Gene Siskel

A high school version of A Chorus Line, following a half-dozen talented students at New York High School for the performing arts as they try to become show-biz stars. When the kids perform, the movie sings, but their fictionalized personal stories are melodramatic drivel. [11 July 1980, p.8]

There's a movie here, and there's a gimmick. The gimmick undermines the movie and the gimmick is attached to the wrong part of the movie. Other than that, Clue offers a few big laughs early on followed by a lot of characters running around on a treadmill to nowhere. [13 Dec 1985, p.38]

An okay kids' picture about a bunch of misfit hockey players who are brought together to play in the Big Game by a cynical, Yuppie coach (Emilio Estevez) doing community service. [02 Oct 1992, p.C]

The essential problem with The Black Cauldron is that the central human character in the story is a complete drip, making it difficult to root for his success at saving the world from ruination.

There is one hilarious sight gag involving prophylactics, and one can't argue with the film's sobering message, but otherwise Ritter's character is mostly a bore. [3 March 1989, p.A]

As it is, Betsy's Wedding is pleasant fluff when Alda isn't on the screen. [22 Jun 1990, p.C2]

[Cage] cracks wise throughout the third act and is almost entertaining enough to make this absurdly energetic movie recommendable.

Byrne is a major musical artist, as he was shown to be in his rock concert film Stop Making Sense, but as a filmmaker he has barely stretched his muscles. [31 Oct 1986, p.A]

It looks like director Parker, who can be quite ambitious (Mississippi Burning, Come See the Paradise), is coasting this time, merely reworking his big hit, Fame.

Silverado is a completely successful physical attempt at reviving the western, but its script would need a complete rewrite for it to become more than just a small step in a full-scale western revival. [10 Jul 1985, p.5]

The drama is predictable, and the confrontations lack rational dialogue. In other words, this is just of the sort of movie that a 9-year-old would probably enjoy. [1 May 1987, p.A]

There`s nothing really seriously wrong with the movie, save for the casting of Elwes. Lady Jane simply states and restates its premise, and then it`s over in a predictable manner.

Individual scenes work, but the movie seems overstuffed-why is the Harris character necessary-and halting.

John Sayles has directed an authentic looking and sounding film, featuring cinematography by the great Haskell Wexler. [02 Oct 1987, p.A]

As much as I admire the work of both (Roman) Polanski and (Jack) Nicholson, I found Chinatown tedious from beginning to just before the end. [15 July 1974]

The stunt work and special effects are top flight; Schwarzenegger and the kid are just fine, but we can't help but want this film to stop kidding around and thrill us. [18 Jun 1993, p.C]

Kenneth Branagh's earnest adaptation of Shakespeare's serious comedy about love is undone by, of all things, Branagh's enthusiasm for this material to be joyful. He practically busts through the screen in an effort to please. His wife, Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, is more restrained as his dueling lover and creates a more credible character. [21 May 1993, p.C]

The musical voices belong to Billy Joel and Bette Midler, respectively, but this material is far afield of their best work. As a result, a Chihuahua (voice by Cheech Marin) steals the movie with wisecracks. [18 Nov 1988, p.A]

Ambitious but hokey melodrama...It's a beautiful looking film, but only the supporting characters are believable. Beatty and Diane Keaton are miscast and never disappear into their characters. [25 Dec 1981]

Nine to Five is a film full or surprises - some pleasant, other disappointing. The most pleasant surprise is the appearance of Dolly Parton, who with this one film establishes herself as a thoroughly engaging movie star. The biggest disappointment is that this Jane Fonda comedy about a trio of secretaries out to get their boss doesn't have more bite. [19 Dec 1980, p.2-1]

We know exactly where this picture is going at all times. Holding our attention, however, is a cast of fresh talent among the trainees. [03 Jun 1994]

Fat Man and Little Boy tries to cover too much territory by introducing corny romantic subplots involving Oppenheimer's mistress and a relationship between a young scientist (John Cusack) and a nurse (Laura Dern). These awkwardly written sequences remind us that we are watching a conventional movie and destroy any documentarylike reality. [20 Oct 1989, p.A]

Crossroads doesn't contain most of the common sins of today's youth films: cheap sex, fast cars and food fights. But you can't reward a film very much for what isn't there, if what is there leaves you wishing that its lead characters would break free from a tired story and sing and play with abandon. [14 March 1986, p.A]

The problem may be that Scorsese, arguably America's most gifted and gritty director, is working from a script not written by one of his veteran collaborators, and so the grit is gone. All of the performances are fine. Newman is particularly effective, but he is forced to run a familiar treadmill. And so The Color of Money joins Heartburn as one of the biggest disappointments of 1986.

The story is full of good feelings, but as one sits there it all seems so predictable that you can't help but ask the point of it all. [27 Aug 1993, p.C]

There are scattered pleasures throughout the film due to its two lead performances, which are the equal of the work done in the original. It's just that with a few exceptions, the characters Miyagi and Daniel are forced into conflict with aren't worthy of their time.

A sometimes-funny, dope related comedy with the team of Cheech and Chong trying to survive in the city while having a very high time. [1 Aug 1980, p.4-10]

A mixed bag of four short films done in the style of famous '60s TV show. Two work; two don't. [July 22, 1983]

An uneven special effects extravaganza about a little boy who winds up traveling through world history along with five midgets. Together they meet and frustrate the great and the near-great. Including Napoleon, Robin Hood, and the devil. Unfortunately, there are just too many visits to famous people. The film was created by some of the people responsible for the Monty Python comedies. [25 Dec 1981, p.12]

Writer-director Lisa Krueger displays some talent in creating the Mary Kay Place character; I expect more daring work from her next time. [30 Aug 1996, p.2]

What Body Double lacks is rigorous editing that would have pared down this story to the tight, thoughtful thriller it could be. Instead, in Body Double as it now plays, De Palma runs wild with his own violent flourishes.

A wildly overwritten melodrama about the sins of the press. Newman's character is compelling, but Field's reporter is such a lamebrain that we know she would be fired at any major newspaper. [25 Dec 1981]

Joyce Hyser is fine as the male and female Terry, but since "Tootsie" is now the standard in these matters, the makeup job on Hyser as a guy should have been much more convincing. Not for a minute do we forget she's a girl. [30 Apr 1955, p.4C]

Revenge is quite entertaining in its countdown to the first quivering coupling between Costner and Stowe. He trembles; her nostrils flair. But once they`ve made it, the film turns ugly as Costner foolishly seeks a vacation idyll with her in his small Mexican vacation home. The beatings that follow are plentiful enough to leave no one unscarred.

Robert Redford stars as a reform-minded prison warden fighting for his life against a corrupt prison system. Competent but dreary. [11 July 1980, p.8]

Norma Rae is not a bad film, just one that made me angry for what it might have been. Imagine another, more skillful actor, say Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino, in Leibman's part; then strip away some of the more broadly drawn scenes, and Norma Rae could have been yet another fine film by director Martin Ritt ("Hud," "Sounder," and "Conrack"). [2 March 1979, p.4-12]

Not for a moment did I believe any of these characters. They were not as provocative as the clips Fiennes was selling, and, in a strange way, "Strange Days" is undone by the very product it condemns. [13 Oct 1995, p.B]

Explorers offers an attractive premise to a very small payoff.

Save for the compelling oddity of seeing Michael J. Fox as a cocaine addict, this drama offers nothing special. [1 Apr 1988, p.A]

Crystal and Hines are immediately likable on the screen, so the fact that Running Scared isn`t all that we expect must be due to the script. The film`s ending does leave room for a sequel. If one is made, director Hyams should get Crystal and Hines a better story as well as that bar in Florida.

It all adds up to a better-than-average entertainment that sags terribly in the middle. [15 Apr 1985, p.4C]

For a film about deep water terror, Jaws 2 is really quite shallow. [16 June 1978, p.3-2]

Perfect tries too hard to be perfect on too many fronts, and like a person who fine-tunes his or her body too much, Perfect ultimately seems brittle and less attractive the closer one looks. [7 June 1985, p.A]

Whereas Clint Eastwood simply would have squinted at Robinson, Stallone takes a more violent approach. Maybe that's the difference between actors--Eastwood can be droll; Stallone more often crosses the border to primeval.

I wish more had been made of the power of books versus the power of a studio's special-effects department.

Tom Cruise does with bartending pretty much what he did with a pool cue in "The Color of Money." In other words, he shows skill at a con game while being less successful with the woman in his life. [29 Jul 1988, p.A]

Burt Reynolds stars as a Dirty Harry-style detective who chases after a high-powered pimp in Atlanta. When Reynolds stays in character, the film works well as a straight thriller. When he winks at the audience with his dialog, the film falls apart. [25 Dec 1981, p.12]

It`s a shame to have to knock the otherwise beautiful and haunting picture, but when you`re watching a love story and you can`t stand the character who is being loved, that makes for a very frustrating movie-going experience.

Walter Matthau is absolutely wonderful as the constantly tormented neighbor, Mr. Wilson, in this film adaptation of the popular comic strip and TV show. And although little Mason Gamble may not be another Macauley Culkin, he's fine as innocently troublesome Dennis. But the movie loses track of its energy during a labored, 10-minute sequence with Dennis combatting a thief. What would have been better is more scenes of tenderness between Dennis and Mr. Wilson. [25 June 1993, p.C]

Tarantino's debut directing job acknowledges the sloppiness and silences that are typically squeezed out of most crime films, but we get the point early on and the remainder is macho posturing. [23 Oct 1992]

The production is first-rate in all technical ways imaginable, but the villain that Holmes and Watson chase is not worth their intellect or time or ours.

A good third of this overblown movie consists of stunt-filled action sequences that turn a human story into something akin to Cannonball Run. That's too bad, because Goldberg's character is a terrible thing to waste.

The film works best once Hanks gets to the island along with love interest Meg Ryan. But it takes too long to get there. A fresh but needlessly drawn-out story. [9 March 1990, p.C2]

Jim Jarmusch's underwhelming documentary on the veteran rock group Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Of course the music is fine; a robotic camera could capture that. But Jarmusch gets nothing out of his interview except the band members and manager repeatedly telling us how long and how well the group works together.

There's a good movie lurking somewhere in Susan Isaacs' script of her comic murder mystery novel "Compromising Positions" but neither Isaacs nor director Frank Perry has found it. [30 Aug 1985, p.A]

Another slapstick comedy from the folks who created Police Academy by ripping off the comedy style of Airplane. [22 Apr 1985, p.4C]

The only thing this film has going for it is its improbable title and title song about four fighting turtles changed into upright, man-size creatures by exposure to radioactive wastes.

Wexler told his story in credible human terms. Writer-director Stone felt the need to jazz up his action with wacked-out characters who belong in a ''Saturday Night Live'' sketch.

The script of Follow That Bird simply plays like a TV vignette blown up to movie size, failing to fill both the screen and our imagination. [06 Aug 1985, p.5C]

But what's the excuse for the film's script? What we get is a reworking of "Flashdance" and "Footlose" into a routine story about a couple of high school kids who want to become regular dancers on a show called "Dance TV," or "DTV" for short. [10 May 1985, p.LN]

O'Rourke acts way over the top; Dunaway is more effective because she seems more desperate. Both characters are the kind of people who want to be left alone. That's what you may feel like after you spend a few minutes with them in one long brawl after one long argument after one long soliloquy.

Predictably cute. The only surprise about 3 Men and a Cradle is that it is the hit in Paris, winning three French Oscars, being nominated for an American Oscar, and, unbelievably, outgrossing E.T. and Rambo at the French box office. But then the French have loved the last few Jerry Lewis movies, too.

They might make a nice couple in a movie about them. But Quicksilver, a product of the music video influence, has been edited at such a rapid pace that there`s more time given over to bicycle racing and car chases than to love.

Director Joseph Ruben would have done much better to limit the physical horror and make it more of a psychological terror game.

Martin is joyful; Chase seems depressed, and Short comes off as merely happy to be in his first movie.

The film glamorizes drug use as much as it condemns it, and the world in which the film is set-Beverly Hills and Malibu-is terminally boring. [6 Nov 1987, p.41]

Billed as one of the most frightening, depraved films ever made. Would that it were so. Instead, this is a case of much ado about nothing. [15 February 1991, Friday, p.C]

Sweeney, however, gives a better account of himself than Sheen in his role. [23 Oct 1987, p.A]

The film looks terrific and offers one spectacular chase, but its story and characters are less substantial than even a weak episode of "Miami Vice."

Toward the end, the film resorts to placing a young girl in jeopardy in a pathetic attempt to pander to who knows what audience. Some people have praised the technical excellence of Aliens. Well, the Eiffel Tower is technically impressive, but I wouldn`t want to watch it fall apart on people for two hours.

There are two comic storylines here, and I liked only one of them...The relationship between Travis and Myers is boring; too bad the whole film wasn't about the Scottish family. They deserve their own picture. [30 July 1993, p.C2]

The belief here is that Landis simply has overstuffed what might have been a somewhat tender action picture with all manner of movie trivia and action scenes. After a while, the principal characters in the chase begin to move so fast that they become a blur and ultimately disappear.

Disappointing... Jack Nicholson parodies himself while Kubrick fails to provide any thrills. [11 July 1980, p.8]

It's supposed to be one of those stories of a child's innocence - that means nudity - told in an unfettered way. But the young people in the film who grow up together on a tropical island are dumb-dodo types. As a result all we watch for is the nudity and, it turns out, teen-ager Brooke Shields is doubled in her nude scenes by a 31-year-old model. So much for truth and innocence. [11 July 1980, p.8]

The movie was attractively filmed by John Schlesinger, but the subject matter is stultifying and not the least bit spooky. [12 Jun 1987, p.A]

The crosscultural action picture might have worked if the filmmakers had come up with a script in which Douglas' character had been rendered weak and confused by being a fish trying to swim in strange waters. But instead he is presented as a traditional action hero dominating everyone in sight. The cultural imperialism of that decision makes for a routine and frequently offensive story full of Asian stereotypes. Director Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) certainly knows how to photograph arresting architecture, but the high-gloss look of Black Rain only intensifies the shortcomings of the pedestrian story.

There are a couple of potentially interesting movies lurking inside Heaven Help Us, a film that, sadly, doesn`t have the guts to push any one of its elements to the hilt. The result is a picture that is sort of a comedy, sort of a romance and sort of a condemnation of parochial schools, all wrapped up in a nostalgia piece about the mid-`60s.

Bruce Willis' film debut should prove to be a disappointment for Moonlighting fans, because the script he has been given here does not compare to the elaborate material he has worked with on some episodes of the TV show. Willis plays a business man who winds up falling in love with a woman (Kim Basinger) who goes crazy every time she has a drink. Director Blake Edwards (10) does not distinguish himself with this exercise in nonstop slapstick, and the performances of both Willis and Basinger are lost amid the rubble. [08 May 1987, p.C7]

The naval equivalent of "Top Gun," focusing on the elite corps of warriors who in this tale must destroy American missiles that have fallen into the hands of Arab terrorists. The boys play together and then fight together. It's all a party. Some of the sequences play like music videos.

There are more chases than cute "awwww" scenes in the movie and on that basis it is not particularly entertaining. Benji runs himself and us ragged. [19 June 1987, p.A]

Their adventures are not special, nor are their personalities. If young people want to experience a genuinely exciting airborne adventure in a movie theater right now, "Top Gun" is the picture to see--not SpaceCamp. [6 June 1986, p.AC]

The only redeeming aspects of the film are its striking production design by Philip Jefferies--a sweltering Miami similar to the look of ''Body Heat''-- and a convincing performance by Richard Masur as the city editor of the film`s fictional Miami newspaper.

Yet another disappointing summer sequel, Lethal Weapon 2, with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson reprising their cop-buddy roles in pursuit of South African drug lords. [7 Jul 1989, p.A]

With Sean Connery as Agent 007, James Bond was a human-scale figure, an exceedingly cool guy to be sure, but a guy nonetheless. With Roger Moore as Bond, we are simply watching a lightweight actor stroll through a role.

Jones does a very good job as the cynical mercenary; Hackman's role doesn't give him enough real moments to make the story credible. [25 Aug 1989, p.A]

Road House is startling because of the intensity of its violence and because of Swayze`s mindless posturing. A young star has sold himself to become a pinup boy.

A routine Neil Simon comedy with Goldie Hawn ,Chevy Chase, and Charles Grodin mixed up in a story about an innocent bank robber and a power-hungry district attorney. Hawn has been married to both. Not very funny, but the dogs are cute. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

A hit and mostly miss parody. [5 Feb 1993, p.C]

Standard action fare with a false overlay of social conscience. [3 Apr 1998, p.A]

A dumb and purposefully cheesy version of the comic strip space hero. Although the film has a few early moments of put-on humor, the story has nowhere to go. Sam Jones is not very bright as Flash. Only Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless brings any style to the adventure. Only for the juvenile set. [19 Dec 1980, p.10]

A dreary, needlessly violent and ugly comic thriller about a psychic hustler (Michael J. Fox) who gets more than he bargained for with his latest scam. Fox seems to be trying to get hip in the movies, and he's lost his way here.

There's no development of Turner's character. The laughs in the first reel are the same as those in the last. [15 Apr 1994, p.C]

Brewster's Millions is a PG film, and the humor is sanitized. Pryor grins, Candy gurgles and we sit there stone-faced noticing all the holes in the plot. Once Pryor figures out a clever way to spend money by using rare stamps on letters, why doesn't he keep on doing it? Yes, that might make for a short movie, but given the way Brewster's Millions turned out, it would be no great loss. [22 May 1985, p.3]

Ephron delivered an incredibly flimsy script based on her novel about her former husband's repeated infidelity during their marriage and her pregnancies. Nicholson isn't given a character to play. He just lumbers onto the screen and cheats off-camera.

A typically weak sequel that has no legitimate artistic reason for being. [July 22, 1983]

With a story that is absurd every step of the way, Mr. Majestyk is turned into a hodge podge of cruel and unusual punishments.

Robert De Niro's characterization is too jokey, a knockoff of his Rupert Pupkin ("The King of Comedy"), and Irwin Winkler's direction is earnest but lethargic. Jessica Lange does better as a barmaid who wants her own saloon. [23 Oct 1992, p.CN]

Reeves is immediately on the run after the explosion, one of at least a dozen images of him running from danger in "Chain Reaction." He runs so much, sometimes with a boring female scientist in tow, that you think he's been cast in the role of the bus in "Speed." He's shot at, bombed and chased by fireballs...But no amount of speed can distract us from an unfulfilling story about just who wants to destroy this breakthrough experiment. Only Freeman's rich voice holds any interest; it's a powerful instrument, highlighted by pauses and economy of speech, that is captivating in roles as diverse as this one and the veteran con in "The Shawshank Redemption."