John Hartl

The script’s weaknesses are difficult to ignore.

Franco makes the most of his showy scenes, and Garrett Clayton (known for “Teen Beach Movie” and other shows from the Disney Channel) is a convincing hunk. But only Christian Slater’s lonely voyeur suggests what “King Cobra” might have been.

The casting was spot-on in “Dollhouse”; here it seems haphazard.

What the film does have going for it is a ghostly atmosphere that leads to a few surprising developments, including some color effects and a charmingly off-the-wall musical number.

The movie is a series of ostentatious effects, without much sense of narrative momentum or rhythmic pacing, and it leaves you feeling like you've landed on a treadmill. [26 May 1995, p.E3]

Judgment Night is almost completely lacking in conviction and originality. But Leary does a fair Dennis Hopper imitation, Gooding does his best with an insulting role, and the ending is witty enough not to give us the undying villain it leads us to expect. [15 Oct 1993, p.D27]

Cobbled together from so many sources that it never develops a narrative drive of its own.

Simplistic on one level, indecipherable on another, it's a most peculiar muddle.

Fails to single out one plot thread and make a claim to it.

Perhaps you have to have lived through the 1960s to relate.

The performances are more interesting than the convoluted plot. [24 Apr 1992, p.26]

Doesn't know when to stop with the jokes about other horror movies and settle down to tell a coherent story.

This may be the easiest installment in the series for parents to sit through.

It carries the stale odor of something that was stuck in a drawer long ago and could easily have gathered more dust. Worst of all, there's something inauthentic and phony about the way Gale and Zemeckis crank out racial taunts and four-letter-word dialogue. The result is a movie that isn't just a throwaway but borderline offensive. [26 Dec 1992, p.C7]

Doesn't seem to have anything to say.

It can be treacly -- but in a crude way, it makes its point.

Story II does feature some of the creatures from the first film (the luckdragon, the rockbiter), and Miller almost pulls off the finale, which suggests the emotional impact of the original film. But there's a lot of dawdling on the way.[09 Feb 1991, p.C10]

The final scenes, which suggest an earnest science lesson presented by a weepy extraterrestrial in an alien planetarium, play like the work of an amateur filmmaker.

Depp, who has never looked so angelic, is covering familiar ground here, playing another Gilbert Grape type who's involved with an older woman. [9 Sept 1994, p.H34]

The ride in this road movie isn't always as smooth as it could be, but even the bumps have some charm.

The idea may have sounded great in film school. As written and directed by B.W.L. Norton, that's where it should have stayed. Still, the music of the period is well-used, and Charlie Martin Smith, Candy Clark and Cindy Williams rise above the script problems. [05 Dec 1991, p.F3]

It's a painful sit from beginning to end.

While Bounce may mark a sophomore slump for Roos, it's hardly the worst date movie out there.

It's a very movie-conscious movie, and that aspect of it palls.

(Ash and Russell) generate just enough tension to keep the audience interested.

The script, attributed to four writers, is based on stories of cats who roamed the Warners back lot, begging for food among the discarded sets of "Casablanca" and "East of Eden." Imagine any storyline designed around that studio legend and you're likely to come up with a more auspicious plot than the one this team has created. [26 Mar 1997]

Miscast and nervously directed. [11 Oct 1996]

An OK debut effort, but like so many "Pulp Fiction" wannabes, it lacks freshness and energy.

Neeson might as well have phoned this one in.

An Almodovar-like blend of laughs, drama and uplift, filled with the kinds of pop-art colors and pop-out performances that Almodovar loves.

Neither the sophisticated teen comedy it wants to be nor the routine Disney slapstick number it sometimes becomes, it doesn't know what it is. [14 Feb 1997]

You might not want to pay top dollar for The Skulls, but at the right price, it delivers.

There's not much to save this formulaic suspense film from seeming both ridiculous and predictable, but if you can get past the groaner dialogue and hysteria that follow the opening credits, the midsection of "Extreme Measures" does generate some tension. [27 Sept 1996]

Too long, too predictable.

Handsomer and funnier than the original, Young Guns II is still a mediocre brat-pack western. It lacks the attention-getting novelty of the first film. [01 Aug 1990, p.E1]

Neither the actress nor her director disgrace themselves, and Curtis does suggest a commitment to her character that goes above and beyond the limitations of the script, but they've both done more interesting work. [16 Mar 1990, p.26]

The script is a minefield of ideas that need more work.

It's a pointless, $30 million mediocrity with a disengaged star-director at its center. [15 Jun 1990, p.3]

After a sprightly credits sequence in which the animated Pink Panther takes over conducting duties for Henry Mancini, while helping Bobby McFerrin doodle with the Panther theme Mancini composed 30 years ago, it's mostly downhill. It's been 10 years since the last Panther installment, yet Edwards seems exhausted.

A dumbed-down remake.

A few startling touches.

The script seems flimsy and disposable when compared with such similar takes on the subject as "Analyze This,""The Sopranos" and the upcoming "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai."

Crass and depressing drama.

Long before the final battle, the movie runs out of steam. At two hours, it's just too long. But taken as a guilty pleasure, it's tolerable. [19 Apr 1996]

Somewhere around the beginning of Hour Two, the narrative loses momentum, and Pino Donaggio's molasses-thick score begins to drag everything down with it. The ending also lacks the surprise twist that seems to be promised .

Whether or not you're a fan of De Jong's earlier work, Drop Dead Fred is clearly an extension of it. There's even a touch of Peter Pan and Wendy in the relationship between Mayall and Cates ("He's like my best friend, and yet I'm scared to death of him"), who has a ball with the role.

Unfailingly energetic, 10 Things is like a puppy that can't stop wagging its tail, begging for attention...Even more than "Cruel Intentions," this movie plays like an awkward high-school production of a classic.

It's "The Hustler with poker and without soul...For all its flash and occasional sizzle, "Rounders" is a disappointment.

It's a terrific showcase for Richard Gere, Shelley Long, Farrah Fawcett and a number of other actors who almost seemed to have been written off.

This jokey fantasy-comedy is so formulaic that even its wittier lines and casting choices aren't enough to overcome a numbing sense of deja vu. [21 Dec 1994, p.E4]

Its pretensions eventually undo it.

As recent horror movies go, The Guardian isn't terrible - it's more suspenseful and coherent than Nightbreed or Leatherface, and Friedkin's flair for the genre does surface here and there. But it's hard to care about the outcome when the people are such sticks. [27 Apr 1990, p.20]

Ultimately there's more guilt than pleasure to be found in The Craft. [03 May 1996]

Part of the problem with "Fallen" is the relentless dumbing down of Nicholas Kazan's script. [16 Jan 1998]

All the ingredients are here for both a smashing courtroom drama and a legitimate tearjerker, but the film ultimately doesn't have the technique or the heart to deliver either.

Goes out of its way to suppress most natural dramatic conflict, so it's left to the actors to carry the day.

This could be the year's most pretentious Hollywood film.

The movie jerks tears shamelessly, it smugly mocks the political and fashion trends of the early 1970s, its characters make no sense at all, and it even makes fun of senility. [27 Nov 1991, p.C1]

Story. Character. They used to mean something to George Lucas.

For all its flaws, Fantasia 2000 is certainly something to see.

What rescues the movie, time and again, is the strength of Jones' and Jackson's performances.

Compared to such current television shows as ''Sex and the City" and ''Action," this menage-a-trois tale seems downright tame.

Has its clunky and wince-worthy moments, it does explore some new territory, and there are moments when it's quite fresh and moving.

Crowe gives the kind of thoughtful performance that suggests what Mystery, Alaska could have been if it had stayed in focus.

The chief distinction of the picture, and what makes it more guilty pleasure than patience-tester, is Pakula's strong visual sense, which is reminiscent of his work on "The Parallax View." [16 Oct 1992, p.3]

While writer-director Frank Darabont often fails to make King's story plausible, that's no fault of the actors. The performances are the movie's strong suit.

Soderbergh demands a lot from his star here, and she delivers.

Ricochet is gruesome, contrived and often laughable when it's trying hardest to be thrilling. But the exaggerated antagonism between the two central characters keeps it from becoming dull. [05 Oct 1991, p.C3]

Instantly disposable ...Gooding appears tobe losing the momentum of his Jerry Maguire Oscar win two years ago.

The picture is part slapstick comedy, part tearjerker, but the mixture rarely works, and sometimes it's actively irritating.

If you plan to build an entire movie around a whining boor, his whining should have some accuracy or wit. His boorishness should at least suggest complexity, some motivation beyond the obvious. [09 Sep 1994, p.H32]

The movie is such a mess that it seems to have been assembled from pieces randomly picked from the cutting-room floor.

Blackboard Jungle created this genre (and most of its cliches) more than 40 years ago. 187 doesn't add much more than outrage and resignation. [30 Jul 1997]

Gitai, a veteran documentary director, refuses to find an easy resolution to the story, and that will frustrate as many people as it pleases.

Not a conventional love story, and perhaps it's not a love story at all. After more than two hours, you're left wondering what it is.

There's so much blood, sweat and craziness that you stop laughing with first-time screenwriter Harry Bean's script and begin laughing at it. Long before it reaches the fever pitch of a hysterical finale, you may also find yourself looking at your watch. [12 Jan 1990, p.21]

As Walton, D.B. Sweeney recalls Richard Dreyfuss's UFO-obsessed family man in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He's a sweet, semi-looney dreamer who all but invites the aliens to take him, and his performance is the most appealing thing about the picture. [12 Mar 1993, p.3]

A slickly contrived studio product, as insincere as it is ineffectual. [12 Oct 1990, p.28]

The evidence Herzog serves up is impossible to dismiss.

(Smith) seems out of his depth in this talky, rambling religious satire.

They've simply turned the book into an anything-goes burlesque with such a contemporary flavor that even 1990s street slang is permissible. [12 Nov 1993, p.D27]

Arty slow motion, deliberately distorted photography and even bits of animation are tossed into the stew with the same abandon that Oliver Stone brought to the story Tarantino wrote for Natural Born Killers. But Avary's movie lacks the strong performances and quirky humor that made Reservoir Dogs more than just another low-budget exercise in excess. [09 Sep 1994, p.H29]

The director is Paris Barclay, a graduate of Harvard, music videos and rewrite jobs on other studios' scripts. Unfortunately, his directing debut is little more than an idea for a movie. [13 Jan 1996, p.F7]

Most of the picture plays like a collection of action-movie cliches, much like the facetious catalogue that Timothy M. Gray recently compiled in Variety under the heading "Blueprints for blockbusters: Let's go, c'mon!" [2 Aug 1996]

Unfortunately, Kevin Anderson, the former Steppenwolf actor who was so impressive re-creating his stage role in Alan Pakula's film of "Orphans" and impersonating Bobby Kennedy in "Hoffa," can do absolutely nothing with the braying, sexist yuppie who rents the apartment out to Broderick and Sciorra. [1 May 1993, p.C9]

It takes a special actor's grace to survive a script as lame as My Fellow Americans, and James Garner has it. Without appearing to break a sweat, Garner makes each grotesquely desperate attempt at humor look smooth and assured. In his hands, everything seems funnier than it is.

Neither Spader nor Amick can get past the generic nature of the characters they're playing, nor can they make up for Kazan's timid approach to their supposedly steamy love scenes. The nude Spader is so carefully draped and arranged that he could be posing for a soft-core parody, while Amick resorts to doing an impersonation of a haughty 1940s glamour queen. [6 May 1994, p.D31]

It may take more than Caro Diario for Americans to acquire the Moretti taste. [21 Oct 1994, p.H42]

Carrey's performance, and Forman's lively attempts to ask serious questions about the nature of comedy, keep it interesting. Certainly it's never dull.

Just because you can make a movie in a day doesn't necessarily mean moviegoers should take an hour and a half to watch it.

Curiously bland and flavorless.

What a dynamite cast. What a savvy director. And what a soggy comedy they're all stuck in. [02 July 1997, p.E5]

Entertaining as it often is, Outside Providence feels as if it were a collection of installments from an unusually raunchy television series.

Like "American Beauty" without the fangs - or the magic.

While it's no breakthrough, this may be the best of Disney's popular Ernest comedies starring Jim Varney as an amiable moron in the Jerry Lewis tradition. [11 Oct 1991, p.23]

A sophomore writing-directing effort from former film critic Rod Lurie.

This sports comedy starts out as a rowdy delight in the tradition of "Slapshot," but it loses its sense of the outrageous and quickly turns ho-hum.

They're obviously smart people, but they end up painting themselves into a corner with this cast. Stern, the hammiest of the lead actors, is allowed to dominate the early scenes, and he rarely lets go. His bug-eyed act is getting stale, as is Aykroyd's tendency to walk through roles like this. The freshest element here is Wayans, who gets top billing in the ads but somehow winds up seeming like a supporting player. [19 Apr 1996]