Mike Clark

Fortunately, Games' finale is lively enough to keep viewers from cursing on the way out; there's a monsoon, a speedboat chase, a fire, explosion, the usual. Yet does it really exceed action genre expectations? Not really. Even enthusiasts may exit Red October's sequel feeling a little blue. [5 June 1992, p.4D]

Shots is intermittently funny - but never, even on its own terms, important. [31 July 1991, p.6D]

'Burbs is a messy mix of Gremlins, Neighbors, Rear Window and Arsenic and Old Lace. [17 Feb 1989, p.6D]

This breezy farce has lost just enough of its luster to seem no longer disproportionately funnier than its oft-televised Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis remake You're Never Too Young. [29 May 1998]

It's gratifying to see a comedy can have no redeeming social value yet be full of hearty laughs.

T&H isn't art, but it's surprisingly good ''arf'' - and I know what I like. [28 July 1989, p.5D]

Smith is looking more and more like a developing major talent, so it could be years until we get a handle on this movie's legacy. The film is not only defensible as a cute one-shot, but also as a positive sign for the future.

If you can imagine a relatively solemn take on this theme, RoboCop 2 is it. Though Irvin Kershner's direction is competent, there's not a whole lot of eye-twinkling in evidence. [22 June 1990, p.2D]

There are seven 13-year-old sitters in all, and Melanie Mayron (directing her first theatrical feature) doesn't always flub it when any two interact. But the film's nature and even its title peg it as an ensemble work, and Mayron's group footage looks like crude camcording of a ninth-grade picnic. [18 Aug 1995, p.11D]

There's nothing very rockin' about seeing Gene Hackman give a rare indifferent performance as a Navy admiral trying to effect a rescue for which his hands are tied.

You can have a better time title-scanning "Johnny" pics in an alphabetical video guide than you can enduring the latest Blade Runner knockoff. [26 May 1995, p.3D]

For the first time in years (even counting his excellent work in “Internal Affairs”), Richard Gere's acting gears aren't too obviously apparent; Julia Roberts, though the breadth of her emotional range remains in question, is beautiful and can act - a not-bad blueprint for continued employment. [23 Mar 1990, Life, p.4D]

A less-than-middling melodrama whose subject matter and talent never click as much as its credits portend.

There's, say, a 20-minute stretch where this slapstick works; there's also a subplot about N!Xau's lost children (cute, but shruggable), and a real pace-killer involving two rival soldiers. Uys' shots often fail to match, and the monotonic narration really grates; it drones on like a junior high science film on plant blight. [16 Apr 1990, p.9D]

JFK is provocative, a technical primer and an ensemble treat with unusually well- realized star cameos. [20 Dec 1991]

The "Age of Innocence" oozes anthropological dazzle, but Dazed and Confused may some day rate its own Smithsonian showings for clinically re-creating the High School Experience 1976. [20 Sept 1993]

Look out for everything, and listen, too, because Suspects is one of the most densely plotted mysteries in memory.

The new version has the zip of a 96-yard punt return and all the ingredients to inspire the celebratory crushing of empty beer cans.

Brothers never catches fire the way Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" did. And you almost feel during subpar special effects that sweaty stagehands are pushing the trees around.

Richard LaGravenese's flashback script craftily tones down Waller's wind, adds a germane subplot and strengthens the novella's framing device. [02 Jun 1995, p.D1]

Ultimately grim, Liam is ripe in humanity --and even comedy.

Long, lumbering, pretentious and for some a possible laff riot. [23 Dec 1994]

The film, technically deft, is about as erotic as Mona Lisa on a hardwood floor or on a water bed. [23 Dec 1992, p.8D]

Deliberately downbeat, it's best as a two-person character study, stumbling a bit whenever it extends its parameters.

When the cast starts wondering where the roadkill is, someone says, "Follow the smell." Good tip: That's how you'll know where Wax is playing.

Though Hour 2's heavy emphasis on physical and emotional confrontations stimulates dramatic momentum, this respectable superstar meeting is finally, of all things, ordinary. [26Mar1997 Pg04.D]

Despite haunting moments in this fabricated fling between a headstrong Native American and an English sea captain, the film isn't as chirpy or majestic as recent Disney fare. [16Jun1995 Pg. 01.D]

A hopeless if harmless boxing picture whose principals just happen to wear uniforms outside the ring, Annapolis is set in a U.S. Naval Academy where no one ever seems to attend class.