A dynamic, fully visually realized experience. It's every bit as gory as "Batman" but more cohesive and its struggle between good and evil more tightly integrated. [11 Aug 1989, p.C6]

But the climax of "Close Encounters" was breathtaking and the climax of The Abyss is downright embarrassing; in the light of day, its payoff effect looks like a glazed ceramic what's-it your 11-year-old made in crafts class. It's criminal. [9 Aug 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

Electrifying… As writer, director and editor, [Soderbergh’s] control is mesmerizing. It's also more than a little creepy; as though Soderbergh were drawing us, a step at a time, into a warm pool where intimate secrets flowed back and forth as simply as currents of water. [4 Aug 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

Ron Howard reaches real maturity here, as he pulls together the script's tendency to skitter between sociology and sitcom, making it into one perceptive, delicious whole. [2 Aug 1989, p.1]

As a bunch, the film makers have created the sort of mystery story that might well puzzle a 12-year-old who had never read a mystery story before and wasn't paying attention anyway, and the sort of love story that 12-year-olds might throw away to read the mystery story, along with the sort of dog story many dogs would actually enjoy--if the pages were edible...Luckily the team of Hanks and Beasley are around to save the show, tell a few snappy stories, dance a few licks, chase a few crooks, make you laugh, make you cry. Who needs writers?

Funny ad campaign; a real dunghill of a major motion picture.

The problem with UHF is that everything in it is a parody. The only logic for anything that happens is that there's some new thing to make fun of-mostly inanely. It's not much of a movie. [21 Jul 1989 p.11]

An utterly pleasant surprise...Lordy, is it tenderly acted, with an unyielding spine of honesty to all its characters.

The series has been with us since 1962 and, like many another old timer, tends to repeat itself. Yet, every once in a while, it pulls in its stomach, pops the gun from its cummerbund, arches its eyebrow and gets off another bull's-eye. The newest, Licence to Kill, is probably one of the five or six best of Bond.

The summer's uncorseted, unqualified delight. [14 July 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

Lethal Weapon 2 has the brain-rattling pace of a terminal speed freak going the wrong way down an expressway. [7 Jul 1989, p.1]

Stirred up impassioned debate everywhere; it would seem the greatest compliment that could be paid a stunning entertainment. [30 June 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

In short, writer Robert Mark Kamen gave director Avildsen and his cast too little to work with for The Karate Kid Part III to have gone into production in the first place.

Great Balls of Fire would be an entertaining evening even if it preserved nothing more than Lewis' songs -- rerecorded by Lewis with all the soul and groin-stirring fury that he has preserved during three decades. It also has an often-dazzling comic impersonation of Lewis by Dennis Quaid, a goofy ballet of awesomely confident struts and brags. [30 June 1989, p.1]

Nicholson's Joker will be the pivotal point for many. It's his energy, spurting like an artery, that keeps the picture alive; it's certainly not the special effects, the editing, which has no discernible rhythm, or the flaccid screenplay.

In a weird way, what happens to the kids is what happens to the movie. The humans shrivel to crawling piffles or get deformed into caterwauling robots; the super-tall grass and the giant cookies and insects take over.

Commands respect and affection. [2 June 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

Ghostbusters II doesn't seem to be pushing as hard as its predecessor, which of course makes it even more fun. There's an old-shoeishness to the proceedings; even Murray's owlish put-downs seem a little less snide-they're almost affectionate, if that's not too outrageous a word in this context. [16 Jun 1989, p.1]

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is as much a spiritual odyssey as a space adventure, and it's all the richer for it. It has high adventure, nifty special effects and much good humor, but it also has a wonderful resonance to it. [9 June 1989]

No Holds Barred gets no points for originality. It's written with the subtlety of a body-slam and directed with the finesse of a hammerlock. But the movie never takes itself seriously and director Tom Wright has fun with the wrestling montages.

Renegades, a shamelessly contrived, ultraviolent macho fantasy, stars Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips, who are too talented and too successful to be wasting themselves on such trash.

Pink Cadillac has a strong visual design and lots of juicy, self-confident acting. But it doesn’t transcend its star vehicle trappings or chemistry. The construction of the story is so soft, you get the impression that if the driver and navigator were replaced, the movie might turn rattletrap and fall apart.

You can't roll monstrous boulders straight at audiences any more and have a whole theater-full duck and gasp with fright--and pleasure. We may be plumb gasped out. And although Harrison Ford is still in top form and the movie is truly fun in patches, it's a genre on the wane. [24 May 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]

The crushing assault that Road House delivers to fun at the movies is enough to send you crawling out of the theater on hands and knees, bloody and bowed. [19 May 1989, p.C1]

A sort of new-wave nuke film, “Miracle Mile” is intense, humorous and powerful. And, yeah, it’s also sometimes off the wall.

Brisk, ingenious and funny comedy that happily reunites Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. [12 May 1989, p.6]

While not especially distinctive, the film is pleasant and amusing. It has a brisk, well-turned-out quality that augurs well for Harris, the son of Richard Harris.

Earth Girls Are Easy may be a classic case of a director getting more out of his material than it really deserves. Temple has spectacular gifts for making musical movies. He is a witty formalist, a light-hearted virtuoso, and, like all the best movie-musical directors, he's able to create images that breathe in tempo with the songs or cut against them jaggedly, exhilaratingly.