This worthy but flawed attempt to examine an independent young woman of the 1980s was lensed, in Super 16mm, in 15 days but doesn’t appear jerrybuilt.

Blake Edward’s obsession with the slapstick comedy genre has produced some all-time comedy classics and some best-forgotten clinkers. A Fine Mess belongs in the latter category.

Pic lapses into formulaic predictability with nearly an hour of frenetic chase scenes and technically perfect explosions from Industrial Light & Magic. Action comes sporadically alive in scenes with scientist Jones, who becomes possessed by the spirit of an evil Dark Warlord that entered his body during the same fateful mishap that brought Howard to Earth. There is an abundant amount of special effects wizardry that emanates mostly from Jones as he transforms into a monster, but it is not spectacularly unique enough to distinguish this film from other, more entertaining, sci-fi thrillers.

Instead of creating an eye-opening panorama, Flight of the Navigator looks through the small end of the telescope. Life on Earth is magnified but without an expansive vision.

Writer-director Tom McLoughlin, who made the scare entry One Dark Night, puts comic spin on some of the predictable material and turns in a reasonably slick performance under the circumstances.

Master manipulator Stephen King, making his directoral debut from his own script, fails to create a convincing enough environment to make the kind of nonsense he's offering here believable or fun.

Heartburn is a beautifully crafted film with flawless performances and many splendid moments, yet the overall effect is a bit disappointing. Where the film does excel is in creating the surface and texture of their life.

Pic provokes a few chuckles along the way, but no guffaws.

James Cameron's vault into the big time after scoring with the exploitation actioner The Terminator makes up for lack of surprise with sheer volume of thrills and chills - emphasis is decidedly on the plural aspect of the title.

Roman Polanski's Pirates is a decidedly underwhelming comedy adventure adding up to a major disappointment.

Williams can be a terrific actor/comedian, but the spark isn’t there. Somehow, Murray might have come up with cleverer ways of getting back at complaining guests (Andrea Martin, Steven Kampmann), nerdy, sex-crazed weaklings (Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy, respectively) and the other expected amalgam of folks.

Film lacks much of Mamet's grittiness, but is likable in its own right.

Director John Carpenter seems to be trying to make an action-adventure along the lines of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The effect goes horribly awry.

A few amusing little notions are streched to the point of diminishing returns in Psycho III.

In Under the Cherry Moon, Prince tries to direct too, giving himself a lot of closeups kissing but hardly any of him singing. What is left is a trite story about a rich girl and a poor musician (Prince) that's set on the Riviera and shot in, of all things, black and white.

Ruthless People is a hilariously venal comedy about a kidnapped harridan whose rich husband won’t pay for her return.

Nonstop banter between the two stars is rowdy, intimate, natural and often very funny. Hyams keeps most of it fresh, including the action ending, staged within one of Chicago’s architectural spectacles, the cavernous, glass-enclosed Illinois State Building.

Script delivers any number of wise old Eastern homilies. Anyone over the age of 18 is liable to start fidgeting when Macchio dominates the action, but then viewers beyond that advanced age are irrelevant with this film.

Loss of intrigue with a scattered plot involving art fraud and murder is made up for by an often witty, albeit lightweight dialog led by the ever-boyish star Robert Redford.

A warm, comedy-laced doomsday story. Using clever one-liners and many humorous situations, Brickman manages successfully to sugarcoat the story’s serious message.

A pic that skillfully combines comedy and thriller, romance and sleaze

Paucity of invention here lays bare the total absence of plot or involving situations.

Comic book crime meller suffers from an irredeemably awful script, and even director John Irvin’s engaging sense of how absurd the proceedings are can’t work an alchemist’s magic.

Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars is an embarrassing combination of kitsch and boredom.

Jake Speed is fun - a deliberately mindless adventure that keeps tongue firmly in cheek.

Cobra is a sleek, extremely violent and exciting police thriller.

This time around, co-scripters Mark Victor and Michael Grais (who wrote the first Poltergeist with Steven Spielberg) have the focus of evil in human form, in the perfectly cast, since deceased, Julian Beck.

Set in the world of naval fighter pilots, pic has strong visuals and pretty young people in stylish clothes and a non-stop soundtrack.