Fortunately for Hughes and director Howard Deutch, Juliet is played by the fetching 18-year-old Molly Ringwald, an actress capable of revealing adolescent angst with amazing grace. Unfortunately, Romeo is an underwritten blank who resists all of actor Andrew McCarthy's efforts to make him charming. The manic Mercutio role goes to Juliet's bosom buddy The Duck (Jon Cryer), an ehibitionist cutup who loses the girl he adores to a guy who doesn't deserve her. "Pretty in Pink is a gentle and well-meaning sketch of teen peer pressures, but its dopey, feel-good ending leaves you suspecting that what you've really been watching is Much Ado About Nothing. [17 March 1986, p.82]

There's a quirky, honest movie struggling to emerge from Then She Found Me (April's Jewish heritage is refreshingly portrayed, and there are lovely, scattered moments when the characters surprise you), but Hunt, in her directorial debut, can't seem to decide whether she'd rather make a spicy ethnic dish or bland comfort food.

It can't risk real pathos, or real horror, and still be a Jim Carrey movie, so the most it achieves is a kind of unsettling creepiness. Strange movie: Carrey is working his gifted butt off, and we're not allowed to laugh.

Marshall is a good technician, but there's no sense of artistic adventure in his sometimes exciting, sometimes draggy movie.

The densely populated movie, pumped up with unnecessary crowd scenes and a handful of utterly extraneous male characters, is as garish and busy as a TV game show. As directed by Herbert Ross, it is so intent on persuading the audience that it is having a heartwarming emotional experience you almost expect TelePrompTers to flash in the theater, instructing you to laugh and cry. [27 Nov 1989, p.92]

Black Rain is the sort of movie where, if you see a motorcycle race at the start, you know you'll get one in the climax. The script is routine formula swill, at best. [02 Oct 1989, p.70]

Like all Stone movies, W. has energy and forward momentum--particularly in the pre-presidential sections, when Bush is in his loose-cannon phase. It's not boring, and Brolin is often remarkable.

Faye Dunaway's performance has its own Gothic energy and insight. She catches the behavioral details of Joan Crawford--the throaty voice, dropping its "g's" with tough-guy casualness, the Venus' flytrap seductiveness. In her nightly chin strap, her sweat suit as she works out like a fighter, in Irene Sharaff|s brilliant period gowns and rings-of-Saturn hats, Dunaway catches the star's driving ambition, her obsession with a perverse ideal of perfection that turns human feeling into cruelty. She makes Crawford a fearsome portrait of the pathology of stardom. [21 Sept 1981, p.97A]

But once the couple clinch their bond -- just when the story gets really shameless -- the life drains out of the movie. Love Affair takes such pains to dodge vulgarity it forgets to put anything in its place.

It's a little late to be spoofing Westerns, and most of the high-noonery in BTTF III falls flat. [4 June 1990, p.82]

Whether Series 7, filmed on digital video for less than $1 million, is reactive or prescient doesn’t change the fact that it’s a dead-on parody of the form.

The sweet, funny, funky screenplay by Darryl Ponicsan (from Terry Davis's novel) is beautifully directed by Harold Becker ("The Onion Field," "Taps"), who gets performances so true and winning from his actors that you're smiling through the entire film. [25 Feb 1985, p.85]

The Fog needs more suggestive magic to sustain its farfetched premise. There's no doubt that Carpenter has talent to spare, but he's misjudged his gifts this time. The Fog ought to come on little cat feet, but its tread is heavy and literal. The harder it tries, the sillier it gets. [03 March 1980, p.68]

If there's a problem with this film, it lies in its hieratic, almost operatic style, which at times veers dangerously close to the self-absorbed and sanctimonious. But the sheer scope and significance of the story win the day, and Joffe and his actors score some stunning achievements. [3 Nov 1986, p.81]

As the proud, independent young author, Hathaway is both subdued and alluring--it's her most mature performance. The movie goes down easy, but there's a thin line here: is this an homage or a parasite?

Hughes is just treading lukewarm water. Stotz is the blandest of his teen heroes yet. [16 Mar 1987]

There's no suspense in either Demon Seed or Audrey Rose because their protagonists haven't got the resourcefulness of an acorn squash. [18 Apr 1977, p.64]

An engrossing, superbly acted film that will haunt the viewer's thoughts long after the film is over.

A hilarious, rousing musical comedy set at a summer camp where NOBODY plays sports and EVERYBODY worships Stephen Sondheim.

This is state-of-the-art stuff, and clearly Landis is as proud of it as those kid prodigies who build computers out of Q-Tips. Landis also out-palms Brian De Palma, not only giving you nightmares about massacres but double nightmares that go on to meta-massacres just when you think they're over. But despite all of this super-sophistication the movie is finally just as silly as the old horror pictures it ambiguously kids. There's nothing like a rotting, wisecracking corpse to embody the bubble-gum nihilism of the Wise-Guy Wave. [7 Sept 1981, p.82]

Light of Day has the virtues of sincerity, but that may also be what keeps it so relentlessly mundane. [09 Feb 1987, p.75]

Dead of Winter is played straight and not without style, but the material (by Marc Shmuger and Mark Malone) is such implausible, antique claptrap it's hard not to think of it as camp. [23 Feb 1987, p.79]

Herbert Ross directed this murky-looking film, and Buck Henry wrote it from a story by Charles Shyer, Nancy Meyers and Harvey Miller. They have all had better days. [31 Dec 1984, p.65]

It’s a movie for movie lovers -- playful, hip and light as a feather.

A twisted comedy for twisted times, this movie made me happy. Go figure.

Imagine "The War of the Roses" remade as a James Bond fantasy, with appropriately high-tech weaponry, and you have some idea of what Doug Liman's heavily armed comedy has in store.

The Streep-De Niro show is bringing back the sizzle and savor of the golden age of movie couples. [03 Dec 1984, p.78]

Alternately beguiling and bloated, witty and warmed over, smart and pandering. The majority is likely to swoon; the minority will squirm their way through it.

Bustin' Loose has a fair share of laughs, none of which is supplied by Tyson, who is totally wasted in an oppressively upright role and lacks the light touch that might have transformed it into something more quirky. For his first effort as producer, Pryor earns a mixed report. He's given himself a good showcase, but his gifts as a dangerous, subversive comic are undermined by his desire to make Uplifting Statements. [01 June 1981, p.91]

It's these well-lived-with characters who make The Four Seasons a pleasure to watch, and the actors obviously relish their parts. [25 May 1981, p.74]

There are no ideas, just repartee. Snoop Dogg, as a superfly snitch, and Vince Vaughn, as a drug lord, are wasted in obvious supporting roles. It's harmless fun--and too lazy to be more.

Great Expectations has great style; that's not everything we want from the movies, but sometimes it's almost enough. [2 February 1998, p. 61]

This movie has the weather of "Body Heat," the moral stance of "Absence of Malice" and the perverse plot-angle of "Tightrope." It's also not as good as any of these. [25 Feb 1985, p.85]

Ultimately, Huckabees doesn't work. But it sure does stimulate. This is just the kind of "failure" we could use plenty more of.

Manages to take an urgent, important topic and turn it into standard Hollywood melodrama. What a waste.

A welcome paradox--an intelligent, rousing adventure for grown-up kids. [17 Apr 1995, p.66]

This clumsy attempt to merge Jane Austen's classic with Bollywood musical conventions falls painfully flat.

What Scott brings to this, for him, surprisingly conventional genre moving is a superb sense of mood, seductive settings and a nice feel for the comedy of colliding social classes. Yet for all its tension and style, the movie feels thin. The obligatory violent ending is a real letdown: implausibly plotted and much too familiar. And while there's nothing wrong with Berenger's solid, witty performance, he's a little bland. [12 Oct 1987, p.84D]

For Trek devotees, it's a supernova of unpredictable sci-fi thrills, though the earthbound may find this trip through the heavens a bit tiresome, especially when the movie tries too hard to wax philosophic. [18 Nov. 1994, p.88]

A movie of arresting pieces that don't harmonize into a satisfying whole.

Slightly soggy.

Those who haven’t seen “Lock, Stock” will probably get a bigger kick out of Snatch than those who have. The second time around, what seemed spontaneous can sometimes feel strained.

Crossroads is an uneasy hybrid. The script, by 26-year-old John Fusco, wants both to offer authentic homage to the great Delta musicians and to appeal to the teen market. [24 March 1986, p.77]

There are pleasures to be had in the handsome, heroic The Last Samurai. But they' all on the surface.

Baby Mama is rescued by two scene-stealing veterans: Sigourney Weaver as the smug, patrician owner of the surrogate company, and a priceless, ponytailed Steve Martin as the self-infatuated New Age owner of Round Earth. These two aren't onscreen a lot, but the movie seems most fully alive when they are.

While there are few huge laughs, the very lack of pushiness in Harold Ramis's direction comes as comic relief. [8 Aug 1983, p.55]

The plot is madcap nonsense, and the comic aim is sometimes very broad and very low, but the belly-laugh quotient in Arthur (The In-Laws) Hiller's movie is the highest since the last Midler movie, Ruthless People. [26 Jan 1987, p.76]

You may not swallow every coincidental encounter and hair's-breadth escape, but this crisp, complex thriller makes you care what happens every moment; Hackman brings such road-worn humanity to his part you may not realize until the end that this Everyman is a Superman in middle-age disguise. [4 Sept 1989, p.68]

After the opening sequence, much of the action in The Spy Who Loved Me, the tenth James Bond screen epic and the third starring Roger Moore as Bond, is somewhat downhill. [08 Aug 1977, p.77]

Only near the end does the mix of melodrama, mush and message get out of hand.

Where so many comic-book movies feel as disposable as Kleenex, the passionate, uncynical Hulk stamps itself into your memory. Lee’s movies are built to last.

You don't have to be a Hitchcock idolater to see that this dumb, dull, plodding, pseudo-camp bore is a callous, commercial parasite. [13 June 1983, p.78]

Director Stuart Rosenberg and screenwriter W. D. Richter have a strong, grim, angry story to tell, and the urgency of their convictions overcomes the frequent clumsiness and confusion of the telling. Unsparing in its evocation of brutality, and unswerving in its commitment to Brubaker's radical, uncompromising ideals, the film at its best provokes a powerful sense of tension and outrage. [23 June 1980, p.75]

The secret of Volcano's success as a better-than-average disasterama is its nonstop pace.

Deep Blue Sea gives good rush -- earning its stripes as one terrific junk movie.

Lively, likable and refreshingly unsensationalistic about the drugs and sex that come with the territory, this techno-propelled mash note to the rave spirit sticks to the surface.

As well-crafted and sensitive as it is, the movie remains one step removed from inspiration.

A decidedly mixed bag.

The movie does have somewhat more lilt and levity, much of it due to Jim Carrey as the Riddler. But there's still plenty of murk, physical and metaphysical, and more psychobabble about Bruce Wayne's obsessions and repressions.

Trying too hard to grab our attention, he (Marshall) loses it. The art of the geisha prizes subtlety, stillness, grace. Why doesn't this movie?

The wrong people made this movie, and its failure rankles. It's a handsomely designed, beautifully photographed production full of good actors who have been asked to play their roles in unfailingly hackneyed fashion. [01 May 1978, p.89]

The Name of the Rose spins a whopping good tale, a medieval murder mystery that only those with seriously damaged attention spans will find hard to enjoy. [29 Sept 1986, p.63]

The film has too much class for its own sensibility; it seems often stuck in this class like a fly in molasses. [24 Sep 1979, p.102]

A shallowly satiric suburban joke that says some ugly and unsupported things about what kind of women men really want. [03 Mar 1975, p.70]

In this distressingly generic spy spoof, it's not Maxwell who's clueless, but the filmmakers.

In the second half the film meanders into all the danger areas one might expect: predictable plot twists, tearful separation scenes between the lovers, and even a joyful reunion in Rome.

Only the first half of Johnny Dangerously really works, but then such nonstop silliness is almost impossible to sustain. [14 Jan 1985, p.53]

Romero's remake jettisons just those qualities that lent class to the 1968 original. [5 Nov 1990, p.79]

You don't have to have lived through the period to find this wrenching. And you don't have to doubt Estevez's sincerity to find it emotionally opportunistic.

The hinge of Lifeguard's almost nonexistent plot is whether or not Rick will decide to give up his beach whistle for a briefcase. But the film is also extremely well acted by a cast of little-known players who deserve to go on to better things. [02 Aug 1976, p.78]

The movie wants to make a serious point that old folks shouldn't be treated as children; the message would be easier to swallow if the moviemakers didn't treat the audience the same way. [20 Oct 1986, p.78b]

The whole movie has the air of a sermon delivered over an empty grave. In surfers' terms, Big Wednesday is a wipe-out. [14 Aug 1978, p.62]

In the end, it's just another novice-teacher-takes-on-inner-city-kids-and-nobody's-life-will-ever-be-the-same film

For Your Eyes Only is one giant second-unit film, an anthology of action episodes held together by the thinnest of plot lines. Most of these episodes are terrific in their exhilaratingly absurd energy: Steven Spielberg himself would not sneer at them. [29 June 1981, p.72]

Murphy raw is better than the well-done ego served up in Beverly Hills Cop II. But he's become a brilliant wise guy, unlike his hero Richard Pryor, who can turn profanity into poetry and hipness into humanity. [11 Jan 1988, p.57]

I'm not sure what kids are going to make of Bee Movie. The shiny, vivid computer-animated images pop off the screen with the vibrancy of the Pixar movies, but the understated, throwaway humor is pure Seinfeld: adult, observational, feasting on the small ironies of human (make that "beeish") behavior.

Hill has never been better in shaping and pacing a movie that has the excitement, romance and resonance of the best popular art. [15 Oct 1984, p.118]

Copycat is satisfyingly tense, but the disgusto factor is balanced by its obvious theatricality--neatly captured in the contrasting performaces of Weaver and Hunter, the one playing neurotic standard poodle to the other's tightly wound terrier. [6 Nov 1995, pg.86]

Kill is a disappointing movie: slow, overpopulated and muddled in its thinking.

Hyams's attempt at a cosmic conclusion is about as earth shattering as yesterday's weather report. [10 Dec 1984, p.94]

The film is too dumb to work as patriotic exhortation and too mawkish to work as blood-and-guts exploitation. It's a long commercial in which the Marlboro Man has become the American Guerrilla, with his good buddies, good guns and a bottomless case of Coors. [03 Sep 1984, p.73]

Veteran director Richard Fleischer brings to the Conan sequel some of the endearingly stolid craftsmanship of his old movies, while avoiding the lip-smacking sadism of the original. The movie is consistently dumb, though not hard to watch, but it would be a lot more fun if someone had bothered to give Conan a personality. [02 July 1984, p.45]

(Katja von Garnier's) talent makes this original film exciting and moving, a raucous ride.

You can convince yourself you're having a good time watching Big Business. The idea seems so funny you smile in anticipation of the jokes, but the laughter is strangely tinny. It's a harmless concoction, but so mechanical it vanishes from your head the instant it's over. It should have been so much more. [13 Jun 1988, p.74]

Paradise Alley lacks Rocky's primal simplicity: It's a parade of outrageous ploys that come pelting at you from all angles. [13 Nov 1978, p.106]

This echo of the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans is the only new gimmick in Edward Zwick's entry in the cliche- terrorist genre.

It's like nothing you've seen before. Yet, over all, the story it tells seems predictable, secondhand, and its "profound" revelations hackneyed. [12 Sep 1983, p.88]

The heavy-handed direction by Volker Schlondorff doesn't help to make the movie convincing or dramatically effective. [16 Mar 1990, p.54]

Everything in Rounders is right there on the surface. Watching it is about as exciting as playing poker with all the cards face up. [14 Sept 1998]

Crash has no plot to speak of. It's a cinematic tone poem of collisions and coitus.

With a strong soundtrack and a little humor, In Too Deep remains good entertainment.

Harris leavens the familiar suburban angst with dark humor, rich characterizations and a terrific cast.

Since this isn't one of your deep-think sci-fi movies, you look for the happy hardware to get you kicks. [4 July 1976, p.102]

These actresses are always worth seeing in just about anything, as is Tuscany. Together they are able to make up for the meandering plot and lack of dramatic oomph.

Nair and Witherspoon pull back from the ferocity of Thackeray's portrait: they're afraid we won't find Becky Sharp likable enough. Yes, she's the most brilliant, bold and vibrant creature in this social panorama, but she should also be chilling.

Strictly as exploitation, Bad Boys is a pretty slick piece of work. It's overlong and short on characterization. But it's unsentimental about its teen-age hoods and unsparing about the nastiness of juvenile jails. [28 Mar 1983, p.73]

In Lost Highway, reality has become a dream. But Lynch has forgotten how boring it is listening to someone else's dream.

Hackman is brilliant at being almost -- but not quite -- ordinary, and Archer gives a compelling performance as the witness who wants to "do the right thing," but is afraid. [01 Oct 1990, p.70D]