Roger Ebert's Review

"Tommy Boy" is one of those movies that plays like an explosion down at the screenplay factory. You can almost picture a bewildered office boy, his face smudged with soot, wandering through the ruins and rescuing pages at random. Too bad they didn't mail them to the insurance company instead of filming them.

The movie is an assembly of clichés and obligatory scenes from dozens of other movies, all are better. It has only one original idea, and that's a bad one: The inspiration of making the hero's sidekick into, simultaneously, his buddy, his critic and his rival.

It's like the part was written by three writers locked in separate rooms.

"Tommy Boy" stars Chris Farley of "Saturday Night Live," the guy with the size 23 neck, as Tommy Callahan, the dopey son of a Sandusky brake shoe manufacturer. His father, Big Tom (Brian Dennehy), is proud of him even though he squeaked through college in seven years, and supplies him with an office and big responsibilities when he comes back to Ohio. Meanwhile, there are startling developments on the domestic front, where Big Tom, a widower, is engaged to marry the bodacious Beverly (Bo Derek).

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Roger Ebert's Review

Fans of "Major League" (1989) may want to see "Major League II." I did not see the first film and am not in that category. Nor is there anything in "Major League II" that inspires me to go back and catch up on the earlier film.

This is comedy by the numbers, the uninspired story of a Cleveland Indian team of colorful weirdos and misfits, who seem to be trapped in a perpetual audition for the blooper reel.

The movie opens with a clever recap of the previous season (or film), delivered by the team announcer, played by Bob Uecker as a drunk whose problem gets worse as the season wears on.

We meet "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), famous for his haircut; Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert), who has become a Buddhist in the offseason, Willie Mays Hayes (Omar Epps), who believes in exerting himself as little as possible, and Rube (Eric Bruskotter), the new recruit, who plays catcher but cannot consistently throw the ball back to the pitcher's mound because he keeps thinking too much.

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Roger Ebert's Review

Eddie Murphy looks like the latest victim of the Star Magic Syndrome, in which it is assumed that a movie will be a hit simply because it stars an enormously talented person. Thus it is not necessary to give much thought to what he does or says, or to the story he finds himself occupying. "Beverly Hills Cop" is a movie with an enormously appealing idea -- a tough black detective from Detroit goes to Beverly Hills to avenge the murder of a friend -- but the filmmakers apparently expected Murphy to carry this idea entirely by himself.

Murphy plays a street-wise rebel who is always getting in trouble with his commanding officer because he does things his own way. The movie opens with an example of that: Murphy is single-handedly running a sting operation when the cops arrive unexpectedly, setting off a wild car-truck chase through the city streets. Even while we're watching the thrilling chase, however, stirrings of unease are beginning to be felt: Any movie that begins with a chase is not going to be heavy on originality and inspiration. Then Murphy's old friend comes to town, fresh from a prison term and six months of soaking up the rays in California. The friend has some negotiable bonds with him, and then some friends of the guy who owns the bonds turn up and murder Murphy's friend. That makes Eddie mad, and he drives his ancient beater out to Beverly Hills, where it sort of stands out among the Porsches and Mercedeses. He also meets a childhood friend (Lisa Eilbacher) who now works for an art dealer.

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