Rita Kempley

It's a monumental biopic that cheapens the hero's successes by glossing over the failures that surely also shaped the man.

Blame It on Rio, ha. Rio is innocent. Let's put the blame on executive producer Gelbart along with Caine and Bologna. Unlike the starlettes they've taken in tow, these three guys are old enough to know better.

The charismatic comedienne pulls the slipshod spy adventure Jumpin' Jack Flash out of the fire. [10 Oct 1986, p.N29]

Writer Alan Sharp gets so caught up in the legend and the lush language that he doesn't seem to know he's written "Death Wish" in kilts.

Compromising Positions has its problems, especially Julia's weak performance. But it's often on target, exposing the mechanics of the heroine's marriage, the woman herself and her languorous community where two patrol cars respond to a call about graffiti. [6 Sept 1985, p.23]

Should never have been released, not even on video. It should have been placed in a hazardous waste container, encased in concrete and dumped into the Farrelly brothers' septic tank.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau reprise the roles of a pair of Minnesota mossbacks in the heartwarming, albeit warmed-over, sequel Grumpier Old Men—though given its scatological bent, it might have been called Grump and Grumpier.

Gibson, the thinking man's Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Spacek, a rawboned Raggedy Ann, are nearly silent partners in this largely visual parable. Despite their good looks and best efforts, the film falters. [11 Jan 1985, p.19]

The experience overall is like laughing down a gun barrel, a little bit tiring, a lot sick and maybe far too perverse for less jaded moviegoers.

Troop Beverly Hills is a dog of a movie, one of those nasty little yappy dogs with fancy hairdos, pedicures and pedigrees.

A queasy union of savagery and uplift, the film ought to be unnerving. Instead, it finally becomes routine. [18Apr1997 Pg. C.07]

It would be cornier if it weren't so well acted by Nunn, Bening and 12-year-old Allen.

Like the mythological creatures it celebrates, the movie appears bound for extinction.

An enchanting, staggeringly beautiful epic at sea, is poetry in motion.

The movie faithfully records the rivalries among the various members of a fractious Baltimore family, but it never really attempts to resolve any of the internecine conflicts. In that sense, it's less ambitious than many a TV series.

Cryer, a talented comedic actor, struggles mightily but can't wring laughs from the lowbrow humor. The screenplay, written by Jeff Rothberg and Joe Menosky, is statically directed by Bob Giraldi, a maker of Michael Jackson videos and Pepsi-Cola ads, in his faint feature debut.

It is a wonderfully wacko work, sparked with Cook's oomph, Dunaway's cackle and the superstar power of the sensational Slater. What a face! As long as people prevail over effects, Supergirl glitters, she glows. [23 Nov 1984, p.27]

Two if by Sea, directed by Australian Bill Bennett, suffers from a symptom common to romantic comedies that begin after the couple have visited the haystack: There's simply no more sexual tension. Without it, you'd better be as good as Tracy and Hepburn.

Tender, touching and downright delightful.

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

Adapted from Valerie Martin's psychosexual novel, this maudlin film transforms the legend of Jekyll and Hyde into a talky romantic love triangle. [23 Feb 1996]

As disturbing and densely beautiful as its opening image, a lofty forest that dwarfs the gangsters as they laugh over their kill.

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]

Lacking in both inspiration and ingenuity, it doesn't so much spoof the conventions of the genre as dumb down famous -- and in some cases, forgotten -- scenes from a slew of other movies.

Eating Raoul is an American film that's good enough to be European. [05 Nov 1982, p.19]

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.

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.

A trite vehicle that lumbers along like its namesake. Clankety-clank. [16 Mar 1984, p.19]

Another tediously sanctimonious message movie from Alan Parker.

Gratuitous gore prevents this monstrous movie from becoming the competent comedy it might have been. [21 Aug 1981, p.17]

A deliciously mordant French spine-tingler.

A sexless seriocomedy that would be a bust without the support of Burt Reynolds and Ving Rhames. The pair bring a much-needed lift to this tale of a mother at the mercy of the system. Without them, the movie is mostly a showcase for the star's personal trainer.

Ninety minutes of Shock Treatment feels like a week in "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," a Quaalude interlude, a quart of Sanka laced with Valium. No jolt...Despite flashy lights, splashy sets and plump girls in tight white corsets, "S.T.'s" a bore -- a blatant try for teeny-punk bucks. It's a lesson for filmmakers: You can't force a cult film, they just happen. [28 May 1982, p.13]

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

Alternately a celebration and sendup of cowboy conventions, the movie lingers over a stunning Western landscape only to be spurred on by the principals' inexhaustible supply of escapades. The burr under the saddle: There's just too much of everything.

Crudely made and in your face, The Living End is mostly annoying.

It is a triumph for director Ron Howard, underwater photographer Jordan Klein, the writers and even the guy who made Hannah's latex tail (Robert Short). And it's surely the stairway to superstardom for costar John Candy and the lovely leading nyad. Splash, a departure for struggling Disney Studio, is as irresistible as the siren's song. [09 Mar 1984, p.23]

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]

It's rambunctiously entertaining, a loop-de-loopy bumper car ride through a firecracker sky, all bright lights, sonic booms and impossible heroics.

In Burton's hands, Washington Irving's spooky classic is reincarnated as an overripe, grisly Goth cartoon.

Baldly manipulative, emotionally counterfeit melodrama.

The film fleetingly touches on the underfunding of schools and other administrative problems as well as the more compelling personal issues of teen pregnancy and violence. But the characters are so poorly drawn and underdeveloped that they seem to be little more than personifications of these societal ills.

The overplotted but predictable thriller "White Sands." Written by the same guy who tried to scare Harry Homeowner silly with "Pacific Heights," it's got all the ingredients, though none of the gumption, of a good adventure. It's suspiciously trendy.

Kermit, who takes to the role of Smollet like a grunion to running, is commanding, but it is Piggy as Smollet's castaway flame who puts much-needed wind into the movie's luffing sails. Clad in a muumuu and clamshells, she sets Kermit's timbers a-shivering as in the old days. Their love for each other—like America's love for Muppets—is simply unsinkable.

Director John Milius, the barbarian behind Conan, co-wrote this anti-gun-control, anti- Communist, survivalist script with Kevin Reynolds. Sick and silly as it is, the idea could have been intriguing, had it gone anywhere, which it didn't.

Despite all the talent, form triumphs over substance. Director Hugh (Chariots of Fire) Hudson clutches, and climactic scenes miss their mark. Greystoke is curious entertainment, less satisfying than Planet of the Apes, which begs the same question: noble savage or naked ape? [30 Mar 1984, p.21]

You can hear the silence, the palpable quiet in director Randa Haines' skillful adaptation of stage's "Children of a Lesser God." The polemic drama of deaf rights translates into a heart-pounding love story -- the most passionately performed since "Officer and a Gentleman."

Like the director, the cast seems to have burrowed into the material, made all the more wrenchingly realistic by Dogme precepts.

Profoundly affecting.

A noisy, impenetrable and totally nonsensical cogitation on the nature of firefighters and the sizzling "animal" they love...We just wish somebody would call 911 for boredom.

The picture seems muted, the flower's petals a little brown at the edges.

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.

While the plot is thin and there's little action till the big blow some 60 minutes into the film, a volcano offers a greater variety of thrills than your basic cyclone ever could.

Bad movies have a way of writing their own epitaphs.

Writer-director Stephan Elliott is obviously fond of his characters, and this may account for the upbeat story line, but it blinds him to how very annoying two hours of dishing can be.

Director Harold Ramis, who managed to stop time in the sunny comic masterpiece "Groundhog Day," tries a different tack in this lesser though nonetheless hilarious caper.

The result is a script so needlessly complicated that it defies comprehension.

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]

Most egregiously, the filmmakers set up a classic struggle between right and wrong and then, in a coy coda, refuse to take a stand.

Filmed in the mock-documentary style pioneered by acknowledged mentor Robert Altman, it does for baby-kissing phonies what This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal poseurs.

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

Tired conventions, hoary themes and obvious conclusions.

Isabelle Huppert and generic Steve Guttenberg prove incompatible costars in The Bedroom Window, a cockamamie mystery that finds these bi-continentals drawn together like, say, refrigerator magnets to styrofoam coolers. Yes, it's magic.

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.

It practically celebrates convenience of plot, over-the-top acting and follow-the-footprints dialogue, but mostly it is a salute to sequins and sashay. With just a hint of sarcasm.

Astute and entertaining documentary.

Unhappily, the attractive twosome never give into the pull, just as this coquettish variant of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" never arrives at its promised destination.

A Dry White Season is political cinema so deeply felt it attains a moral grace. A bitter medicine, a painful reminder, it grieves for South Africa as it recounts the atrocities of apartheid. Yes, it is a story already told on a grander scale, but never with such fervor.

The Wizard is not only tacky and moribund, but it teaches gambling and bad sportsmanship.

Mr. Whipple squeezing his Charmin is scarier than this phony baloney computer effects-driven anaconda.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock isn't really a movie, it's a happy reunion. The Enterprise is 18 years older and the crew members look like Gray Panthers in space. It may be old stuff, but it's still the right stuff up there. [8 June 1984, p.23]

Most of the time Creepshow works.

South Central covers some of the same ground as Boyz N the Hood, but certainly there's nothing wrong with reiterating its positive message for black sons and fathers.

After one scummy role after another, Rourke finally stops taking himself so seriously. Instead of the usual Neanderthal, he treats us to a sensitive, likable blob with a sense of humor.

Director John McTiernan, who redefined the action genre in the original "Die Hard," does devise some smashing explosions, crashes and so on, but nothing really new.

Diane Keaton's kooky sensibilities as a director are ideally suited to the sweet madness of Unstrung Heroes.

A soppy songfest about a tubercular pea picker who drives to Nashville, where he hemorrhages and dies. It's unfit for human consumption. [17 Dec 1982, p.20]

A flawed but funky adventure.

An uplifting, superbly acted and intelligent family drama.

Ford's earthy Everyman and Pitt's vengeful youth are probably more interesting than they have any right to be inside these tired macho roles. Of course, Rory and Tom could be bursting with blarney and the movie still wouldn't gather any momentum.

Blue Thunder hovers just this side of trash and the other side of credibility, but it propels a willing audience into adrenaline heaven.

The rich visuals seem at odds with the spartan content of the screenplay, with skating nuns like penguins on a frozen pond, cows lowing, pigeons flapping, statues weeping, novices in white gowns splayed like crucifixes on the stone cold floor. We're left with these images when we should be left pondering the cosmos, shortchanged by the saints and the scientists alike, denied our just epiphany. [27 Sept 1985, p.25]

As love interests go, Shepherd and Downey are about as hot as Ike and Mamie Eisenhower, though the apoplectic Downey does have his comedic moments. Always a standout, Masterson is pensively provocative as Miranda, something of a teen-age Kim Novak.

The author of such shoot-'em-ups as "Executioner" and "Road House," Henkin has hard-boiled the action genre twice over with this lurid, ludicrous, appallingly violent, offhandedly moralistic spoof.

Amadeus isn't meant to be a biography of the composer's life, but a bawdy, black fantasy, a fiction based on a few curious facts. [21 Sep 1984, p.23]

The script boasts more writers than the computerized menagerie's got megabytes, but they haven't come up with much variety or humor in what is essentially a string of catastrophes.

The potential for hokum is there, but Duvall and co-star James Earl Jones capably avoid the sticky pitfalls of Tom Epperson and Billy Bob Thornton's sugar-cured script.

Lethal Weapon opens with a shot of Mel Gibson in his birthday suit and just gets better. Likewise we meet costar Danny Glover in the bathtub, fêted by his family on his 50th birthday. This endearing double exposure introduces us to the vulnerabilities of these superduper heroes, an odd couple of cops who mature into friends as they quell crime.

Sinbad, one of show business's sunniest souls, brings much-needed buoyancy to this somewhat soggy tale of kindred spirits. [30 Aug 1996, p.F06]

Fast Food Fast Women is "Sex and the City" in Payless shoes. An incoherent jumble of characters and situations.

Everything has been modernized except for the characters, and that's this movie's tragic flaw.

Douglas plays Gekko with a terrible intensity. He raves and rants, but he has a rascal's humor.

Ultimately Sleeping With the Enemy wants to be about one woman's rebirth, but Roberts neither grows nor glows in this empty movie.

Not since "Ghostbusters" have the spirits been so uplifting. [30 Mar 1988]

Tea With Mussolini is really about the first women in the Italian director's life. It's drawn from a single chapter of his book but suffers from a lack of focus. None of these great ladies is willing to give up center stage; nor, for that matter, are the grande dames who bring them so vividly to life.

Cannonball Run II is a real lemon. [29 June 1984, p.19]

Of course, this is the stuff of suspense thrillers, but writer-director Steve DeJarnatt sets an unsure pace that tries our patience. It seems he's not committed to his story or his characters, but to the idea that he is saying something profound -- which he isn't.

It's all as cliche'd as "A Summer Place," a better movie even if it was soap opera. For Keeps is a soapbox opera, and the slats are about to fall through. Writers Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue are as wishy-washy about their issues as they are their heroes. And they serve up the usual "you can have it all" scenario. After the teen-agers suffer with didies and postpartum depression, it's off to college to prepare for future careers. [16 Jan 1988, p.B5]