That Press has said about Michelle Pfeiffer

John J. O’Connor in The New York Times | December 5, 1981
(About The Children Nobody Wanted)

“the cast, directed by Richard Michaels, is quite good. [...] Michelle Pfeiffer’s Jennifer is thoroughly captivating.”

“‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ someone asks a member of the T-Birds, that small, unmenacing and unamusing motorcycle gang that turns up in this sequel, along with most of the other bad pennies from Grease. ‘A burden on society,’ he replies, not understanding that he and everyone connected with both movies have already achieved his life’s ambition. Once again, the cheeky, satirical spirit that animated the big Broadway show has been dispensed with. The new film, like its predecessor, has as its sole aim the corruption of children under the age of fourteen. Not that it will impair them morally. No, the aim is to generate false, commercialized nostalgia for what is made to seem a simpler, yet more colorful teen time than their own. The movie strains and strains for the effect Gregory’s Girl achieves without trying, perhaps did not consciously intend.

To this end, Grease 2 has assembled bloodless pastiches of twenty-year-old pop music, reduced antique dance styles to their simplest components, ignored the authentic texture of language, manners and style except for their most obvious elements. The story is of the same calibre: Michael, an English lad (Maxwell Caulfield), falls in love with Stephanie (Michelle Pfeiffer), leader of the T-Birds’ hangerson, the’ Pink Ladies. Her heart, however, does wheelies for him only when he dresses up as a mysteriously masked motorcyclist, a sort of Lone Ranger on a hawg [motorcycle]. He does not reveal his true identity to her until the concluding production number, although the audience is in on the secret all along. Pfeiffer is pretty and has a certain spirit about her, but the vacant Caulfield is surely the least promising newcomer since Pia Zadora. The director is Patricia Birch, who choreographed both the Broadway show and the first film. She cuts too much too fast, works too nervously in the musical staging, and veers from the peculiar to the pedestrian in the straight scenes. There is no security in her vision, but, then, the whole movie seems to be nothing more than an excuse for a sound-trck album.”

At one point, one of the T-Birds leads a Pink Lady into a fall?out shelter in the hope of making out with her there. He explains that the place is for use in case of ‘nucular’ war. ‘Nuclear,’ he is corrected. ‘Nucular, nuclear, a bomb is still 4 bomb,’ he replies. You said it, kid.

By Richard Schiekel | Times – June 21, 1982  [about Grease 2]

… Miss Pfeiffer, who may well be the most beautiful woman in movies today, is demonstrably someone worth risking eternal damnation for. Her presence, both ethereal and erotic, is so vivid that even when she’s represented as a hawk, she still seems to be on the screen.

By Vincent Canby | The New York Times (1985) [about Ladyhawke]

“Trim, smart and drop-dead gorgeous, Pfeiffer has been nibbling at stardom since her stints in Grease II and Scarface. Now, by animating this sparkling thriller-satire with her seen- it-all elegance, she has every right to feast on it.”

By Richard Corliss | Times – February 25, 1985 [About Into The Night]

“Played superbly by Michelle Pfeiffer in a glamorous haze of blond hair and brittle vulnerability. (…) Ms. Pfeiffer is absolutely wonderful. She is every Jean Harlow type who ever became ensnared in the Hollywood machine. She can be a bit dizzy and frazzled at times but underneath there is a formidable shrewdness. And she makes the most of the O’Hara perceptions.”

By John J O’Connor | The New York Times – November 6, 1987  [about Tales From the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson]

“John O’Hara’s tale has a bitter twist, and Pfeiffer adds her own tasty mix of sweetness and vinegar.”

By Richard Zoglin | Time – November 16, 1987  [about Tales From the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson]

“Michelle Pfeiffer made you believe that, had she been around then, she could have shown Garbo and Lombard a thing or two.”

By James Kplan | Entertainment Weekly – January 29, 1993  [about Tales From the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson]

“Ms. Pfeiffer offers an object lesson in how gifted stars with young careers can be misused by those more interested in exploiting their celebrity status than in furthering their artistic development,”

By Frank Rich | The New York Times – Summer, 1989 [about the production of Twelfth Night at the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park]

“A Burton film it was indeed. It was faintly melancholic, dismal, very dark, a tad overwrought, and mostly, menacing…. but hey, who cares about that?!, Michelle Pfeiffer looked sensational as Catwoman right?! She was, well, ‘purrfect’ for the role – sexy, slinky, seductive and super-talented. She, in some respects, was the film’s light moment and at the end of the day, she ultimately created one of the franchise’s most memorable characters. Yep, maybe just as noteworthy as Jack’s Joker.”

By Clint Morris | Moviehole.net – February 2006 [about the Batman Returns Dvd Special Edition]

“Pfeiffer gives the performance of a lifetime as the outcast countess. With her hair in tight curls that accentuate her pale beauty, she seems lit from within. Her brilliantly nuanced portrayal puts an early lock on the Best Actress Oscar.”

Rolling Stone – September, 1993 [About The Age Of Innocence]

” …But Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance is ruinous. She’s been wonderful in other films, so her failure here is something of a surprise. First of all, she doesn’t look as ravishing as she needs to; her hairdresser should be shot. And her line readings have no authority. She comes across as a giddy, silly, common American girl; she conveys none of the mystery or gravity or boldness that the part requires…”

MOVIELINE – September, 1993 [About The Age Of Innocence]