John Hartl

It's so much a Wayans vehicle that at times it seems like one long close-up of his gold-tooth grin. [24 March 1995, p.H24]

The sexual sadism that ruled in the first Hellraiser has been largely replaced by tiresome confrontations between the toymakers and Pinhead, who responds to their sputtering oaths with the most sensible line in the movie: "Do I look like someone who would care what God thinks?" [9 March 1996, p.F3]

This wildly overpraised Belgian mock-documentary might have been a lacerating 10-minute Swiftian satire of the media's never-ending thirst for blood. Instead, it's a 95-minute reiteration of the obvious that manages simultaneously to offend and bore. [11 June 1993, p.24]

It manages to combine the least appealing qualities of several previous Hughes productions - the obnoxiousness of the central character in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," the tedium of the teen-age confessionals in "The Breakfast Club," the gimmicky plotting of "Home Alone." And it has nothing fresh to add in terms of casting, storyline or the kinds of comic insights about suburban life that sustain Hughes' best scripts. [30 March 1991, p.C5]

Cameos by Mel Brooks and Whoopi Goldberg add nothing, and there's not much of a storyline to stitch together the gags. [05 Aug 1994, p.E3]

Director Renny Harlin and his writers, Robert King and Marc Norman, appear to have spent many hours watching bad pirate movies, and they seem determined to repeat every pieces-of-eight cliche. [22 Dec 1995, p.G8]

A thriller that fails on every level, it doesn't even make you want to find out what happens next. [26 Apr 1991, p.20]

One doesn't expect much of Bosworth or Seagal, but Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke have, on occasion, been mistaken for actors. That becomes increasingly difficult to remember as this expensive, interminable vanity production waddles toward its predictable conclusion. [24 Aug 1991, p.C5]

It's neither scary nor original. In fact, it's something of a chore to sit through. [27 Oct 1990, p.C3]

The director, Jon Turtletaub, completely misses the character-driven appeal of the Karate Kid series, and there's no Macauley Culkin in this cast. The movie is saddled with a junky visual style, haphazard editing and occasional out-of-focus shots. Much of it looks like very bad television, although the toilet jokes and a running gag about laxatives and instant diarrhea may be a little raw for the Disney Channel.

As skiing comedies go, this one is no easier to endure than Hot Dog - The Movie or Snowball Express. Maslansky instructed his writers to come up with a script to go along with the title he'd dreamed up, and every character, comic twist and plot development seems tortuously manufactured and insincere. [10 Feb 1990, p.C7]

The Glimmer Man is just as foolish and formulaic as it sounds. [05 Oct 1996, p.C3]

The year is still young, but it's not likely to yield a more profoundly vacuous movie than Wild Orchid. [28 Apr 1990, p.C5]

Lambert relies so much on gore and mean-spiritedness that the actors can't help looking glum; they're clearly being ignored by a director who seems to have lost touch with all the human elements in the story. The movie is ultimately as lifeless as most of its characters end up being. [28 Aug 1992, p.28]

Only very small children are likely to be satisfied.

Full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing, End of Days is the loudest and least of the year's end-of-the-world movies.

Misbegotten comedy-drama.

Just doesn't live up to its title.

Self-conscious clunker.

It's hard to think of a single memorable line from Restaurant, even a memorably bad one.

With any luck, Body Shots will quickly slide into video obscurity.

In short: Don't expect a lot of laughs.

Exists in some kind of limbo, between hard-core porn and European art film, and it's not likely to satisfy fans of either.

Broad, obvious and thuddingly unfunny, Drop Dead Gorgeous makes almost every previous "mockumentary" look like a work of genius.

The audience for Digimon is small children.

If you've seen one "Scream" rip-off, you really have seen them all.

Utterly unnecessary sequel.