One imagines that fans of Chase and Aykroyd will be mildly pleased with the results. As political humor, though, Spies is an uneasy blend of seriousness and farce--a picture whose antiwar theme seems designed to let its makers cash their paychecks and, at the same time, feel good about themselves. [06 Dec 1985, p.A]

It's a good ol' boy version of "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?," but whereas that classic had four characters in direct conflict, "Fool for Love" essentially is a two-character duel to the quick.

The production is first-rate in all technical ways imaginable, but the villain that Holmes and Watson chase is not worth their intellect or time or ours.

Whereas Stallone with "Rambo" is messing around with real places and real events, in Rocky IV we all know that this is pure Hollywood, pure fantasy. And very well made Hollywood fantasy, indeed.

The movie does command our attention because Hines and Baryshnikov, through their dancing, manage to create very real and living and hurting characters. [22 Nov 1985]

Not a remake of the Stewart Granger-Deborah Kerr epic, this film has been made, so obviously and calculatedly, to capitalize on the success of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' and ''Romancing the Stone,'' seeking their crafty harmony of action, romance and humor. The result is action so ludicrous that it falls consistently between thrilling and amusing and never comes in sufficient amounts of either.

That`s right, Fever Pitch receives ''zero stars,'' a rating given infrequently and most often to a film that is morally offensive. There`s no other way to describe Fever Pitch, which, aside from its multitude of filmmaking sins, has the gall to do a complete turnabout with its ending, twisting a supposedly antigambling, message movie into nothing less than a promotional film for casino betting, feeding off the chronic gambler`s pathetic hope to ''get even'' through one more toss of the dice.

Nearly everything that is right about Smooth Talk would have been impossible to obtain by conventional Hollywood film- manufacture. The film's appeal, including that of the performances, is in nuance and intermediate shades. That appeal is considerable, another reminder of the possibilities of the American independent film. [9 May 1986, p.43]

Sheffer`s calm serves as an effective counterpoint to Estevez`s coiled energy, and Morgan Freeman is outstanding as Charlie, an older bar owner who mediates between the two boys as they clash over the importance of women and the rapidly changing nature of their lives.

DeLuca is not a director. And he isn`t much of a solo writer either. Maybe 1 percent of his gags work.

Considering the talent involved, the new thriller Target is a shocking failure, featuring some very good actors wallowing around in a laughable story poorly directed by one of Hollywood`s more daring filmmakers.

Io its credit, the film has a surprising and likely to be controversial ending. It creates moments of genuine tension that take us beyond the issue of who is more at fault and into the deeper question of what does a lifetime of commitment really require?

The film looks terrific and offers one spectacular chase, but its story and characters are less substantial than even a weak episode of "Miami Vice."

Death Wish 3 may be the first movie where the director and both costars have publicly denounced elements of the film. Director Winner has said he doesn't approve of the film's philosophy of taking the law into one's own hands. Bronson has been quoted as saying the film is too violent for his taste.

Petersen is to be congratulated for creating a solid character out of a film that likes its decor and soundtrack more than its actors. [1 Nov 1985, p.A]

A perennial problem with music-oriented movies is that the excitement of a live performance so seldom translates successsfully to the screen, and rap is no exception. There are plenty of big names involved in Krush Groove, but the music alone isn`t able to carry the film, and the plot certainly can`t.

And yet if Re-Animator offers only a few laughs, that still puts it smiles ahead of George Romero`s awful ''Return of the Dead,'' the third in his zombie series, which suffered from tired blood. At least director Gordon`s ghoulies drool on naked women and decapitate each other with shovels. Hoe, hoe, hoe.

Better Off Dead, a seemingly teenage comedy that wasn't good enough to be released during the prime summer play dates, is utterly devoid of appeal. [15 Oct 1985, p.C2]

A limp retelling of the werewolf legend that is about as frightening as a rubbery Richard Nixon mask.

The point is: When Sweet Dreams' as it is now constructed, is over, we remember and are intrigued more by Charlie Dick than by Patsy Cline, played by Jessica Lange in a performance that comes up short when necessarily compared with Sissy Spacek`s tour de force as Loretta Lynn in ''Coal Miner`s Daughter.''

Despite its rather arrogant title for a first film, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, a series could lurk inside this drawnout, but often spectacular and funny adventure film.

Fans of true-life crime stories should gain special pleasure from Jagged Edge, because the film does succeed in making its ending unpredictable--even though an unresolved ending would have been better.

Has a terrific premise but no script.

So if you're in the market for a "family" film, Natty Gann qualifies. But that doesn't mean it's a boring, namby-pamby entertainment. Rather, it's that Natty, in her cap and jacket and determined look, is a character with universal appeal. [15 Oct 1985, p.2C]

What`s lacking is a clear conception on Jewison`s part as to what this film is about.

One of the year`s boldest, most successful films, a film full of ideas that challenges us to examine how we conduct our lives, while at the same time dazzling us with extraordinary visuals.

From time to time, a movie comes along that is so unconventional, so weird, so flagrantly negligent of mainstream taste that it will develop a loyal cult following--"The Rocky Horror Picture Show," now celebrating its 10th profit-filled anniversary, being a good example. This is the kind of movie the makers of "Morons From Outer Space" set out to produce, but failed to deliver. But who knows? In Britain, they may eat this stuff up. [12 Nov 1985, p.C5]

In its execution, Stand Alone is no worse than other violent vigilante films in the ''Death Wish'' mold--its vision simply is more offensive.

A study in formula film making and a lousy movie. [03 Sep 1985, p.5C]

There's a good movie lurking somewhere in Susan Isaacs' script of her comic murder mystery novel "Compromising Positions" but neither Isaacs nor director Frank Perry has found it. [30 Aug 1985, p.A]

Teen Wolf is a clever and inventive film, a soft and contemporary retelling of the familiar werewolf tale.

Heavily laden with antinuclear messages, bad dubbing and worse dialogue, Godzilla 1985 is a pale imitation of the original film, a calculated bit of cinematic nostalgia that leaves one yawning. [20 Sep 1985, p.J]

It's a shame that this often cute script couldn't have better served, and been better served by, its actors.

What a letdown! The remake of the 1935 classic ''The Bride of Frankenstein'' with rock star Sting as the doctor and Jennifer Beals as the reconstructed bride is a complete failure in telling its principal story.

Though the racing action scenes are initially satisfying, one soon tires of the mountain scenery. And the obvious-from-the-start ending robs the race of whatever dramatic tension it ordinarily might have possessed.

It so often is a joy to look at and so often a pain to listen to.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, at either location is the slightest bit funny. [13 Sep 1985, p.C]

Director Carl Reiner, an old comedy pro, does well enough with the comedy's dumb but funny big-bust and jock-strap jokes. [09 Aug 1985, p.D]

Bereft of wit or charm, the film is forced to rely heavily on its special effects. These, however, have a tacky, homemade feel. The dinosaur, for instance, recalls those goofy Godzillas from the heyday of Japanese monster movies. A Stone Age man and some goons from after the apocalypse look like they came from a wax museum. [13 Aug 1985, p.5C]

Real Genius is packed with characters and jokes, easily containing three times as many attempts at humor as other summer comedies this year. Frequent moviegoers will appreciate the extra effort. [9 Aug 1985, p.A]

What a disappointment Weird Science is! A wonderful writer-director has taken a cute idea about two teenage Dr. Frankensteins creating a perfect woman by computer and turned it into a vulgar, mindless, special-effects-cluttered wasteland.

Fright Night is pleasantly, if effortlessly, well-acted and gently scripted. And when the ghoulish special effects and wry comedy aren't on screen, there's the occasional in-joke for viewer distraction. [06 Aug 1985, p.4C]

The script of Follow That Bird simply plays like a TV vignette blown up to movie size, failing to fill both the screen and our imagination. [06 Aug 1985, p.5C]

One of the most intriguing prison dramas ever put on film.

Too many scenes in European Vacation peter out about a gag or two short for the film to be as funny as it ought to be. But the basic amiability of the humor is as pleasant as it is surprising.

Teenage summer film trash such as The Heavenly Kid makes one root for the leaves to start turning brown.

The essential problem with The Black Cauldron is that the central human character in the story is a complete drip, making it difficult to root for his success at saving the world from ruination.

It's bankrupt in terms of imagination. All he (Romero) does is place his zombies in the basement of a missile silo and have a few crazed military types scream at the zombies and at each other. End of movie. [03 Sept 1985, p.5C]

Teenagers, who may not have seen this picture's many hero/outlaw predecessors, might like its the pop soundtrack, better-than-average acting and modest punk attire. Everyone else is likely to find Billie Jean the very thing that becomes a legend least. [22July 1985, p.3C]

Leave it to an American production team to remake the same premise into an inarguably worse movie. And this insufferable remake called The Man with One Red Shoe marks the second time in as many years that producer Victor Drai, a former estate developer, has taken a French movie and turned it into garbage. Last year he took the genuinely amusing ''Pardon Mon Affair'' and reworked it with the help of the increasingly annoying Gene Wilder into ''The Lady in Red,'' one of the year`s worst movies.

It ambles along gracefully, picking up points for subtle detail; but its conventions belong to light comedy, and they overwhelm most of the complexities the director has devised.

Explorers offers an attractive premise to a very small payoff.

Silverado is a completely successful physical attempt at reviving the western, but its script would need a complete rewrite for it to become more than just a small step in a full-scale western revival. [10 Jul 1985, p.5]

This middle portion of the picture becomes dangerously preachy, but just before we and Max are bored, director Miller returns Max to his roots, a screaming chase sequence through a desertlike Australian landscape.

So what we have in the middle of Back to the Future, this seeming kids' movie full of screeching cars, special effects and lightning storms, is nothing less than an adult reverie. And if families could be persuaded to see this film together, it might touch off a long night of sharing between parents and children. [03 July 1985]

This is going to be more of a consumer warning than a traditional film review, because Red Sonja is like a can of dog food covered by a label featuring a picture of a sirloin steak.

Pale Rider may be a risk simply because westerns are not in vogue right now at the box office, but fresh and challenging westerns with Clint Eastwood always will be in vogue.

Barely has there been a group of more smug and obnoxious characters in a single film than in St. Elmo`s Fire.

The Nome King looks like a moveable Mt. St. Helens and he alone is magical. In fact, he blows Dorothy and her tacky-looking friends off the screen. So we end up liking the Nome King and hating Dorothy and her crowd, which I doubt was the intention of the L. Frank Baum series. [21 Jun 1985, p.1]

My only major criticism of Cocoon is the ending, which needlessly places the film in familiar extraterrestrial movie territory. Without giving too much away, either most of the characters should have made a different decision or the film should have had courage to jump off into a completely different direction. Special visual effects are wonderful, but the human being is still the greatest special effect of all.

In film circles there's a name for pictures like Lifeforce. Film Comment magazine has dubbed them guilty pleasures, movies you're embarrassed to admit you like. Maybe somebody spiked my popcorn, but I can't deny that I liked Lifeforce.

This film would be a winner any time of the year. It`s a classic piece of moviemaking that I plan on seeing again very soon.

Everyone knows that unrequited love can be exquisite, and that`s why it`s a particular shame that ''Secret Admirer'' plays its twin-edged teen romance mostly for laughs. Blown is the opportunity to deal with the issue of what it`s really like to have a crush on someone who does not like you back as much.

As entertaining as The Goonies finally becomes--and its last hour is mostly one pleasure after another--it's a shame that Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus and director Richard Donner felt the need to take the low road in terms of language. [7 Jun 1985, p.A]

Perfect tries too hard to be perfect on too many fronts, and like a person who fine-tunes his or her body too much, Perfect ultimately seems brittle and less attractive the closer one looks. [7 June 1985, p.A]

Fletch is more than funny; it's funny and exciting.[31 May 1985, p.A]

With Sean Connery as Agent 007, James Bond was a human-scale figure, an exceedingly cool guy to be sure, but a guy nonetheless. With Roger Moore as Bond, we are simply watching a lightweight actor stroll through a role.

In short, Rambo is very good at what it does, but what it does isn't always that good. [22 May 1985, p.1C]

Brewster's Millions is a PG film, and the humor is sanitized. Pryor grins, Candy gurgles and we sit there stone-faced noticing all the holes in the plot. Once Pryor figures out a clever way to spend money by using rare stamps on letters, why doesn't he keep on doing it? Yes, that might make for a short movie, but given the way Brewster's Millions turned out, it would be no great loss. [22 May 1985, p.3]

Chuck Norris takes a big leap in his film career with Code of Silence, a solid cops 'n' drug dealers picture filmed last year in Chicago. Norris' big step is that this time he stars in a much more realistic action film, one with a credibility only slightly undone by a few of his martial arts maneuvers at the end.

A cornball adventure film about a dashing young explorer mixing with New York cafe society types. What a delightfully complicated fantasy film this is. What Woody Allen has done with The Purple Rose of Cairo is create a classic film about our love affair with fantasy. [28 Jun 1985, p.1]

Joyce Hyser is fine as the male and female Terry, but since "Tootsie" is now the standard in these matters, the makeup job on Hyser as a guy should have been much more convincing. Not for a minute do we forget she's a girl. [30 Apr 1955, p.4C]

Stick is quite awful.

Another slapstick comedy from the folks who created Police Academy by ripping off the comedy style of Airplane. [22 Apr 1985, p.4C]

It seems that director Neil Jordan is trying to make some comment on the way classic fairy tales try to force adult attitudes on young, free spirits, but the method by which we are brought to that realization is tortuous. [22 Apr 1985, p.4C]

It all adds up to a better-than-average entertainment that sags terribly in the middle. [15 Apr 1985, p.4C]

It's a highly implausible story, but one that's told with engaging, often witty style, enhanced by the film's offbeat settings and situations and the charm of its cast. [29 Mar 1985, p.E]

But what's the excuse for the film's script? What we get is a reworking of "Flashdance" and "Footlose" into a routine story about a couple of high school kids who want to become regular dancers on a show called "Dance TV," or "DTV" for short. [10 May 1985, p.LN]

It's a tribute to the quality of writing, direction and photography in this film that we willingly go along with the story.

They graduated but didn't really grow up. Most of the less than lovable troupe from the first movie are back, including Steve Guttenberg, and so is the low level of comedy. This time, at least, director Jerry Paris from the old Dick Van Dyke show is on hand to improve the timing and pace. [05 Apr 1985, p.C]

Michael O'Keefe, a likable enough presence, seems wildly miscast as the young slugger. O'Keefe is so likable that we can't really accept him as a heavy in this role. [29 March 1985, p.A]

It's an old lesson, but one well told with fresh faces in Mask.

There is little suspense in the film; the identity of the killer is heavily foreshadowed early on with a baroque music cue and a couple of menacing glances. And the false endings, which have become standard in this genre ever since "Carrie," reach laughable proportions here, because, yes, there will be a sixth film in the series next year. Have a nice day. [25 March 1985, p.C5]

The new martial-arts picture The Last Dragon is first and foremost a romantic comedy, and a very sweet one at that, and that's why it's martial-arts combat scenes work so well. We've been given enough time to care about who's kicking the stuffing out of whom.

In the past few years, we've seen or heard every teenage joke at least twice. What we haven't seen much of is a little teenage tenderness, the kind that we find in the concluding scenes of The Sure Thing. [1 Mar 1985, p.FN]

With not a single original idea in its makeup, Certain Fury has to rely on something else to give it a kick. This it finds in foul language and heavy violence.

The belief here is that Landis simply has overstuffed what might have been a somewhat tender action picture with all manner of movie trivia and action scenes. After a while, the principal characters in the chase begin to move so fast that they become a blur and ultimately disappear.

Albert Brooks is one of the few, maybe the only, comic filmmakers making movies today with laughs that hurt. A very funny--and therefore neurotic--young man, Brooks places himself in all sorts of contemporary situations in his movies, situations that force him to whine like a baby to get what he wants. He's the filmmaker for the Baby Boom generation.

Vision Quest survives by means of a few powerhouse weapons. One of them is Darryl Ponicsan's screenplay, adapted from the novel by Terry Davis, that tells the story with restraint, tenderness and a solid respect for theme. Another is director Harold Becker, who succeeds, most of the time, in touching the sensitive nerves of this tale without fraying them. Best of all are a couple of winning performances: Matthew Modine as a high school wrestler intent on beating an unbeatable state champ and Linda Fiorentino as the hard-as-nails drifter who wanders into his life. [15 Feb 1985, p.J]

A laughably bad, offensive movie with holes in its story that you could drive a truck though.

The only redeeming aspects of the film are its striking production design by Philip Jefferies--a sweltering Miami similar to the look of ''Body Heat''-- and a convincing performance by Richard Masur as the city editor of the film`s fictional Miami newspaper.

The Breakfast Clu" is a breath of cinematic fresh air, taking on a very real adolescent problem and offering, in a dramatic way, a possible solution. The film is at its very best when the brainy kid wonders out loud toward the end of the film whether any of his new-found friends will still be his friends come Monday morning. It's a very real question, such being the impulse to conform in high school. A simple "hello" between a jock and a wimp in a crowd is a big risk for both of them. [15 Feb 1985, p.A]

Witness" is both exciting and thoughtful.... And just as important to moviegoers, Witness is a genuinely gripping thriller. [08 Feb 1985]

This odd-couple angle is a terrific formula for a movie, creating at least three stories: The plight of each man, their joint effort to accomplish their goal and the changing dynamic of their relationship as the story progresses. As if that weren't enough, The Falcon and the Snowman also turns into a how-to movie with a fine sense of detail for the worlds of espionage and drugs. But towering over all of this--and even over the angry politics of the film--are two special performances by two extremely talented young actors.

There are a couple of potentially interesting movies lurking inside Heaven Help Us, a film that, sadly, doesn`t have the guts to push any one of its elements to the hilt. The result is a picture that is sort of a comedy, sort of a romance and sort of a condemnation of parochial schools, all wrapped up in a nostalgia piece about the mid-`60s.

This is not an inspirational drama about finding yourself; it's a Hitchcockian comedy about adultery, murder and losing a corpse.

Responsible for this trash is director Fritz Kiersch, and remember that name. Last year Kiersch gave us one of 1984`s worst films, his adaptation of Stephen King`s ''Children of the Corn.'' Now, with Tuff Turf, Kiersch has made the ''worst'' list two years in a row.

The River is nothing more than a conventional, albeit pretty, melodrama. [11 Jan 1985, p.4N]