Michael Wilmington

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Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times
For 1,969 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 75% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 23% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Michael Wilmington's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 Sweet Sixteen
Lowest review score: 0 Repossessed
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,505 out of 1969
  2. Mixed: 305 out of 1969
  3. Negative: 159 out of 1969
1969 movie reviews
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    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Typhoon
    As silly movies go, this one is at least pretty exciting. But in the end, Typhoon leaves you feeling as exiled from the two Koreas as Sin is.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    Taking Care of Business
    Taking Care of Business is a curious achievement: a laughless comedy starring Belushi and Grodin, two actors who are almost always funny.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Jumpin' Jack Flash
    It's Whoopi Goldberg, however, who gives you something extraordinary. At the center of all this formula tongue-in-cheek thriller pablum, she keeps sending out weird curves and bent splinters of off-center energy. She's a remarkably empathic actress, and you only hope she'll get a few vehicles that push her to the limit.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Sum of All Fears
    The sum of all snores until the moviemakers start blowing up Baltimore halfway through. Then the special-effects people take over for about 20 breathless minutes.
    • 30 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    The Boy in Blue
    Somehow The Boy in Blue, amiable enough, always feels like an "afternoon" movie -- a throwaway, not good enough to plan an evening around. [03 May 1986, p.9]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Larger Than Life
    Larger Than Life is far closer to Murray's worst than his best. It's a truly senseless, erratic, if occasionally charming comedy that manages to waste Murray, a fine cast, good location photography and a terrific actor: Tai, the 8,000-pound trained pachyderm whose considerable stuff was strutted in 1995's Operation Dumbo Drop. [03 Nov 1996, p.11C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    High Heels
    The best thing about High Heels are the performances - [Victoria Abril]'s tense, voracious daughter, Parades' star-turn mother, the sinister Bose, the arrogant Atkine - and the lucidity of Almodovar's narrative style, which by now seems as natural as breathing. [20 Dec 1991]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Ha-Hesder
    Hobbled with pedestrian direction, a dull visual style and a last act awash in obvious bang-bang melodrama.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Hitch
    The movie, like Hitch, tries to be cool, funny and sweet but falls on its face without generating any real sympathy, smarts or humor.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Pump Up the Volume
    In the end, even in the howling high frequencies and the nihilistic night, this R-rated movie misses its best shot. It doesn't talk hard enough. [22 Aug 1990, p.5]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 14 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Mixed Nuts
    It's hard to create snap-crackling languor or laid-back frenzy. And there's also something condescending in the entire conception of Mixed Nuts. [21 Dec 1994, p.7]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Alex & Emma
    The movie doesn't deserve any of the talent bestowed on it, from Reiner's amiable direction to the occasional grace notes in the performances of Hudson, Marceau and David Paymer.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
    There are misfires in Sucka, but there's also some funny stuff. Wayans shows a refreshing taste for self-mockery. [17 Feb 1989, p.8]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 47 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Hiding Out
    The two halves of Hiding Out--thriller and teen sex comedy--never meld, working against each other rather than together. Hiding Out never escapes its absurd hook, this mechanical collision of genres. After all, if someone really needs to hide out, isn't the best plan to simply . . . hide out?
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    28 Days Later...
    Boyle's new movie is mostly a zombie fiasco, closer to the vacuities of "The Beach" than the scintillating social satire of "Trainspotting."
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Show Me Love
    A light, breezy, often charming little film, with a good cast playing mostly shallow characters.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    RoboCop 3
    The show has its moments-some funny scenes, some wild stop-motion Phil Tippett computer action, some of Torn's scenery-chewing. But they're only moments. RoboCop 3's main problem is that nobody fouled up its program. It's a RoboMovie. [05 Nov 1993, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 32 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Someone Like You...
    Soft and predictable -- which might be OK if there were more laughs and insight.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Sign 'o' the Times
    As a concert film, judged from the music, Sign O' the Times is near the top. As a movie -- carrying inside it the embryo of other movies -- it's not fully satisfying. But you sense it could be; however he stumbles, Prince gives you the impression he'll always, catlike, leap back. [20 Nov 1987, p.4]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Mask of Zorro
    Spectacular, fast, never boring. But it's also one of the more disappointing movies I've seen recently.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Emperor's New Groove
    A bright and zippy, but alarmingly over-campy and lighter-than-fluff cartoon feature.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Freaky Friday
    Freaky Friday commits a lot of sins; luckily, it has Curtis and a few others to cover them up.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Opposite of Sex
    For all Ricci's zingers, the actress who gets the most laughs here is Kudrow, who has an amazingly right-on offbeat comic sense and rhythm. Playing a bright, sexually repressed Indiana teacher, she displays priceless timing. [19 June 1998]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Chances Are
    The talk and plot twists both have a flavorless, perfunctory quality.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Office Space
    Drably shot, unimaginatively written and shallowly acted, it's a poor example of the "daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys" occupational comedies that flourished throughout the job-obsessed '80s. [19 Feb 1999]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Lethal Weapon
    At bottom, Lethal Weapon isn't much. It's a big, shallow, flashy, buddy-buddy cop thriller; it attacks you like a stereophonic steamroller, flattening everything behind it. Snatches of "Hustle" "Magnum Force" and "48 HRS." float above this plot like scum on a polluted lake, and the holes in logic and mindless climax are (or should be) embarrassing. [6 Mar 1987, p.4]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Enemy of the State
    To say Enemy of the State is senseless is an understatement. This is a movie where logic is the enemy.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Psycho III
    Psycho III--better in most respects than II--lets you down with the same swampy thud at the end. It's not a catastrophe. It has some good writing, and some better-than-good acting (Perkins, Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey), directing (Perkins again) and camera work (Bruce Surtees). But it fails any sequel's acid test: It feeds off the original without deepening it.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    The Ipcress File
    The film now seems less urbane and innovative, more coldly flashy and bluntly affected -- full of sound and Furie, signifying little. [2 June 1987, p.Cal-1]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Parents
    Parents is all leftovers, despite the tasty little tidbits that Quaid and Hurt keep sporadically cooking up: Dad's spotless collars and loopy grin, Mom's brittle Cutex-lacquered claws. [27 Jan 1989, p.7]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Transamerica
    At its best, Transamerica made me laugh and feel for Bree. At its worst, it made me cringe at the potential creepiness of its central relationship.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    ...So Goes the Nation
    The film's triple thesis is that elections are run badly, Democrats are often clueless and Republicans are clever. Maybe--but that still leaves too many unanswered questions.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    La Femme Nikita
    Like the movies its modeled after, it's shallow, frequently silly. But there's something about the mix--maybe something about Parillaud as the screechy, dangerous Nikita--that may make the movie a powerful engine of wish-fulfillment. [12 Apr 1991, Calendar, p.F-10]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Napoleon Dynamite
    It's fairly entertaining--but not the second coming of indie comedy some notices might lead you to expect.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    South Central
    Despite its good performances--Minns, Lumbly, Shelby and Best, as well as Plummer--South Central lacks a certain juice, heat and life. It doesn’t boil with the energy you’d expect from a gang picture, and it doesn’t have the density or rich atmosphere of a Boyz N the Hood, Do the Right Thing or New Jack City.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Outbreak
    There's too much hardware, too little sense. Too much blood, too little flesh. Too much program, too little mind. That's the virus of the contemporary movie techno-thriller.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Dragonfly
    A sappy, often absurd disappointment, another would-be inspirational romance that, like Costner's overwrought "Message in a Bottle," is impossible to swallow.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Wendigo
    Fessenden cooks up a likably offbeat horror movie. But somehow, it never jells, never really scares us.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Dahmer
    A tasteful, intelligent, well-acted film about one of the most ghoulish serial killers in American crime history - and I'm afraid that's a good part of what's wrong with it.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
    In a weird way, what happens to the kids is what happens to the movie. The humans shrivel to crawling piffles or get deformed into caterwauling robots; the super-tall grass and the giant cookies and insects take over.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Internal Affairs
    It never cuts loose. No matter how much come-hither villainy Gere generates, or how much envy and menace Garcia throws back at him, they're still trapped there in that bare, empty story, waiting for the dry ice and the steam to arrive.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Upside of Anger
    It's a bizarre but engaging fling.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Men's Club
    There’s a good movie buried in it, but it stays buried--and, by the end, the annoyances outweigh the pleasures.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    The Lost Boys
    Midway through The Lost Boys there's a brief scene that suggests the magic and power it could have had. This scene suggests a fable of seductive evil-but nothing in the movie is ever half as evocative again. It's more lost than the Boys: a glossy fiasco with most of the real blood sucked out of it.
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Executive Decision
    Less a movie than a loud, heavy, money machine, a think tank where nobody thinks. The movie seems intended to extract maximum profit with minimum artistry -- and if you like having your pockets picked by experts, this is probably the show to see. [15 Mar 1996, p.C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Head in the Clouds
    Townsend seemed to me ill-matched as a romantic hero: way too moony-eyed and mushy to cope with the likes of the towering Theron and torchy Cruz.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Disturbia
    For all its glitz and gadgets, is markedly inferior in everything but teen appeal.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    White Fang
    London's Fang was, fundamentally, a loner and a killer; the movie Fang is a big, friendly dog, temporarily derailed into the fight game by snarling villains. That makes this White Fang, rather oversunny, overaffirmative, primarily a movie for children. But I liked it anyway, despite the softened tone, the coincidences, despite Hawke's constantly gaping mouth.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
    It's one more example of minuscule ideas inflated to preposterous proportions: An Attack of the 50-Foot Marketing Hook. [17 Jul 1992, p.F10]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
    A comedy that seems to have most everything going for it but the ability to make us laugh.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Vice Versa
    Vice Versa may be a better film than Like Father, Like Son, largely because of the direction and Savage’s performance, but it’s still a disappointment.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Kill Me Again
    Kill Me Again doesn't look like the noir classics; instead of black-and-white, it's shot in slightly muddy color with vagrant green tints. But it feels like them. It has that nerve-jangling mix of pungent cynicism and thick gobs of pseudo-Expressionist style. It's not brilliant or original, but it's still a lean, fast, wide-awake sleeper.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Manhattan Project
    There are some premises that absolutely aren't going to work--no matter how much intelligence, talent or craft the film makers bring to them. And Marshall Brickman may have stumbled onto such a premise in The Manhattan Project.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Count of Monte Cristo
    This seems to be a movie made by people who love the old classic movie swashbucklers but don't have a clue how to make or modernize them.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    New Jack City
    Bad as the overall design remains, individual scenes keep sparking alive, partly because the dialogue, or delivery, seems fresh, and improvisatory; partly because Van Peebles, in his directorial debut, figures out unusual or athletic camera designs for every scene. It's obvious he has talent, equally obvious there's no way this story can work right, no matter how strenuous the staging.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Snow Falling on Cedars
    Movies made from serious novels are often ridiculed as unworthy of their sources, but this one may be too worthy -- too reverent, too showy, too earnest.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Get Bruce
    This one's worth the ticket price only if you are a showbiz-aholic.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    Stone Cold
    An empty-headed movie: one more gargantuan, excessive, over-the-top action thriller with one more superhero -- this time ex-linebacker Brian "The Boz" Bosworth -- battling dozens of deranged villains single-handedly while trucks, motorcycles and cars crash all around him. [20 May 1991, p.F6]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Johnny Handsome
    This movie can spot the handsome face that lies beneath an ugly exterior, but it seems to get fooled by the rot that sometimes lurks beneath the sweet and the safe, the formula and the sure-fire.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    Point Break
    It's a movie that's almost all style, all technique. It doesn't seem to be inhabited by people, thoughts or feelings, but by great coruscating patterns of light crashing over and over us, repeatedly--almost, but not quite, drowning out a constant buzz of cliches.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Cellular
    Slickly produced, well cast and very excitingly made, it's based on plot hooks so silly, most of them blow up in your face.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    The Caddy
    Norman Taurog's The Caddy is a sometimes subpar 1953 Martin & Lewis golfing comedy enlivened by a Dean and Jerry duet on "That's Amore" and a snatch of their great stage act. [22 Jul 1988, p.23]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Big Eden
    By creating a kind of politically correct version of Andy Griffith's "Mayberry," director Bezucha has drained the movie not only of bigotry but also of dramatic conflict.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Last Mimzy
    The sense of the unknown that "Padgett" created are largely absent. And the movie fails to supply us with an antagonist to work up some dramatic conflict. Nor are the toys themselves very interesting and Mimzy is a toy bunny of no distinction.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Mystic Pizza
    Beyond some well-observed sibling interaction, the mutual effort of four writers is mutually uninspired. Whoever wrote the episodes between hot-to-trot Jojo (Taylor) and her balky boyfriend Bill (D'Onofrio) should be ashamed. [21 Oct 1988]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Alien 3
    Although Alien 3 is stylish--and ambitious--the movie doesn't have the soul or guts to sustain that ambition. It gets swallowed up in its own technology and genre expectations. And Fincher gets stalled in the drama, trapped in too many scenes of talking heads looming out of the gloom.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Junior
    It's a shiny, glib, hollowly good-looking movie that always seems to be cooing at us-coldly. [23 Nov 1994, p.9C]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Diary of Anne Frank
    Adapted from the Goodrich-Hackett play, it just misses the spiritual and emotional majesty it reaches for.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Ref
    Some of LaGravenese's dialogue crackles, but it's a dry crackle, a hollow cough. And that's despite Leary-and in spite of Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey, two of the best actors around these days.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Wimbledon
    It's a harmless enough movie, and quite a good-looking one; Bettany and Dunst are an attractive enough couple, even if Lizzie has been written as a selfish little snip and he as a whining man-child.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Under Siege
    Everything about the movie is overscaled, overbrutal, overbroad, full of holes. Yet there's something cheerful and wacky about it; it's a light-hearted blood bath.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
    Decline's redeeming grace is its jocular, damn-the-proprieties air and, for the first half, its staccato editing rhythm. It's damnation is most of the music and its relative avoidance of heavy metal's darker corners: the pith and point that Alex Cox gave punk in Sid and Nancy.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Miss Firecracker
    It’s a low-budget production with major-league acting by Mary Steenburgen, Holly Hunter and Alfre Woodard. It’s not directed sharply enough; Thomas Schlamme is particularly weak on the fight scenes.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Prime
    I found nothing likable or funny about either of these characters, who both deserve a pie in the face. (One of them even gets it.)
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    The Thrill of It All
    Norman Jewison directed, but overall it's surprisingly labored, with that cheesy, set-bound look of a lot of many early '60s Universal pictures. [25 Mar 1988, p.22]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Flicka
    A modernized version of that great sentimental horse movie, 1943's "My Friend Flicka," and it comes with the shiny trappings, high professionalism and glamorous accessories you might expect...Something is missing though.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Lisa Picard Is Famous
    It's a nice little film, likable but not exceptional, and it will probably appeal most strongly to actors, would be-actors, wannabes and ex-actors.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Permanent Midnight
    The filmmakers' instincts may be sound, but Permanent Midnight is no killer. Stahl hated most of what he wrote in his TV heyday. So one really wonders why he, and maybe Stiller, didn't write this script. Surely, it's one script Stahl could have delivered.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    The Fourth War
    The Fourth War doesn't make much sense, but it's powerfully acted and beautifully directed. [23 Mar 1990, p.F4]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Backstage
    The results aren't gothic and bloody, as they were in the Lauren Bacall film "The Fan," or elegant and ironic as in the Bette Davis classic "All About Eve"--though the plot suggests a bit of both.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Cecil B. DeMented
    Weighed down by the presence of Griffith. She plays her satiric part without much gusto or conviction - as if she were afraid we might believe she really is Honey.
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Heart and Souls
    It wins a few, loses a few. It makes us laugh, gets mileage out of the Four Seasons’ “Walk Like a Man.” In the end, the actors save it, especially two of the actors: star Robert Downey Jr., who may have moved into the Robin Williams-Steve Martin-Whoopi Goldberg category, and supporting actor David Paymer, who never hits a false note.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Human Nature
    Tries for both civilized wit and primitive joy -- and mostly misses both.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    How to Eat Fried Worms
    This is a picture in which the barf scenes standard in the usual crude youth comedies aren't gratuitous. They're logical climaxes.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Rollerball
    It's got the smoothest, glossiest finish imaginable, but something inside it doesn't jell. [15 July 1988, p.26]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Minus Man
    Minimalism be damned; even a postmodern noir needs more than Minus Man gives us. So do the actors.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Camp
    Does have heart and enthusiasm. But it might have worked better if it had been glitzed up and energized the way "Fame" was. It's not a script that can survive this kind of minimal, earnest, self-congratulatory treatment.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Light of Day
    Light of Day is a sympathetic, intelligent movie, with one great performance, but it suffers from the malaise rock 'n' roll is supposed to cure: inhibitions, a lack of spontaneity. [06 Feb 1987, p.4]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Mr. & Mrs. Smith
    This romantic-comedy action movie is a fizzle.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Michael Wilmington
    Flatliners
    If Flatliners is anything at all, it's watchable: aflame with Jan de Bont cinematography, deep-focus decor, an attractive cast. The movie's problem, like many others recently, is that it isn't any deeper, dramatically or psychologically, than its own trailer. It is the trailer: the long version.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Gate
    The Gate, whatever minor triumphs it dredges up, is too hopelessly copycat. It's basically powdered Speilberg on Zwieback toast and Stephen King on a stick. [19 May 1987, p.3]
    • Los Angeles Times
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Screamers
    A commendably brave piece, but less focused and powerful than you'd like. In the end, Garapedian might have been better off concentrating her energy on the 1915 Armenian story--which has been told on film various times (for example, in "Forty Days of Musa Dagh" and Atom Egoyan's "Ararat"), but never with the power of, say, "The Pianist" or "Schindler's List."
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Package
    Hackman, Jones, Heard, Cassidy, Pam Grier and Dennis Franz -- in another of his greaseball cop roles -- are always interesting to watch. And Davis still suggests he might evolve into an action specialist in the Don Siegel-Phil Karlson class -- if he chooses less apocalyptic scenarios.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Entrapment
    A wildly expensive movie full of computers, nonsense and violence, a film where wit, romance, elegance -- everything -- is sacrificed on the altar of giganticism, cliche and over-the-top action.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    So I Married an Axe Murderer
    It's a comedy about maniacs: a tasteful murder-comedy, which isn't that laudable a goal.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    No Mercy
    It’s a dazzlingly filmed and acted synopsis.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Brighton Beach Memoirs
    Brighton Beach Memoirs may be one of Simon’s best plays, but the film’s heart seems to be beating in a plastic wrapper. There’s a kind of glace over everything, a sugary show-biz coat that dulls your taste buds. Everything is bigger, brighter and broader than it should be--though remnants of that simpler, more honest story often peek through.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    Eddie Murphy: Raw
    Most of the jokes in Eddie Murphy Raw are the kind you regale buddies with to show off. Anyone as good as Eddie Murphy should have outgrown that years ago.
    • 33 Metascore
    • 50 Michael Wilmington
    The Out-of-Towners
    Ragged as some of it might have been, that old "Out-of-Towners" had a unified and surprisingly dark comic vision to go with its nifty one-liners. This big, glossy picture is set in movie-movie land, that shiny, peachy place where a celebrity -- like Mayor Rudy -- waits around every corner. [2 April 1999, Friday, p.A]
    • Chicago Tribune
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Michael Wilmington
    Thrashin'
    When it's just roaring along through a kaleidoscope of Los Angeles locations, the camera perched behind, above or below the skateboarding heroes and villains, the movie can be fun. It's shot in an extravagant, try-anything, music-video style. It's rattlingly paced, vibrant and splashy. Then we get to the story. Stop me if you've heard this one: Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl. Sound familiar? Try this for extra spice. Two warring teen-age gangs clash--the free-and-breezy Valley Guy "Ramp Locals" and the swaggering, black leather, bone-in-the-nose "Daggers."
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