Beautiful, moving film.

A Masterpiece!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Almost animated in its style is this 'James Bond' type flick from writers Fred Dekker and Darren Star about mistaken identity. "If Looks Could Kill" is comically entertaining for the most part, if very silly and extremely predictable.William Dear has toned the violence right down and used cartoon characters acting out a cartoon script. Richard Grieco and the support cast (including Roger Rees, Robin Bartlett and Gabrielle Anwar) have fun and so do we, as long as we don't expect any serious cinema! Linda Hunt steals the show as the wicked lady with a whip for a necklace. "If Looks Could Kill" is good entertainment for youthful audiences.Tuesday, September 3, 1991 - Knox District Centre

A stupid but pretty entertaining James Bond-type action flick, this features comedy a lot more than it does action. There were enough funny lines in the comedy to make it a keeper in my collection for awhile. Like the Bond movies, there were also a good number of clever gadgets.The story is preposterous, so you can't take any of it seriously.There is too much macho baloney from the young hero in here, played by Richard Grieco, not a household name but a decent actor. Speaking of acting, Robin Bartlett, who plays the French teacher, overacts terrible and is just plain annoying. It's no wonder we've never heard her name before.Action scenes range from pretty good to incredibly stupid.

Good idea: a teen action comedy about a kid who is inadvertenly involved in a plot of international espionage. Hell, it worked great for the 1980s comedy, Gotcha! "If Looks Could Kill" centers on a high school kid who coincidentally has the same name as an American secret agent sent to protect a French diplomat. It's one case of mistaken identity gone too far, but the kid takes advantage of it even though no one will listen to his pleadings that he is not in fact, Michael Corbin, secret agent. Bad idea: using a twenty-six year old guy (who looks every bit of it) to play a cocky, mostly obnoxious high school kid and pile on poor special effects, so many double crosses that it creates a confusing game of cat and mouse, and wasting a ton of good acting potential. I don't know why the people who wrote the synopsis on the video box tried to make this into some sort of Bill and Ted for the ninties. There is nothing particularly funny, nor remotely entertaining about this movie, save the French teacher and Linda Hunt. Not even as a lazy, Saturday afternoon movie. How come there were so many good reviews on this movie?

High school student Michael Corben has to accompany his class on a trip to France to get enough credit to pass his class. However at the airport he gets confused with an American agent and gets caught up in a plot to stop Steranko from taking over the known world via his fiendish plot. But can Michael adapt before his shortcomings find him out?This film went under the much better title of `Teen Agent' when I saw it recently. It's a much better title simply because it better describes what this is – a James Bond for teens and older pre-teens. As such we see our teenager sucked into the spy game and doing better than all the adults around him. The plot is just what you'd expect and it throws up the odd laugh or reasonable action scene. However it's nothing special and it's done better in things like Spy Kids etc.The cast is OK but all take it too seriously. Grieco is one of the worst actors on God's earth to me. However here he works well, mainly because his eyebrows give him a bemused look that fits with the tongue in cheek plot that's going on around him. The only thing that is worth noting however is that he was actually in his late 20's when he played this role! Rees is a typical greasy bad guy but plays it too straight – I'd like to have seen more of his Sheriff of Nottingham in the role! Anwar is sexy even when she was a lot younger and Roger Daltrey makes an interesting cameo – why, I don't know, but he's there!Overall young teenagers will enjoy this simply because it's an average action comedy with a spy twist. However it's nothing special and the rest of us will happily await the next REAL Bond movie and take a pass on this low rent substitute.