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

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.

De Palma has brought back Travolta's edge and intelligence. Relieved of having to give a star turn, Travolta seems happy to buckle down and do a straight-ahead, no-frills acting job. [27 July 1981, p.74]

The dialogue is tacky, the characters stock and the special effects no improvement on anything George Lucas did 20 years ago.

Some of this is mildly amusing, but most of it is thumpingly obvious. [01 Oct 1979, p.77]

This film has almost none of the scraggy, raunchy, irreverent anarchy that gave "Animal House" a kind of perverse anti-style. There's nothing at all perverse about Meatballs; in fact, it's so cutesy, squeaky-clean that it becomes Andy Hardy with a few extra belches. [9 July 1979, p.68]

Simon shies away from the more interesting implications of his own growth in favor of ingratiating his audience. This weakens the movie versions even more than the original plays. [04 Apr 1988, p.72A]

The more obvious special effects are downright hokey, such as a weird swirling water creature who looks like something out of a toilet cleaner commercial. As the outcome of all the sword-flinging and catapult-launching is never in question, it's hard to stay engaged with the movie once the fighting begins.

For all its neon-lit expressionism and portentous, dread-inspiring music, Hardcore has almost nothing to say about its subject. Schrader doesn't explore any moral conflict, he just gives off attitudes - and banal, shopworn attitudes at that. [13 Feb 1979, p.57]

Too halting and anecdotal to have much historical sweep, yet too broadly ambitious to achieve any biographical intimacy. [13 Dec 1976, p.104]

Using none of the sharp, ironic juxtapositions that lent its predecessors so much energy, Car Wash is content to be just a day in the life of the title establishment. [04 Oct 1976, p.89]

Clint's latest doesn't try to do much of anything that hasn't been done before, and better. [15 Dec 1986, p.83]

A dark slice of sword and sorcery that could have used some of Walt's old storytelling sense. [13 July 1981, p.81]

Second Hand Hearts is a very classy-looking movie. Haskell Wexler is the cinematographer, and he transforms the gauchest milieus into elegant tableaux. But Harris and Blake don't mesh with Ashby's innately cool style. [18 May 1981]

As preposterous as the movie gets, it's clearly reveling in its own hokiness.

Branagh's two Shakespeare films have been triumphs-meaty, moving and fun. Bard-less, the director flounders. His Frankenstein gives off the same hollow echo that Dead Again did, the same mixture of stylistic flair and insincerity.

There are some very funny moments, and Coughlan is a delight as Leigh Anne's best friend.

Comes off as surprisingly unmagical, with characters you only half care about.

Jaw 2 is not a shipwreck of a movie; it'll make you jump now and then, like a boring guy tickling your ribs. But it lacks the style and intelligence that director Steven Spielberg brough to the original "Jaws". Jennot Szwarc, a French-born teveision specialist, come nowhere near Spielberg's blend of kinetic drive and comic touch. [19 June 1978, p.74]

Though well acted, and handsomely shot by veteran Adam Holender, Fresh sacrifices real emotion for thriller contrivances. It's a tourist's drive through inner-city hell. [05 Sep 1994, p.69]

No matter how important teamwork is on a job of industrialized entertainment like these ostensibly visionary films, the vision itself has to come from a single inspired sensibility. Despite some intriguing ideas, episodes and effects, that isn't the case with "Star Trek." [17 Dec. 1979, p.110]

Roberts and Gibson form a "pas de deux," two lonely urbanites fighting vague yet common enemies in a plot that never quite comes together.

The comedy gets crushed just as surely as our heroes' cop car does in a compactor. This is a shame, because Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal, who play the daredevil cops who banter their way through these bullet-strewn streets, are two extremely likable performers who deserve a director more attuned to their charms. [30 June 1986, p.60]

The theatricality is off the charts. Lane aims for the balconies; Broderick tones it down for the camera a bit.

Strikingly devoid of suspense. It’s not always clear who’s the protagonist and who’s the antagonist. Nor is it scary—at its most intense moments, it’s merely yucky.

Technology has squeezed character to a few measly pixels on the digital screens. Explosions have replaced dramatic climaxes.

Labour teeters on the edge of the amateur. Yet it's hard not to root for its moonstruck spirit, or to succumb to the panache of the pastiche.

Quantum of Solace isn't frivolous or cheesy, but it isn't all that much fun either.