Ghost

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A wonderful movie, sincere and inspired, with four terrific performances and a story that doesn't let up. The picture has the gentle, nourishing quality of a fairy tale that you want to believe, and the unsoftened impact of gut-level entertainment. [13 July 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

It's an unpredictable, mesmerizing journey nearly every shady second of the way.

Empire Caroline Westbrook

It’s soppy and sentimental, and it’s no longer possible to take the famous pottery sequence seriously, but some neat special effects and a healthy dose of humour prevent it from becoming mawkish.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

There are still some astonishingly tender moments, including looks exchanged between Swayze and Moore that seem magically divorced from this summer of exploding jets, severed limbs and homicidal children. [13 July 1990, Friday, p.D]

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

One of the irritations of Ghost is that the Moore character is such a slow study.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Three losers of late, the actors succeed quite nicely in unifying the movie's multiple personalities, its ricocheting screenplay.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Nothing if not earnest. It's also eccentric enough to remain interesting even when its ghost story isn't easy to believe.

TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)

A big sweet hit, tingly and glycerined in a phony way, but diverting.

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

An odd creation - at times nearly smothering in arty somberness, at others veering into good, wacky fun.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

There's something relentlessly superficial about the movie, and in one area that cries out for sensitivity - the treatment of racial differences among the characters - it falls down badly. [22 Aug 1990, Arts, p.11]

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Goldberg has her best role in a while, especially when she twitches and grunts her way into phony trances. Poor Demi, though, cries enough tears to drench a small drought-stricken state. [13 July 1990, Life, p.4D]

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's formula-packed business as usual. In fact, it's double-packed, triple-packed, more.

Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson

In all his athletic scenes, leaping through doors, leaping between uptown and downtown trains, leaping on an assortment of villains, Swayze is just fine. It's the movie's big cosmic questions that throw him; for these he's reduced to a look of total stupefaction--not the movie's finest moments. [13 July 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The ghost is played by Patrick Swayze, who can't handle the part; his bereaved girlfriend, Demi Moore, is much better. [13 Aug 1990, p.30]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

There's something offensive about the movie's chintzy view of death and the way it periodically flirts with promising conceits (i.e., Goldberg offering her body as a surrogate so that Swayze and Moore can "touch" one another) only to back away from them in as cowardly a manner as possible.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Though saddled with hoary jokes, Goldberg at least pumps some funky life into the bland proceedings.

Time Richard Corliss

A bad movie that a lot of people will like... Though director Jerry Zucker wants his necrophiliac romance to be sensitive, he pumps up its feelings fortissimo so the dimmest viewer will get the point. [16 July 1990, p.86]