Kevin Thomas

Project X strains credibility. Too often it seems an overreaching variation on "WarGames."

The film may be fearlessly sentimental, but it is sturdy enough to provide rewarding major roles for two veterans, who are of an age when such starring parts are rare.

A major cult film, but a bit much, to put it mildly. [23 Sep 1991, p.F12]

If Hay's style tends to the theatrical, his use of flashbacks, aided by Edie Ichioka's sharp editing and Matthew Heckerling's resourceful camera work, is entirely cinematic, revealing his clever way with plotting.

A leisurely, understated film reminiscent of any number of Japanese counterparts featuring quietly heroic rural teachers. It is easy to label the film as slow, old-fashioned and sentimental, which it certainly is, but it has the tenacity of its heroine, the pretty and intelligent Melinda (Alessandra de Rossi).

The juxtaposition of grim reality and pure fantasy doesn't work...the entire film seem artificial and contrived.

Thumbsucker aims high but swerves too frequently between the engaging and the credibility-defying to be satisfying.

At 100 minutes Careful begins to bore, whereas at half that running time it might well have been unalloyed fun. [05 Nov 1993, p.F12]

A clever, entertaining stunt, no more, no less.

Gung Ho goes after that ever-so-elusive Capra-esque spirit of communal triumph over adversity, but both sides too often verge on stereotypes for this to pay off as richly as it should.

A fast and clever con-gone-wrong comedy that reflects the writer-director's characteristic blend of the intellectual and the criminal. But it lacks anyone to care about--even the repellent characters are less than fascinating--and the result is a crisply made movie that is no more than mildly amusing.

Since the film is based on the Atari video game of the same name, it also has much to appeal to headbangers: fast pace, lots of gadgets, monsters, explosive special effects, plenty of inscrutable plot twists and turns.

Amiably glossy if naggingly old-fashioned.

Since the humor in Moving never rises above the level of a stale sitcom, the film defeats proven comedy director Alan Metter and even its star, Richard Pryor, stuck in the squarest, most strait-jacketed role of his career.

Stone covers territory all too familiar to most Americans old enough to remember the JFK assassination.

A thoughtful but uneven film.

There's probably sufficient energy and violence in RoboCop 3 to satisfy undemanding action fans, but it's as mechanical as its cyborg hero.

Slight in the extreme, more tasteless than amusing, but at least its young actors manage to make promising impressions, especially Wiehl and Brenner, whose characters have a tad more dimension than the others.

Although decently acted and well-crafted, Thérèse is essentially an illustrated Sunday school lecture for true believers. It comes across as more an exercise in determined piety.

It would have been nice if Harris, who casts a sardonic yet compassionate eye on the Travis family, had set his sights a little higher than the typical chronicle of a dysfunctional suburban family.

Leigh piles up woe wider and higher than ever before. That he has done so with his usual skill, perception and alertness to relieving gestures of human tenderness and care does not keep All or Nothing from being a pretty glum, overly familiar business.

As a grand flourish of cinematic technique, it is awesome; as a human drama, it is disgusting and silly, a mindless depiction of carnage on an epic scale. [15 July 1988, Calendar, p.6-1]

The new film is so leisurely paced and overly long that what means to be at once charming yet darkly satirical lapses into tedium and barely comes alive.

It's difficult, though, to see how this picture -- essentially chronicling a long car trip -- could mean much to anyone but the Wagners and their friends and relatives.

The witty coming-of-age film is marred by an uneven, digitally shot look, a disservice to its first-rate cast.

Starts encouragingly and finishes strongly with a twist, but the middle is weighed down by too much discourse when it should be visually evoking its ideas and developing its mood of unease.

An ambitious and intelligent film probing that chronic contemporary phenomenon, the seemingly senseless crime, but it is ultimately unsatisfying for all its efforts and various pluses.

Virtually everything about the film is derivative--even the design for the eerie setting for the climactic struggle recalls the interiors of the more exotic old movie palaces--but its makers can't be accused of cutting corners. No doubt about it, those who ask only for pure action will be getting their money's worth.

Charlotte Gray, for all Blanchett's radiance and intelligence in the title role, is a bore.

It's revealing that writer-director Dave Boyle has said that in a way he fulfilled his lifelong ambition to be a cartoonist with the live-action White on Rice because his people in this wan, trite and increasingly silly comedy are little more than stick figures.

The endless gore and violence make the experience torturous -- and not just for the victims in the movie.

La Petite Lili itself is pretty good, but it is also assured to the point of glibness.

Kawalerowicz directs with briskness and vigor but cannot keep the first half of his film from slipping into tedium.

The Hidden has enough smarts that it doesn’t need to be so total and unrelieved a massacre. The caustic dark humor with which it begins ends up drowning in an ocean of blood.

On the whole, Chain Camera is encouraging.

A striking Western but empty as it is elegant. [25 Jan 1987, p.5]

As rambling as a Keystone Kops comedy (which it resembles in many ways), it's slapstick to the max, and thus likely to be a bit tedious except to dedicated martial arts fans. [20 Dec 1993, p.F5]

This single joke rapidly gets pretty tired; you soon wish you could tell Moretti to try slapping on some calamine lotion--and getting on with his life. But stringing us along--with varying effectiveness-- is his life.

There are moments so visually stunning only a Kubrick could pull them off, yet the film is too grandiose to be the jolter that horror pictures are expected to be. Both those expecting significance from Kubrick and those merely looking for a good scare may be equally disappointed.

Opera, while undeniably entertaining, winds up overwhelming its suspense with morbidity. [13 Jun 1990, p.F6]

Not enough to save ivansxtc from, of all things, dullness.

Simply too tedious and stretched out to be amusing. Had Schorr brought in his picture at 80 or 90 minutes Schultze might have been a different story.

The Boy Who Could Fly is as fragile as a kite, yet it’s kept aloft by the commitment of writer-director Nick Castle and the talent and presence of lovely young Lucy Deakins, who has that crucial gift of catching us up in her imagination.

There are lots of hilarious, off-the-wall incidents, and the film has a likable freewheeling spirit to go with its knockabout plot. But the film isn't as remotely funny as it means to be.

Matthau has the best role, but Robbins and Ryan are finally simply too good for their material, which is not nearly inspired enough to do justice to their talent.

Felicity Huffman is such a wonder, at once funny and brave, playing a pre-op male-to-female transsexual in the uneven comedy Transamerica that she sustains several lapses that might otherwise have sunk it.

Not as distinctive or even as humorous as its needs to be to stand out, but it has clearly been made with affection and care.

Sea of Love is a satisfactory end-of-summer diversion, the kind of film that works as long as you ask nothing of it beyond simple escape. It's a slick, knowing genre film, through and through, a New York cop suspense thriller that we've seen countless times before.

An affectionate tribute to the drag artist who has been a Manhattan institution for more than 20 years.

A work of honesty and artistic integrity that nonetheless will be difficult to watch for many viewers.

A glum British kidnap movie in which writer-director J Blakeson manages to generate tension and some suspense, never rises above the mechanical and contrived, finally lapsing into the improbable.

Paper Clips arrives with an authentically persuasive message of hope.

Thraves is skillful at evoking mood and atmosphere and at depicting transitional periods in a person's life with a mildly wistful humor.

It's a good thing Better Than Sex, which is pretty raunchy and absolutely not for prudes, does have more than sex on its mind, because otherwise audiences might be tempted to dismiss it as a tease.

Hamburger Hill pays heartfelt, richly deserved tribute to the young American soldiers who fought so valiantly there. If only director John Irvin, who was in Vietnam in 1969 making a BBC documentary, and writer Jim Carabatsos, a Vietnam veteran, had been content to honor these men who were prepared to risk their lives in what had become a singularly unpopular war. But they don’t trust the soldiers’ brave actions to speak for themselves and instead give them a series of preachy, rabble-rousing speeches that add up to a diatribe against the anti-war movement at home rather than an attack on U.S. involvement in the war in the first place.

Whereas its plot may be derivative--and at several junctures, unconvincing--Flight of the Navigator nevertheless manages to develop considerable humor and poignancy from David's predicament and what he does about it.

A tour de force of technical brilliance, with flashes of humor and a wild spirit of adventure signifying that you're not supposed to take it too seriously, but the cumulative impact of its avalanche of mayhem is so numbing that it's enough to shrivel your soul.

Luckily, there's a jagged spontaneity to Wild Style that goes with the scruffy street art and culture that it celebrates. [22 May 1998, p.F17]

There are some inspired off-the-wall moments, but they are more than offset by a pervasive aura of tedium and the lack of any sense of the forward momentum necessary to sustain an adventure of this kind.

Dahmer moves with a slowness that's meant to be compelling but is largely merely glum. This becomes a hindrance to building suspense in telling a true story whose outcome is already well known.

Comedy is ever an effective weapon against hypocrisy and oppression, but to be effective it has to cut a lot sharper and deeper than it does in You I Love.

Payne cops out, and the result is off-putting, despite a sparkling cast headed by a fearless Laura Dern in the title role.

The point of the film is to strike a blow for truth regardless of consequences, but it's hard to believe in this seduction. [11 May 2000, p.F36]

Third in the series, the effortlessly effervescent Powell and Loy and a sharp supporting cast are all but overwhelmed by a tedious, impenetrably complicated plot, involving the murder of Nora's late father's business partner (C. Aubrey Smith). [14 Jul 1996, p.4]

Everything that ensues is laughably predictable and silly, but primitive as it is, Spider Baby is a professional effort in which Hill makes an attempt at style, aided by Al Taylor's shadowy black-and-white cinematography and Chaney's willingness to play straight. [01 Apr 1994, p.F8]

Diverting and sometimes humorous but sticks to the superficial ...not distinctive enough to make much of an impression.

Lacks freshness and vitality.

Although The Dying Gaul tries to evoke the pathos of Greek tragedy and the stars strive heroically, there's none of the requisite grandeur in this trio of creeps to make it worth caring what happens to them.

Raucously energetic and replete with a barrage of graphic sexual humor.

Sadly the film is so elusive, so distant, that it never seems more than half-alive.

Dazzling in its possibilities, but the holiday message of the 37-minute Santa vs. the Snowman leaves a lot to be desired.

Weighed down with gimmicks and special effects, a number of which are far from special, Sky High is best left to 10- to 14-year-olds because it's not likely to do much for older audiences and is too violent for the very young.

Leaves you wanting to know more, and that's not a bad thing.

Too much of the film is not inspired enough in its humor to overcome the queasy feeling that comes from watching a comedy-adventure involving Jews during the Holocaust.

Contrivance and a horrendous body count combine to yield a morbid effect for discriminating filmgoers, despite a comic tone. Still, there's enough ingenuity and scariness to please plenty of fans of the first film.

Has lots of energy and a sensational villainess, Divatox (Hilary Shepard Turner), whose fashion tips come from Ming the Merciless and who has been given all the film's sharpest lines.

Taylor Hackford's 1980 debut feature The Idolmaker, inspired by the life of Bob Marcucci, discoverer and promoter of Fabian and others, has some gritty, satirical commentary on the pop music scene of decades past but is hampered by an ending that seems self-dramatizing fantasy made real. Ray Sharkey, however, is impressive in the title role. [11 Aug 1991, p.6]

Candyman, the latest Clive Barker shocker, is his worst to date: an ambitious would-be morality play/thriller of the supernatural involving racism and mythology that seems merely pretentious and preposterous as it drowns in gallons of blood and guts. [16 Oct 1992, p.F6]

The strongest asset is the film's setting, a splendid re-creation of Buffalo Bill's famous tent show. [26 Feb 1989, p.4]

Danny Elfman's intense score contributes crucial energy, John Thomas' camera work is first-rate, but the ambitious Freeway ends up merely trashy.

Writer-director Todd Stephens set out to make the raunchiest gay teen movie ever, which this picture most certainly is, but the result is far more frenetic than funny.

What is going on here? Most would say a lot of incredibly dangerous and stupid activity, and most of the people in this documentary not surprisingly seem none too bright.

Not ultimately original enough to sustain its many horrific images.

A standard-issue Hollywood family film about a boy and his dog growing up in a Southern small town during World War II.

While an abundant sense of humor cannot save the film from terminal silliness, it might make watching it bearable and even sometimes amusing.

Because its gimmick lays bare the evils of racism so easily, the movie works for a while, but it becomes so predictable that it runs out of gas long before the end. [13 Oct 1985, p.5]

Long-winded and ultimately uninvolving.

The result is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser that will strike Chen's admirers as a heartfelt but decidedly minor effort.

Let's hope Romero is not tempted to go for a quartet, for at this point sheer gruesomeness overwhelms his ideas and even his dynamic visuals. He would, in fact, have been better off not having tried for a third installment. [04 Oct 1985, p.4]

Driver, who steadfastly carries Rosina/Mary through every stormy stage of her self-discovery, is consistently better than the picture, as is Wilkinson.

Illustrates what happens when a viable premise is spoiled by sheer preposterousness.

The Money Pit grows increasingly mechanical, both in its content and in the resolution of its plot, as the effects start overwhelming this essentially modest little romantic comedy.

Hill, who brings considerably less humor to his film than Kurosawa did his, unfortunately hasn't anything new to add that makes it worth sitting through his blood baths, as skillfully staged as they are. [20 Sep 1996, p.F10]

Decidedly uneven yet intriguing.

A shameless heart-tugger of considerable appeal that, like many movies that start off with much going for them, could have been so much better had its makers aimed higher.

The stories are interlinked effectively, and the film strikes an upbeat note yet does not address racism and discrimination. For all its affection toward its characters, however, the film is too long and too slack.

With its stylized, near-surreal comic-book look and roots, The Princess Blade has all the makings of a cult film.

It's clear early on, however, that this is standard concert-film fare geared to the faithful.