While “Firewalker” isn’t as elaborate or sophisticated as the Spielberg-Lucas hit, it is fun, and Norris is loosened up and laid back as never before; just like Garbo, he really can laugh. But never fear, he’s still the man to have on your side in a barroom brawl.

It's as engaging, as modest, as utterly American and as thrilling as the true-life story it's based on. [11 Dec 1986, Calendar, p.6-1]

At first, Something Special looks like it's going to be an appalling little stinker, one of those tasteless travesties whose manufacture and release makes you wonder at the sanity of the movie industry. Then, unexpectedly, you begin to get caught up in the rhythms, characters and storytelling.

Slaughter High, which benefits greatly from its authentic setting, a big, old derelict Tudor-style school building in a remote area, gets actually quite scary, yet its grisly special effects are of the darkly comic, Grand Guignol variety. There's a trite coda that the film could have done without, but even so, Slaughter High (appropriately rated R) is effective schlock.

Demme finds haunting overtones in the somewhat old-hat situations of E. Max Frye's first screenplay. Something Wild also has three first-class performances: by Daniels, who seems to have resources that his earlier roles never touched; by electrifying newcomer Ray Liotta, and by Griffith as the maddening, mysterious Lulu. [6 Nov 1986]

For viewers fascinated by punk's buffoonish energy and its slashing, guerrilla warfare against pop culture, Sid and Nancy offers a compelling portrait of two pathetic souls who overdosed on pain and unhappiness.

Beineix is still the sumptuous stylist; it's as much a part of him as his skin and the film has its share of gorgeous dawns, haunting sunsets, rollicking pink-and blue-painted beach houses. But he is also a great storyteller, and the whole middle section of Betty Blue is an irresistible tale of crazy love on one hand and crazy friendship on the other. [07 Nov 1986, p.1]

A dull, plodding thriller...It’s not a bad premise for a seamy film noir, but the results are a major disappointment, especially considering that the script was written by tough-guy novelist Elmore Leonard (who authored the original best-seller) and talented young playwright John Steppling. Not only is the dialogue stilted and showy, but neither writer manages to make much sense out of the novel’s complicated proceedings.

By the time “The Sacrifice” comes full circle it emerges itself as a symbolic gesture of great emotional impact. We may share Alexander’s sense of impotence, but Tarkovsky turns such feelings into a work of art.

The question of grace, of nonviolence, of loyalty and faith that are the weft of The Mission are not confined to the Jesuits or to the 18th Century. In their postlude, the film makers extend these concerns to today's priests in South America, and others might include clergy in South Africa and Poland. It is the power of these questions that ultimately sweeps away reservations about the film. The Mission becomes a spectacle of conscience.[14 Nov 1986, p.C1]

Material this risky has to be done brilliantly or not at all. "Tootsie" pulled off its gender switch because of its compassion for the discoveries that a man made in a woman's role. "Blazing Saddles" used blazing wit to attack the myths of racism, at full throttle. Though it may have had honest intentions, Soul Man is a mess, at almost every level. Steve Miner's direction stabs at farce, misses; makes a desperate dive at comedy, misses, and settles for sitcom sentimentality. Carol Black, the screenwriter, has a quick, good ear when she's skewering trendy yuppies, but the rest of her satire is mortifyingly callow. And what is set into motion has neither wit nor compassion. [24 Oct 1986, p.C6]

Far too tame for hard-core horror fans and far too lame for loyal head-bangers, who can see much scarier stuff at a Slayer concert. [27 Oct 1986, p.2]

Re-Animator is a hard act to follow, but Gordon only falls a notch short here, creating some genuinely gruesome thrills as well as an unsettling current of sexual hysteria.

There is energy and inventiveness enough here to stamp it as one of the year's most interesting films. Although it's virtually impossible to look at anyone else when Newman commands a scene, and although each man is exploring his character at completely different depths, Cruise is at least willing to extend himself; he gives the sense of a young actor who is working to grow. Add the edgy, indolent Mastrantonio and you have an electrifying unholy trio. The picture is, however, in the pocket of the old pro, who is still, in Fast Eddie's own words, some piece of work.

You go to Peggy Sue Got Married expecting '60s nostalgia, "a blast from the past," Buddy Holly and lime-green leisure suits. You get all that, but nothing prepares you for the rush of real emotion the film generates, for its poignance, its reassurance or its high of pure pleasure.

Joyous, daft and hauntingly original, True Stories is Byrne's magical mystery tour of Texas: an introduction to the imaginary town of Virgil and its faintly surreal folks.

Craven remains a savvy storyteller -- and he still jolts us with a couple of hideous frights -- but this new film lacks the skin-crawling intensity of past Craven efforts. [14 Oct 1986]

An exceptionally adroit adaptation of a play to the screen. As a film, it flows beautifully under Randa Haines' direction and has considerable humor as well as dramatic intensity. It is a classic love story--romantic, passionate, involving vibrant characters.

The duo carry automatic glamour and nobility and the movie is an elaborate star turn, a chance to see them strutting their stuff one more time.

Despite the compelling plot, the narrative glides along a muted path, not unlike a good jazz number that takes delicately unexpected turns.

Certainly Crocodile Dundee is nothing you can examine deeply or mull over afterward. It's simply an expert crowd-pleaser. It has such a sure, easy, confident touch that it's almost failure-proof--like a tip of the hat, a sip of beer, a quick, golden G'day.

Yes, it is splendid that anyone would take on so formidable a project as Eco’s 500-page chambered nautilus of a novel. Yes, this certainly feels like a 14th-Century Italian abbey, bleak, drafty and forbidding. Yes, it looks like it too--the 14th-Century as cast by Federico Fellini, every face a grotesque. But no, sad to say, it isn’t a perfectly marvelous film.

The humor of Down by Law is marginally easier to describe than Stranger Than Paradise, but only because, by now, we have a small idea of Jarmusch's style. It's still a kind of humor that evaporates as you try to explain it. Also eluding description is the beauty, the street poetry and the precision of the images caught by Jarmusch and his cameraman, the great Robby Muller, whose black-and-white photography illuminated the early films of Wim Wenders. They have created a dream New Orleans, more succinct and more haunting than the city itself, and Lurie has set it to music.

The most brilliantly disturbing film ever to have its roots in small-town American life. [19 September 1986, Calendar, p.6-1]

There’s a good movie buried in it, but it stays buried--and, by the end, the annoyances outweigh the pleasures.

The movie is Rambo crossed with Fraternity Vacation and a bad cartoon version of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It's an amazingly senseless movie, done with blood-curdling confidence. Each jaw-dropping howler is staged with such rattling intensity and perfect, seamless idiocy that it becomes weirdly amusing.

When it's just roaring along through a kaleidoscope of Los Angeles locations, the camera perched behind, above or below the skateboarding heroes and villains, the movie can be fun. It's shot in an extravagant, try-anything, music-video style. It's rattlingly paced, vibrant and splashy. Then we get to the story. Stop me if you've heard this one: Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl. Sound familiar? Try this for extra spice. Two warring teen-age gangs clash--the free-and-breezy Valley Guy "Ramp Locals" and the swaggering, black leather, bone-in-the-nose "Daggers."

Even better than opium for avoiding pain is avoiding Shanghai Surprise itself, a movie of jaw-dropping, high-water mark dreadfulness.

With Manhunter, there seems to be some danger that style has overrun content, leaving behind a vast, chic, well-cast wasteland. [15 Aug 1986]

Stand By Me is the summer's great gift, a compassionate, perfectly performed look at the real heart of youth. It stands, sweet and strong, ribald, outrageous and funny, like its heroes themselves--a bit gamy around the edges, perhaps, but pure and fine clear through. It's one of those treasures absolutely not to be missed.

Writer L. M. Kit Carson and director Hooper have made Chainsaw 2 a grisly hoot: a wild satire on modern Texas and horror movies themselves. [31 Aug 1986, p.15]

Don’t let the cartoonlike ads for Reform School Girls fool you. The movie has been billed as an outlandish sendup of the women-behind-bars genre, but that’s just wishful thinking--or part of the movie’s cynical hype. “Girls” is far too feeble to qualify as a raunchy prison parody. It’s more of a brainless homage, in the clunky way that “Rambo” and “Missing in Action” paid tribute to “The Green Berets.”

Anger? Outrage? Are these new feelings for audiences dealing with the fact of rape--aborted or not? You might hope not, but if they are, the film generates them, as well as the shamefully satisfying taste of bone-cracking revenge. But they still don’t add up to reason enough to make a movie, or to make it in 1986.

What makes The Fly such a stunning piece of obsessive film making is the way Cronenberg deftly allows us to identify with his monstrous creation. [14 Aug 1986]

The first 15 minutes have some funny bits, but the movie winds up sapping you. It's a kind of whoopee-cushion nightmare, as if you woke up one morning and noticed that everyone on the street was drooling on his or her tie.

The Boy Who Could Fly is as fragile as a kite, yet it’s kept aloft by the commitment of writer-director Nick Castle and the talent and presence of lovely young Lucy Deakins, who has that crucial gift of catching us up in her imagination.

Savage Steve Holland's One Crazy Summer is a zesty hot-weather tonic, light and sparkling, and a fine follow-up to last fall's "Better Off Dead," Holland's knockout debut feature. As impossible as it seems just now, Holland actually finds fresh approaches to the youth comedy. [12 Aug 1986, p.C5]

Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It is a joyfully idiosyncratic little jazz-burst of a film, full of sensuous melody, witty chops and hot licks

It’s not really a bad movie. In some ways, it’s a better directed farce than the current hits “Back to School” or “Legal Eagles.” But it’s erratic, and often weightless or uncentered; the pieces keep flying apart.

In an effort to generate some excitement (and disguise the limits of the animation) director Nelson Shin keeps the camera constantly in motion. The Transformers has so many cuts that it looks like the film was developed in a Veg-O-Matic. Because it features ineptly blended drawn animation and computer graphics, The Transformers is billed as state-of-the-art. It seems more like state-of-the-marketing. [08 Aug 1986, p.8]

The imagination of the opening is a hint of what the movie might have been: a view of our world that made kids consider it from another angle--as well as a spoof of the superhero. But what are all the pleasant duck effects in the face of any of this numbing waste?

Whereas its plot may be derivative--and at several junctures, unconvincing--Flight of the Navigator nevertheless manages to develop considerable humor and poignancy from David's predicament and what he does about it.

Sad excuse for a movie. [4 Aug 1986, p.C6]

Nothing in Common starts out like yet another yuppie Tom Hanks comedy--until it takes off in a surprising and unexpectedly rewarding direction. Never has Hanks or Jackie Gleason been better.

Maximum Overdrive offers a variation on what has become a hopelessly hackneyed theme -- technology as monster. As long as King is tinkering with his crazed machines, the film sustains a certain amount of ominous tension, but as soon as the author turns his attention to his actors, the movie's slender storyline goes limp. It's dreary to the max.

You can fret at Heartburn's flimsiness, may even find it insufferably smug in its portrait of our set, but you probably won't be bored by it. And it is peopled with adults, these days enough to make you whimper in gratitude. If only these talents were in the service of something.

But even if Hitchcock’s chase thrillers were the inspiration, with their falsely accused heroes fleeing police through exotic landscapes, the master wouldn’t have approved of this tribute. Logic, character, coherence, psychology--all those vital thriller elements disappear as quickly as the Iowa corn.

Haunted Honeymoon is an amusing, bouncy horror comedy that has fun with not only the old-dark-house genre but also those corny but beloved scare shows of the Golden Age of Radio.

But of all the film's choices, the best was Weaver. She's its white-hot core, given fine, irascible dialogue to come blazing out of that patrician mouth, and the chance to look, for a moment, like a space-dusted Sleeping Beauty in her hyper-sleep casket.

Pirates has its sly, funny moments, but ironically ends up a work by a sophisticated film maker that may be best left to the least demanding audiences.

A frenetically unfunny and charmless movie.

Tender, marvelously well played (by almost everyone) and thoroughly engaging. When it comes to the current sexual skirmishes between men and women, screenwriters Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue (Second City alumni) know every inch of enemy territory and take no prisoners.

Big Trouble in Little China is a try at mock-Oriental movie magic that goes leaden about a third of the way through -- and finally detonates into great, whomping firebombs of overcalculated, underinspired absurdity. [02 July 1986, p.10]

Psycho III--better in most respects than II--lets you down with the same swampy thud at the end. It's not a catastrophe. It has some good writing, and some better-than-good acting (Perkins, Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey), directing (Perkins again) and camera work (Bruce Surtees). But it fails any sequel's acid test: It feeds off the original without deepening it.

The Great Mouse Detective reflects the energy and enthusiasm of a talented group of young artists stretching their wings for the first time. That group has gone on to produce some truly extraordinary work, win awards and earn sums no one believed could be made from an animated film. And, as has often been the case at Disney, it all began with a mouse.

A dismal flop that will probably be Exhibit A for years to come in any debate over the wisdom of letting pop stars make their own vanity Hollywood projects. [04 Jul 1986, p.7]

There's more length than depth to Labyrinth. The Baryshnikov staging of "The Nutcracker" has more to tell about a girl on the edge of young womanhood, with more poignancy and a more palpable sense of transition, than all the technical wizardry Henson and crew have offered so lavishly-and without a single pop song, either. [26 Jun 1986, p.1]

So much of Ruthless People goes so far that maybe it was inevitable that the film makers would pull up short and make this half-sappy compromise--cynicism with a smile--as compensation for their previous audacity. A pity. A lot of the rest gives you something better: full-bore, shameless, gut-clutching laughter.

Running Scared's razor-crisp editing (by James Mitchell) shows that you can combine mayhem and laughs. But the action becomes huge, cartoony, out of scale, crushing the warmth Crystal and Hines have built up. And the movie is too long by about 15 minutes, a deadly thought for a comedy.

[An] inept, incoherent and charmless would-be romantic comedy-thriller.

There are some premises that absolutely aren't going to work--no matter how much intelligence, talent or craft the film makers bring to them. And Marshall Brickman may have stumbled onto such a premise in The Manhattan Project.

In a season not noted for adult diversions, Mona Lisa could hardly be more welcome: a glorious, heart-shaped box of bittersweet chocolates for the grown-ups in the house.

It’s the kind of movie where everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed--but director Gil Bettman throws in so many snazzy shots, and the editors jack up the pace enough, that you’re often compelled to watch it despite yourself.

John Irvin has a nice eye for irony and for the larger- (and funnier-) than-life trappings of the genre. He doesn't have enormous opportunities to exercise this bent, since Raw Deal is constructed like a serial bomb: It goes off roughly every 12 1/2 minutes, littering the landscape with corpses. But you can detect an adult hand at work here, which could never be said for Cobra's arrogant and inept childishness.

This is a two-sentence movie. In cases like this, you're lucky to get three sentences' worth of dramatic development. Like here.

And, though the 1953 “Invaders” was an effective movie, it’s not really the classic that people remember. Except for Menzies’ superb production designs, everything in the remake is better: the acting, the camera work, definitely the Martians. It may not grip audiences in the same way, but that’s because Hooper is trying something harder, a conscious campiness that’s tough to bring off.

The sugary cuteness of the Little Ponies masks a corporate greed as cold and sharp as a razor blade.

It has a lively start and finish, but the middle could use less talk and more action--which is not to say it couldn't do with a much lower body count as well. Indeed, were it not for a big dollop of gratuitous violence, it would be more diverting and better crafted than most of the stuff filling up the screen in anticipation of the rest of the summer blockbusters.

Deliciously funny.

If there's not much content -- and even less logic -- in Demons, there is a helluva lot of form. With its stark modern architecture and neon glare, West Berlin has a cold, hard atmosphere that's just right for the film, and the city has been captured gloriously by cinematographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia. [06 Sep 1986, p.13]

Cobra's pretentious emptiness, its dumbness, its two-faced morality make it a movie that begs to be laughed off.

The second film never has the hardness or urgency of the first. Its best moments, perhaps happily, tend to come from the actors rather than the story or Richard Edlund's effects: especially newcomers Geraldine Fitzgerald and Julian Beck. [23 May 1986]

Top Gun is a male bonding adventure movie that's both exciting and disturbing, mind-boggling and vacuous...Measuring this movie against its model -- Hawks' air films -- you can see the difference between a great director making his movies breathe, and a superproduction that depends on action and hardware. Top Gun is an empty-headed technological marvel. The actors -- especially Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer and Meg Ryan -- are good, but they only connect as archetypes. The emotion heats up only when the planes are flying. [16 May 1986, p.C1]

Having succeeded at a persuasive, endearing anthropomorphosis, the film makers have come up with only a so-so picture to go with it. All that was really needed to make Short Circuit a more satisfying experience was to up the script a couple of notches and apply a lighter touch to it. Unfortunately, director John Badham and his fledgling writers have taken a very broad, heavy-handed approach.

Amateurish clunker whose martial-arts action footage is almost as laughably dismal as its acting.

Blue City has exactly one thing to recommend it: Ry Cooder’s typically funky, steely, hard-edged score. Overall, it’s such a flabbergasting turkey--misfiring in every conceivable direction--that it may actually improve if you watch it with your eyes shut.

You have the feeling that Pryor had aimed for a somber, almost melancholy story, redeemed only by Jo Jo's strength of will at the very last moment. (He says as much in a recent magazine interview.) But the film has been cranked up to give it the maximum laughs and, in the process, has lost its center.

3 Men and a Cradle is a perfectly pleasant little piffle; watching it with an audience you'll probably hear, as I did, that soft cooing sound people make at the sight of a really adorable baby. This picture won't rot your brain or lead your children into nasty habits. It's just French pablum.

8 Million Ways to Die is a ponderous, convoluted improbability, with more inexplicable actions and situations than "The Big Sleep," which is the last time those two films will ever be mentioned in the same sentence.

Whatever may be flawed in Oliver Stone's searing, full-torque new war movie "Salvador", one thing about it is burningly right: It's alive. It broils, snaps and explodes with energy. The events (condensed from two years of battles and political upheaval in El Salvador) fly past at a murderous clip, hurtling you along almost demonically. [10 Apr 1986, p.6]

Although awesome in its fantasy splendor, Legend has even less substance than Scott's last film, "Blade Runner." And whereas that detective thriller of the future offered a truly original vision, the look of Legend, as gorgeous as it is, seems a distillation of all the illustrations for all the fairy tales ever read to a child. [18 Apr 1986, p.C4]

If ever a movie needed a modest, straight-ahead style to its telling, it's this one. And while James Foley's direction (and strong, iconoclastic casting) has resulted in a handful of indelible performances, he can't get out of his own way when it comes to how he tells his story.

Skim the pleasantly diverting surface of Absolute Beginners and you can easily forget that there is nothing contained beneath. [18 Apr 1986, p.C6]

Directed by Brian De Palma with an uncharacteristic twinkle in his eye, the film offers such a likable gallery of cement-heads that we're in no mood to carp about the movie's creaky storyline, belabored gags or meandering chase scenes.

Critters is a dumb, but sometimes likable little movie: maybe an odd comment, since it contains savage killings, mutilations and general bloodshed and evisceration. [25 Apr 1986, p.8]

Band of the Hand is a formula 1986 revenge thriller, and, though it hooks you frequently into its thin plot, it never gets far past formula. It’s a bad movie with saving graces-- Dylan’s song among them--which is better than a bad movie that just lies there and rots.

Nothing prepares us adequately for the cool of his screenwriter, 29-year-old Hanif Kureishi, nor for the audacity, complexity and depth of his themes.

A virtually irresistible film. [21 March 1986, p.1]

It's the feeling of Grodin as the muttering, dutiful cement in this family unit that holds the movie together -- for as long as it can be said to be held. [09 May 1986, p.14]

Lucas is as irresistible as its slight, brilliant, bespectacled 14-year-old hero (Corey Haim), a kid who in his spare time catches insects in a net--but only to study them, not to kill them.

It lives on its action and dies on its gab. It also would have been better without all those songs about catching the thunder and grabbing the lightning and going for the glory. They sound like a rejected ad campaign for Old Milwaukee. In movies like this, action is often enough--but here, it's just not radical.

Unfortunately, the film blunders into such an outlandishly dumb conclusion that you don't get a charge of surprise -- just a bad case of whiplash. [28 Mar 1986, p.16]

The Money Pit grows increasingly mechanical, both in its content and in the resolution of its plot, as the effects start overwhelming this essentially modest little romantic comedy.

But beware: "Hamburger" is the dregs of "Animal House" and "Police Academy" raked over again, with another passel of daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys; bosomy, moaning sex-starved girls; screaming nerds; yowling dimwits and howling bullies... The script may set a record for misfiring gags and lewd puns. [3 Feb 1986, p.C7]

The most you can say for Police Academy 3: Back in Training is that it's no worse than "Police Academy 2" -- which was awful. [24 Mar 1986, p.Cal-7]

The ineptly told story features the hollow menaces, uninteresting villains, bland heroes, predictable confrontations and static animation that have become standards of the genre. [21 Mar 1986, p.17]

Unfortunately, the story, script, voice actors and animation all prove less flexible than the toys, and the film never turns into entertainment. GoBots are more fun to play with than they are to watch.

Gung Ho goes after that ever-so-elusive Capra-esque spirit of communal triumph over adversity, but both sides too often verge on stereotypes for this to pay off as richly as it should.