If you're looking for satisfying junk food, Executive Decision is exactly the carryout you've been craving. This hijacking suspense drama steals shamelessly from Tom Clancy's kitchen, but it's tautly scripted, loaded with tension and interspersed with great comic relief.

The movie is as insistently bubbly as the Bradys themselves, but it does run out of carbonation before the end. "Bunch" fans won't mind a bit, while others will be amused by the juxtaposition of the family's wholesome idyll with the harsher realities of life in the '90s, as evidenced by "Roseanne," "Married ... With Children" and "Grace Under Fire." [17 Feb 1995, p.F01]

This sexually explicit, violent scenario never quite coalesces, but it's a superbly scored, good-looking film, if never quite so artful or well-acted as "Miami Vice." [1 Nov 1985, p.21]

Within its narrow, unambitious, commercial boundaries, the movie is highly watchable. Lowther is appealing, and Costner is a likable rebel.

Whatever this movie's about, it's tailor-made for its audience. It's for those who fantasize about steamy afternoons in European hotel rooms. For those who thrive on meaningful (or meaningless) lulls between isolated events. For those who love the weighty (or lightweight) dialogue of screenwriter Harold Pinter.

The House on Sorority Row is a better-than-average sisters-in-jeopardy thriller, which might be expected from 25-year-old producer-director-writer Mark Rosman. After all, he served an apprenticeship with master of the macabre, Brian DePalma, and if Rosman's debut is a bit ragged in its bloodlines, it does as credible a job of exploring collegiate bonding as DePalma's "Carrie" did for teen-age anxiety. [10 May 1983, p.B2]

Technically brilliant though short on narrative, The Black Cauldron is a painless, old-fashioned way to take out the kids, and a triumph for the animation department at the Disney studio, where it has been in development for almost a dozen years.

After one scummy role after another, Rourke finally stops taking himself so seriously. Instead of the usual Neanderthal, he treats us to a sensitive, likable blob with a sense of humor.

Anyone who doesn't smile is probably either too adult to count or too dead to care.

Like its predecessor, Wayne's World 2 is a junk food flick. You'll laugh your face off tonight, but in the morning, you'll wonder what that was all about. The sequel to last year's breakaway hit offers more of the same, but it's somehow fresher, funnier and more endearing than the airheaded original. Who knew?

The hero's hilarious efforts to become an ROTC commander at a Virginia prep school are more than enough ammunition for this riotous military parody.

[Shelton's] direction here is fluid and energetic; he's got the juice for the straightaways, and the control for tight corners too. But it's the inspired jabber that fuels the film.

Diverting, polished chase thriller. [28 Sep 1979, p.E1]

Happily, director Peter Medak is aware of the fundamental absurdity of his ghost story. In fact, he's taken considerable care to compensate with virtuoso displays of scenic and atmospheric suggestiveness. The Changeling has a stylistic gusto and polish that were conspicuously missing from The Fog and The Amityville Horror. [28 Mar 1980, p.F1]

D.C. Cab jumps you in the spirit of a big, shaggy and affection-craving pooch. You may wish it weren't quite so sloppily demonstrative, but it's too full of zest and good will to be resisted. [15 Dec 1983, p.D1]

The Decline of the American Empire is certainly the year's most intellectual work, a frequently funny, unrepressed meditation on midnight in North America. It's the kind of warning you'd expect from a middle-aged, over-educated male, going soft 'round the middle and figuring the world is too.

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II may be derivative, but for the most part it's clever enough to trade on its sources with humor and class. It's "Peggy Sue Lives on Elm Street," with dollops of "Carrie," "The Exorcist" and a half dozen other genre stalwarts.

A gorgeously drawn myth made for plucky children and very brave mice.

A refreshing fall film. [18 Sep 1981, p.19]

Delightfully melodious, high-spirited and nonsensical, the movie version of The Pirates of Penzance can be recommended with only trifling reservations. [25 Feb 1983, p.D1]

Rough Cut isn't the finest vintage of its light, dry style, but it is easy to take and when it ends you may be sorry there isn't more. [20 June 1980, p.17]

Overall Nichols, Simon and especially Broderick find fresh threads in the old fatigues.

The narrative shifts from romance to adventure the way Cheetah used to hop from foot to foot, but Sommers nevertheless delivers a bully family picture.

It's an updated Capra fantasy that goes for the sweet rather than the tart.

It is, in sum, a sweet film, with the light- hearted theme of we-are-all-pretending-to- be-something-we're-not, and it's only gently naughty. [2 Apr 1982, p.11]

It takes a robust and humorous approach to life in a brothel, where the work done is less important than the community spirit; and "naughty" would be a far better word to describe the sex scenes, while the rest is decidedly nice.

The Mission is majestic, sometimes moving, sometimes mawkish. Should you choose to accept it, your religious tolerance will be tested. But there are rewards -- fascinating insights into the byzantine business of diplomacy and gorgeous photography of the roaring Iguazu Falls, an eden of fog and roaring water, and of the sleepy walled city of Cartagena.

John Flynn's crisp, laconic direction and evocative use of Southern Texas locations - the San Antonio area, with particularly effective, sinister excursions to border towns like Del Rio - transorm Rolling Thunder into a more distinctive exploitation movie than it deserves to be. [29 Oct 1977, p.B7]