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By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

Ghost (PG-13)
This dazzlingly enjoyable pop thriller has a spirit of roller-coaster showmanship that leaves you elated. Patrick Swayze plays a New York investment banker who is killed by a mugger and returns as a ghost; Demi Moore is his girlfriend, whom the killer appears to be after as well; and Whoopi Goldberg (in a glorious comic turn) is the charlatan psychic who turns out to have real powers after all. Director Jerry Zucker has a restless prankster's spirit (he's part of the bad-boy trio that created ''Airplane!''), only now it's tempered by a new sensuousness. As Swayze and Moore circle each other, ''Ghost'' becomes the movie Steven Spielberg's ''Always'' wanted to be -- a touching meditation on the endurance of romantic love. A

Ghost Dad (PG)
Bill Cosby has a few inspired moments in this weirdly airless sitcom about a workaholic single dad who plunges off a bridge, gets ghostified, and ends up with a second chance at fatherhood. The Cos mugs with such ecstatic, loony abandon that his features seem to be defying gravity. (If only the special effects were half as impressive.) Unfortunately, director Sidney Poitier reaches as low as he can -- he serves up 20-year-old blithe-spirit gags in an atmosphere of frantic slapstick. Most of ''Ghost Dad'' is a dim-witted embarrassment. D-

Jetsons: The Movie (G)
Unlike the charismatically declasse Flintstones, the Jetsons were always just a generic suburban family -- and in an age of Simpson-mania, George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy seem blander than ever. Yet here they are, in their very own cartoon feature, complete with shiny color and songs by Tiffany. When George gets a promotion, he learns that the Grungies -- a race of icky-sweet teddy bears -- are being destroyed by one of Mr. Spacely's sprocket mines. It's heartwarming to see a slacker like George develop a social conscience, but the Jetsons' retro-'60s parody of the future (Wow! Videophones and talking robots!) is now terribly quaint. C-

May Fools (R)
Louis Malle's ensemble comedy is a light, engaging throwback to the era when directors would toss a couple of dozen characters on screen and watch them intermingle like so many overgrown children. Set during the May '68 student strikes in Paris, it's about an extended family that comes together on a country estate to honor the passing of its eldest member. The film's hindsight view of the '60s verges on the smug (the uprising is treated as the French Woodstock), yet that's part of its leisurely, bourgeois charm. B+


Posted Jul 20, 1990 | Published in issue #23 Jul 20, 1990 | Order Article Reprints