Unfortunately, the story, adapted by Anne Rice from her best-selling novel, sucks at the neck a little too long. A 23-minute snipping from this 123-minute movie would have done wonders.

This mixture of comedy and super-agent spectacle works well at first. But when Schwarzenegger's family and working worlds link up -- an inevitable development -- the plot becomes increasingly ridiculous and overwrought.

Pollack makes a solid job of it, as does Cruise. But solid isn't enough when it comes to thrillers -- or courtroom dramas, for that matter. Solid is great when it comes to office furniture.

Williams has to break out of a second-rate "Tootsie" imitation, ankles clamped in pathos and face covered in latex. He pulls it off in the end, but it's not pretty.

A mix of martial-arts and special-effects magic, the film serves its nonstop confrontations either straight up or with a twist (as when they involve Kombatants with special powers, like Sub-Zero, Reptile and Scorpion).

Myers, who created the original characters, has to make a feature film out of a teeny sketch. With cowriters Bonnie and Terry Turner, he fares better than you'd expect.

But for most audiences, this bittersweet family saga is going to feel like an ordeal.

As Benny (short for Bernadette), a big-boned, headstrong lass who strains winningly against the restrictions of family, religion and just plain growing up, [Driver's] a comedic breath of fresh air, easily the best thing about the movie.

While this adaptation of Waller's treacly bodice-ripper leaves out a lot of the lurid excess, it is not altogether free of pomposity.

The central story itself is not distinctive, and though Lee certainly churns up a lot of dust, he never captures the mythic quality that made Price's original seem so much bigger than its almost generic cast of players.

Thanks to screenwriter Alan Sharp's fast-moving scenario featuring a healthy array of rape, pillage, burning, deceit, swordfighting, treachery and murder, it's a watchable hoot.

Polanski stages some lovely moments, particularly Paulina's candlelit dinner in her closet. But he also undercuts the high-minded ideals of Dorfman's original by exposing its radical chic pretentions.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau reprise the roles of a pair of Minnesota mossbacks in the heartwarming, albeit warmed-over, sequel Grumpier Old Men—though given its scatological bent, it might have been called Grump and Grumpier.

A superbly heartfelt drama for six diverse actors, it is as colorfully striated as its majestic namesake - and almost as wide. The film's depth is another matter altogether.

Despite its mixture of macabre slapstick and broadly stroked caricatures, the film has sleepy-time rhythms; it's easily the pokiest farce I've ever seen.

Like "Ghost" and "Pretty Woman," this romance is blissfully dependent on our staying good and starry-eyed, seduced by the charisma of the leads. And we do, despite its lackadaisical pace and disappointing ending.

You'll leave Bird's smooth flow of nightclub images, dark motel rooms and recharged Parker tracks with new respect for Eastwood the Director. But you'll also leave none the wiser about Parker the Man.

Despite the quirky trappings, Something Wild is often as tame as its star couple.

Dracula, which also stars Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Anthony Hopkins, is an evocative visual feast. But the meal is spectral, without the dramatic equivalent of nutritional value.

Bridge never quite gels into anything.

The horror fan who climbs into his movie seat looking for an experience as intense as a roller-coaster ride will be more teased than satisfied. The director of "Lolita," "Dr. Strangelove" and "Clockwork Orange" is simply working with less interesting material: The Shining is a slender, barely believable tale being asked to carry a lot of style and weight. [13 June 1980, p.19]

It's more a brave movie than it is a good one, but at least Singleton has faced the unknown. And he deserves credit for the attempt.

As a mindless popcorn shootout, Wyatt Earp is highly watchable. But this three-hour drama, starring Kevin Costner as the straight-shooting marshal, takes its time sliding out of the saddle.

As a persona of epic polarities, [Harrison Ford] animates this muddled, metaphysical journey into the jungle.

Writer-director Stephan Elliott is obviously fond of his characters, and this may account for the upbeat story line, but it blinds him to how very annoying two hours of dishing can be.

True to his resume, director Lyne produces a frenetic battery of visceral images, ominous music and that ol' faithful standby, the eerie background chorus. To give Lyne his relentless due, this does make for some heart-thumping moments. But it also causes Ladder to fall ultimately flat on its surrealistic face, the victim of too many fake-art sequences.

The movie is a mess from start to finish. But then again, this jerky, haphazard approach is part of the movie's goofy charm.

The movie isn't mindless; it just has a mind that's a bit junky and muddled. And to their credit, Arnold and his collaborators haven't played it safe. Last Action Hero is a stretch. Unfortunately, it's a stretch that proves the star wasn't that elastic to begin with.

Landis's handling of the cop business is unnecessarily laborious, but Murphy's patented insincerity is winning. And a few of the slapstick set pieces are genuinely thrilling, especially a riotous nighttime chase scene.

One doesn't leave this movie profoundly shocked about our collectively inured state, or the fact that Stone got us to laugh at caricatured violence. One merely leaves puzzled and wondering: Is that it? He's not telling us anything. He's riffing on a theme and--intentionally or not--contributing to the junk pile he supposedly decries.

This is an impassioned movie, made with conviction and evangelical verve. It's also hysterical and overbearing and alienating.

Behind the lens Murray has an uneven touch (or perhaps his co-director does), and "Quick Change" is given to slow moments and miscalculations. But in front of the camera, he is as wonderfully acerbic as ever, equal parts anger and hurt feelings as he grapples with the rot of the Apple, the roar of subway, the smell of the crowds.

Roger Spottiswoode's Air America is partly glorious, partly junk, but unfortunately not in equal parts.

The movie isn't a disaster, and if you responded to the first one, its memory may carry you over the roughness, the excessive, ugly violence and lack of conviction here. Hill and his stars are merely going through the motions, but the motions are immensely familiar. If you've been there before, then you've been there.

Coming to America isn't as aggressively awful as the "Cop" films or "The Golden Child," but at least in those films there was something to react to. In making Coming to America, Murphy seems to have set his sights on the lowest prize imaginable. He aspires to blandness.

Though Empire of the Sun is a profoundly perplexing, frustrating object, there are things in it to marvel at and enjoy.

Douglas plays Gekko with a terrible intensity. He raves and rants, but he has a rascal's humor.

This is not a "good movie" -- in fact, it's a sprawling mess -- but I like it. And I mean that sincerely, you knucklehead.

Yankovic, an advocate of the Monty Python and Mel Brooks schools of comedy, favors yechy burlesque, and UHF, with its scant plot, is basically a variety show with skits, sight gags and gross stuff. "Weird" reminds us there's nothing quite like a good booger joke for pure entertainment.

As derivative interplanetary clunkers go, Flash Gordon is good for a few laughs -- some of them intentional. [05 Dec 1980, p.F1]

The film loses courage (or imagination) and hews to the Spielberg school of climactic denouement, so that teen farce and special effects take over. By the time the thing has played out, that subtle scare/laugh mix is a thing of the past and you feel as though you just walked out of "Breaking Away" or Goonies. Ah well.

Put the whole movie down to cartoonery...This is a drive-in theater battle of wills between the forces of evil and the forces of good.

The oddest thing about this sweet but not entirely satisfying documentary is how little food is involved.

Presents an America that is as much about the pathological display of imperial power -- a showmanship of arrogance and violence -- as policy.

The film is visually mannered and full of posing and longueurs. But it is stylish, very French (despite its American origins) and diverting if well short of brilliant.

It's hardly a muckraking piece but more a celebration of racing at the high end and the extremely prosperous folks who play it.

Todd Haynes's Poison is a vision of unrelenting, febrile darkness. It presents three disparate stories in three greatly varied styles, all inspired by the work of Jean Genet, and its effect, as a whole, is like that of an especially vile infection; it moves diabolically through your system, spreading fever and nausea as it goes.

After slapstick farces as exuberant and hilarious as Sleeper and Love and Death, it comes as a soft, fuzzy, mildly diverting letdown.

While not significantly better or worse than the predecessor, a rather astounding object of devotion for a movie studio--an enormously expensive recreation of a moribund TV series--this sequel is perfectly presentable and harmless, a klunker as comfortable as your easy chair. [4 June 1982, p.D1]

A flawed but funky adventure.

"Nerds" is erratic -- more gags work than don't, but more situations don't work than do. There are some great throwaway lines. [10 Aug. 1984, p.23]

It's the most exaggerated example yet of the abiding imbalance in modernist filmmaking, where an abundance of texture fails to conceal a minimum of substance, although it frequently makes the act of concealment pictorially exciting. [27 Mar 1981, p.C1]

By its own deliriously rock-bottom standards, "Universal" ain't half bad. Of course, you have to be big on bloody slaughter, kickboxing, infrared gunning and impaired acting. But "Universal" executes its subtle-free mission with surprisingly watchable efficiency.

As love interests go, Shepherd and Downey are about as hot as Ike and Mamie Eisenhower, though the apoplectic Downey does have his comedic moments. Always a standout, Masterson is pensively provocative as Miranda, something of a teen-age Kim Novak.

Unfortunately, the film rarely slows long enough for the actors to do anything more than sketch in their characters. On the other hand, the showdowns between Sarandon and Jones are choice; it's a meeting of charismatic equals.

The story line is little more than a shiny hat for holding the high-tech rabbits. Still, it's an enjoyable bit of smoke and mirrors, thanks to the decency and resourcefulness of its hero.

The real root of the movie's problems may lie in the fact that Mamet has identified with the men of principle and De Palma with the scoundrels -- in other words, with Capone instead of the eagle-scout Ness.

Ironically, Alien is not a bad movie. In fact -- here's the rub -- it's too interesting to make an exciting summer flick.

A fitfully witty and reliably spine-tingling horror melodrama...While it works you over effectively, Poltergeist betrays a good deal of rather dubious, uncoordinated manipulation. [4 June 1982, p.D1]

Beyond Thunderdome the film falters. The new, mild Max is banished to the desert, where he meets a tribe of feral children and leads them out of the desert like Moses. Naturally, it's a pleasure to watch Gibson, no matter what his mood. And as usual, the costumes and sets are imaginative and elaborate. But since "The Road Warrior," punks have adopted the style and none of it looks that original anymore. [12 July 1985, p.27]

Below the attention-getting surface, there's no sense of humanity underneath. The day De Palma pulls away the masks from his characters, they'll start to breathe -- and so will his films.

Obviously, this was just meant to be a fun experience. But the movie fulfills those duties on the most mundane level. You have to treat Space Jam like that well-known fast-food Jordan loves to promote: It doesn’t matter how the movie is prepared, only that it’s served and ready to go.

Chase presides amiably over this uneven but affable slapstick comedy.

Top Gun is basically "An Officer and a Gentleman" with less spirit and depth. But it's still fine formula movie-making -- like a feature-length "Be All That You Can Be" commercial. It's got lots of loud music, hot colors, heat-seeking missiles and other pointed objects. Real men squint into the radar's gleam below deck, while real men hunt MiGs upstairs. [16 May 1986, p.29]

Kermit, who takes to the role of Smollet like a grunion to running, is commanding, but it is Piggy as Smollet's castaway flame who puts much-needed wind into the movie's luffing sails. Clad in a muumuu and clamshells, she sets Kermit's timbers a-shivering as in the old days. Their love for each other—like America's love for Muppets—is simply unsinkable.

Babysitting, the directorial debut of The Goonies and Gremlins writer Chris Columbus, is a sweet-natured, adolescent variation on the big-city black comedy After Hours.

Noyce's direction moves impressively from sensual tenderness (between husband and wife) to edge-of-the-seat horror. he finds lurking dangers in quiet, peaceful waters and goes down with the good ship Dead Calm, his head held high. If you don't mind 11th-hour disappointments (including a laughable, Hollywood-kicker ending), you'll enjoy going down with it too.

La Bamba is a puzzle -- a real mixed bag. Some of it, like the braying, cock-and-bull performance by Esai Morales, is just plain awful. But other bits, like the performances by Rosana De Soto and, as Ritchie's agent, Joe Pantoliano, are unexpectedly vibrant.

A surprisingly tame and humorless effort by director Curtis Hanson of Hitchcock-spoofy The Bedroom Window, the movie does provide a couple of good jolts.

In the end, It Could Happen to You is a lot like the cop and the waitress: sweet, naive, not too smart, but likable. In this pyrotechnic summer of "Speed," "Blown Away" and "True Lies," that's got to count for something.

The charismatic comedienne pulls the slipshod spy adventure Jumpin' Jack Flash out of the fire. [10 Oct 1986, p.N29]

There are many periods when the two men are traveling and you feel the need to fast-forward the movie to another scene. This is not a great comedy but it's a string of funny highlights.

Where Romero goes for the cheap, linear approach, Argento's storytelling is painfully poetic, with ever-shifting points of view and asides. It's not unusual for him to drop a Middle Ages dream sequence in the middle of things, rely on the unpredictability of a cat to advance the plot, or resort to pure shock that's no less shocking because it's expected: There's a madness in Argento's method and it's always appropriate.

In Short Circuit, there's nothing at stake, either emotionally or artistically or howsoever -- and I mean nothing -- but the movie's so diverting, and so giddily oblivious to its own faults, that it almost doesn't matter. Funny and paced at a gallop, it's a melt-away movie made for summer nights. [09 May 1986, p.D1]

In a brilliant reenactment of what must be one of their definitive routines, these Furry Freak Brothers from opposite sides of town proceed to get acquainted over a joint the size of a blunderbuss muzzle. It's a new classic among comedy-team encourters: hilarious rapport at first toke. [11 Oct 1978, p.B1]

The sub and the sub-sub plot, something to do with Hanks' dad in Rio, get in the way of the hijinks with the house and the tentatively developed relationship between the stars, who have a cute chemistry that's convincing enough for a good slapstick comedy. [28 Mar 1986, p.25]

It's not Allen's best film, but fans of the Woodman should not resist. Whether it's the future of Sleeper or the turn-of-the- century of Sex Comedy, Allen plays the same character -- always bewildered, always sex-obsessed, always under-consummated. [23 July 1982, p.11]

Ruthless People has an enchanting comic premise -- everyone in the film is either an S.O.B. or wants to become one. But ultimately, the black comedy is not pursued very far -- the movie's too good-natured for its own good. And the elaborately worked-out farce structure, involving a victim who may be either kidnaped or dead, is mostly wasted on a style of humor that, by comparison, makes Buddy Hackett seem the very soul of sophistication. [27 June 1986, p.D1]

I suppose it's also less than inspired to portray a ballet company where the codpieces of the male dancers bulge out so far that the ballerina can cover the width of the stage using them as steppingstones. Nevertheless, some dumb, obvious gags have a way of working by impudently flaunting their dumbness and obviousness, and this appears to be a textbook example. In fact, for the juvenile public that should supply its best audience, Top Secret! may serve as a veritable primer of irresistibly terrible wheezes.

There's a dramatic imbalance to Dick Wolf and Darryl Ponicsan's screenplay. By making David a saint, they make his bigoted tormentors ultra-despicable. It's so easy to identify who's in the right that it's hard to remember this wrong may exist in us.

The Karate Kid can't really brushoff the conventional showdown it's incited, so the movie adds the obligatory action payoff to its less expected and more substantial rewards. The filmmakers can't help overbalancing on melodramatic excess from time to time, but their mistakes never obliterate the civilized wisdom of Miyagi's outlook: "Have balance, everything be better." [22 June 1984, p.B1]

At its best, My Bodyguard recalls the freshness and authenticity of Breaking Away -- and for a while seems that it is going to be even better. That impression proves premature. After building up to a stirring, climactic turning point, Alan Ormsby's original screenplay falters in the stretch. [15 Aug 1980, p.C1]

Although Richter's screenplay leaves certain large areas unexplored or unexplained -- including Brubaker's own psychological makeup and the precise linkage between the groups inside and outside Wakefield that have a vested interest in resisting reform -- there's not a bit of slack in the picture.

But this cruise is also a gruesome one. You may find yourself shaken -- not stirred -- by the screenwriting cruelty and cynicism behind the 16th "Bond."

An inconsistent but good-natured ramble, Bustin' Loose looks like a secure investment for Richard Pryor fans.

Obviously, no new ground is being broken here, but director Ross keeps things humming in an endearingly old-fashioned way. As for Fox, it's not easy to believe he's a college grad -- but otherwise he's his usual genial, charming self in a role that requires no more than geniality and charm. (It is funny, of course, to see him try and sweep the taller Slater onto her feet in various love scenes.)

Glover (who shone as Michael J. Fox's father in Back to the Future) is riveting as Layne -- a speed-popping wacko more wired than AT&T And Joshua Miller, who plays Tim, the most malevolent child this side of the Styx, is alarmingly evil as the kid who wants to be part of the older gang, even if it means killing his own brother. But River stabs all-too-wildly in the dark.

Watching it, you can't quite figure out what the movie's audience is supposed to be. For parents and kids hoping for a Macaulay Culkin movie, a rude shock awaits. Also, the movie's themes may be too sophisticated for younger audiences; it deals, after all, with death and recovery. And yet, the treatment of these issues may be too pat for adults. It's an entertaining, often winning, movie, but you can't help but feel that the filmmakers never settled on what sort of movie they wanted to make.

There are two Cocoons. One was directed by Ron Howard, and it has all the warmth of his comic touch, his respect for his characters, his way of plugging into the humanity of a situation. The other, a bloated special-effects extravaganza, seems to have been directed by a particularly slavish camp follower of Steven Spielberg. The two movies mix like sugar and sludge; the result is a terrific little movie ankle-chained to a gorilla. [21 June 1985, p.D1]

It's really no pain to sit through Object. Even at its most drawn out, the movie has its comic moments. Malkovich makes a perfect, plastic-souled being.

A drama about strong, giving, funny women, Fried Green Tomatoes seems plucked from the same patch as the play-turned-movie Steel Magnolias. It's not exactly a successful hybrid, but you could get a craving for it anyway.

A conventional cop thriller leavened with a tablespoon of style and a quarter-cup of garbagey fun.

Like most spoofs, it works till the joke gets old (about half way through) and then tedium prevails. But when it's good, it's really got the guffaws.

Black Rain is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids. It's big, maybe too big for its shallow notions and commonplace structure. But it is also beautiful and terrible in the same ways that other Scott movies have been eye-filling. With its teeming Asian landscape, its dark kaleidoscopic palette and its heavily layered composition, it's reminiscent of Blade Runner. But this is an atmosphere that needs Sam Spade, not Dirty Harry.

The proficiency of the actors powers the movie despite a stiff script and Attenborough's preference for choreographed crowd scenes over intimacy.

While Airplane II, proves to be a breezy and tolerably consistent follow-up to its successful prototype, a parodistic copy that relied less on jokes from the original might have seemed a shade fresher. [11 Dec 1982, p.C1]

One of the peculiar attractions of Easy Money is that it's suggestive enough to keep you amused even as it takes goofy, capricious detours. It's not what you'd call a classic or a class comedy act, but it has the kick of an embryonic pop phenomenon.

The most coherent thing about the new action thriller Blue Thunder is its eagerness to succeed and its rabble-rousing spectacle of stunt flying and aerial combat. Blue Thunder, a chase melodrama with police helicopter pilots as the good guys, transposes the salty tone of The French Connection and Dirty Harry to a chopper squadron in Los Angeles. [13 May 1983, p.B1]