The Long Kiss Goodnight Critic Reviews

Geena Davis and her director and husband, Renny Harlin, recover from their "Cutthroat Island" fiasco in grand style, and screenwriter Shane Black ("The Last Boy Scout") juggles jolts and jokes with a mad fervor that almost earns him his $4 million salary.Read the full review

With the help of his stunt and special effects teams, Harlin delivers more than enough goods to satisfy genre fans, so main question is whether a female action hero, and Davis in particular, is ready to be embraced by the huge public the film is clearly targeting.Read the full review

I liked it in the same way I might like an arcade game: It holds your attention until you run out of quarters, and then you wander away without giving it another thought.Read the full review

Great premise, terrible execution.Read the full review

A tour de force of technical brilliance, with flashes of humor and a wild spirit of adventure signifying that you're not supposed to take it too seriously, but the cumulative impact of its avalanche of mayhem is so numbing that it's enough to shrivel your soul.Read the full review

Mr. Black's screenplay is mean-spirited, but it earns its keep with sharp, sarcastic dialogue and ingenious ways of setting up this story.Read the full review

Ultimately, however, Kiss is too ridiculous to engage us as a thriller yet too cringingly self-conscious to amuse us as camp.Read the full review

Unfortunately, the filmmaking couple take the fetishistic masquerade far too seriously. They may describe it as a "departure" from traditional fare, but it's simply the same old action-packed guff.Read the full review

The movie tries to juggle motherly love sentiment with wanna-be snappy ripostes with a violent streak that extends to threatening a grade-schooler with blinding and busted kneecaps. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]Read the full review