Droll, pungent, and superbly told, Peggy Sue Got Married is more than a return to form for Francis Coppola. It's a film that reveals a new depth, a new sensitivity and a new sureness of technique for the 47-year-old director, a film that marks Coppola's entry into a rich, mature period.

True Stories is a great-looking and, with Byrne's score, great-sounding film, but it's marked by a flaw of sensibility, a too-great division between the one who is looking and the ones who are being seen. [31 Oct 1986, p.A]

Craven has proven himself a talented director of horror films on several occasions, from Last House on the Left to A Nightmare on Elm Street. But this time he's chosen a project that plays not at all to his abilities, which lie with the creation of isolated, disturbing images rather than with the careful sustaining of suspense through story-telling. [13 Oct 1986, p.5C]

Regrettably, director Jeff Kanew has no use for touches like these. His film is broad, flat and superficial. The first half is devoted to quick, sketch-like scenes in which Douglas and Lancaster encounter various bizarre phenomena of '80s life (punks, frozen yogurt, aerobic exercise) and look surprised. The second half wanders into the standard "go for it" territory, as the two stars decide to take another crack at the train they failed to rob 30 years ago. [3 Oct 1986, p.D]

My only quibble with the film is that the character of the Frenchman is too precious to be believed. But that's no reason to stay away from this lesiurely but powerful story of not a man and his music, but a music and one of its men. [24 Oct 1986, p.A]

Hogan is an appealing performer, and Kozlowski has a brisk charm as his love interest. Indeed, the film functions far better as romantic comedy than it does as social satire, building an entertaining sexual suspense as an unacknowledged attraction builds between the two leads.

It was a very uneasy 80-some minutes. Watching John and Kipper express their fears and weaknesses and desires respresented a peek under covers that might best have been left unmussed.

No matter how you look at it, "The Name of the Rose" is a film best summarized by lists. It's a collection of elements, some well chosen and some less so, that never comes together into a coherent whole. For everything the movie has--which is, by and large, the best that money can buy--it doesn't have a director, someone who can take all the pieces and put them together into a vision. [24 Oct 1986, p.AC]

Jarmusch's whole method consists of reversing expectations. The problem with that method is that you quickly begin to expect the reversals; the unpredictability becomes predictable. Jarmusch is a talented filmmaker, with an original sense of humor and a sharp and distinctive visual style, but he won't be a great filmmaker until he stops approaching his material from the outside.

One powerful, mesmerizing thriller, a masterful exercise in controlling an audience's attention. [19 September 1986, Friday, p.A]

So the bad news about The Men's Club is that it leans heavily on cliche; the good news is that it treats the cliche with elan and it doesn't waste a splendid cast. [24 Sept 1986, p.4C]

A surprisingly well-made action movie with a definite directorial personality. [03 Sep 1986, p.7C]

A shockingly bad film because of its total misuse of two talented performers, Sean Penn and Madonna. [5 Sept 1986, p.A]

Manhunter is full of useful tips on interior decoration, but a movie it's not. [15 Aug 1986, p.JC]

A film of honorable ambitions severely compromised by a creeping show-biz phoniness.

The performers never find the right spin on the dialogue, and DeSimone never finds the right rhythm in his pacing, to make these deliberate cliches take off into comedy. A stodgy literalness in DeSimone`s approach suffocates the joke.

Fawcett isn`t half bad--she works hard and doesn`t commit any egregious technical faults--but she doesn`t have the resources to give her slimly written character a sufficiently commanding inner life, and it`s difficult to get beyond her sunny, fashion-model good looks. It`s another sad case of the clown who wanted to play Hamlet.

David Cronenberg's The Fly is that absolute rarity of the '80s: a film that is at once a pure, personal expression and a superbly successful commercial enterprise. [15 Aug 1986]

Armed and Dangerous is an extremely violent, often mean-spirited comedy in which most of the gags depend on the absurdly excessive use of force. Jokes like these are designed to appeal to adolescent power fantasies, and while kids may love them, adults are likely to be bored by their repetitiousness and senselessness.

The surreal is appropriate to a story based on fantasy, but the unevenness in tone here makes watching ''The Boy Who Could Fly'' a little like hitting airpockets in a puddlejumper.

No one ever said good taste was a requirement for good box office, particularly when the commodity in question is a summer teen flick, but it does help to have appealing characters in the leading roles and a script with at least the wit of a failing TV sitcom.

Featuring an all-black cast, this little film is a revelation, primarily because it provides black faces with the most natural dialogue they've had in years. She`s Gotta Have It is neither a crime story nor a heavy message movie, and the conversations in it are therefore free of the shackles of most minority-oriented stories.

Ted Danson ("Cheers") is made for the small screen; blown up he looks empty. And his co-conspirator, played by comedian Howie Mandel in his film debut, isn't much better in a role that obviously was designed to let him do his sound-effects-filled comedy act whether the story warrants it or not. The film's many chases will wear you out in short order, save for one funny speeded-up sight gag. [15 Aug 1986, p.A]

The story has no center; the duck is not likable, and the costly, overwrought, laser-filled special effects that conclude the movie are less impressive than a sparkler on a birthday cake.

The film doesn't have the pace or the scale of Back to the Future, but it does have the same sweet moment when a child declares his love for his parents because he's seen them in a different light. Joey Cramer is quite winning as David.

Jason Lives is not a good movie. It is as predictable as a City Council vote in the Daley era; a lamely acted film filled with the most contrived slaughter and utterly lacking in suspense. [4 Aug 1986, p.C5]

Crummy video-store flick. [28 Dec 1990, p.S2]

Professionalism is both Nothing in Common's greatest strength and its greatest limitation. It's a very finely crafted piece, a product of hard work and careful consideration, yet nothing breaks through the craft--there's no personal drive to it.