Gary Arnold
Select another critic »For 390 reviews, this critic has graded:
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31% higher than the average critic
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1% same as the average critic
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68% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 14 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Gary Arnold's Scores
- Movies
- TV
| Average review score: | 52 | |
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| Highest review score: | The Right Stuff | |
| Lowest review score: | Poison Ivy | |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 113 out of 390
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Mixed: 179 out of 390
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Negative: 98 out of 390
390
movie
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Gary Arnold
The most nagging impediment to wholehearted acceptance of Tootsie and its little storytelling subterfuges is a failure to recognize the hypocritical aspects of Dorsey's imposture and alleged character improvement. Although Dorsey is supposedly sensitized to the desirability of honesty and consideration in romantic dealings by being forced to seethe on the sidelines while Ron treats Julie badly, the hero never does square things with Sandy, the woman whose trust he betrays in a far more deliberate, systematic fashion. Indeed, it seems downright outrageous for Dorsey to get indignant about Ron's oblivious sort of misbehavior when he's conning Sandy in premeditated ways. [17 Dec 1982, p.F1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
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]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Thanks largely to the dexterity of director John Badham and the irresistibly fresh attractiveness of the young leads, Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, WarGames contains enough entertaining suspense and more than enough personality appeal to finesse many of its implausible plot twists. [3 June 1983, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Coleman and Thomas are unusually sympathetic embodiments of a father and son, and they have some moments that are legitimately stirring. Cloak & Dagger is never as adept or perceptive as you'd like it to be, but it's got what members of the critical fraternity traditionally characterize as a little something.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Directing his own starring vehicle, that sly boots Burt Reynolds gives the audience a shamelessly lurid but stylish going-over, while putting a clever new wrinkle or two on his own status.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Within the stylistic limits and shortened time span the filmmakers have decided to use, All the President's Men is an exceptionally well-made film. It's simply impossible to suppress the feeling that a more involving and satisfying movie would have emerged from a less restrictive framework.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A diverting hit-and-miss satirical anthology in the same spirit as The Groove Tube and Tunnelvision. [13 Oct 1977, p.B15]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
While it's too pat, Little Girl is several cuts above thrillers in the dopey, bedraggled class recently exemplified by Burnt Offerings and The Sentinel. [17 May 1977, p.B9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Flawed and uneven, but vigorous and imaginative, The Stunt Man is a brash, whirlwind action comedy about the paranoid uncertainties of a fugitive who takes refuge with a movie company on location. [24 Oct 1980, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The idea of Sean Connery and Dustin Hoffman as a father-and-son act is daft enough to make Family Business an object of curiosity. [15 Dec 1989, p.E1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Proves a welcome improvement on the original Conan the Barbarian, finding a tone of lighthearted preposterousness more suitable to the absurd heroic dimensions of the pretext. [03 July 1984, p.D9]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Electric Dreams can be trusted to provide some idle amusement, particularly from "users" cautious enough to keep both their demands and levels of resistance set at low-to-modest -- probably the ideal setting for summer moviegoing in general, come to think of it.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
An engaging exercise in discreet, incisive and good-humored hokum. Although Rocky III is a vivid piece of popular filmmaking and a considerable bit of harmless fun, the star doesn't seem to derive as much pleasure from the experience as he should.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The new film, a fitfully amusing and perfectly harmless spoof of the morbid and masochistic cliches that sustain the typical soap opera, represents a mellow, spruced-up turn toward the mainstream. [06 Jul 1981, p.C3]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
For all its awkwardness and mawkishness, Santini deserves the shot. It has an authentic core of family drama and humor that could stir a large public. [03 Oct 1980, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Before it takes an appalling turn for the vicious, The Silent Partner seems an uncommonly clever and gripping suspense thriller. Even after the story threatens to self-destruct, you fight the impulse to suffer a major letdown, for the sake of the swell nerve-racking time you've been having up to that point.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
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]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Phantasm will not be remembered as a masterpiece of the horror genre, but it sustains a gauche, hokey, desperately improvisational charm.... It entertains through a half-facetious juvenile gusto.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The major problem with the film is that the exposition is not nearly as clever as the premise. After warming to the idea behind the movie, one tends to cool off as it trudges toward a resolution.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Like the Dustin Hoffman film Straight Time, Schrader's picture sustains a certain interest despite its faults. You stick with both movies because of the promise of something authentic and tragically revealing, even though the promise is never fulfilled. These films don't really work, but they're the sort of films that don't work in interesting ways. [24 Mar 1978, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Although it has beguiling and funny interludes, The Jungle Book lacks the narrative suspense and excitement that propel the best of the Disney animated features from the pioneering Snow White and Pinnochio to last year's The Rescuers. It seems to reflect the Disney tradition in repose, still expert and pleasing but also a trifle stuffy. [29 June 1978, p.B7]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
It's difficult to predict if audiences will be patient enough with Best Defense to allow it the shakedown time necessary to hit a funny stride. But the movie confirms a flair for comedy that may pay dividends when the filmmakers' rapport with the actors is strong enough to discipline and perhaps improve dodgy material. [25 Jul 1984, p.D3]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Vicious and hypocritical as it is, The Gauntlet remains an entertaining sort of disreputable show, considerably more proficient and interesting than junk melodramas in a dogged vein.- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Until betrayed by its essential docility, The Promise promises a fairly stimulating wallow in the tear-jerking depths. [10 Apr 1979, p.B3]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Innovative, lavish and lacking. [30 Mar 1984, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
Sufficiently attractive and absorbing to sustain the fond delusion that Charles' pursuit of the mystifying Sarah might culminate in a revealing, conclusive confrontation. [02 Oct 1981, p.C1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The most coherent thing about the new action thriller Blue Thunder is its eagerness to succeed and its rabble-rousing spectacle of stunt flying and aerial combat. Blue Thunder, a chase melodrama with police helicopter pilots as the good guys, transposes the salty tone of The French Connection and Dirty Harry to a chopper squadron in Los Angeles. [13 May 1983, p.B1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A handful of funny brainstorms can be found rattling around the slapdash confines of Ice Pirates. [03 Apr 1984, p.C6]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
A fitfully witty and reliably spine-tingling horror melodrama...While it works you over effectively, Poltergeist betrays a good deal of rather dubious, uncoordinated manipulation. [4 June 1982, p.D1]- Washington Post
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- Gary Arnold
The Karate Kid can't really brushoff the conventional showdown it's incited, so the movie adds the obligatory action payoff to its less expected and more substantial rewards. The filmmakers can't help overbalancing on melodramatic excess from time to time, but their mistakes never obliterate the civilized wisdom of Miyagi's outlook: "Have balance, everything be better." [22 June 1984, p.B1]- Washington Post
