Ghost

A wonderful movie, sincere and inspired, with four terrific performances and a story that doesn't let up. The picture has the gentle, nourishing quality of a fairy tale that you want to believe, and the unsoftened impact of gut-level entertainment. [13 July 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

It's an unpredictable, mesmerizing journey nearly every shady second of the way. Read full review

It’s soppy and sentimental, and it’s no longer possible to take the famous pottery sequence seriously, but some neat special effects and a healthy dose of humour prevent it from becoming mawkish. Read full review

There are still some astonishingly tender moments, including looks exchanged between Swayze and Moore that seem magically divorced from this summer of exploding jets, severed limbs and homicidal children. [13 July 1990, Friday, p.D]

One of the irritations of Ghost is that the Moore character is such a slow study. Read full review

A big sweet hit, tingly and glycerined in a phony way, but diverting. Read full review

Nothing if not earnest. It's also eccentric enough to remain interesting even when its ghost story isn't easy to believe. Read full review

Three losers of late, the actors succeed quite nicely in unifying the movie's multiple personalities, its ricocheting screenplay. Read full review

It's formula-packed business as usual. In fact, it's double-packed, triple-packed, more. Read full review

An odd creation - at times nearly smothering in arty somberness, at others veering into good, wacky fun. Read full review

There's something relentlessly superficial about the movie, and in one area that cries out for sensitivity - the treatment of racial differences among the characters - it falls down badly. [22 Aug 1990, Arts, p.11]

Goldberg has her best role in a while, especially when she twitches and grunts her way into phony trances. Poor Demi, though, cries enough tears to drench a small drought-stricken state. [13 July 1990, Life, p.4D]

In all his athletic scenes, leaping through doors, leaping between uptown and downtown trains, leaping on an assortment of villains, Swayze is just fine. It's the movie's big cosmic questions that throw him; for these he's reduced to a look of total stupefaction--not the movie's finest moments. [13 July 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]

The ghost is played by Patrick Swayze, who can't handle the part; his bereaved girlfriend, Demi Moore, is much better. [13 Aug 1990, p.30]

There's something offensive about the movie's chintzy view of death and the way it periodically flirts with promising conceits (i.e., Goldberg offering her body as a surrogate so that Swayze and Moore can "touch" one another) only to back away from them in as cowardly a manner as possible. Read full review

Though saddled with hoary jokes, Goldberg at least pumps some funky life into the bland proceedings. Read full review

A bad movie that a lot of people will like... Though director Jerry Zucker wants his necrophiliac romance to be sensitive, he pumps up its feelings fortissimo so the dimmest viewer will get the point. [16 July 1990, p.86]