Gene Siskel

The River is nothing more than a conventional, albeit pretty, melodrama. [11 Jan 1985, p.4N]

The movie does command our attention because Hines and Baryshnikov, through their dancing, manage to create very real and living and hurting characters. [22 Nov 1985]

Despite its rather arrogant title for a first film, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, a series could lurk inside this drawnout, but often spectacular and funny adventure film.

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]

What a disappointment Weird Science is! A wonderful writer-director has taken a cute idea about two teenage Dr. Frankensteins creating a perfect woman by computer and turned it into a vulgar, mindless, special-effects-cluttered wasteland.

A classic play has been reduced a decent movie. It's a shame it couldn't be as good as the play; it's a small pleasure that it's as entertaining as it is. [20 Dec 1985]

A dismal kids' comedy in which all creativity stopped after casting lookalikes for the old rascals was completed.

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]

The result is a strong, amoral action film. [29 Jan 1993, p.C]

This is a sumptuous work, from its unconventional title sequence of a woman dancing hard in the streets to its provocative ending with conflicting quotes from Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr .[30 June 1989, Friday, p.A]

A dreary, Carrie-type shocker about a high school student seeking to kill a bunch of classmates on their prom night. Very few thrills. [01 Aug 1980, p.10]

The movie slogs along in between combat scenes. Only a precious few of the bantering jokes among the green quartet hold any amusement for those over the age of 10.

This has to be one of the greatest casting coups and consequently blown opportunities of recent years...Streep isn't that funny in what is a frivolous role, and Barr is only mildly successful in her angry moments. [8 Dec 1989, p.A]

Our Flick of the Week is The Bedroom Window, which begins as a gripping, Hitchcock-like thriller about an innocent man wrongly accused, but then turns into an unintentional laugh-a-minute with a preposterous conclusion. It's a shame that the film couldn't sustain its tension, because in some ways it is the best traditional thriller since "Jagged Edge." [16 Jan 1987, p.A]

Hector Elizondo and Robert Loggia are fine as the team's coaches. [27 Sept 1991, p.C2]

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.

An awful vampire comedy from John Landis ("Animal House," "The Blues Brothers") that is enlivened only by the eroticism of French actress Anne Parillaud ("La Femme Nikita") who is willing to disrobe for her first Hollywood film and major payday. She plays a vampire who feasts on Italian mobsters in Pittsburgh, falling in love with Anthony LaPaglia along the way. The neck-biting and gunplay are gross. Don Rickles is a sore thumb as a mob attorney. [25 Sept 1992, p.C]

A dreary, old-fashioned kids' baseball fantasy.

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]

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]

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

This dubious concept might have worked if someone had written something funny for either comic actor to say. Instead, five writers are credited with this mess of pratfalls and bleeding heart monologues.

This House ought to be condemned for its insulting use of the Vietnam War and children as props for its nonsensical violence tinged with pathetic attempts at humor. [4 March 1986, p.C4]

The character played by Ryder is really the centerpiece of the story, and she is the best part of this slight story...The rest of the movie is a fairly standard portrait of small-town life, with characters in more pain than is typical of such films. [12 Oct 1990, p.C]

The film's biggest continuing laugh is the very idea that Arnold Schwarzenegger, with his thick accent, could infiltrate the upper echelon of the Mafia. I could see him catering a German mob dinner, but a trusted ally? Never.

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.

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."

A dreadful witches' comedy with the only tolerable moment coming when Bette Midler presents a single song.