The Dead Pool isn't much of a movie. It certainly isn't as fun, nor as compelling as its predecessors, and now and then the forced plot gets so ridiculous that it is certain to try the patience of even the most die-hard viewers. [13 Jul 1988, p.E1]

Eddie Murphy's latest picture, Coming to America, is a harmless, fairly amusing comedy that will delight Eddie Murphy fans and keep everyone else mildly entertained. [30 Jun 1988, p.E1]

What is astonishing about this movie is how all the elements are so deftly mixed - the technology of real sets and people interwoven with the cartoon world, and yet Zemeckis hardly sacrifices a beat in laying out a curlicuing '40s-style thriller. [22 June 1988]

Red Heat, the new Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie, avoids most of the usual action-movie gimmicks and is better for it. It co-stars Jim Belushi and opens around town today. [17 Jun 1988, p.E1]

In a word, bull - cruddy, foul-smelling and fly-specked, an excuse for a series of cheap sex scenes and single-entendre gags. [15 June 1988]

Sappiness and romance always are fine with me, and Big is a good example of a movie that effortlessly blends sweetness and fun - it feels a little like stumbling on a picnic of smiles. [3 Jun 1988, p.E1]

Despite its faults Rambo III has an undeniable momentum and, judged on its own terms, a certain comic-book appeal. [26 May 1988, p.E1]

My Neighbor Totoro is drawn in an expansive, naturalistic way that makes an atmosphere of trees, rice fields and hills unraveling in the distance a hypnotic shadow character. In some scenes this nature is so delicious it becomes a poetical presence. [08 May 1993, p.C3]

The only scene that takes a stab at saying something about the root causes of the violence is the weakest. At a poorly attended community meeting called by the police to urge residents to speak up when they witness a crime, one black Vietnam veteran angrily mentions the lack of jobs. [15 Apr 1988]

It's two hours of your life wasted, time once spent that can never be regained. Don't go. Don't do it. [30 Mar 1988]

There are some nice things to be said about Hairspray, the John Waters movie which opened over the weekend, but not enough to explain all you've been hearing about it. It's a fairly run-of-the-mill teenage dance movie, set in Baltimore in the early '60s, with a certain oddball humor that only occasionally lifts it out of its class. [29 Feb 1988, p.F3]

A corny, overblown romance, and while it eventually wins you over with its atmosphere and good nature, it's far from the masterpiece you've been hearing about. [15 Jan 1988]

Love has become a tired movie theme, but rarely is it relegated to a subplot as it is in Broadcast News. That's just one of the reasons that makes James Brooks' ingenious film a different sort of movie. Another is how it subtly reveals the complex mingling of work lives and love lives, showing how they feed each other and, indeed, feed off each other, careers devouring entire relationships in hungry 30-second sound bites. [10 Jan 1988, p.17]

For all its hip, rat-a-tat dialogue and a sharp photographic look that give Wall Street a feeling that something exciting is happening, the movie's a bankrupt deal. [11 Dec 1987, p.E1]

Although he misses reaching to the heart of Jim's spirit and his relationship to other people, Spielberg has clearly taken an impressive step forward in shaping his new and adult vision for the screen. [11 Dec 1987]

If The Hidden were less obvious, it might have been a zinger of a sci-fi action flick. But this cinematic presentation, now available on home video, is too predictable, and even though wickedly fun at times, it's only halfway as awesome as it might have been.

Kinda cute, occasionally amusing and very, very slow... I just wish [it] had more momentum, more oomph. [9 Oct 1987]

To director James Ivory's credit, however, he has recreated that period in pre-World War I England and endowed the platonic passion between two upper-class Englishmen with singular grace in Maurice. [25 Sep 1987]

One of the most effective thrillers in years, Attraction did an excellent job of mixing its suspense with trendy issues of sexual paranoia and monogamy. [27 Dec 1987, p.19]

The script is full of off-the-wall lines that take you by surprise but are perfect. [21 Aug 1987]

The Lost Boys is a horror movie that's funny without making fun of itself and scary without trying to make you sick. [31 Jul 1987, p.86]

Harmon proves that he can act stupid, and that's not enough to make the movie funny… You're supposed to like Freddy (Harmon), and you're supposed to like his brainless students… But you hate everybody. [24 July 1987]

It's a violent yet occasionally funny film - thanks to some inventive gags that pop up - and it hits some of the same blood-splashed chords as "Terminator." [17 Jul 1987]

The concluding image of men silhouetted against the dying flares of explosives, as they march to the raucous refrain of the Mickey Mouse Club theme, is masterly, but leaves a viewer curiously discomfited. Whereas "Platoon" shattered civilian complacency about that war, Full Metal Jacket is merely numbing. [26 June 1987]

Somehow, the funny stuff gets sucked into a kind of black hole in the center of the satire, along with all the comic debris. What should have been a surreal flight to the planet Lucas crumbles into a harmless collection of cosmic dustballs. [24 Jun 1987, p.52]

The movie, a rather pointless thing when you get down to it, has little of the provocative intelligence that was found in "Terminator." But at least it's self-propelling in terms of suspense and cheap thrills. [12 June 1987, Daily Datebook, p.78]

It's worth seeing the movie just to observe [Grodin's] delicious blend of unctuous manipulation and anti-Communist sanctimoniousness. [15 May 1987]

The big trouble with Raising Arizona is that the Coens overdrew their wild and crazy yarn, and overdo almost every gag and gimmick. [20 Mar 1987]