Gene Siskel

A complete disaster, almost certain to kill any more sequels. Chase waltzes through a series of boring costumes and cliches as he journeys to the South to claim a mansion as an inheritance only to find it's a hot property. The script here is anything but a hot property. [24 March 1989, p.A]

Falling Down is an intellectually sloppy, rebellious working-man adventure film that is little more than a set piece for Michael Douglas playing out a revenge-of-the-nerds fantasy. [26 Feb 1993, p.C]

Big laughs, foul language to the point of absurdity and one hilarious, screaming performance atop another combine to make Wise Guys one of the funniest times you will have at the movies this year.

A laughably bad, offensive movie with holes in its story that you could drive a truck though.

Featuring an all-black cast, this little film is a revelation, primarily because it provides black faces with the most natural dialogue they've had in years. She`s Gotta Have It is neither a crime story nor a heavy message movie, and the conversations in it are therefore free of the shackles of most minority-oriented stories.

A miserable ripoff of The Karate Kid with three whitebread young-uns taking lessons from their Chinese grandfather on how to be upright and horizontal ninja warriors. They get their kicks trying to knock off a Steven Seagal imitation who is running drugs.

The film never adequately uses either the dramatic talents of Nolte nor the comic talents of Short. The young girl (Sarah Rowland Doroff) is most effective because she rarely speaks.

The Breakfast Clu" is a breath of cinematic fresh air, taking on a very real adolescent problem and offering, in a dramatic way, a possible solution. The film is at its very best when the brainy kid wonders out loud toward the end of the film whether any of his new-found friends will still be his friends come Monday morning. It's a very real question, such being the impulse to conform in high school. A simple "hello" between a jock and a wimp in a crowd is a big risk for both of them. [15 Feb 1985, p.A]

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.

Director Godfrey Reggio gives us some ordinary and a few spectacular shows of people doing hard work to the accompaniment of the boring music of composer Philip Glass. This film is not in the same league with its fine predecessor, "Koyaanisqatsi." [20 May 1988, p.A]

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 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]

Michael O'Keefe, a likable enough presence, seems wildly miscast as the young slugger. O'Keefe is so likable that we can't really accept him as a heavy in this role. [29 March 1985, p.A]

This odd-couple angle is a terrific formula for a movie, creating at least three stories: The plight of each man, their joint effort to accomplish their goal and the changing dynamic of their relationship as the story progresses. As if that weren't enough, The Falcon and the Snowman also turns into a how-to movie with a fine sense of detail for the worlds of espionage and drugs. But towering over all of this--and even over the angry politics of the film--are two special performances by two extremely talented young actors.

Better Off Dead, a seemingly teenage comedy that wasn't good enough to be released during the prime summer play dates, is utterly devoid of appeal. [15 Oct 1985, p.C2]

Both Pacino and Barkin are quite good playing battle-scarred veterans of mature relationships. Just like New Yorkers who lock their doors, these two characters have locked their hearts. This is Pacino's quietest and best performance since The Godfather Part Two. Credit director Harold Becker for helping to keep Pacino from spitting his way through another role.

One minute into Saturday Night Fever you know this picture is onto something, that it knows what it's talking about. [15 Oct 1999, Siskel Years, p.6]

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]

Final Analysis does go beyond the expected in homage to its San Francisco-based, ''Vertigo''-inspired setting. But it fails to do so in any organic way. It`s almost as if the movie were split into two parts: silly characters and tricky plot.

Petersen is to be congratulated for creating a solid character out of a film that likes its decor and soundtrack more than its actors. [1 Nov 1985, p.A]

Van Damme is compelling only when he takes his clothes off, which he doesn't do often enough here.

Bold and totally off-the-wall comedy.

A shockingly bad film that is utterly lacking in laughs and turns out to be little more than a big-screen adaptation of the TV sitcom's pilot. [15 Oct 1993, p.C2]

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.

Streep is an actress known for her uncanny ability with accents, but her quiet performance in "Bridges" proves that she would have made a world-class silent-film star, too.

To miss this film is to cheat yourself and your family of a memorable moviegoing experience.

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]

A lame, overstuffed, yuppie romantic farce about a boorish Wall Streeter who sublets his rent-controlled apartment for two nights each week to two different broken souls, saving three nights for himself and his drunken pals. The strangers (Annabella Sciorra and Matthew Broderick) are drawn to each other, but a misunderstanding occurs and she has an affair with the boor. Strip away the comic material, and this might have been a touching portrait of a woman trapped in a bad marriage. [30 Apr 1993, p.C]