Author: Mark Boszko

Okey, yes, the effects look really cool, which is one of the main reasons I went to see it… but I was also hoping for a plot that would exercise my brain, considering the source of the story, but no dice. When the villian keeps saying their logic is flawless, yet you can find holes in their logic large enough to pilot the Valdez though, you know there’s a problem somewhere.

Ebert was a little more critical that I would have been, but he pretty much nailed the review. Nice to see Bruce Greenwood again, even though his role, like all the others, was pretty one-dimensional. 3stars.

Well, I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about in this “Explosive Extended Edition” DVD, since I selected said special edition to watch when the menu came up before the movie, and aside from poorly executed “bookend” scenes before and after the film proper, I didn’t see anything new that qualified as remotely “explosive.”

That aside, the theatrical version is an excellent spy thriller, combining amnesia, better-than-Bond spy action, and that Franka Potente chick from Run Lola Run. 5 stars.

A really remarkably smart film about cheerleaders robbing a bank. Only it’s not really about the robbery— It’s about the girls and their friends and “enemies,” and all the stupid little catty and somehow wonderful things that are part of high school. Okey, maybe they’re not wonderful while they’re happening, but it’s nice to see them in a film umpteen years later and say “man, that’s dead on.”

An excellent, goofy little satire. 5 Stars.

I remember… maybe… watching this once at someone else’s house, but perhaps not paying full attention. Of course, I was much younger then.

Now I look back on this as… well, a bit of harmless fun, though slow to start, got decent toward the end. It was fun seeing a younger Joey Pants with Anne Ramsey as his mom, and the kids, though annoying at first, became even somewhat charming after a while. The whole pirate thing was pretty fun, and— by golly, they saved the family home from the evil rich folks. What more can you ask for from a mid-80s film? 4 stars.