Jay Boyar

Noisy and (nearly) awful, Noises Off is the sort of movie that gives filmed theater a bad name. Based on Michael Frayn's popular, Tony-nominated play, the screen version is so lame that even without having seen a stage production of the material I can tell that the film doesn't do it justice.

Abetter title for Jaws The Revenge would be Jaws The Refund. A refund is what a lot of people who go to see this picture will demand. This Time It's Personal, the tag line for the new film's ad campaign, doesn't seem quite right either. This Time It's Terrible would have been more accurate.

The main difference between Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Hot Shots! is that almost half the jokes in Naked Gun 2 1/2 were at least slightly funny while in Hot Shots! less than a fifth are any good at all. [2 Aug 1991, p.C5]

The biggest fault of Jagged Edge is that whatever suspense it manages to generate in its climactic scenes is achieved artificially, through tricky editing and manipulative "danger" music. The mystery of the murder -- which should be generating the suspense -- is so transparent that I wasn't anywhere near the edge of my seat.

It's a fairly intriguing (and, surprisingly non-exploitative) premise, but director/co-writer Ernest R. Dickerson is lost when it comes to devising situations that would suggest what goes on inside his characters' heads. These people are all exactly what they appear to be on the surface, which isn't very involving. [17 Jan 1992, p.20]

The actors are so impressed by the seriousness of their dialogue that they respectfully wait a minute or so after each line is spoken before speaking the next one. Remove the pauses and the movie would run about 20 minutes. [12 Nov 1993, p.20]

Far-fetched as the premise is, I was willing to give the film the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the impressive cast. But as Flatliners rolled along, its pretentiousness became increasingly toxic.

For the most part, Life Stinks is about as far from art - or even simple entertainment - as you can get. And if I may be forgiven a small joke that's as true as it is obvious, most of the time Life Stinks stinks. [30 July 1991, p.E1]

The Exorcist III isn't crudely exploitative so much as it's just unendurably pretentious. [24 Aug 1990, p.4]

The problem is that producer-turned-director Irwin Winkler (Night and the City, Guilty by Suspicion) simply has no idea what he's doing. I take that back. He knows what a producer ought to know: how to latch onto a hot topic and a hot star. Winkler also appears to have picked up enough from the directors he has worked with to give his film a certain second-hand slickness.

Children will undoubtedly enjoy the ninja flick a lot more than their parents will, and it probably won't even give most kids nightmares. But couldn't a steady diet of this sort of thing help to desensitize very young children to real violence? If so, that's awful - not awesome - dudes.

Goldberg's performance does have its moments, especially once she gets past the frenzy of the movie's first half. But like such accomplished fellow cast members as Maggie Smith and Harvey Keitel, Whoopi is wasted in this godawful nunsense. [29 May 1992, p.17]

There are theme park attractions with stronger plots and more compelling characters. [26 May 1995, p.17]

Where The Last Picture Show was emotionally involving and dramatically episodic, Texasville is sprawling, badly paced and remote. [29 Oct 1990, p.C1]

Young Guns II shoots blanks. [02 Aug 1990, p.E1]

Connery doesn't have many scenes, and he does manage to keep his dignity while he is on the screen. That's more than I can say for a lot of the actors in this movie. [09 Sep 1994]

The folks who made The 'burbs appear to be card-carrying members of the School of Non-Urban Humor. Basic to the philosophy of this school is the misapprehension that anything occurring outside city limits is intrinsically amusing.

The whole movie, in fact, is one big blooper.

Many years ago, Mel Brooks made up his mind about what was funny and he hasn't budged since. [30 July 1993, p.21]

City Slickers II is not merely one of the worst movies of the year. It's one of the worst movie sequels of all time - and, by the way, one of the least necessary. [10 June 1994, p.21]

Medicine Man is bad medicine - very bad. A parable about mankind's folly, it's also a a prime example of it. [08 Feb 1992, p.E1]

But even with Dudley Moore, this movie would probably have fallen flat. At best, Skin Deep is a VCR movie. Rent it when it comes out on tape, fast forward to the best part, and replay the condom scene until you stop laughing.

The earlier film (and much of the television program) worked for adults by creating a youngster's fantasy world with an eerie fidelity. It got us to laugh by reminding us of the child within ourselves. Watching the new film, however, all we're reminded of is that we outgrew kiddie movies a long time ago.

With DiCaprio and Thewlis cast as 19th-century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine in Total Eclipse, you'd figure that the new film would almost have to be worth watching -if only for the acting. You would be mistaken. [01 Dec 1995, p.23]

How many times can Michael J. Fox ask his fans to sit through junk before they stop being his fans? [1 Oct 1993, p.22]

Instead of displaying the grim wit of RoboCop, RoboCop 2 is crude and punishing. [23 June 1990, p.E1]

Represents a new low for the form. Watching this one, you may be tempted to throw the baby movie out with the bath water.

Not only does the new film generally fail to skewer TV's follies, it isn't even as entertaining as television. And I'm not talking about really good television, like Seinfeld and Murphy Brown. I'm talking about the usual stuff, like Three's Company and Mork & Mindy. [17 Aug 1992, p.D2]