Jay Scott

Director Michael Apted's Thunderheart is a fleetly-paced murder mystery cum conspiracy thriller marred only by an 'inspirational' Hollywood ending at odds with the trajectory of the plot. [3 Apr 1992]

It is an agreeable example of how a picture conceived as "product" need not condescend to the audience it exploits. [11 Apr 1983]

The ending can be read as conclusively upbeat or as corrosively ironic. Still, Youngblood is never less than fascinating, and it's a bit like the game it explores: the times you don't want to look at it are the times you can't look away. [31 Jan 1986, p.D1]

The film is a respectable, claustrophobic and slick piece of work, and cinematographer Nestor Almendros' color strategies - Rembrandt-like light at night, lemony tones during the day, desaturated sepia at Auschwitz - are arty to a fault. [14 Dec 1982]

Victory, the new film by 74-year-old John Huston, is a civilized, professional, old-fashioned entertainment about men in groups. The picture is being hyped as a story of human spirit, prevailing against impossible odds, but it's a lot more low-key and a great deal more enjoyable than that. It's the story of the wake left by a great director sailing smoothly at half-mast. [31 July 1981]

In High Hopes, Leigh regularly expresses love for the very people to whom he is putting the boot... As a satire, High Hopes is an esthetic joy. [14 April 1989]

Timeliness aside, it's an electrifying and erotic film-noir thriller in the Hitchcock tradition - James Stewart could have been cast as Tom Farrell - right up to the final five minutes, which feature a surprise ending that is a shock primarily because it makes little logical sense; surprise endings should click satisfyingly into place once the shock has worn off, but this one stirs up questions that refuse to settle. [14 Aug 1987]

Director Kathryn Bigelow, who earlier proved in the vampire movie Near Dark that she has a thing for denim, leather and blood, is merely the overture to the violent shocks and severe sexual confusions (dozens of them) that give Blue Steel its dissonant, disruptive power. [16 Mar 1990]

Alice Tate seems at first to be no more than a grimly sweet nothing, but she evolves into a giddily sweet something. So does her movie. [25 Jan 1991]

Peggy Sue is by no means a masterpiece of movie art, but it is an example of the sort of thoroughly enjoyable middle-brow Hollywood picture - clever, thoughtful, literate - that went missing about the time Peggy Sue got married. [10 Oct 1986]

A happy surprise, a sweet and silly combination of the cheesy special effects of Japanese sci-fi movies and the witty slapstick of American silent films. [20 Apr 1981]

The Lost Boys mixes comedy and horror with a dexterity that augments each. Dracula and Peter Pan were antipodal products of the same society: bringing them together has resulted in a marriage that would make Bram Stoker snicker and J.M. Barrie bawl. [1 Aug 1987, p.C5]

Humanistic and anti-war, Memphis Belle is predictably uplifting, as is the wont of producer Puttnam, but not at the expense of good sense. These were fine kids, this exciting and intelligent film says, and it wasn't their fault society couldn't find anything better for them to do than kill or be killed. Memphis Belle is a dance of life tapped out on a tombstone. [12 Oct 1990]

Silkwood is a friendly, kooky and caring film. [09 Dec 1983]

Along the way, director Jonathan Kaplan (Over the Edge, Heart Like a Wheel) deftly extracts from Virgil's predicament rivers of the milk of human kindness and encourages excellent performances from Broderick (Ferris Bueller is old enough to smoke and drink beer legally in this one, but he still looks like a kid) and Helen Hunt, Virgil's Wisconsin trainer. [20 Apr 1987]

Much Ado About Nothing is side-show Shakespeare, neither vulgar nor memorable - it's a date movie for couples who read. [7 May 1993]

This means that Someone to Watch Over Me is a much more interesting movie (than "Fatal Attraction").[9 Oct 1987]

In the hallowed Hollywood tradition of mindless flash, F/X turns the suspension of disbelief into airy entertainment. [7 Feb 1986, p.D3]

The movie remains an embodiment of Spielberg's commercially cunning brand of clankingly retro filmmaking, despite the wit and charm brought to their Spiel-speak dialogue by the talented young performers, The Goonies is less a movie than an entertainment machine. [7 Jun 1985, p.E1]

The people behind Cocoon have taken many of the weariest of the cinematic cliches of the eighties and invested them with hearts and minds; from an unsightly chrysalis, a thing of beauty has been born. [21 June 1985]

The film as a whole, beautifully drawn and gracefully set into balletic motion, teaches a few welcome lessons regarding ecology and racial tolerance. [19 Nov 1988]

For all its contrivance, it's lively and amusing and occasionally disconcerting in its reproduction of what life was like in the mid-to-late teens.

You may find yourself having more kinky fun in The Wanderers than you have had in any American movie for a long time, but when you try to grasp the meaning of what you've seen, you find yourself clutching at moonbeams. [31 Aug 1979]

It's got thrills and chills and one of the most elegantly conceived monsters in the history of movies.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer should be a mess, but it's not. It's a mini-comic triumph, and although it's technically a teen movie, it's in the tiny genre of sophisticated, darkly funny teen films such as Heathers and Pump Up the Volume. [4 Aug 1992, p.C1]

It is emphatically not for people who like either Twain or the more sophisticated manifestations of the Arthurian legend (the Camelot musical or Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex) but it is a well-directed, nicely acted bit of slapstick that has young audiences squealing with delight. [13 Aug 1979]

The Return of the Living Dead, a parody of George A. Romero's unforgettably frightening Night of the Living Dead, is not for everybody, but it's one of the funniest films of its kind ever made. [16 Aug 1985]

As torpedoes shoot through the seas and depth charges pass by, carrying their whining cargo of destruction, Das Boot brings the presence of death to within a whisper of the eardrum.