Peter Stack

Mighty Joe Young is a mighty fun movie. The trick? They didn't try to out-monster those bloated King Kong and Godzilla franchises. But it's still a hoot of an adventure about an overgrown ape having trouble adjusting to life in California.

There is ultimately in Rain Man a soul that emerges. It's not the grand vision found in the great films, but it is a vision nevertheless. [16 Dec 1988]

Captures the emotions of spousal charges, countercharges, defenses and pleadings ranging from brutally sarcastic to despairing.

Though predictable, isn't half bad.

Subliminally speaking, you may not like this movie because it goes so far. Or, you may not like it because it stops short. Or you may like it for one of the above reasons. [21 Feb 1986, p.68]

I'm completely unsure what else Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is about. I can tell you that 70 percent of moviegoers in their 20s and 30s will likely find this crazy production to be a barrel of fun, and frequently a barrel of laughs. A certain intelligence peeks through it all. [9 Aug 1985, p.68]

Director Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused") should have taken a cue from the music -- the film needs a lot more snap.

Rosewood is startling, infuriating, painful history played out as a not-very-satisfying, overly ambitious and overlong movie.

In addition to being a visual treat, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical whose handful of songs delivers elements of the plot in the manner of a '40s MGM musical comedy. Songs by composer-lyricist Danny Elfman (founder of the rock band Oingo Boingo) are amusingly vital throughout, and even pretty. Andrew Lloyd Webber could take some tips from this guy. [22 Oct 1993, p.C1]

The payoff is a consistently rich piece with impressive visual vitality.

It earns respect through good writing and some unexpectedly terrific performances. Viewers may walk away surprised, thinking that this film is more satisfying than it seemed at first.

The action is so fast that the viewer almost breaks out in a sweat...Ultimately vapid. Lola never does develop as a character, and the fuss seems ultimately pointless.

Maybe the best shoot-'em-up ever made, the one that turned meanness into a haunting pictorial poetry and summed up the corruption of guilt, old age and death in the American fantasy of the Old West.

A gem of fast action, sophisticated wit and inspired comedy.

The lushly photographed film skids into the gutter. It may have a certain appeal to people who like to talk mean to each other, but beyond that, it's one stupid rubber ducky. [13 Dec 1991, p.F1]

Some of the middle section of Bean sags, but most of the film zips along with a series of comic setups, played like skits, that emphasize Bean's klutziness, his feeble mentality, his childlike, me-too urges.

In spite of its downbeat subjects, Drugstore Cowboy becomes a satisfying drama of redemption. [27 Oct 1989]

A playful, sexy piece of work -- just what the Bard might have conjured up for a movie adaptation of his beloved spring-fever comedy.

Every instance when Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie feels like the worst movie ever made, some goofy little screechy moment involving the villainess, Divatox, saves it. So it winds up being nearly the worst movie ever made.

The movie is a mess of bits and pieces that try to gel but don't. Still, it is stupidly fun.

Although the reality of the America's Cup series is that it seems elitist and removed from the sweaty tumult of sports in general, Wind succeeds in turning the competition into one that is intense, pictorially compelling and intelligible in terms of basic racing maneuvers. [11 Sep 1992, p.C1]

This film is family.

Scores big as a study of small-town life where characters collide and are forced to get along for the good of the community.

The Jungle Book has been shaped into solid, not-quite-golden but effusive family-style entertainment with exotic settings, amusing animal characterizations, hair-raising adventures and a saccharine romantic theme that is played big but finally is the film's least interesting facet. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

This wonderful romp of a movie looks magical on the big screen: colors are a picnic for the eyes, details loom so clearly you can practically touch them and there's a sense of the larger-than-life with a film that's already larger than life.

Life Is Sweet, a comedy with wonderfully touching moments by off-beat British director Mike Leigh, is an absolute gem of eccentric humor about family life. Fresh and quirky, the film dishes up astonishing vitality in its look at what is ostensibly a plain, lower middle-class family in Middlesex. [22 Nov. 1991, p.C5]

It's gimmicky Saturday-morning cartoon wackiness in your face -- funny, but brain-deadening.

The film is too mannered, too stuffy. Even Malkovich's interesting performance won't let it break free of a formal style and cloyingly creepy tone that becomes precious while trying to be merely claustrophobic.