It's like Rambo's "First Blood," with an action hero in dog tags who doesn't talk much.

It's a terrific, disquietingly entertaining little film -- a piece of genuine Gothic Americana.

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.

Director Itami has produced an engaging cinematic hybrid, brilliantly stir-frying Japanese food -- and other -- obsessions into cowboy themes. He calls Tampopo a noodle western.

Although the film is little more than a slapstick showcase for the nosey-neighbor character Varney has played in TV commercials, it's not the slapped-together piece of work you might expect. The movie is fairly inoffensive, and younger kids may get a real boost out of its us-against-the-world spirit.

Aside from the plot -- and if you can figure out the plot, the CIA's special projects unit wants to talk to you -- Cop II is a rarity: a sequel that's as good as the original, if not better.

It's piddling -- a hangdog little comedy with not enough laughs...its spirit rattles around inside it like a marble in an oil drum.

At its worst, River's Edge is crackpot sociology. Jimenez and Hunter use the characters' lack of affect as an indictment. The film has a hectoring, hysterical tone. It wants to find out why these kids, who have grown up in splintered, lower-middle-class homes, are like they are. They want to blame somebody.

The movie is a joyless, inconclusive affair. By not making Orton either a homosexual hero or a working-class hero, avenues that were both open to them and that lesser minds might have traveled down, the filmmakers have shown great intellectual taste. But it's not the kind of taste that's illuminating. Ultimately, they seem not to have known exactly what to make of their subject.

James Earl Jones, James Caan and D.B. Sweeney turn in superior performances in "Gardens of Stone," but it's all for naught. Francis Coppola sabotages their efforts with a handsome but fragmentary film that can't decide which story to tell.

King and Romero -- the horror genre's equivalent of the daily double -- are back on the storyboard for 2, but with director Michael Gornick in charge, 2 goes nowhere slowly. Part of the problem is that King's short stories simply work better in print.

In the Cannon Films esthetic, the only good Ninja is a dead Ninja, and the bodies certainly fly fast and furious here. Okay, it's silly, but maybe you were expecting Tess of the D'Ubervilles? And from a director named Sam Firstenberg?

The movie has some beautifully observed moments and a generous spirit, but in the end, it's undone by its own sweetness and charm....It's just not distinctive enough to sustain your interest. A lot of the movie is routine coming-of-age stuff.

The result is a dusty-dopey Tex-wreck, a feeble excuse for a string of computer-programmed explosions and slow-motion death ballets. In director Walter Hill's shaky hands, even the blow-ups are boring. [24 Apr 1987]

There isn't enough magic in the bag this time. Although Parkes and Lasker produce a set of primates guaranteed to charm the upholstery off the theater seats, there is little else.

This belabored charade of mistaken identities is guided by Herbert Ross, who has directed everything from The Sunshine Boys to Footloose. Apparently, he's decided to cater to younger moviegoers with this discordant mix of MTV imagery and classic farce.

"4" isn't even a film; it's more like a long trailer, a collection of scenes without sense. It has everything you expect and nothing more: flat and uninspired aural and visual jokes about bodily functions (people's and pigeons'), leather bars, porta-johns, superglue, fat and/or stupid people -- all interspersed with "training," jailbreaks and an airborne chase finale.

There are no sparks in Blind Date. And the script, written by Dale Launer (Ruthless People), is so devoid of laughs it's impossible to understand why Willis chose it for his first film outing. [02 Apr 1987, p.B11]

Dull and unimaginative, Chetwynd treats his characters with such reverence that they might as well be saints in striped prison pajamas, martyred for the sake of some robotic patriotism. At least, his villains stand out from the host of underdeveloped heroes. Boob journalists, a doofus peacenik actress and a Cuban goon -- Michael Russo, who seems to think he's playing a pimp on "Miami Vice" -- add the unintentional comic relief.

The film has some clumsy scenes, and sometimes the director overcrowds his comedy. The remarkable thing, however, is that for a mere $100,000, Townsend and company have made a funny, poignant and technically proficient film -- one that should thoroughly embarrass those studios that routinely offer up badly made, multimillion-dollar disasters.

Street Smart as a whole is flat. Director Jerry Schatzberg's major problems are lethargic pacing and a strained plot.

Raising Arizona is a prize package and a bundle of joy, one that puts a fresh, funny face on the American comedy movie. It's as encouraging as it is entertaining. [20 March 1987, p.C1]

The acting is straight out of '50s B movies. The exposition is clumsy, the sound track corny, the denouement silly. Then again, who said bad taste was easy? [13 Apr 1987, Style, p.b4]

As lectures go, this may be the most fun one yet.

The greater charm of Tin Men is in its affectionate portrayal of small-time hucksters who gloat over classic scams (like cutting seven inches out of the middle of a yardstick so the square footage will be higher). In its own way, the film is a bittersweet drama, a sort of Glengarry Glen Ross without the vitriol.

A thrill-an-hour distraction that promises much more than it delivers.

Lethal Weapon opens with a shot of Mel Gibson in his birthday suit and just gets better. Likewise we meet costar Danny Glover in the bathtub, fêted by his family on his 50th birthday. This endearing double exposure introduces us to the vulnerabilities of these superduper heroes, an odd couple of cops who mature into friends as they quell crime.

As fascinating as it is frightful. But despite all the occult patter and tony trimmings, Angel Heart is bogus -- only the bogeyman again.