Jay Boyar

Sid & Nancy is an honorable try, but it could have been better had Cox found a way to imbue the movie with some of the sheer zaniness of his Repo Man.

This is the sort of picture in which people slap each other as they take their marriage vows, suddenly develop life-threatening diseases, and, again, have violent confrontations whenever there's a break in the action. Anything for a laugh, anything for a tear, and nothing much authentic.

Movies like this one - with its spoofy jokes, vacant characters and indefensible plotting - do nothing to keep the western form alive. Deal me out of this con game.

Longo and Gibson have so little interest in the personalities of the characters that the actors seem like stand-ins for computer-generated images. [27 May 1995, p.A2]

If I had to guess, I'd say that the big white "snow" thing is a flimsy combination of cheap plaster, recycled Styrofoam and some poor soul's false hopes. Pretty much like the movie itself. [11 Dec 1998, p.22]

If you get stuck at Striptease, my advice is to relax and try to enjoy its occasional pleasures.

Director Michael Chapman, an experienced cinematographer, is skilled in conveying ideas through pictures -- quite an advantage in a movie about people who aren't especially verbal. And Chapman's cinematographer, Jan De Bont, has a varied palette that responds to the visual demands of a world in transition.

Director Andrew Davis (Seagal's Above the Law) and screenwriter J.F. Lawton (Pretty Woman) handle the early scenes fairly well. As the villains are putting their plan into place, the plot is involving and the pacing brisk. It's only after the bad guys take over the ship that the film begins to degenerate. The staging falls apart almost immediately, and, before long, it's not clear exactly what is happening and where. [06 Nov 1992, p.24]

The big problem is the script by 24-year-old Jeffrey Abrams (Taking Care of Business), which is clearly intended as a parable about how a self-centered overachiever and his disintegrating family are redeemed by suffering and sacrifice. What it's really about, however, is how those people are turned into a '50s sitcom family - complete with puppy dog, spunky adolescent, devoted mom and dim-but-well-meaning dad.

Between dragon scenes, Dragonheart falls apart. [31 May 1996, p.17]

The comedy - it's too cautious, really, to be called a satire - just sort of tap-dances along, hitting all the usual marks without ever straining too hard.

The irony is that this movie - which fails to emulate such storybook-based virtues as coherent plotting and characterization - is pretty darn empty itself.[15 Feb 1991, p.6]

If Winkler's heart is in the right place, his head is often somewhere else. There's a great movie to be made about the blacklist period, but this just isn't it. [15 Mar 1991, p.8]

In Under the Cherry Moon, the self-styled auteur is obviously aiming for a romantic tragedy with occasional lighthearted moments. What he ends up with, however, is purest camp.

Quest for Camelot is certainly no improvement on the studio's jangly Space Jam of 1996. [15 May 1998, p.21]

Easily the best thing about Shag: The Movie is its soundtrack, which combines newer music with such golden oldies as ''Easier Said Than Done,'' ''Up on the Roof'' and the ever-weird ''Alley Oop.'' These tunes (some of which are performed by the 15-member Voltage Brothers) do a lot to keep the mood light and to cover the lapses in the narrative, of which, you can be sure, there are more than a few.

These Elvis clones are just one aspect of the zany atmosphere in this sometimes-entertaining comic romp.

Emilio Estevez (Stakeout, the Young Guns movies) isn't exactly Michael J. Fox, but he qualifies as a sympathetic hero, and Rene Russo (Major League) is fine - if a bit bland - as his girlfriend. Besides, the real fun is in the supporting cast. Mick Jagger plays a sort of bounty hunter, and although he has only about 2 1/2 expressions, they're good ones. Jerry Hall, who appears very briefly, plays a newswoman with only one expression: You've seen it before, and it is plenty. [21 Jan 1982, p.D1]

For an hour or so, Bigelow (Near Dark, Blue Steel) gets by on that great eye of hers. But about halfway, Point Break breaks down. The plot, which has been unimpressive but not irritating, becomes maddeningly implausible. And the performances, which had been generally engaging, lose their edge.

JFK is a limp, semi-coherent, boring movie. [20 Dec 1991, p.21]

She's the One has fewer rough edges than The Brothers McMullen, but it also has fewer of the weird little nooks and crannies of personality that were the best things about Burns' debut film.

This new Sabrina stresses the material's Cinderella love story - the part, that is, that was corny and somewhat dated even in the '50s. What director Sydney Pollack and his screenwriters (Barbara Benedek and David Rayfiel) have done is a little like redesigning the Ford Pinto and keeping the unfortunate old gas tank. [15 Dec 1995, p.19]

As in the sketches, the Coneheads are humorously outrageous, but somehow they don't seem quite as humorously outrageous as they did 20 years ago. [23 July 1993, p.6]

Brando's confusion is understandable. The Freshman is, as he said, a bit of a stinker. But it also contains those moments of high comedy he spoke of. Add Brando's statements together, divide the total by two and you have the right answer about this movie.

Actually, the rating fits. The movie isn't quite enough fun to qualify for the "average" category, yet not quite lame enough to deserve to be called "poor." [28 June 1991, p.6]

The latest 007 extravaganza has enough plot developments, double-entendres, emotional underpinnings and, of course, Bond girls, action scenes and explosions to furnish at least a couple of Bondfests, with plenty left over for an episode of Nash Bridges.

If Last Man Standing is a failure, it's far from a disgrace. Its intentions seem pure; its method, precise and painstaking. You might say this movie has everything. Everything but excitement. [20 Sep 1996, p.22]

The bottom line is that The Crow is a somewhat-better-than-average exploitation flick that has received an extra shot of hype from the untimely and dramatic demise of its star performer.

What's surprising about Not Without My Daughter (which was adapted from a book that Betty Mahmoody wrote with William Hoffer) is how effective it is despite its obvious shortcomings. As a conventional thriller along the lines of, say, a Mission: Impossible episode, the movie actually manages to be borderline entertaining. [11 Jan 1991, p.9]

When the dust clears, Blue Steel turns out to be just one more violent movie whose basic theme is women as victims. [16 Mar 1990, p.3]

Passenger 57 was directed by Kevin Hooks, a former actor who directed last year's Strictly Business. He manages to keep the action fairly clear, which is something that can't be taken for granted in today's adventure movies. [09 Nov 1992, p.C1]

In Howard the Duck, the special effects -- and the Muppety duck jokes -- command so much attention that it's easy to overlook the movie makers' clever narrative touches. It's rather fitting, for example, that Howard is shown to be almost as much of a misfit on the duck world as he is on Earth. And there's a sometimes-touching, sometimes-hilarious Fay Wray-King Kong relationship established between Howard and a sexy, baby-faced rock singer named Beverly (Lea Thompson). The main reason the relationship is so intriguing is that Thompson always keeps you guessing about her character's true feelings for the cantankerous bird. It's hard to fault the tongue-in-bill high spirits of a movie like Howard the Duck.

Malkovich temporarily brings the movie to life, but, finally, it's too little, too late. Amusing though it is, his brief performance probably won't be enough to keep "Jennifer Eight Is Enough" off the ballot. [6 Nov 1992, p.23]

Basically, it's like a standard TV cop show with better-than-average acting and a few brief scenes of violence that would be too extreme to pass network standards...The word that comes to mind is generic.

How bad is Something to Talk About? Well, it's not the worst movie I've seen this year, but it is the biggest waste of talent. [4 Aug 1995, p.18]

I am not going to try to tell you that this one-joke, talking-horse comedy is, in any meaningful sense, a good movie. What I am going to say is that it's a little better than my rock-bottom expectations led me to predict.

If it's not the most awful thing I've ever seen, it's close enough to make me wince.

Though the film does contain a few other humorously erotic moments, it's mostly a listless exercise in intentional camp.

We're No Angels is far from heavenly. It never even gets off the ground.

To watch To Wong Foo is finally to be reminded that camp-meisters often have a weakness for sentimentality that is far more appalling than anything they do in the name of outrageousness. [08 Sep 1995, p.17]

Memphis Belle simply doesn't fly. [12 Oct 1990, p.4]

Filmmaker Haynes has brought forth a punishing little movie, but he fails to make the case that the viewer deserves to be punished. Poison really wants us to suffer - which, come to think of it, is also the underlying aim of many exploitation flicks. For all their cheap thrills, they are basically soul-deadening - and so, ultimately, is this earnest little message movie. [17 May 1991, p.6]

Bottom line: Stake out another movie. [23 July 1993, p.8]

The best to be said for the current production is that the editing is refreshingly swift, the cinematography is clear-eyed and the running time is mercifully short. (I clocked it at just under an hour and a half.) But do I recommend Fire Birds? That's a negative. [29 May 1990, p.D1]

Where Fargo was cool and wryly detached, the zany new film is aggressively antic - more like parts of their Barton Fink or The Hudsucker Proxy. On occasion, in fact, the Coens' anything-goes approach can begin to get on your nerves. [6 March 1998, p.17]

The movie may have been so structured to offer whites in the audience a central white figure with whom to identify. But it's the ultimate irony that moviemakers who want to call attention to the historical accomplishments of blacks feel that they can only do so if the hero of their film is white. [12 Jan 1990, p.6]

Frankly, the original was never one of my favorite Disney cartoons - pleasant enough, but uninspiring. The sequel, I'm afraid, isn't much of an improvement. [16 Nov 1990, p.8]

Spike Lee's ambitious, occasionally brilliant new film about an interracial relationship might have been a masterpiece if only it had been integrated. Thematically integrated, that is. The cast of Jungle Fever is racially integrated, but there's so little holding the diverse elements of the movie together that Lee could have called it Jumble Fever.

Director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men) and his screenwriters have nimbly constructed a movie around young Culkin in such a way as to almost conceal the boy's shortcomings - or, at least, to divert us from them for surprisingly long stretches of time. [21 Dec 1994, p.E1]

A big-screen version of a routine cop show that occasionally gets by on momentum from the original movie.

Although the second half of the picture (which could have been called Single White Females Can't Live Together) is mostly a waste, the early scenes are tantalizing enough to be worth a look. [14 Aug 1992, p.17]

Somehow, the new production fails to sustain the creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky and altogether ooky visual sweep that held the first film together.

There's another, more important reason why Stand By Me isn't for kids. Its perspective is that of a knowing adult, which is to say that though the film is frequently affectionate and funny, it contains a drop too much condescension to be entirely successful.

No one looks particularly comfortable, not even Midler, who has most of the best dialogue. She's watchable as Stella, but that's really the nicest thing I can say for her work in this unfortunate picture. Does Bette Midler really believe that people of limited means can't raise their kids decently? Or is the Divine Miss M making some great joke whose subtle point I am failing to grasp?

Nine Months does have its problems, but it also has its moments, mainly thanks to a truly remarkable cast. [12 July 1995, p.E1]

Fifteen years ago Sylvester Stallone starred in a movie called Rocky, which won an Oscar. Now he is starring in a movie called Oscar that is, well, a little rocky. [29 Apr 1991, p.D1]

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is a serious film, but is it a great one? Not as far as I'm concerned. Overall, I'd say it's only pretty good, though parts of it are much better than that. [30 Apr 1990, p.D1]

Like Home Alone, Career Opportunities is inoffensive, breezy and contains a funny cameo appearance by John Candy. The new film starts out well but falls apart midway because the serviceable situations that Hughes and director Bryan Gordon set up don't much go anywhere.

Color me dissatisfied with Color of Night. For starters, it's a murder mystery with a really obvious solution. How obvious? It's so embarrassingly obvious that even I figured it out - and I can never figure these things out.

This superficially engaging movie leads you to expect something more - something that would suggest how the experience of playing professional ball changed the lives of the women in the league, and how the league itself may have helped to alter the general public's notions of women and sports.

Most of the names in My Girl are meant to seem a little peculiar. In fact, everything in My Girl is meant to seem a little peculiar. Which, I would say, is the problem with the movie. When eccentricity becomes as insistent as it does here, it's not really eccentricity any more, it's affectation. My Girl, which opens today, is a festival of affectation. [27 Nov 1991, p.E1]

Barkin's performance is so detailed that it becomes a little essay about the physical differences between men and women. Too bad that this modern woman's performance is trapped in the movie of an old-fashioned man. [10 May 1991, p.6]

The Lawnmower Man has it all - melodramatic plot, bad acting, special effects that will undoubtedly seem cheesy in about five minutes and even a concluding sequence in which the usual lofty moral is voiced.

Altman's method is risky, but when inspiration strikes the result can be wonderful. When it doesn't, the result can be, well, Ready to Wear.

A routine action drama, Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book contains qualities of both forgettability and painlessness.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome isn't a bad movie. It has entertaining sections, decent performances and more than a few provocative images. But it also has a major shortcoming: It's too darned sane.

Watching The Bodyguard is like trying to have a telephone conversation when you have a bad connection. The guy on the other end keeps saying things that sound maddeningly incomplete....After a while, you want to hang up.

And for a while, anyway, the filmmakers capitalize on this irresistible premise, winning our complicity in their thriller's voyeuristic game with slick visuals and a delicious mood of anticipation. [22 May 1993, p.E1]

This thriller is so completely worked out that it might have been devised by paranoids. Not even the most demented Kennedy-assassination buff could be more thorough about making sure that everything fits with everything else.

What's unusual about Consenting Adults (which opens today) is that virtually everything is implausible. In fact, my bull detector hasn't beeped so much since the last time I went shopping for a new car. If I were to list everything that happens in the film that strains credulity, I'd be here until Woody and Mia get back together. Plus I'd make some of you angry by revealing too many secrets. [16 Oct 1992, p.19]

Although the film is watchable and, at times, even borderline entertaining, it has its share of problems. Mainly, the filmmakers seem to have had trouble deciding just what kind of movie they were making. [22 May 1996, p.E1]

This rather basic story is really just a place to hang the action scenes, which should have been the movie's glory. But those scenes turn out to be the worst things about Mighty Joe Young, in which the action is edited, MTV-style, for maximum incoherence.

All things considered, Pure Luck exists somewhere in that vast middle ground of the cinema - the not-badlands. Watching this film won't make you feel as if you've won the lottery, but at least you won't feel like your pen is leaking. [09 Aug 1991, p.8]

It moves along briskly and lightly, leaving little trace and doing no serious damage to boomer memories. [22 Aug 1997, p.19]

Miami Blues is more interesting than any bad movie I've seen in months, but it is still a bad movie.

Half of me thinks that Raising Cain is disappointing. The other half thinks it's just stupid. [07 Aug 1992, p.19]

Like its fallen star, Gang Related may not be perfect. But there's a lot going on here, just beneath the surface. [8 Oct 1997]

Aside from Robert De Niro and his totally inappropriate performance, the cast is a mixed bag.

Most big-screen adaptations of small-screen fare seek to discover some deeper - or, at least, more complex - implications of the material. But in this new Fugitive, the filmmakers have taken just the opposite approach.

Home Alone-style slapstick with occasional (almost random) heart-tugging. [17 Jun 1994, p.27]

It would be wrong to blame Martin Short alone for the failure of Three Fugitives. Francis Veber, the French filmmaker who wrote and directed the film, must accept much of the responsibility.

If The Prince of Tides has a saving grace, it's the acting. In what is probably the most subdued role of her life, Streisand is remarkably graceful and charming: This woman who has so often been accused of self-infatuation hands much of the movie over to her co-stars.

Effective as these actors are, it's Chase's breezy performance - with its blend of irony and insouciance - that makes Fletch Lives worth a look. He's what Alan Alda would be if Alda could ever figure out how to adapt his TV persona to the big screen.

The new big-screen Flipper isn't as lame as that series, which is one of the two nicest things you can say about it. The other is that its aquatic sequences are sometimes quite beautiful, with their views of dolphins and other sea life. [17 May 1996, p.17]

You would call Amos & Andrew a comedy of errors if it were actually funny. I suppose the precise term is an attempted comedy of errors - or maybe just a turkey. [05 Mar 1993, p.19]

It Could Happen to You does present a life-affirming message about keeping your word - a message that undoubtedly will lead somebody to proclaim it the "feel-good movie of the summer." Yes, it's nice. Very nice. But nice ain't always enough.

In a film that could have been called Grumpy Old Prexies, Garner makes a decent replacement for Walter Matthau. Garner and Lemmon, game troopers both, do what they can to wring laughs out of material that went out with the Eisenhower administration.

Sgt. Bilko is a bigger con job than Bilko himself ever pulled. [29 Mar 1996, p.A2]

If the movie isn't a total loss that's because Jordan, Bugs (voice by Billy West) and their friends have an undeniable charm and because some of the classic gags that director Joe Pytka (a TV-commercial guy), producer Ivan Reitman (Twins, Junior) and the screenwriters have adapted from the Looney Tunes shorts are hard to spoil completely.

Reducing the racist characters to the level of frothing-at-the-mouth Karate Kid villains doesn't shed much light on a serious social problem. (Louis Malle's portrait of the young Gestapo member in the 1974 Lacombe, Lucien came much closer to exposing the banality of evil.) And Avildsen doesn't make matters any better by staging scenes of racial violence so luridly that they almost amount to a form of exploitation.

Backhanded compliments are pretty much the only ones The Boy Who Could Fly deserves. The subjects, here, are childhood and illness: topics that otherwise tough-minded people are inclined to approach with uncharacteristic sentimentality. But though the film is both sappy and cliched, it's not as sappy or cliched as might be expected. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

If there is any reason at all to create a big-budget, 2 1/2-hour film epic about Columbus, it is to bring the explorer and the people around him into focus as human beings. But that's just what director Ridley Scott fails to do. [09 Oct 1992, p.17]

Like "The Living Daylights", Licence to Kill definitely has its moments. But also like "The Living Daylights", the new, two-hour-plus picture goes on too long and is encumbered by a needlessly complicated plot.

Mr. Holland's Opus pretty much plays things straight. There are occasional jokes, but, basically, it's a clumsy tear-jerker. The biggest laughs in this one aren't intended. [19 Jan 1996, p.24]

It's not enough to have the characters act scared and then to throw in a bunch of special effects. It's absolutely essential to creep out the audience, and that's what De Bont neglects to do. [23 July 1999, p.17]

The movie's dark themes, unhurried pace and talkiness make it something of a gamble for many children. But older children - especially those who have been asking specific questions about death - may find some nourishment in this garden.

Director Richard Benjamin and screenwriter Holly Goldberg Sloan use a single comic device throughout the entire movie. In scene after scene, two things are made to happen simultaneously with supposedly hilarious results. [11 Jun 1993, p.22]

A production that's strong on atmosphere but weak in the plot department. Watching this often-tedious film, you begin to feel as if you've been kidnapped - which is appropriate, anyway, since the story concerns an abduction.