Mark Caro

You can take the director out of television, but sometimes you can't take television out of the director. Although Garry Marshall has been making movies for longer than he spent creating such series as "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley," his work retains the scent of the small screen.

Striptease has its moments, but by the clunky ending it has gathered more steaminess than steam.

Packed with gratuitous dumb moments -- which is too bad, given that the premise has promise.

Baldwin's Kudrow is a one-dimensional, humorless variation on his corporate tyrant in "Glengarry Glen Ross." When the writers attempt to add color -- like with a female office worker who blathers about caffeine and Bart Simpson -- the results induce cringing. [3 Apr 1998, p.A]

The biggest surprise may be what the filmmaker doesn't show; he withholds a big dramatic payoff, so the audience must fill in the blanks.

Feels like a demonstration reel for toys, action figures and future DisneyQuest installations.

The movie suffers from various technical difficulties - like choppy editing and songs that get cut off mid-groove - and in the end everything collapses in a heap. [05 Nov 1990, p.4C]

The movie has a big, warm, fuzzy heart - and not a bellylaugh in sight. [30 March 1992, p.5]

In the end you don't believe what you're watching, and you don't care. This party is a drag.

By all rights, this material should be far more insufferable and less entertaining than it is. [23 Aug 1991, p.H]

Kollek's fondness for whimsical plot turns adds still more random elements to a movie that at times seems edited by a blindfolded monkey.

The same bland vision of teendom that's become inescapable on the small and big screens.

An overblown clunker full of bad jokes, howling cliches and by-the-numbers action sequences.

This movie thrusts you so close to these intoxicated idiots that you practically have to wipe off secondhand tequila, sweat and spit stains afterward.

This is one of those would-be blockbusters that wants to have it both ways: It includes enough political commentary to have pretensions of seriousness, yet it's engineered to satisfy the explosion cravings of Schwarzenegger action fans, if any are left.

A rock 'n' roll film should be funny-crazy -- not just a big, dumb promo for some over-the-hill dudes in makeup who are trying to sell today's kids on yesterday's glory by championing deliquency.

Welcome to Mooseport isn't a belly-laugh farce. It's more along the lines of a "My Cousin Vinny," where you just enjoy almost everybody who crosses the screen. Such a comedy these days is more than welcome.

In Uptown Girls Murphy is like a puppy in traffic; you're confident she'll reach the curb but only because the cars are swerving, not because her moves are so deft.

Stumbles from cliche to cliche:

Let's make this simple: If you spend money on Soul Plane, you've been played.

Lacks the meanness of so many recent gross-out comedies. With the sparkling Diaz leading the way, the lame humor is much more palatable.

By throwing so much weight to the love story and increasingly contrived setups, the movie does what you secretly, guiltily hope it will do: It lets you off the hook.

Just say no.

But in the end everything comes down to Lawrence, who has yet to develop a truly distinct comedic sensibility.

A criminal waste of talent.

Envy is a shaggy dog-poop story that'll make you wish you could spray something at the screen to make it disappear.

Mulcahy has toned down the fancy, self-conscious camerawork of the original, which he also directed, and pushes the story forward with enough flash and pop to divert viewers from the shaky premises. [01 Nov 1991, p.F]