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]