Rita Kempley

Wise Guys, a surprisingly sweet, but sluggish Mafia farce, teams easy-going Joe Piscopo with driven, dangerous Danny De Vito in a neo-Abbott and Costello Meet the Godfather.

The only thing parents need fear is utter boredom.

Its splendor cannot be denied, but then again neither can the emptiness of this Henry James adaptation.

For all of its departures, Luhrmann's largely successful reinterpretation is far from irreverent. He takes liberties with the world, but never the words of this achingly beautiful love story.

A chiller that, except for the last half hour of ghoulish effects, is undeadly dull. [02 Aug 1985, p.23]

It's deeply vapid, with the emotional consistency of styling mousse.

There's enjoyable chemistry between the two, but not the sort that sequels are made on. Aykroyd's straight man gets most of the laughs with his hilarious variation on the late Jack Webb's hard-bitten dialogue, with Hanks playing less often off the priggish, ever-positive Friday.

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

Crouse is stiff and Hutton's a bit sappy, but Lone's performance would melt an iceberg's heart. Despite a rubbery forehead and crude make-up work, Lone is convincing. With grunts, moans, howls and mime, he presents a stoic, depressed, trapped human being. [13 Apr 1984, p.21]

Passionately anticipated and much ballyhooed, the film, alas, is little more than a foppish, fang de siecle costume drama. Its pulse barely registers.

How many times can we be awestruck by Day-Glo Gumbies? And why do these creatures always travel with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

In some ways, Contact is just like the universe: big, star-bright and seemingly endless. Not to mention that it begins with a big bang, gradually falls into a lull and finally succumbs to entropy.

A sometimes inspired but sputtering parody of the fashion industry. It's desperate to please, yet never unzips the fancy pants of haute couture.

Though it lacks the gloss, twists and star power of earlier Grisham movies, The Chamber does possess Gene Hackman's most cantankerous turn since the lowdown lawman he created in "Unforgiven."

Reinhold, as a little boy in a big man's body, looks and acts more like a sheep in shell shock. Savage, however, is an able comic when he takes on his father's yuppie persona, demanding Grey Poupon at the school cafeteria and downing martinis after a hard day in the principal's office.

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.

Stallone is feral this film, physically powerful; he's muddy and bloody, but he's still pretty even in a tarpaulin. He's the wild child coming home. First Blood is good to the last drop, if you like that sort of thing. [22 Oct 1982, p.17]

The Natural is a likable baseball saga, a big, old messy metaphor that says: You may be middle-aged, America, but you can still hit one out of the park. [11 May 1984, p.25]

Back from their respective voids and together for the firs time, Hurt and Weaver romp romantically as janitor and TV news reporter in Eyewitness, a murky mystery produced and directed by Peter Yates and written by Steve Tesich, the guys who uplifted us via Breaking Away. [06 Mar 1981, p.15]

A low-key, high-tech, out-of-touch tale of a teen who builds his own personal nuclear projectile for a science project. It's an ambivalent adventure patterned on the likes of WarGames, but without the humor or action. [13 June 1986, p.29]

A purgatory of low-budget interplanetary adventure.

A film that gets in your face and stays there, it ultimately subverts all that effort with its improbably upbeat conclusion. Still, the performances are technically knockouts, the kind that leave your underbelly churning.

Like most plays transferred to screen, Oleanna still bears traces of grease paint. Actually, all the cold cream in the world wouldn't make this verbose material in the least cinematic -- not that Mamet has put much effort into adapting the original anyway. Most of the action takes place in the professor's office. Luckily, it has a window through which we, like bored grade schoolers, can escape from time to time.

Broken Arrow, a deafening, brain-deadening action thriller, takes a mighty blase approach to nuking Denver.

Brooks unfortunately is neither Brooks nor Benny, but a hesitant ghost of both. And Bancroft is no comedienne, just tired old Mrs. Robinson with a feather boa.

The throbbing, urgent score by Giorgio Moroder, the cat jokes and the stylish look make Cat People a purrfectly good Meow Mix. [02 Apr 1982, p.11]

A duet between Daniel and Miyagi, a boy without a father and a father without a son. The duet is the soul of the film, but it also has heart. The paths to enlightenment are many; The Karate Kid is surely one of these. [22 June 1984, p.23]

Heckerling lacks the intuition to let things flow. The actors seem rushed and the scenes incomplete. For instance, Stacy and her brother Brad (Reinhold) almost build a poignant scene outside the abortion clinic. Just when they're about to show us their stuff, poof, it's off for a car crash or a football game. [13 Aug 1982]

The tale is propelled by its characters and buoyed by the film's warm and loving spirit.

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.

As fascinating as it is frightful. But despite all the occult patter and tony trimmings, Angel Heart is bogus -- only the bogeyman again.

Though the film gleams with Howard's customary spit polish, there's no denying that the story is pitted with plot holes.

The trail is all too familiar and pretty soon we recollect why westerns lost their appeal. [28 June 1985, p.27]

As long as the script tracks the men's relationship with the baby, the picture is lively froth. But when screen writers James Orr and Jim Cruickshank of Tough Guys stray, the story goes stale.

But this hackneyed stalker-rama, which pretends to be a call for gun control, ultimately is little more than an excuse to turn the bad guy into a human colander. The better to strain the moral pasta.

Like the original, Wings 2 is endearing, even if it is a spiritual muddle.

Overall Nichols, Simon and especially Broderick find fresh threads in the old fatigues.

Barkin's succulence and De Niro's showboating lend sizzle and ferocity to the proceedings, but the film draws its poignancy from 18-year-old DiCaprio's performance.

The X-Files movie is really just a two-hour teaser for the series's sixth season. And little else. You will feel exactly like Mulder when he says, "How many times have we been right here before, Scully? So close to the truth?"

Like the male-bonding movies upon which it's modeled, it celebrates letting down your hair with your own gender.

VIOLENT CRIME against women is not entertainment. "Star 80" was not entertainment. "Body Double" was not entertainment." And Jagged Edge is not entertainment. It is commercially packaged abuse. And we are supposed to call this anger art.

Adam Sandler is surprisingly likable as Robbie, a struggling musician who is left at the altar early in this modest romantic comedy.

Yaphet Kotto, as L.A.P.D. Detective Harry Lowes, and Larry Hankin, as his partner, pull the bench out from under the rest of the players. Show-stealing is their only crime -- they add the necessary guts and good humor to bring the Star Chamber down to earth. [5 Aug 1983, p.17]

The blarney and bohunkery builds to a shaky apex of nothingness, then ends with a slaughter in slo-motion, a romantic ode of blood, bullets and body parts.

The overall effect is like wading through hospital waste. Verhoeven, who also directed the maliciously stylistic "Robocop," disappoints with this appalling onslaught of blood and boredom.

British director Beeban Kidron chooses screenplays that balance precariously between maudlin and quirkily comic. To Wong Foo, richer in character than story, fits right into her repertoire. Lucky for her that Swayze, Snipes and Leguizamo have plenty of fashion sense.

The slogging melodrama that emerged still more closely resembles the daily musings of an infatuated teenager than a well-crafted, thoughtful story. [14 Aug 1998]

It's certainly harrowing to sit through. Talk about your grizzly misadventures.

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

The sub and the sub-sub plot, something to do with Hanks' dad in Rio, get in the way of the hijinks with the house and the tentatively developed relationship between the stars, who have a cute chemistry that's convincing enough for a good slapstick comedy. [28 Mar 1986, p.25]

Ramis...does extract every last yuk from this lively clash of id and superego, this spoofy buddies' odyssey from underworld to Prozac nation.

Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss star in this hilarious brain-teaser about a patient who suffers acute separation anxiety when his psychiatrist goes on vacation.

Carvey is such a lovable doofus and Myers such a well-intentioned naif that it's hard to get down on them, especially considering that the heirs to their niche in pop iconography are Beavis and Butt-head.

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

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.

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.

This wonderfully acted romance brings the touching fantasy "Truly, Madly, Deeply" to mind.

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

For all their sass, brass and bewitchery, the starring troika can't breathe life into these characters, much less transform them from women scorned into hellbent furies.

The proficiency of the actors powers the movie despite a stiff script and Attenborough's preference for choreographed crowd scenes over intimacy.

Excess of vision and a weak underpinning are the potholes in the Streets of Fire. If you can swerve around them, Happy trails to you. [01 June 1984, p.25]

There's a sense of mystery in this purply palette and one of majesty in the landscapes, but the drama of the drawings is never really echoed by the skimpy and predictable story.

This first film from Sesame Street is this summer's sweetest surprise, a wholly good-natured children's comedy with enough wit and whimsy left over to win parents' hearts, too. Like the TV series, it's not violent, not threatening and not to be missed. [02 Aug 1985, p.23]

Mike Werb's screenplay -- just a rickety framework for Carrey's consummate clowning -- lacks a propelling plot and has zip in terms of secondary character development.

Most of the time Creepshow works.

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]

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

The trouble is, we don't really much care about this philandering billionaire glamour puss, who seems perfectly capable of taking care of herself. We don't care about her husband or lover either.

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

A fleecy romantic caper with a dusting of feminism, the picture is basically a one-joke movie successfully nursed by director Ivan Reitman.

If you are a science-fiction fan (and I am), Enemy Mine is a fun diversion, maintaining a precarious balance between laughable and melodramatic. But you do get the feeling they had hoped for an earth-shaking metaphor. [27 Dec 1985, p.21]

Annaud, who wrote the adaptation with frequent collaborator Gerard Brach, showed more consideration for the cub in "The Bear" than he does for young Miss March, who is shamefully overexposed. True, Leung's bodacious, cantaloupe-colored bottom is showcased, but the only thing we miss of March's is the skin between her toes. Never mind that in portraying passion, the two seem to be demonstrating the proper use of the Salad Shooter.

This sweet little tale is as informative as it is entertaining for its target audience, the very youngest of the Muppet franchise's fans.

Eberhardt's hand isn't sure and Night of the Comet wobbles in its orbit. [16 Nov 1984, p.21]

He's slightly more articulate than usual, but the lines still fall from his lips like beaten boxers to the mat. Not that it much matters, given the constant mayhem.

It claims to offer a new formula for comedy, but a lot of filmgoers will probably prefer the classic kind. [30 Aug 1985, p.N23]

The Fast and the Furious is "Rebel Without a Cause" without a cause. The young and the restless with gas fumes. The quick and the dead with skid marks.

Oliver & Company, the directorial debut of veteran animator George Scribner, is Mouse Factory magic with edge. It's the claws ce'le`bre.

The performances are appealing, but Bud Yorkin of "All in the Family" directs as if everyone were going to get bored and run out for popcorn at the next commercial break. [24 Jan 1986, p.23]

Grounded in a good cause but never puffed up or preachy, the father-daughter drama transcends the issues.

Kansas City is basically a head-scratcher.

While it celebrates the triumph of humor, invention and the human spirit, Life Is Beautiful is not the transporting experience it might have been. Benigni knows how to make us laugh, but he has not yet figured out how to make us cry.

Pollack makes a solid job of it, as does Cruise. But solid isn't enough when it comes to thrillers -- or courtroom dramas, for that matter. Solid is great when it comes to office furniture.

The powerhouse performances are directed by Bruce Beresford, who maintains balance among the actresses and keeps a lovely tone and smooth pace.