Career Opportunities

Writer-producer John Hughes' followup to Home Alone lacks the spit-polish and magic of the blockbuster but still has plenty of absorbing characters, smart, snappy dialog and delightful stretches of comic foolery.

I'll admit most of the movie is great. The plot is strong, and it's funny too. But then the ending cancels out everything you just saw. What a tease. There's nothing behind a good front. [5 Apr 1991, p.J]

This premise is not a complete loss, and the movie is not badly written. But all of its various elements (Whaley and Connelly's friendship, their battles with the two criminals who come to rob the store, Whaley's quest to make something of himself, etc.) end up being thrown together like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This makes the movie messy and uninteresting. [5 Apr 1991, p.J]

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES is an entertaining film with interesting characters the viewer can actually care about.

Jennifer Connelly is very easy to look at. Career Opportunities isn't. Go see the standee.

And as nice as it is to see dishy Jennifer Connelly roller-skate down the store's aisles, the scene is just one more instance of obvious padding to push the running time to (just) past 80 minutes. [2 Apr 1991, p.6D]

Career Opportunities is a real strange one, a tasteless and completely off-key comedy that has the elements of the much-more serious and more interesting picture it could have been -- if only the film makers had a clue as to what sort of movie they were making. [30 March 1991, p.C3]

Had more than a few genuine laughs from this film and there are even a few emotional moments that managed to touch my old, cold heart in ways that some similar teen 80/90s movies like the Breakfast Club didn't manage to. The conversations felt more natural/believable and less scripted/forced in comparison. Yeah, the plot is a bit silly and many plot threads lead to nowhere, but it captures the magical feeling of being a teen in the early 90s pretty well from the viewpoint of a person at the crux of entering adulthood and having to let their childhood go, stepping into adult responsibilities. While watching, I thought this film felt like the primordial ooze that Home Alone would later crawl out of, and was surprised to find out that this movie actually came out AFTER Home Alone. That does in some ways make it feel like a cheap sort of retread of it. Didn't really have high expectations going into this film based on other reviews, but I found it pleasant. The ridiculous ending is an utter wish fulfillment fantasy of how most of us wish our lives could turn out. For that, I kind of enjoy the escapism and the ridiculous ride and forgive the fact that it doesn't really make all that much sense.

Not the best J. Huges movie. It's the story of the town looser-slacker that, by accident, spend one night locked in a retail store with the town rich girl. During the night the two will get to know each other and help one another to overcome their problems. This movie is an average comedy that lack deep character growing compared to other teen movies of that time. There is a lot of sexyness involved (not in a bad way) and most of screen time is a tribute to Jennifer stunning beauty.

An 82-minute advert advert for Target Corporation (plus Timex Watches, Minute Maid etc) with a score so appalling that the film actually feels three-hours long. Career Opportunities was written by John Hughes from the perspective of either: An Alien whose only knowledge of the human race had been from watching cancelled soap operas, or a elderly inmate who has been in solitary confinement since adolescence. A truly bizarre and pointless movie, yet, Career Opportunities does serve a solitary purpose by documenting how incredibly beautiful Jennifer Connlley was in her prime.