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Cocktail Reviews
...the unquestioning attitude of the film to the central character's arrested development in terms of women is less than impressive…
A Razzie Award winner for Worst Picture (over Burt Reynolds' non-nominated Rent-a-Cop? Please.) and Worst Screenplay (more deserving).
Cruise was never been a bad actor, but this film about a flaming sex symbol has elevated him to definitive stardom. [Full review in Spanish]
Cocktail kicks off with an entertainingly lighthearted opening stretch revolving around Brian's initial entry into the world of bartending...
Cocktail is a vacuous throwback to Saturday Night Fever -- without the cultural novelty. The script is spiked with some comic lines, but overproof doses of inadvertent humor kill the effect.
As if realizing that his star hasn't smiled for 15 minutes, Donaldson tacks on a goody-goody ending that would shame the Care Bears. How to sum up what went wrong? Cruise has a line in the movie: "Flat beer from rusty pipes."
Ultimately, the ideas in this film fall as flat as stale beer and honest emotions are as watered down as cheap whiskey. This Cocktail is definitely on the rocks.
Cocktail is so steeped in corn, the drama seems comedic and the comedy is about as funny as a hangover.
Cocktail is a bottle of rotgut in a Dom Perignon box.
The pairing of old-hand Brown and young-hand Cruise may have been meant to remind us of Cruise and Paul Newman; if so, think of this as The Color of Counterfeit Money.
Perhaps the best one can say for this bland concoction mixed by agents and the studio executives is that every bartender in Hollywood wants to be Tom Cruise and that suffices as an ironic subtext.
It may not be a megaton bomb, but Cocktail is definitely of the Molotov type.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote a book about the banality of evil. After seeing Cocktail, I want to write one about the evil of banality.
If they gave you this in a bar, you'd send it back.
With no fewer than 17 of Donaldson's favorite rock songs and a complete lack of dramatic impetus, Cocktail would fare better as an extended-play music video.
If some other drug were treated this way in a movie, lots of outraged people -- including parents and politicians -- would be up in arms. But it's only alcohol, the reasoning seems to go, so it's all harmless fun.
Very, very stupid.
Cruise oozes as much charm as in Top Gun and The Colour of Money, but the mix of bar-acrobatics and Caribbean love isn't anywhere near strong enough to get you drunk.
Cruise is beguiling with his smile and his swagger, but the script doesn't take us anywhere fresh when it leaves the barroom.
Cruise's name on the marquee is plenty to insure the success of the film, even if it is lopsided, shallow, and slips the audience a Mickey Finn at the outset.