With Dillon in the movie, you might expect another girl-chasing beach movie. But the evocation of the nouveau riche club, and of adolescence itself, is closer to early Philip Roth than to Spring Break. [31 Dec 1984, p.65]

Edwards has given Dudley Moore his best vehicle since Arthur. [31 Dec 1984, p.67]

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]

Away from the television screen, Selleck is as stiff as his bulletproof vest. The only fun performers here are sexy, Kinskilipped Kirstie Alley as a scapegoat and a swarm of robot spiders that clatter-crawl all over their victims. [17 Dec 1984, p.84]

This movie is so packed with character, incident and detail that it seems to whiz by like a ferocious number by a high powered jazz ensemble. In the process it skimps on connections and short-circuits many of its emotional relationships. But Coppola, called in to rescue the project and working under crazy financial and creative pressure, has come up with a vision of jazz-age fever in which violence, romance and race are choreographed to the music of the Harlem renaissance. [24 Dec 1984, p.52]

It is a dark, spellbinding dream, full of murmurs and whispers, byzantine plots and messianic fevers. It finds its iconography of the future deep in the past. It's not always easy to follow, but it's even harder to get out of your system. For better and for worse, it takes more artistic chances than any major American movie around. [10 Dec 1984, p.93]

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

Beverly Hills Cop is no masterpiece, but it uses Murphy to maximum effect. At its best, the movie is exactly as brazen, charming and mercurial as Murphy himself, which is to say it is unimaginable without him. [3 Dec. 1984, p.81]

Though Helen Slater makes a bad first impression, she's not a bad Supergirl by the end, being likably straightforward, guileless and sweet. And unlike Reeve, who looks exactly the same whether he's Clark Kent or Superman, Slater makes you believe that people wouldn't know brunette Linda Lee was actually blond Supergirl. That may not be a major cinematic achievement, but it's about the best that Supergirl has to offer. [26 Nov 1984, p.119]

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

It's no shameless Hollywood weepie, mind you, but an overestheticized, coolly abstracted weepie, which is not necessarily better. [19 Nov 1984, p.132]

[De Palma] is a superb visual artist, but more important, his visual patterns express the moral dislocations of a troubled society. In Body Double, De Palma has never been more perversely brilliant in his tracking of the pervasive lust -- for sex, for money, for power -- that floats through our culture like some poisoned aerosol of desire. [29 Oct 1984, p.134]

The Terminator is a splendid meta-monster, Frankensteined for the computer age. And Cameron devises not one, not two but, well, let's call it X climaxes that will melt the hinges of your jaws. [19 Nov 1984, p.132]

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]

This movie is so angrily honest that it's a bit dotty. But the battles between Turner and Perkins have a real ferocity, and Turner's internal battle between sexual pride and fear is poignant and pertinent. [29 Oct 1984, p.134]

The Razor's Edge is a pretty lame movie, but you've got to salute Byrum and Murray for their bravely unfashionable commitment. For better or worse, they mean it. [22 Oct 1984, p.99]

Just about every scene written for JoBeth Williams, as an idealistic lawyer pushing the lawsuit and falling in love again with her old teach Nick Nolte, strikes a stridently false note, and in the final 20 minutes the movie totally self-destructs. Too bad. The cast is good and so are Teacher's intentions. A strong principal should have whipped this show into shape. [08 Oct 1984, p.87]

Penn is a real talent, but it seems downright unfair to cast him in a part designed to compete with the memory of his brother Sean's role in Fast Times. This is one for the kids; had it tried harder, it could have been one for everyone. [08 Oct 1984, p.89]

Bringing together Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin is a fairly inspired idea. And bringing them together in the same body is like heaping whipped cream atop inspiration. [17 Sep 1984, p.89]

There's an aura of liberal ineffectuality about The Brother, but it's touching and amusing and confirms the originality of Sayles. [08 Oct 1984, p.87]

There is enough enchantment in this big, generous, flawed movie for most everybody. [24 Sep 1984, p.85]

Structured like a farce but filmed like a Qaalude dream, this marvelously performed fairy tale packs a lot of style into its minuscule budget. [19 Nov 1984, p.135]

This Freudian folderol is actually well handled by writer-director Richard Tuggle, who wrote the script for Eastwood's Escape From Alcatraz and here, in his first shot at directing, gives Tightrope a quietly effective tension and suspense. [27 Aug 1984, p.68]

Movies this bad make you wonder if somebody's kidding. [03 Sep 1984, p.73]

where E.T. celebrated its young hero's imagination, Cloak & Dagger makes the boring mistake of chastening it. This wouldn't be so bad if the kid's prechastening adventures were exciting. [03 Sept 1984, p.73]

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]

Jarmusch's punk minimalist style, deadpan humor and delicious timing are all his own, and his oddball drifters, whose major goal in life is hanging out, are three slob existential stooges Sam Beckett might envy. You wouldn't choose to hunker down with them in real life, but they're great company on screen. These dead-end kids may be headed nowhere not so fast, but their oddball odyssey is headed straight for cult-movie heaven. [08 Oct 1984, p.87]

Best Defense, already split in two by its dual story lines, lurches about desperately in search of a tone and a target. [30 Jul 1984, p.80]