Rita Kempley

Blue Steel is a mean and unsavory celebration of misplaced misogyny milked for dollars, a mindless soup of urban neurosis and sexual loathing. It's a case of slam, bam, no thankee ma'am.

Dick Tracy is an ambitiously vainglorious effort, expensive, beautifully appointed, but at its core empty as a spent bullet. It asks us to read these comics without a grain of salt or a pinch of irony.

Roberts and Richard Gere costar in this bubbly scamper, which goes to the head like champagne -- the cheap, sweet kind that leaves you with a throbbing head. And yet this monstrously derivative romance is great giddy fun.

007's latest, The Living Daylights, a snazzy spy thriller, is all the more alluring for its new conservatism. It's right up there with the early Bonds, though not in the league with Goldfinger. But oh, what a difference.

X marks the G-spot perhaps, for this is an orgiastic comedy of terrors and errors.

Banal performances -- Jim is still not John and Grodin is playing a second-rate variation of the uptight guy in Midnight Express -- combine with derivative plot to tell us that yuppies are too grasping for their own good.

Given the low budget, there was no money for transitions or fancy wideshots, so the look is strangled, stranded and somehow like stagework. All the same, if you are a woman who loves women, you will no doubt love Desert Hearts. But it doesn't seem a good bet to cross over. [18 Apr 1986, p.27]

A celebration of buddies and butts, it's an unconventionally structured, wonderfully acted group portrait of the regulars at a Brooklyn cigar store.

Poltergeist proves closets are full of skeletons and scurrying ids. Hooper and company arouse childhood fears, teasing away adult defenses, making us hunker in our seats as the kids dive under the "Star Wars" sheets. It gives us the jeebies, third stage, without letting up, but spiritually, it's uplifting. [4 June 1982, p.13]

Puffed up with Mamet's brawny bromides and DeVito's self-indulgent direction, this bio-pic would be an altogether empty load were it not for Nicholson, all snake eyes and snarls as the Teamsters boss.

The great Cornish king becomes merely a corny one as the tale devolves into a compromise between the principles of Camelot and of Hollywood.

A spiritually enriching testament to the human capacity for change -- and surely Spike Lee's most universally appealing film.

A smutty, imbecilic farce.

Steven Brill, who has a small role in the film, constructed the screenplay much as one would put together some of those particleboard bookcases from Ikea.

Moonstruck writer John Patrick Shanley and Irish director Pat O'Connor are absolutely out of their league, a couple of artists slumming, hoping to bring sensitivity to a genre that could well use it. But all they've done is make you appreciate the true value of the car chase.

Joyous redemptive romantic comedy.

A solid second film from director Gary Fleder ("Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead"), it's sure to set pulses racing and spines tingling. Too bad it's at the expense of the dignity of young women everywhere.

Lethal Weapon, that BMW of buddy movies, spawns Lethal Weapon 2, a blacktop-blistering bad-guy-getter that's nearly twice as much fun.

A roundup of tired cliches and tired acting -- except for Sutherland and Petersen -- Young Guns II is dull as beans and lazy as tumbleweed.

The major difference between films is "2010's" greater emphasis on people. The performances are all excellent, but Helen Mirren is utterly convincing as the formidable commander of the Leonov. Roy Scheider costars as the former head of the Space Agency, with John Lithgow as the enginer of Discovery and Bob Balaban as the father of H.A.L. [7 Dec 1984, p.39]

A steely neo-noir thriller with a nasty comic veneer.

The only good thing you can say about "Rocky V" is that at least Stallone has the sense to throw in the towel.

The Toy would improve with a little tinkering. Still, it's surefire family fare. [10 Dec 1982, p.23]

Oh, there's no doubt about it, Clark is manipulating his audience right down to those "Jingle Bells," but only an unreformed Scrooge would hate him for it. "A Christmas Story" is a joy to the world, right down to the moment Mom slips downstairs to unplug the tree lights.

Forget the heavy stuff. This monkey shines.

Ruthless People is a divine comedy, thanks in large part to bombastic Bette Midler, who's no longer down and out in Beverly Hills but chained to a bedstead in Santa Monica. She's an explosive bundle of kvetch and kitsch, the spark in this madcap kidnap caper. Practiced parodists Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker of Airplane direct, but this is no parody. It's a comedy of errors that makes no mistakes. Sophisticated, silly, sexy, it has assorted storylines as solidly linked as cartoon sausages and a pace that's lickety-split. Dale Launer debuts with this terrific screenplay, which builds and builds a reckless, raunchy crescendo of laughs. [27 June 1986, p.29]

Sneakers isn't about growing up, it's about playing games, cracking codes, inventing acronyms. It's a Twinkie for techies, an enormously entertaining time-waster.

Paradise is about as romantic as sand in your pants. [07 May 1982, p.13]

Blending physics and fantasy, Flight spins an easy-going adventure that's also a late-summer treat for the movie-going family. [01 Aug 1986, p.25]

You'd think indie filmmakers would have learned by now that people tend to put on a sober face when addressed from the pulpit.

Vacation is missing a sense of direction. With Harold Ramis in the driver's seat, it veers off course and sputters down a bumpy road. [29 July 1983, p.17]

Nair and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala aren't really great storytellers, but they are streetwise. Shot on a low budget, down and dirty and on location, "Salaam Bombay!" is like being there, if there is where you want to be.

Predictable, slightly painful and as embarrassing as all get-out.

Vincent Patrick, author of the best-selling novel, wrote the screenplay that gives the actors, including the superb Geraldine Page, plenty to run with. It just never gets them anywhere.

Broadway Danny Rose mixes the old, bitter Allen with the new, mellowed Allen, still a great comedy writer and comedian but now a better story-teller and better actor. He seems to plan films in orderly progressions, so they'll fit right into retrospectives without any shuffling. [27 Jan 1984, p.19]

British writer-director Bruce Robinson, who won kudos for his screenplay "The Killing Fields" and his novel adaptation "Withnail & I" doesn't have a clue when it comes to this populist genre. What he has are cliches.

Hoskins and costar Cathy Tyson of the Royal Shakespeare Company are an electric couple, with their disparate colors and shapes. She's class; he's crass. Their turbulent teamwork is augmented with sure supporting performances by Michael Caine, as the flesh-peddling villain Mortwell; and British comedian Robbie Coltrane, as George's teddy bear of a best friend, Thomas. [18 July 1986, p.31]

Only cognoscenti of things wet and wild could conceivably enjoy this B movie about an Arizona wave pool champion who comes of age by riding on water.

Hinton was still a Tulsa teen when she wrote the best seller (4 million copies in seven languages) in the mid-1960s. Her brain wasn't mucked up with adult equivocation, so she didn't get into those confusing gray zones. Great for her, but not for Coppola, who turns this long-awaited story into baffling mush.

A big, fat clunker.

It's a deliciously dishy comedy, but like sushi an acquired taste.

Hopkins and Thompson's downright marvelous duet is supported by a host of deft players, and the detailed re-creation of this small universe is in all ways remarkable.

There are some scenes that rival any in recent memory -- Winger and Hannah escaping a flaming finale in a burning gallery and Winger and Redford escaping an exploding warehouse -- but the whole is less than its parts, a little too careful. Kind of like dinner theater.

Betsy's Wedding is white cake and warm bubbly, not an unsuitable marriage, just a tepid one.

Raw Deal is not as reactionary as Cobra but it's just as violent, maybe even bloodier, with its graphic gun fights and bullet-spattered, shattered bodies blasted before our eyes. Still it's also a quality project -- the look and sound of the film are first rate.

A slight, disingenuous script that robs the characters of their histories.

It spins its wheels in a giddy sort of way, then puts the pedal to the mettle, lays rubber and fairly takes wing.

Sparse and implausible screenplay.

A sporadically amusing romp modeled on "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

Both director and co-writer of Rascals redux, Spheeris coaxes artless performances from the picture's engaging ensemble of half-pint players.

Though Mother has already collected two prizes for its screenplay, it's really rather thin. If it weren't so slow and repetitious, there'd only be enough whining and grousing for a Seinfeld episode. [10 Jan 1997, p.D01]

Target isn't a suspenseful spy movie, but it makes up for its shortcomings with its genuine good- heartedness.

About as understated as a 21-gun salute... What's missing is anything of Reiner himself.

Disney just doesn't know when to give up on a dead project, which is the only thing that accounts for the studio's scene-for-scene remake of Little Indian, Big City, a French farce the corporation dubbed and released exactly one year ago. (It sank faster than a canoe full of Fantasia hippos.)

Belushi is fetching, though he plays a cliche'. But the movie would roll over and play dead without the talented German shepherd. Lassie was classy and Benji beguiling, but Jerry Lee is a four-legged Burt Reynolds, just made for fast cars and chase scenes.

As for Billy Bob, they all steal the money, but he steals the show.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan, a television veteran making his feature film debut, has fluffed up this undemanding material much as one would a pillow. But pillows have their place and so do girlfriend movies.

There are laughs -- lots of them, too -- but at some point the source of the laughs -- Vaughan's Ricky, a yammering loose cannon -- goes from entertaining to obnoxious.

This knowing, low-budget comedy will appeal to men, who'll recognize their behavior, but also to women, who'll see it as goosing the gander.

You have the right to remain silent. But if you do, call 911 -- your funny bone is busted. [2 Dec 1988]

Behind the lens Murray has an uneven touch (or perhaps his co-director does), and "Quick Change" is given to slow moments and miscalculations. But in front of the camera, he is as wonderfully acerbic as ever, equal parts anger and hurt feelings as he grapples with the rot of the Apple, the roar of subway, the smell of the crowds.

Has enough dog slobber, curdled hurl and toe-jam jokes to keep its target audience amused. Older kids and overgrown ones too probably will notice that nothing much ever happens in this belabored suburban variation on "The Little Rascals."

A noble project, directed by Disney veterans and performed by superb actors like John Hurt and Freddie Jones. It is a carefully wrought and thoroughly enjoyable film based on the "Chronicles of Prydain" by Lloyd Alexander, the American Tolkien. [26 July 1985, p.23]

Cuaron approaches the film not as a fairy tale for children, but a work of magic realism. And perhaps best of all, he doesn't talk down to young folks, in the audience or in the cast. The performances are as natural as skinned knees and missing teeth.

Screenwriter and sometime animal trainer Stewart Raffill directs from a screenplay by Ed Rugoff, who also co-wrote "Mannequin." Rugoff is fond of asking and answering the question, what if a mannequin came to life? But judging from "Mannequin Two," Raffill is probably better at sweeping up after elephants. The actors, bless their little wooden heads, would be better off pulling puppet strings.

Lillard, who played the squirrelly Stuart in "Scream," brings a mischievous sense of humor and an easygoing charm to his potentially unsympathetic character.

Like the eloquent, darkly funny dialogue, the film's characters, setting and cadences draw us into its world, with all its terrors and tenderness. What emerges is a masterpiece of Southern storytelling that draws a sharp line between good and evil.

Gripping, troubling and deftly acted.

Hardly a real pip (indeed, it has been rendered Pip-less), but then this loosey-goosey adaptation isn't aimed at those of us with library cards.

Apollo 13 is humanized by Hanks's reassuring portrait in courage, by Harris's nicotine-stained fingers and Quinlan's lacquered French twist.

Part cop caper, part coo-fest, it is a feel-good movie, a jolly little button-pusher about a street-smart cop who brings law and order to a classroom full of unruly but adorable youngsters.

It satisfies your appetite for totally tasteless but deliciously flaky boy movies.

Mann, who's best known for such urban crime dramas as "Vice" and "Manhunter," is equally at home whether the chase concerns a cigarette boat or a birch-bark canoe. He brings the same flair pairing action and style to The Last of the Mohicans, an attempt to resurrect and redefine the American hero.

Subtle, sensitive and every bit as swoony as a Barbara Cartland bodice-ripper, James Ivory's superb screen translation of E.M. Forster's Maurice.

Screenwriter David Veloz makes his debut behind the camera with this stale and stodgily paced depiction of Stahl's highs and lows. The story, which Veloz also wrote, unfolds via a series of momentum-draining flashbacks. [18 Sep 1998, p.C07]

Primarily, it's a warm, fuzzy and funny duet between Spacey and Bridges, one that brings to mind the interplay between Spock and Kirk.

The latest furiously paced, perversely entertaining "Pulp Fiction" for puppies.

My Blue Heaven puts you in a stupor comparable to the one that comes on after Thanksgiving turkey. Written by Nora Ephron, it makes you long for the awful "Heartburn."

As with other Silver-smithed projects, this one is almost frighteningly competent at bashing heads and pushing all the right buttons.

Zemeckis, an undisputed master of film technology, shows off an equal aptitude for vivid storytelling.

Beautifully outfitted and moodily photographed, the movie is directed by Stephen Hopkins, the Jamaican-born Australian responsible for Nightmare on Elm Street V. He keeps the pedal to the metal but never allows the explosive action to minimize his actors.

Black Rain is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids. It's big, maybe too big for its shallow notions and commonplace structure. But it is also beautiful and terrible in the same ways that other Scott movies have been eye-filling. With its teeming Asian landscape, its dark kaleidoscopic palette and its heavily layered composition, it's reminiscent of Blade Runner. But this is an atmosphere that needs Sam Spade, not Dirty Harry.

If it's subtle, insightful satire you're after, don't look to this coarse farce. It's simply more vulgar, insidiously homophobic Victor/Victoriana from the sexually confused writer-director.

Babysitting, the directorial debut of The Goonies and Gremlins writer Chris Columbus, is a sweet-natured, adolescent variation on the big-city black comedy After Hours.

Sliding Doors is frothy stuff, far more complicated in structure than in content.

Grand enough in scale to carry its many Biblical and mythological references, Blade Runner never feels heavy or pretentious -- only more and more engrossing with each viewing. It helps, too, that it works as pure entertainment.

The suspense drama is based on real-life military monkey tests, and it's as unabashedly political as "Silkwood" and unashamedly sentimental as "Lassie Come Home." Yet it remains taut and resists the temptation to paint the villains too broadly.

Romantic comedies don't get more formulaic than this bouncing-screwball valentine, but then they don't get much more delightful, either.

True Stories is an Our Town for our time, a slightly surreal portrait of the fictional frontier village of Virgil, Texas, sprung from a pancake landscape and hogtied with freeways.

Handsome and well-acted, the film's ultimate success depends on the heat between Ryder and Day-Lewis, and it simply isn't there. The attraction is fatal alright, but it certainly doesn't seem mutual.

The key to success: The audience must really like both characters and believe that they deserve a fairy-tale ending. That's definitely the case in this nicely acted love story.

Hot to Trot is an unbridled disaster, a screwball horseplay so lame you want to put it out of its misery.

Always is an unfulfilled promise, a plummeting dove.

There's so much to see and imagine, so many twists left to ponder in such a complicated and multi-layered tale. The temptation -- and some of the fun -- is to analyze Down By Law to death, to chew on it. Hyper-intellectualizing aside, it's pure pleasure for comedy connoisseurs.

With its outrageous double-entendre, gonzo performances and appalling lack of restraint, the sequel is more than a guilty pleasure.

Flatliners is a heart-stopping, breathtakingly sumptuous haunted house of a movie.

Aladdin is a magic carpet ride, a flight aboard a supersonic little Persian steered by all the wishes that ever were. Disney quite simply has outdone itself with this marvelous adaptation of the ancient fairy tale.

Trash or treat? Halloween II is as dumb as its prequel. The Great Pumpkin isn't going to be pleased with this one. [30 Oct 1981, p.17]