muddled that the movie degenerates almost instantly into a confounded shambles. [18 June 1977, p.B1]

Vertigo remains something less than a foolproof psychological spellbinder and agonizer. It's compulsively watchable and stylish, but the obsessive and delirious moods seem to exist apart from the creaky plot, which fails to convince one of the nature of the conspiracy that entraps Stewart's character in the first place or of the follow-up system of coincidence that eventually drives him up the fateful bell tower. [10 March 1984, p.G1]

Well, cloddish as it is, Tank doesn't put any obstacles in the way of separating the good guys from the bad guys. And while you might justly call it stupefying, it's never boring. [28 Mar 1984, p.B17]

The plot synopsis bears may a suspicious resemblance to "Alien." [6 Nov 1981, p.23]

Unfortunately, The Champ does not let well enough alone. It slogs on for about two reels too many, concluding on a note of utterly contrived tragedy that should make just about everyone feel wretchedly deceived. [04 Apr 1979, p.B1]

King of the Gypsies gets caught in a paralyzing bind between sordid subject matter and ridiculous casting. Ostensibly a serious, compelling melodramatic chronicle about dynastic conflict within the gypsy subculture of contemporary American, the movie resolves itself lickety-split into a laughter. [20 Dec 1978, p.E1]

Since I had been fortunate enough to miss or avoid the earlier installments, "The Love Bug" and "Herbie Rides Again," the latest entry in the Disney studio's cycle of farces about the exploits of a sentient, racy Volkswagen, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, came as a more stupefying shock than it probably should have. As excruciating kiddie vehicles go, a Herbie is certainly more diverting than a Benji, but comparison at this level smack of sheer desperation. [27 July 1977, p.B7]

The finished film obliterates whatever promise of novelty and human interested existed in the basic idea of Belinski's culture shock. If the rabbi's odyssey was embryonically appealing, the filmmakers have nurtured it along pact from an elephant trying to hatch a robbin's egg. [27 July 1979, p.B1]

Social consciousness and cultural respectability are allowed to make deep inroads on the raunch, since the kids are suddenly congregated around the Drama Club and devote their major conspiratorial campaign to discrediting a bigoted preacher who threatens to interfere with the term play. [2 July 1983, p.C3]

Such a half-baked, arbitrary update that the decrepit plot seems to arise from the misty region of a kind of Jewish Brigadoon in contemporary Manhattan, a Ghetto That Time Forgot. [20 Dec 1980, p.D3]

The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again is content to deepen the rut left four years ago by its predecessor, The Apple Dumpling Gang, one of the dreariest Disney artifacts of the decade but a comfortable box-office success.

Irving is a generalissimo of literary assault techniques, shameless about shifting his emphasis from, say, the lewd to the sanctimonious on a moment's notice if he perceives an emotional advantage, particularly one lending itself to convulsive moral indignation. [17 March 1984, p.C8]

Lacking the necessary gusto and sexual chemistry, Rollover is doomed by an excess of huffing and puffing...Despite posh accessories and surroundings, Jane Fonda and leading man Kris Kristofferson seem oddly haggard as well as mismatched -- two rawboned impostors who can't believe in themselves as a dynamic, voluptuous erotic duo. Their skepticism is well-founded. [11 Dec 1981, p.C3]

When he finally takes the screen for a prolonged routine, Lee reminds you that he was indeed a thing of beauty in motion. However, if it's the missing Lee footage you've come for, there's no reason to catch the first hour or so of the film [26 May 1979, p.C9]

Unfortunately, Rhinestone is content to cackle and scratch around at such a dumb cluck level of facetiousness that what began as a "cute" idea degenerates into a moronic one. [22 Jun 1984, p.B8]

With pulpy material to begin with, the film's ham-fisted, novice director Robert Longo seems to be the major incompetent. [25 May 1995, p.M24]

The Entity may be the least catchy title in movie history, and for the first tedious hour or so this curiously indecisive account of supernatural sexual intimidation remains in an expedient and exasperating rut: writer Frank DeFelitta and director Sidney Furie seem fixated on the rape scene from Rosemary's Baby. [09 Feb 1983, p.F11]

Oh, God! Book II revives that excruciating game of false piety in which Hollywood humorists grovel for brownie points in eternity by presuming to be God's chummiest press agents. [03 Oct 1980, p.C1]

Instead of being touched by this anachronistic road allegory, one is merely puzzled. What prompted this material, redolent of so many failed counterculture romances of a few years ago, to surface at this time? [04 Nov 1977, p.D5]

The setup is so conducive to hedonistic wish-fulfillment that it's a pity writer Dan Greenburg and director Alan Myerson lacked the wit to capitalize on it. [20 Nov 1981, p.C3]

From the outset, The Possession is calculated to make an alternately ludicrous and sadistic spectacle of the family's victimization.

There's sure nothing purgative about the kind of anxiety the filmmakers are exploiting. If anything, it condemns them to strictly degenerate company. [24 Mar 1981, p.B8]

1941 represents an appalling waste of filmmaking and performing resources. As one would expect, Spielberg, who directed "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," sustains a high energy level. But the energy is expended on material that is pointless at best and occasionally hateful. [15 Dec 1979, p.C1]