While the movie sets you up to believe you're watching an old- fashioned American western (in other words, a morality play), it's confusing figuring out what the bad guys represent. [31 Aug 1984, p.C8]

Perhaps Rudolph is sending out a message about love, a la Rohmer, or maybe he's just having a strange kind of fun. Choose Me is just entertaining enough, in its eccentric, soap- operatic way, so that it doesn't matter. [21 Dec 1984, p.D22]

The few bright spots in Oxford Blues, including the handsome cinematography, are like the raisins in the tapioca: They just don't help. [24 Aug 1984, p.C10]

It is not in most respects more than an ordinary thriller, however; were it not an Eastwood picture, it would be instantly forgettable. [17 Aug 1984, p.D1]

In their defense, it must be said that Dennis Quaid (as the chief dreamer) and Kate Capshaw (back again, this time in the time-honored woman's role of "assistant scientist") make an appealing couple. The presence of Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer is more problematic; someone paid these people a lot of money to sleepwalk. [16 Aug 1984, p.B6]

There are plenty of good B movies around to amuse fans of the medieval-hocum genre, but Sword of the Valiant rates a D- minus. [03 Dec 1984, p.C8]

Roberts looks great bathing under a waterfall. It's just that no one had the heart, during this production, to tell her that it was stupid. And so, while all about her are laughing up the short sleeves of their safari jackets or rattling their Zambooli spears in impatience, Roberts plays Sheena as high drama, as best she can, which isn't so good. [18 Aug 1984, p.C1]

And so it goes, cleverly, amiably -- infidelity made fun. Wilder seems to have a firm hand on the controls, and the movie works best when he indulges his talent for physical comedy, which is considerable. It works less effectively when we have time to think about what is going on, and how many times we have seen it before, but the pace is quick enough that these times are few. [17 Aug 1984, p.10]

Cloak and Dagger does have its charms. It also has its tense moments, and an unforced sentimentality that helps it end on just the right note. And it's nicely performed. [10 Aug 1985, p.6]

This is what we call a movie-movie, a movie that throws nuance and self-consciousness and artiness to the wind and concentrates on the slam-bam. It's richly entertaining, it's big, it moves fast. [10 Aug 1984, p.C1]

It was pretty interesting a couple of years ago, too, when a variation of it was the premise for The Final Countdown. The big difference is that the earler film wasn't bad, and this one is. [03 Aug 1984, p.C9]

Kleiser seems to know something about style and pace after all, and he seems to know something about having fun with a movie. These are minor revelations, and they make Grandview U.S.A. almost unique among its class of film over the past five years: It's worth seeing. [03 Aug 1984, p.C9]

Remarkably, director Albert Magnoli is able to use a single moment of melodrama to give this story a measure of depth. And from that point on, Purple Rain is improbably successful at tugging on the heartstrings as well as shaking the rafters. It winds up a love story, and one with power. [27 July 1984, p.D1]

Unfortunately, The Corsican Brothers isn't very funny. This does not exactly make us nostalgic for other, less purposeful C- and-C films, but it does serve as a sad reminder that their first, Up in Smoke, for all its excesses, was funnier than anything they have been able to manage since. [30 July 1984, p.C5]

Part II is even dumber than Meatballs, which was plenty dumb enough. [01 Aug 1984, p.C4]

Largely devoted to whatever laughs may be coaxed from the sound of a freshman belching and the sight of some mighty mature-looking coeds removing their blouses. There's some nose-picking, too, but not enough to save the picture. [20 July 1984, p.D6]

A surprisingly dull and witless film. [21 Jul 1984, p.C1]

Electric Dreams seems to take forever to establish its premise and its characters, who (computer excepted) are nonetheless rather one-dimensional. [23 Jul 1984, p.C6]

The best parts of the movie, as in all Muppet ventures, are when director Frank Oz takes the action into pure fantasy. [13 July 1984, p.D1]

Video-game-come-true plot is corny, but somehow it works. [13 July 1984, p.D10]

Oh, yes. Reynolds is in it -- but whatever quiet comic timing he once had with DeLuise in movies like The End has been shot to hell by the confusion in the script and the havoc in the pace. They get it back again during the credits, which are accompanied by some outtakes of DeLuise and Reynolds doing their improvisational bit as DeLuise assumes the role of a human bomb. Even bad bloopers are better than this movie. [29 June 1984, p.7]

Fleischer has missed his opportunities to get real comic- book style humor out of this movie. It could have been a lot of belly laughs -- but as it is, it's only an occasional snide chuckle. [04 July 1984, p.B5]

I suppose if you haven't seen Rocky or its many imitators, The Karate Kid might have its modest charms; there's a good bit of man-to-boy philosophizing in it, on the order of "To thine own self be true," and that's harmless enough. But there's a measure of laziness in this whole idea that is dismaying, that borders on cynicism. One wonders what went through the minds of the filmmakers as they prepared to make a film that has been made so many times before. By the look of The Karate Kid, some quick-play box-office may have been the highest aspiration. [26 June 1984, p.B3]

There are some funny lines in The Pope of Greenwich Village. Once the eye knows the characters and the ear gets accustomed to the filthy (and somehow quaint) street slang, Rosenberg keeps the pace entertaining. [22 June 1984, p.D8]

Attention-getting it is. Entertaining, too. But meaningful? Are you kidding? [22 Jul 1984, p.D1]

Huston's effort was an ambitious attempt to simmer down difficult literature, but this Under the Volcano is too thick and too thin. [31 Aug 1984, p.C11]

It's as if Dante sought so hard to parrot his producer that he wound up parodying, and all involved should have known better. There's a current of menace to Dante's work that sets him apart from Spielberg, and a measure of innocence in Spielberg's quite apart from anything Dante has done. [8 June 1984, p.1]

The writers have 13-year-old humor in their hearts and an overdose of late-night movies in their minds. But there was no snowballing of the humor; the jokes leave you tickled, but never build to a comic crescendo. [23 June 1984, p.D6]