User Reviews

Not all movies are Citizen Kane. They can't all be Schindler's List. Some of them are just good little entertainment pieces of silliness. This is one of those movies.

Lauper is Sylvia and Goldblum is Nick, they are both psychics. He is a highly educated museum curator and she is a wrong side of the tracks wanna be hairdresser looking for Mr. Okay and always finding Mr. Wrong.

They meet when they are being tested for a study on para-psychology and get involved in a mystery by Peter Falk's character. But it turns out that Falk's Harry is a shady guy at best and is actually just looking for Incan treasure. But so, as it turns out is just about everybody else they know.

It is silly and doesn't try to be anything else. There are some great one liners overall (What do we do now? Have a Psych-Off?) and if you are a movie lover and not a stuck-up Cinephile, then you might enjoy this lighthearted and fun movie.

This is a light comedy that delivers. Jeff Goldblum as a psychometrist and Cyndi Lauper as a (sort of) trance medium are good; Peter Falk as a conniver is nearly perfect. The story, partially presaged in the opening scenes, is pretty straightforward, with a touch of Indiana Jones in it, where competing parties go after a treasure.

Possible spoilers ahead.

One thing that many films do in dealing with paranormal issues is to trivialize them (the Bill Murray character in Ghostbusters is an example of that). Here, they're played straight. So when the Goldblum character discovers his girlfriend's infidelities, it's especially, and amusingly, believable.

To his last line in the film, Peter Falk plays somebody who's always trying to find an edge that will bring him some extra benefit. His character was a good addition, to leaven some of the more serious stuff.

This is not a film everybody will enjoy, but I found it very entertaining.

Pop music star Cyndi Lauper made her starring film debut with this comedy-fantasy about two psychics. She plays Sylvia Pickel, a free spirit with typically bad taste in men. Jeff Goldblum is Nick Deezy, a museum curator with psychometric abilities (he can come up with details of peoples' lives by touching objects of theirs). They make an interesting team as they accompany genially sleazy fortune hunter Harry Buscafusco (Peter Falk) to Ecuador to look for gold. But standing in their way is an arrogant fellow psychic (Googy Gress as Ingo Swedlin) with his own eye on the fortune.

Cyndi's kooky charm is in full bloom here, and she proves to be a joy to watch; she and the amusing, lanky Goldblum (whom she initially tries to dub "Stretch") make an enjoyable pair. Falk gets to have some real fun as the shameless sleaze ball (you immediately don't buy his story that he's "looking for his lost son"). Actual on-location shooting in Ecuador is a big bonus, as well as a good music score by James Horner, excellent production design by Richard Sawyer, and effective razzle-dazzle visual effects by Richard Edlund and his company.

That said, this viewer didn't think that the script by the writing team of Lowell Ganz and "Babaloo" Mandel was all that great. He really didn't have that many genuine laughs. Not that there aren't some decent moments here and there; it's Falk who has most of the funny bits. Basically, it's the cast that makes this as watchable as it is; co-starring are Julian Sands, Elizabeth Pena, Michael Lerner, Aharon Ipale, and Ronald G. Joseph; other familiar faces like Ramon Bieri, Park Overall, Max Perlich, John Kapelos, Bill McCutcheon, and Steve Buscemi have supporting roles and bits.

Neither a real success nor a total misfire, in this viewers' humble opinion, "Vibes" does have a quirky appeal going for it to match Lauper's vibrant personality.

Six out of 10.

This is a lovely story of two psychics (Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Goldblum) being hired by Harry (Peter Falk) to look for his missing son, but later realize that he actually wants them to help him find a rumored "room of gold" in the deep mountains. In the end another team of searchers joins them to discover the greatest psychic energy in the world - the so-called room of treasure.

The plot is adventurous, mysterious and hilarious. Lauper's performance is surprisingly stunning and funny, the scenery and the soundtrack are both beautiful, the movie is wonderfully shot in Ecuador and full of witty remarks. Whenever I feel a bit low I'll play the video for "Vibes" and then I'm full of joy again. I am well-entertained by this nice, interesting work. Watch it, you won't be disappointed.

Vibes is a light flimsy Raiders-esk type adventure film, with a poor plot, but quite a few laughs.

Some of the dialogue's a tad off-kilter, mostly coming from Cyndi Lauper who despite that's still a likeable enough lead. The pairing of her and Jeff Goldblum who does his usual thing, probably doesn't work. Peter Falk and Googy Gress provide most of the comedy. Unfortunately there are too many empty scenes down the stretch, needing some tighter editing and well it's about nothing and overall pretty silly. Solid music included.

Harry: I love your last movie. What was that called? "Conan, the Nurse?"

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and The Fly play two psychics hired by Columbo to find his long lost son in a foreign country.

When they get there they discover he's really hired them to help find a hidden temple in the mountains where all the psychic energy in the world comes from.....

The sad thing about vibes is that it has such a wonderful concept to it. If it focused more on the characters psychic powers, rather than turning into a pseudo Indiana Jones wannabe halfway through the film, it could have been something.

The actors are not to blame, the writing is terrible, and Goldblum does his best bumbling fool act he mastered in the eighties before he became Mister Frost.

Lauper has screen presence, but my gosh, her voice is so grating, I was desperately seeking Susan toward the end.

It's a real shame, because the first twenty minutes is really entertaining and quite funny when we meet the psychics and their own brand of kooky powers.

But then the film tries too hard to be clever, and it loses any momentum that it had to begin with.

If your an eighties aficionado, it's firmly stuck in the eighties, with the music and clothing, but that's all there is to recommend.

For my money, Cyndi Lauper was way ahead of Madonna before she took some time off. But such is the fickle world of pop music. One day, you're she bopping with The Goonies and a few months later, you're struggling for relevance. That said, judging by the crowds on the last tour Cyndi did - remember tours - she did just fine.

Between Follow That Bird, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Dunston Checks In, director Ken Kwapis has done pretty well for himself too. Here, he places Lauper - thanks to a script by Babaloo Mandell and Lowell Ganz - into Romancing the Stone territory by way of ESP. She plays Sylvia Pickel, whose spirit guide Louise has guided her since falling off a ladder at the age of twelve.

Her opposite number is Jeff Goldblum's Nick Deezy, who can tell the history of objects by touching them. They get along like oil and water at first, but come on. This is a 1988 movie that will surely have some romantic sparks before it's all over.

This has Julian Sands as a potentially evil doctor, ancient aliens stealing psychic power, Peter Falk as the man who pays for the adventure and great character actors like Steve Buscemi and Van Dyke Parks in small roles.

Originally described as Romancing the Ghostbusters in the Temple of Doom, Vibes was going to originally pair Lauper with Dan Aykroyd. Now that I would have liked to have seen.