Category Archives: 80’s Movies

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)

Posted on May 26, 2015 | 5 comments

st elmos fire

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Introducing the brat pack.

Seven friends from college start out on the rocky road of adulthood while learning to hold down full-time jobs and having long term relationships. Kirby (Emilio Estevez) is obsessed with an older woman (Andie MacDowell) who doesn’t reciprocate his same interest. Alec (Judd Nelson) wants to get married to Leslie (Ally Sheedy) despite the fact that he has already cheated on her with several other women. Wendy (Mare Winningham) is secretly in love with Billy (Rob Lowe) who is married to someone else and Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) has a secret crush on Leslie while Jules (Demi Moore) still seems to be in perpetual party mode.

I would’ve liked some explanation as to why there was a nude fat guy walking around in the opening scene at the hospital, but otherwise I felt the beginning was okay. The dialogue has a believable conversational quality and friends sticking together lends out a nice vibe although the scene where Alec dunks Billy’s head into a toilet after he loses his job would’ve ended that friendship for me quite quickly. The setting was supposed to be Georgetown University, but ended up being shot at the University of Maryland instead. I liked the tree lined streets and snazzy apartment neighborhoods, but was surprised how kids just out of college could afford such ritzy places.

The main fallback is the male characters that even for guys seem too full of extreme contradictions. Alec expects loyalty from his girlfriend Leslie even though he’s fooled around on her, but because somehow they were ‘meaningless’ to him then they should be overlooked. Billy is already married and has a kid, but shows no ability or interest in holding down a job and expects his wife to still ‘believe in him’ even though he hits on every woman in sight. Kevin expresses major cynicism towards marriage and relationships and then suddenly expounds on his ‘love’ for Leslie when he is alone with her like he is speaking straight out of a Harlequin romance novel.

The worst though is Kirby who shows definite signs of being a creepy stalker/psycho by chasing after a woman that clearly isn’t that in to him. He sniffs her pillows when alone in her apartment and disrupts one of her parties by barging into it dripping wet with rain and angered that he wasn’t invited. Then when she doesn’t show up to one of his parties he becomes enraged and travels all the way up to her remote mountaintop ski lodge and pounds on her door like he is ready to beat her senseless. What’s even more ridiculous is that she finds his behavior to be ‘flattering’ instead of scary making me wonder if she’s crazier than he is.

The women fare better. Winningham is a great nerdette and Sheedy allows for some genuine sympathy. I even liked Moore who does a fun caricature of an 80’s party girl and her scene inside a homeless shelter was interesting, but having her flip-out so severely and quickly after losing her job was, like with everything else, overdone.

The film’s musical score is the best thing while the drama is over-the-top and impossible to take seriously.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 28, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated R

Director: Joel Schumacher

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Drama

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Tag: The Assassination Game (1982)

Posted on May 23, 2015 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Playing with dart guns.

A new fad has caught on at a nondescript college campus where students play an assassination game by killing off other students with dart guns. The one who assassinates the most while still surviving wins. Alex (Robert Carradine) who writes for the school newspaper decides to do an expose on the game in an attempt to better get to know its star player Susan (Linda Hamilton). Unfortunately for them the game’s 5-time champion Gersch (Bruce Abbott) has gone over to the dark side and now using real bullets in his gun. As the game whittles down to just Susan and Gersch the tension mounts for her to catch on to his murderous plans before it is too late.

For a low budget film with only the most modest of settings this thing isn’t too bad. The dialogue is snappy and the story proceeds at a good pace. The opening credits, which is a parody of the ones done on James Bond films is cute and it’s great to see Linda in her official film debut playing the same type of strong-willed female that brought to greater prominence in The Terminator franchise. Carradine is good too as her awkward suitor and the fact that this film plays against sexual stereotypes by having the male in more of a passive role is refreshing.

The film’s playful parody and the way the players take this silly game so very seriously is funny and having the second half shift to more of the conventional ‘psycho-on-the-loose’ plot made it less original and more formulaic. I understood why Gersch kills the first player using a real bullet, but was confused why he would keep on killing them and not go back to just using darts. He could’ve still retained his champion title and passed off the first killing as being possibly just an accident, but by continuing to kill people and harboring their corpses in the closet of his room was clearly going to lead to an eventual long jail sentence that even the craziest of persons could see coming. It also might have been more interesting had the identity of who was using real bullets was kept a mystery until the end.

Even with these drawbacks I still found myself entertained and the film has strong cult potential for fans of low budget 80’s flicks. It’s also interesting to note that Hamilton and Abbott, who first met while filming this, later ended up getting married and having one child.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 20, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Nick Castle

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Black Comedy, College Life, Cult, Low Budget, Obscure Movies, Parody

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The Big Chill (1983)

Posted on May 20, 2015 | 3 comments

big chill

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Friends from college reunite.

When one of their friends from their college days commits suicide the other seven get together for his funeral. Alex was living the unconventional, hippie lifestyle and with his much younger girlfriend Chloe (Meg Tilly) still connected to the ideals of his college days while his other friends had ‘sold out’ and taken on the more materialistic values of the ‘80’s. Alex’s death then represents the ultimate demise of their carefree, idealistic ‘60’s existence and how much they have changed since then, which they now must all learn to come to terms with.

This film has been closely compared with Return of the Secaucus Seven, which was reviewed last week. According to writer/director Lawrence Kasdan he never saw that film or even heard of it when he did this one. I actually preferred this over the John Sayles movie. For one thing it made a little more sense. Having old friends reunite for a funeral seemed more realistic than having them come together each year like in that one as most people once they enter into adult life have a tendency to move on making new relationships and not always have time for their old ones. There’s also no magical ‘cosmic bond’ holding this group together either. Many of them have evolved more than some of the others including William Hurt’s character who is still a recreational drug user while Kevin Kline’s has taken on more of the responsible adult role and this contrast comes to an interesting head at one point.

Tilly’s performance as a young flower child personified is great because it forces the others to see how they once were, but now can no longer relate to. Don Galloway plays the older husband of Karen (JoBeth Williams) while representing the ‘50’s generation and their contempt for the counter-culture. He has an interesting scene in which he expounds on what he feels was Alex’s ‘lack of focus and responsibility’ that clearly gets on the nerves of the others and I had wished the character had remained for the duration as it his presence was brimming for a great ultimate confrontation.

The entire thing was filmed on-location in Beaufort, South Carolina apparently because of Kasdan’s love for the film The Great Santini, which had also been done there. The deep south certainly seems like an odd setting as it doesn’t reflect the ‘60’s values or lifestyle at all, but it’s scenic nonetheless especially the scene where Hurt and Kline go jogging down a deserted main street of town that has an almost surreal quality.

Scenes where shot with Kevin Costner playing Alex, but then cut, which was a mistake as the character starts to attain too much of a mythical and elusive quality and seeing some moments with him even in flashback would’ve helped create an image of an actual person for the viewer. Some of the more existential conversations that the characters having during their group discussions are superb and right on-target and help to demystify the ‘60’s experience and those that lived it, which I found refreshing since other media forums for nostalgic reasons seemed to want to perpetuate it instead. In some ways it’s a shame that the characters and story has to be so closely tied to the Baby Boom generation as it stigmatizes it as a period piece when by-and-large the experiences they have going from the college stage to the adult one are quite universal.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 30, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Dry Humor, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity

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Paternity (1981)

Posted on May 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

paternity

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bachelor wants a son.

Despite managing Madison Square Garden, having lots of money and good looks Buddy Evans (Burt Reynolds) is still single at 44. He is happy with his bachelorhood, but still longs for a having a son. He comes up with the idea of paying a woman to have his child while treating it solely as a business proposition without any romance or relationship attached to it, after interviewing several ‘candidates’ he finally settles on Maggie (Beverly D’Angelo) a waitress who can use the money to further her education. Things are expectedly awkward at first, but as the process continues Maggie finds herself falling in love with him and trying to turn it into a relationship despite his reluctance.

Reynolds is a dynamic star with an engaging onscreen presence particularly in comedies, but his appearance here hurts the picture more than it helps it. For one thing it doesn’t make sense why this great looking guy with tons of cash can’t find a woman. And just why is he so reluctant to get into a committed relationship? What about this character’s background makes him the way he is? It never gets explained, but would’ve helped give the film more depth had it been. A better concept would’ve been portraying the character as being a rich guy who is also short, fat, bald and lacking in the romantic graces, but woman still tolerate because of his money, which would’ve ultimately made this more realistic, edgier and funnier.

I really liked D’Angelo and considered this her best performance, but having her fall in love with the guy and turning this into just another formulaic, sterile romantic comedy was a ridiculous stupid idea and makes it almost excruciating to watch. The guy spends the whole time acting like he owns her by telling her what to eat and do while being outrageously ambivalent to her feelings or needs. Any woman that would fall in love with a guy that her treats that way should see a psychiatrist and get some self-respect.

Comedian David Steinberg makes his directorial debut here and I liked the way he begins the film by having pictures of baby’s faces lining the screen during the credits all to the sound of them cooing and crying. He also pays loving tribute to his adopted city of New York by having some fabulous shots of the skyline and some scenic moments in Central Park that accentuate the fall foliage. In fact it is for these two reasons only that I generously give this thing a measly 1-point.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: October 2, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated PG

Director: David Steinberg

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Obscure Movies, Romance

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Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980)

Posted on May 14, 2015 | 1 comment

return of the secaucus 7

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: They like to talk.

Seven people who were friends during college reunite ten years after having been arrested while on their way to a demonstration of the Vietnam War. Mike and Katie (Bruce MacDonald, Maggie Renzi) are the hosts and live together while also both being school teachers. J.T. (Adam LeFevre) is a struggling musician looking to finally take a stab at the big time by moving to L.A. Irene (Jean Passanante) is a speech writer for a conservative politician who brings along her new boyfriend Chip (Gordon Clapp) while Maura (Karen Trott) has just broken up with her boyfriend Jeff (Mark Arnott) and starts a fling with J.T. only to have Jeff reappear and wanting to start the old relationship back up.

This film is noted as being the forerunner of the independent film movement. It was made on a budget of less than $60,000, but first time director John Sayles manages to camouflage it well. The variety of shots and camera angles never allow you to realize that the whole thing was done in one location, a ski lodge that he managed to rent out for the summer at a low rate. The dialogue has a great conversational quality and the characters are nicely textured and multi-dimensional making it seem like the camera is capturing an actual reunion. The acting, which was mainly done by performers who had never appeared in a film before is equally good with my favorite being Sayles himself who appears as the character Howie who has one really good scene where he warns his friend Mike to think ‘long and hard’ about getting married while his wife stands behind him looking none too happy hearing him say it.

The biggest problem is that not enough happens. There’s a lot of talking, but story wise it is almost plotless. The few action segments deals with the men playing a rough game of basketball and also a trip to a river bed where they go skinny dipping to the background music of yodeling, but these scenes tend to meander while adding little to the character development.

It’s nice seeing a movie that attacks gender stereotypes by having the woman being the one to change a flat tire as well as having all the nudity shown being that of the men and not the ladies. There are also a few touching moments where Irene is willing to give J.T. a significant amount of money to help him in his struggling career without expecting any payment back, but in the end it all goes nowhere. The characters are just too genteel, which fails to create any type of interesting drama. I was more intrigued with exploring what these people were like in college and how they had changed after entering the adult world, but the film barely touches on that, which to me made it boring and empty.

return of the secaucus 7 2

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 11, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Sayles

Studio: Salsipuedes Productions

Available: VHS, DVD, Hulu

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Dry Humor, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity

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Vagabond (1985)

Posted on May 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

vagabond 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: She has no home.

Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) is a young woman of about 20 who wanders the South French countryside in the dead of winter searching for food and money. She camps out in a small tent wherever there is space including at one point even a cemetery. She is offered a few odd jobs here and there, but she never lasts long in them and resents being ‘bossed around’. She makes a few acquaintances along the way and even a couple of male lovers, but like with her jobs she doesn’t get settled with anyone for too long.

The best aspect of this critically acclaimed French film that is directed by the legendary Agnes Varda is that it avoids the political correctness. Most films especially Hollywood ones tend to portray the poor and homeless as humble and contrite, but the main character here is anything but. She is arrogant and aloof to those around here even the ones that offer her help. She acts strangely entitled in even in the direst of situations and in many ways almost oblivious to how truly desperate she is. Varda creates a richly textured character that while not likable and sometimes even confounding still manages to be always fascinating.

The narrative works in vignette style starting with some farmhands finding her dead, frozen body in a field and then progressing backwards showing the last few weeks of her life and the people that she met. To some degree this is interesting as it reveals how others see her some of whom are even jealous of her ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ while also exploring how everyone can make a lasting impression on others even if they seem insignificant and the encounter brief. However, the segments where these characters speak directly to the camera comes off as jarring, clumsy and heavy-handed and it would’ve been nice had these same reactions been worked into the story in more of a subtle and sophisticated way.

My biggest issue with the film and in many ways it’s most disappointing aspect is that we learn nothing of this woman’s background. What exactly brought her to do this? Was it by choice or circumstances? Where’s her family and what about her upbringing? None of this is shown or talked about making this character study not only frustrating, but incomplete.

The character also gets sexually assaulted at one point, which to a degree brings added realism, but she is shown not to suffer any post-traumatic stress from the incident, which was not believable. Also, having the film begin with her death hurts the tension and it would’ve been more compelling had we not known her ultimate fate until the very end.

vagabond 2

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 4, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Agnes Varda

Studio: MK2 Diffusion

Available: DVD (Criterion Collection)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies

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Megaforce (1982)

Posted on May 2, 2015 | Leave a comment

megaforce 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: This is really embarrassing.

The fictional country of Sardun is being threatened by their neighbor Gamibia and mercenary General Duke Gurerra (Henry Silva). This prompts two Sardun representatives (Edward Mulhare, Persis Khambatta) to travel to the desert and request help from a secret group of soldiers who have advanced vehicles and weapons that can help stop the Gamibian aggression. The group calls themselves Megaforce and is led by the charismatic Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick) who at one time was friends with Gurerra and the two play an intricate game of cat-and-mouse as they both try to deploy an attack strategy that will stop the other.

One of the biggest problems with the film is that it was directed by Hal Needham a former stuntman who had some modest success directing such southern fried action flicks as Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper, but clearly has no clue how to do a comic book-styled action flick such as this. The film teeters between being campy and comical to innovative and slick, but ends up failing on both ends. The main problem is that Nedham (who also appears unbilled as a technician) lacks any true artistic vision while showing no appreciation or understanding of the comic book genre or its readers and creates an empty-headed, unimaginative premise with wooden characters and dialogue surrounded by a lot of action and effects, which he thinks will be enough to save it, but really isn’t.

The eclectic cast is interesting. Khambatta a beauty queen from India who is probably best known for playing the bald Ilia in Star Trek: The Motion Picture is on hand as the love interest to Bostwick. Michael Beck who was just 3 years removed from his star making turn in the cult hit The Warriors plays a southern bred member of the Megaforce team. Silva, who’s played many memorable villains in his day camps it up as best he can with the limited material and Bostwick, who nowadays looks very old and elderly, sashays his way in some incredibly skintight uniforms and looking almost like a male model.  

The only reason I’m giving this embarrassment 3 points instead of the 0 that it really deserves is because it does fall into the ‘so bad its good category’ that almost makes it worth catching. The best of the worst is Needham’s use of matting a character over a blue screen to make it look like they are flying in the air. He does this twice once when Khambatta and Bostwick go parachuting out of a plane and then at the climactic finish when Bostwick uses his motorbike to fly up to a plane. In both instances the effects are so hilariously awful and obvious that it becomes memorable and worth the price of the rental.

megaforce 1

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 25, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Hal Needham

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray (Region A)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Campy Comedy, Cult, Movies with a rural setting

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The War of the Roses (1989)

Posted on April 28, 2015 | 2 comments

war of the roses

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Yuppie couple destroys home.

Oliver and Barbara Rose (Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner) are a married couple with contrasting personalities who find that they no longer get along and in fact can’t even stand each other. They agree to a divorce and all of the assets except for the house. Both of them want to keep it and Oliver’s attorney Gavin (Danny DeVito) has found a loophole in the law that allows Oliver to remain there even after the separation is final. The problem is that they continue to get on each other’s nerves, which culminates with them locking themselves into the home one dark, harrowing night and using whatever prop available to vent their anger onto the other while inadvertently destroying the house in the process.

Some consider this to be one of the darkest comedies to ever be financed by a major Hollywood studio and when you think about it, it really is amazing. Most major studios shy away from edgy material and water it down until it becomes benign, but this film, which is based on the 1981 Warren Adler novel of the same title, stays quite true to its source material. The humor is on-target while making a great trenchant statement towards capitalism and yuppies in general. DeVito’s direction is visual and imaginative and there are some truly funny moments including the one where Turner destroys Douglas’s British Morgan Roadster with her 4-wheel drive truck.

The reuniting of Douglas and Turner from the Romancing the Stone films was perfecting casting. The two seem to have genuinely distinctive personas and it’s fun to imagine this as simply an extension of their earlier characters of Jack Colton and Joan Wilder and what happens when their rosy romance turns into the realities of marriage. The scene where Douglas’s character saws off the heels of Turner’s shoes is a great connection to their earlier film as his character did the exact same thing there, but it was unfortunate that we never get to see Turner’s reaction to it.

The production is slick, but having DeVito act as the film’s narrator seemed a bit distracting at times and the film might’ve worked better without him although he does have a few verbal gems during the second hour that almost makes up for it. I also didn’t like that the character who he tells this story to never says a single word, which to me seemed unnatural and weird as did his green painted office. Having the two kids of the couple turn out to be pudgy and fat was amusing and helped in a metaphorical way to symbolize the parent’s gluttony for materialism, but then the filmmakers end up ruining their own joke by having the kids later on become thin and attractive for no reason.

Spoiler Alert!!

The knock-down ending inside the home is great and DeVito’s use of Hitchcock overtones is inspired. Seeing the couple trapped on a ceiling chandelier while the camera travels up the wires of the light and into the attic where we see how the added weight bursts the bolts that anchors it is quite clever and even ingenious, but I was disappointed that the two end up crashing to the floor and dying. For one thing I didn’t think it was a big enough fall to have killed both of them. Maybe one, but most likely they both would’ve survived, but with injuries. Either way it would’ve been more interesting to see how they responded to each other after the incident and whether it helped to change them or their love/hate relationship, which to some degree is the film’s most unsatisfying aspect

End of Spoiler Alert!!

Adler wrote a sequel to his novel in 2004 that dealt with a messy divorce of the Rose’s grown son Josh to his wife. That book has now been put into production as a movie entitled The War of the Roses: The Children although no release date or cast has been announced as of yet.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 8, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 56Minutes

Rated R

Director: Danny DeVito

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Christmas Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Novels

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The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

Posted on April 23, 2015 | 1 comment

jewel of the nile

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for a jewel.

In this sequel to Romancing the Stone Jack (Michael Douglas) and Joan (Kathleen Turner) are living the easy life on a yacht, but are bored and looking for some adventure. Joan is given the opportunity to write a book about a visiting sheik named Omar (Spiros Focas) and travels to the Middle East to learn more about him. There she finds that he has sinister intentions and simply using her to be a part of his scheme, which compells her to try and expose him, but first she must escape from his clutches. Jack and Ralph (Danny DeVito) team up to help her along with a prince named Jewel (Avner Eisenberg) and together the four find themselves in one wild predicament after another.

Although this film did not do as well in the box office as its predecessor I still ended up enjoying it and felt in a lot of ways it was better. It has a bigger budget and slickly handled direction. The humor is more consistent and edgy and Jack and Joan share a love/hate relationship that is more entertaining than the Harlequin romance novel that the first one became while the on-location shooting that was done mainly in Morocco has some genuinely breathtaking scenery.

The scene in which the three get into a fighter jet plane and use it to tear up a village while still remaining on the ground is the film’s highlight. Their escape from Omar while climbing on a very steep rocky cliff is exciting and watching DeVito get sat on by a donkey is quite funny.

DeVito’s character is used much more here and his on-screen moments are one of the best things about the movie. Focas as the evil sheik is okay and at the very least is a more dynamic bad guy than the ones that were used in the first film. Holland Taylor as Joan’s snarky agent is the only one whose presence gets wasted and she ends having what amounts to only a few minutes of screen time making me wonder why she even bothered to appear at all.

The biggest drawback, like with the first film, is with the plot itself. The concept is too broad and the set-up rather convoluted making me both confused and ambivalent at the same time. It improves by the middle to be mildly interesting and has enough comedy and action to keep afloat, but the 105 minute runtime is too long for the bubblegum material and stretches the climactic sequence past its peak until it becomes derivative and overdone.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 11, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lewis Teague

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, Netflix streaming, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Dry Humor, Movies with Nudity, Sequels

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Romancing the Stone (1984)

Posted on April 16, 2015 | 4 comments

romancing the stone

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Romance novelist has adventure.

Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a romance novelist living her love life out through her characters because she fails to have one of her own. One day she receives a mysterious treasure map in the mail and then gets a call stating that her sister Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor) has been kidnapped and will only be released once her captors receive the map. Joan then travels down to Columbia where Elaine is being held and bumps into Jack (Michael Douglas) a rugged adventurer who helps her navigate her way through to jungle while falling in love with her in the process.

The most interesting aspect to the film may actually be in the backstory of its screenwriter Diane Thomas who seemed to live both the Hollywood dream and tragedy all at the same time. She was working as a waitress while struggling as a would-be screenwriter during her off hours. Then one day by chance actor Michael Douglas arrived at her café as one of her customers and seeing this as her one chance to break into the business she pitched her idea, which later became this movie, to him and he loved it. She was eventually able to sell it for $250,000 and as an added bonus Douglas brought her a Prosche, which she ended up being killed in during a car accident that occurred only 1 year after this film was released.

As a story though this thing is quite weak and barely passes for a plot at all and really is just more of some high-end adventure concepts strung together. It’s pretty much bubblegum on a fifth graders level and if you stop to think about it all it will quickly become quite empty-headed.

Turner’s performance and her nerdy character is the best thing about it. Unfortunately the character changes too quickly shifting into a more confident and secure woman by the midway point and thus losing its comic edge. Her relationship with Jack is initially interesting as well as they have very divergent personalities and approaches to things, but this too gets lost when the romance between the two becomes full-throttle making the film’s whole second half seem more like a feminist fantasy than an actual movie.

Danny Devito is amusing and needed more screen time. However, the ironic ways he keeps accidently bumping into the main characters starts to become a little too convenient. Holland Taylor is fun as Joan’s snarky agent and I wished her character had gone along with Joan on the adventure. The bad guys though are dull and generic and create no type of fun tension at all.

The story as a whole is just too cutesy and lacks any type of real conflict or excitement. Had Jack and Joan’s sparring been played up more and only turned into a romance at the very end, or even just approaching it in a satirical vein to all the romance novels out there I might have gotten more into it. Female viewers may take to this better as it seems completely geared for them. Unfortunately though it becomes too slick for its own good while failing to have any footing in reality, which ultimately makes it cease to feel like any type of real adventure at all.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 30, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 46Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Zemekis

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

4 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Comedy, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Kidnapping Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Romance

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