James Berardinelli

The lackluster acting and horrendous dialogue don't help.

Too long and too full of itself to offer more than a few fleeting moments of entertainment. It doesn't take long for tediousness to triumph.

--- Ho, ho, ho - the joke's on anyone who pays to see this.

Boring and uninspired, this movie gives ghost stories a bad name.

Feels perfunctory and obligatory and, despite the return of several familiar characters, is more like an afterthought than an organic third piece of a trilogy puzzle.

Kids will probably love this film but, to be frank, most children aren't that discriminating (apologies to the few who are). There's nothing in the film that's reprehensible (although some may find the concept of a one-hundred five minute commercial for a game offensive in itself), but I find it hard to believe that many adults accompanying their youngsters will be entertained. In general, about the best recommendation I can come up with regarding this movie is to turn on the Nintendo and play a game yourself. You'll have more fun, spend less money, and it will be over a whole lot faster.

Clumsily incorporates elements of "Ghost," "The Sixth Sense," and "Field of Dreams."

Everything about it feels stale: the actors, the story, the comedy, everything. And, to make matters worse, that everything goes on for an interminable two hours.

All-in-all, what we have here is classic Seagal. And that means, for anyone who isn't an admitted fan, an uninspired outing.

Movies like this usually have something interesting to say about the human condition, but not Nine Lives. It makes an insufferably obvious observation: we live boring lives, shit happens, and we die.

The storyline is so infantile that it will appeal to young kids.

Taken as a whole, it’s excruciating in ways that few would consider enjoyable.

This is a bad film - at times it’s nigh unwatchable - but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

The result is a film that runs far too long and rarely generates enough tension or genuine horror to justify its runtime—or, indeed, its very existence.

Everything about this movie feels both tired and tiring. Yes, it does a great job setting up a sense of deep unease but that quickly evaporates when it becomes apparent the movie isn’t going anywhere worthwhile or interesting, and the ending is downright silly.

Mixed Nuts makes a point of stating that there's magic at Christmas. After seeing this movie, I'm a believer. After all, it's virtually impossible to come up with an alternate explanation of how something this awful could make it to theaters across the nation.

By any standards, Silk is a bad movie: pretentious, stillborn, devoid of emotion.

The gore is so badly done that it's borderline comical and poor lighting passes for "atmosphere."

I like Steve Buscemi. I really do, which is why it's such an disagreeable task to write a review that condemns his directorial debut as a waste of film. I'm not talking about a good idea gone awry, I'm referring to something that's rotten to the core.

From narrative to character development to staging, every frame of Mistress America drips with artifice. It's a playground for unpleasant, self-absorbed characters - an excursion into the lifestyles of people most of us would prefer to bypass. If there's an antonym for self-awareness, it applies to nearly everyone populating this misfire.

Love Me isn’t bad in the sense that it is poorly assembled or incompetently shot. On a craft and technical level, it’s above average. But the narrative is incoherent and the philosophical meanderings lack depth and intelligence.

A bunch of IQ-challenged characters traipsing through a laughably bad scenario brought to life using silly dialogue, banal direction, and questionable special effects.

As a satire on the media's infatuation with violence and murderers, Natural Born Killers hits the bullseye. The problem is, this is a one-note movie. It repeatedly hammers home the same point until the audience is bludgeoned into senselessness.

This is a vile and reprehensible motion picture.

The problem with Bones and All isn’t that it’s disgusting or shocking or transgressive; it’s that it’s a tedious slog.

Breakdown is the latest in a seemingly endless traffic jam of thrillers that opens strong but finishes abominably.

A muddle of a film - an overlong bore that either mistakenly thinks it's something more than a humdrum romance or has incorporated a variety of pretentions as window-dressing.

Could it be argued that the movie is “so bad that it’s good”? I suppose, especially if you’re a connoisseur of cinematic guano. For me, Death Race is merely bad. I wouldn’t worry about finding a way to append the word “good” to anything associated with this film.

One could easily argue that, like many Ed Wood-type bad movies, The Faculty might be headed for the cult classic shelf in the video store. Unfortunately, it's not campy enough, and, worse, it seems to think it's being hip when it's just being dumb.

To work, The Host would have required a visionary interpretation rather than the mundane telling that Niccol opts for.

It is now weighed down by a second half that's equal parts incoherent, tedious, and repetitive.

If I wanted to be kind, I’d call Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake “visually striking” and “stylish.” If I wanted to be brutally honest, I’d call it “tedious”, “pretentious”, and even “painful” (although not in a good way).

I wonder if Gamer might make a good game; it certainly doesn't make a good movie.

A failure on pretty much every level, Hounddog would never have been known beyond Park City had it not been for the notoriety surrounding the rape scene.

The Pink Panther is supposed to use humor to uplift. Instead, I departed this movie feeling depressed.

This movie works best as a sleep tonic. Somewhere isn't just frustratingly slow-moving; it's inert.

Everything in G.I. Joe: Retaliation is perfunctory - technically proficient but soulless. It's not exciting. It's boring.

The only reason any male could have for seeing The Vow is the hope of getting laid afterwards. The only reason any female could have for seeing The Vow is if she views the plots of Harlequin romance novels as the height of modern storytelling.

There's no fun to be had here and if an action movie doesn't make the grade as escapist entertainment, what's the point?

An inferior product. It is not well written, well acted, or well directed.

Three adjectives spring to mind when describing Marie Antoinette: odd, irritating, and tedious.

This is a tedious and insulting motion picture. The only ones likely to be surprised by the payoff are those who understandably dozed off fifteen minutes into the proceedings.

"The Hangover" was high octane fun. "The Hangover Part II," despite its repetitive nature, was enjoyable. The Hangover Part III is some kind of hideous experiment in mass consumer torture.

At its best, Dumb and Dumber is like an Ernest movie with a scatological bent.

Regardless of whatever ephemeral entertainment this production may offer to some, it is not by any reasonable definition a good movie. It is badly written, inexpertly directed, poorly acted, erratically paced, and features music of dubious worth.

Unimaginative horror movies are a dime a dozen, but overlong, boring, unimaginative horror movies? Those are rare. However, in Split, that’s what writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has provided the early 2017 movie-going populace.

It doesn't take long for the The Signal's promising beginning to fade into a haze that leaves the viewer exhausted and irritated.

The Matrix Resurrections is a waste of time and money. For fans of the series, it’s a betrayal that deserves to be ignored and forgotten as soon as possible.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesn't so much provide brainless enjoyment as it pummels the viewer into submission. "Shell-shocked" is a reasonable description of the experience.

To succeed, Deception requires viewers to be both inattentive and stupid. There's not a twist in this flimsy and moth-eaten plot that isn't both contrived and transparent and not a character who hasn't been hopelessly manipulated by the needs of the narrative.

A slow, meandering misfire of a movie.

Sluggish. Torpid. Boring. Those three words (and more) can describe The Yellow Handkerchief, a stultifying road trip movie whose inept screenplay is only partially counterbalanced by a trio of nice performances.

The level of humor is sit-com-ish at best and the film's dramatic elements are bland and uninvolving.

It's the most disappointing thing to come from the brothers in years.

In truth, this feels more like a half-baked comedy sketch stretched far beyond its breaking point—until even the last traces of humor have leaked out like the gooey innards of a Stretch Armstrong toy that’s been tortured by a sadistic kid.

The Informers is nihilism for nihilism's sake; a bleak and borderline-unwatchable collage of misanthropes, self-absorbed a**holes, and pathetic weaklings as they struggle to move forward during the early 1980s in Los Angeles.

"Magic Mike" was self-contained, made with no expectation of a second chapter - and they prove unable to surmount it. Too many elements that made the first film an enjoyable experience are missing.

The Brown Bunny is one long, self-indulgent bore topped off with a hard-core porn scene featuring Gallo and co-star Chloë Sevigny.

Louder, flashier, and more hollow than anything else out there.

Nothing short of a disaster -– easily one of the worst movies of the year.

Unless you're a fan of Slater or Tomei, or hopelessly addicted to sappy, ineptly-handled love stories, there's no reason whatsoever to subject yourself to this movie.

Unfortunately, although there are a few nasty thorns here and there, The First Wives Club is a largely uninspired (and unfunny) comedy that collapses completely in the final fifteen minutes.

Alien 3 is, simply put, a mess. The writers have no idea how to tell a coherent, entertaining story. With the exception of a surprise or two, there isn't much worthwhile here.

A Perfect Murder has inexplicably managed to eliminate almost everything that was worthwhile about "Dial M for Murder," leaving behind the nearly-unwatchable wreckage of a would-be '90s thriller.

An insult to anyone who has tragically and unexpectedly lost a loved-one in a similar manner.

The new Ivan Reitman/Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy is a one-joke affair, and it takes surprisingly little time for the potential humor in the situation to wear thin.

What's wrong with this movie? A better question might be: What's right? Every attempt at comedy is not only obvious but delivered in such a forced manner that any hope of generating laughter dies before the joke has been told.

It's the kind of thing that Shakespeare might have written if he had undergone a frontal lobotomy.

LaBute has transformed the eerie, disturbing psychological thriller into an unintentional comedy. At times, The Wicker Man is hilariously bad.

Sometimes, even a little gratuitous nudity can't save a movie. This is one of those occasions. Cosmopolis easily trumps "To Rome with Love" as the biggest disappointment of 2012 from an established director.

Very little of what made the written version so enjoyable has been successfully translated to the screen, and what we're left with instead is an overly-long (two hours and thirty-four minutes, to be exact), pedantic thriller.

The follow-up proves not only to be creatively bankrupt but a disappointment on all levels and thereby tarnishes the perception of its predecessor.

Those who don't understand what it means for an actor to "sleepwalk" through a performance need only watch Men in Black III; there's no shortage of examples.

This is the kind of tearjerker that will cause audience members to cry, but only because they paid hard-earned money to see it.

A maudlin hack-job.

Code 46 is like "Solaris" without the psychological depth and strong acting. The movie is flat, boring, pointless, and nonsensical.

For all its attempts to weave a spell on the audience, Hearts and Souls displays an incredible lack of subtlety. Nevertheless, if you are prone to sigh rapturously at the thought of a happy ending, this may be the movie for you. It doesn't just have one of these, but five, each more cloying than the one before -- a rare treat for those who don't mind sugar shock.

Tracey Ullman is a bright spot in an otherwise sordid, murky production.

No amount of youthful charisma can alter the fact that, in the light of "Dangerous Liaisons", Cruel Intentions is a feeble and dissatisfying shadow.

This is the sort of movie that gives "chick flicks" a bad name. It's a cross between inept melodrama and a bad sit-com.

Humor is subjective, but this movie made me feel as if I had been subjected to something unpleasant.

There’s a tiny problem, though: Clementine is neither erotic nor a thriller.

The resulting hodgepodge of unfunny, sophomoric humor and PG-13 T&A, frosted by a sheen of appallingly nauseous "drama," makes for such a noxious brew that it's amazing viewers stay in their seats for the entire production.

It's either a failed experiment or a movie that was rushed through production so Allen could fulfill his one project-per-year commitment.

Watching Imagine That, I was beset by a feeling of intense depression. Is this what Eddie Murphy has become?

The only worthwhile portion of Twin Dragons is the climactic action sequence, but, to get to that, it's necessary to endure more than an hour of unfunny physical comedy and excruciating verbal interaction.

This unexceptional and uninteresting story of a self-pitying borderline-personality teenager verges on being unwatchable as a result of McDonald's decision to bombard the audience with extraneous images in lieu of telling the story.

We’re here for the nasty kills, the clever eviscerations, and the M3GAN vs. AMELIA rumble. And we get very little of any of those things.

Unremarkable. A more honest description would be to label it as mirthless, pointless, and banal.

In The Beekeeper, as has been the case with pretty much anything Statham has done in the past half-decade, the actor is on hand to collect a paycheck in exchange for bringing a recognizable name to the proceedings.

The result is an unappealing mess, made less bearable by uniformly lackluster performances and the cheesy special effects.

With Rookie of the Year, Daniel Stern has struck out.

A misfire in far too many meaningful aspects, The Book Thief is so bad that it's tough to decide whether it's better used as a sleep aid or watched while under the influence as an object of derision.

I can’t say that Annabelle Comes Home, the third feature focused on the creepy girl doll, is the worst (because it has plenty of competition) but it’s easily among the dumbest.

A shallow, transparent satire/social commentary, Palindromes lives and dies on a gimmick.

I don't often use the words "godawful" and "abomination" to describe a movie, preferring to reserve such terminology for extreme instances when I feel duped and mortally offended. Case in point: Bachelorette.

The "special effects" employed to have the animals' mouths form words might have been state-of-the-art 20 years ago, but they're outdated today, and the gorilla looks like a guy in the monkey suit that was abandoned after the 1976 version of "King Kong." I guess CGI was too sophisticated for the technical crew.

A fully disengaged brain is probably the key to enjoying Final Score. Employing even basic logic engenders a recognition of how truly stupid this screenplay is, especially when it comes to the resolution.