Paul Attanasio

The screenplay, by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby, is just one long passage of exposition: someone blows up or dries up or whatever, you wonder why that's happening, and then someone explains it. This they call suspense. [25 June 1985, p.C8]

Count me among those who would be perfectly happy if they never saw another movie in which a big-city cop, fueled by the death of his partner, seeks revenge against a corrupt small-town sheriff, a wily and ruthless pillar of the Establishment, a psychotic killer or (as here) all three. While you're at it, count me among those who would be happy never to see another starring role for Gere, except maybe as Felix in a remake of "The Odd Couple."

Desperately Seeking Susan is just a woman's version of The Woman in Red, where Gene Wilder chased Kelly Le Brock because she was great looking and rich and he had the middle-class blues. The only difference is that Wilder felt guilty about it.

And in the leads, Danson and Mandel won't make anyone forget Laurel and Hardy, or Namath and Gifford, for that matter. Not that there's any time for them to develop any chemistry -- Edwards is always revving up the rock 'n' roll and launching into another slapstick car chase. Which makes "A Fine Mess" the best argument yet for the 55 mph speed limit.

And all this twaddle about how people are more important than dollars, in a sequel that was rushed out by producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus to capitalize on the summertime windfall of "Breakin' " is almost hilarious.

On the whole, Deadly Friend is a routine horror movie, poorly photographed (by old-time cinematographer Philip Lathrop) and poorly performed (with the exception of New York stage actress Anne Twomey, as Paul's mother).

Overheated and recklessly violent.

If the style of the film matches the story, that doesn't make it any easier to look at -- it's just too bleak, and in the end, you'd rather see "Ivanhoe." Annaud never finds the right rhythm for the movie, and it's sluggishly paced, even as palimpsests go.

It's the kind of undigested vision that might have come from the kids themselves. [15 Feb 1985, p.B1]

Can contemporary romance be this flat?

How maddening Dune is! As you would expect from visionary director David Lynch, it is a movie of often staggering visual power, the most ambitious science fiction film since "2001"; it's also stupefyingly dull and disorderly. Dune doesn't get going till fully two hours have elapsed, so only the most patient will wait for the images to build to their crescendo. Lax in its storytelling, Dune gives us sublimity unmoored.

This kind of macho bantering quickly wears thin, too -- I guess it's not surprising that men who spend most of their time with other men would lard their conversation with taunts of homosexuality and allusions to male gonads, but it's not particularly interesting either. And as a storyteller, Carabatsos is no better than a competent hack. The plot is schematic, the characters are cliche's.

Such an attenuated plot might be fine if Hines were allowed to dance (he isn't) or the jokes were funnier (they're not). Director Peter Hyams has the comic timing of a tax auditor, but at least he can build a car chase, and if you stick around till the end (you shouldn't), there is an expertly photographed shoot-out staged in the Illinois State Building, a 14-story glass and metal bird cage that would have fit nicely into Hyams' previous film, "2010." [30 June 1986, p.C3]

Inside this star vehicle there's a real movie screaming for air.

As a thriller, Wisdom is dull; as an examination of a terrorist's psychology, it is, paradoxically, both overly detailed and unilluminating; and as a meditation on the nature of fame in America today, it is portentous in the gloomy manner of what college catalogues call an "all-night bull session." On the other hand, Moore springs to life whenever she's given a good sarcastic line to deliver. And if you stick around till the end, because your date wants to get his money's worth or whatever, there's a doozy of a car chase.

The only thing that is sustained in Sid and Nancy is a tone of clinical disinterest that leaves you asking why Cox would want to make a movie about them. By the end, you know more about Sid and Nancy than you care to, and about Alex Cox, quite a bit less than you'd like.

Invasion USA might actually be fun in a campy way if it weren't so dourly exploitative.

Rydell shoots the movie as if it had been commissioned by the Department of Agriculture. His scenes have such brute intentionality, they never come to life -- they're instant, airless cliche's. And who can believe that Mel Gibson is a down-and-out farmer? [11 Jan 1985, p.B1]

Like the original "Care Bears Movie," Care Bears Movie II is nothing but an insidious feature-length toy commercial. But since Funshine Bear has taught me to look on the bright side, I will admit that the animation in the sequel is of a higher quality.

An unconscionable mess of unyielding crassness, from the overall tone, which celebrates gaucherie all the while it's saying that love is what really counts, to the sound mix, which makes most of the dialogue, which is larded with impenetrable slang, doubly impenetrable. [04 Jul 1986, p.C2]

Ninja III quickly falls off track.

True Stories is united not by narrative, but by Byrne's sensibility, and this is where it descends from being a boring piece of whimsy into something reprehensible.

Some sort of combination of a teen-age Bewitched and a Police Academy for department stores.

A ridiculous rabble-drowser with the heart of a bully and the soul of a thief.

Reynolds never figures out whether he's making a thriller or a spoof, which for years has been the problem with his performances, too. His acting swivels from gravelly, glowering tough-guyness to nudge-and-wink appeals to the audience -- Mr. T and Johnny Carson in one. And he's way too polished for the character Leonard wrote; when he enters the slick world of Miami finance, he blends right in.

Yet another tiresome pastiche of old Hitchcock films, particularly "Rear Window" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much." We've seen it before, done (needless to say) better. The craftsmanship of the film aspires to the second rate. And it's a little wiggy to try to create a silky kind of glamorous intrigue in Baltimore.

The script of Three Amigos (Martin's collaborators were producer Lorne Michaels and singer Randy Newman) plays like it was slapped together by a few friends with a tape recorder enjoying a charming weekend at the beach. You can't tell one amigo from another, the gags are silly (a "singing bush") and far between, the dialogue full of inane wordplay. Sample: "We could take a walk and you could kiss me on the veranda." "The lips would be fine."

This new western is less than a success for Eastwood, who directs as well as stars. It's Eastwood riding on earnestness, and running on empty. [28 June 1995, p.D1]