Kenneth Turan

Experiencing Beast of Burden's inept dialogue and uninspiring direction on screen is a continual trial.

If ever a film was made with more money than sense, this is it.

This is a surprisingly dull and tedious affair where nothing is even remotely plausible, the romance and the sex least of all.

Chappie is a movie about the evolution of artificial intelligence that's as dumb as a post. It also marks the continuing devolution of the work of director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp.

McCarthy has not done himself or his reputation any favors with this original.

The Canyons is a bad accident everyone saw coming, and now it is here.

The Lone Ranger exists without a convincing sense of jeopardy or, more critically, any place for audiences to emotionally connect.

Though the photographs are memorable, the photographer is not.

With some momentary exceptions, Jack the Giant Slayer simply isn't any fun.

A Good Day to Die Hard plays like an extended victory lap for star Bruce Willis and the entire "Die Hard" franchise. Not surprising, but not overwhelmingly entertaining either.

This poor film is so shamelessly manipulative and hopelessly bogus it will make you bite your tongue in regret and despair.

A leaden mash-up of western and science-fiction elements that ends up noisy, grotesque and unappealing.

Larry Crowne is an inside-out movie, acceptable around the edges but hollow and shockingly unconvincing at its core. When that core is two of the biggest movie stars around - Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts - it's an especially dispiriting situation.

May not be the most tedious superhero movie ever - the competition is admittedly tough - but it is certainly in the running.

Not just any kind of trash, it's high-art trash, a kind of "When Tutu Goes Psycho" that so prizes hysteria over sanity that it's worth your life to tell when its characters are hallucinating and when they're not.

Yet for all its ballyhooed candor about sexual matters, it's a surprisingly baffling and opaque film, too artistic to be standard pornography and too zealously focused on being graphic to the exclusion of all else to succeed as drama.

A film that is more listless than funny and could surely use some of the energy that animated both Art Buchwald and Paramount Pictures in the lawsuit surrounding authorship of [Eddie Murphy]'s 1988 "Coming to America." [01 Jul 1992]

Any movie whose computer-generated effects are more believable than its actors is asking for trouble. A frustrating combination of the magical and the mundane, Dragonheart has less difficulty creating a creditable dragon than a recognizable human being. [31 May 1996, p.F1]

It's not often that you see talented, well-meaning people joined together like cultists in the snare of a group delusion, but that's what makes this film fascinating, the proverbial accident you can't take your eyes off.

Goofy and gee-whiz when it isn't being post-apocalyptic glum, it is such an earnest hodgepodge that only by imagining "Mad Max" directed by Frank Capra can you get even an inkling of what it's like.

As pretentious as it is hard-core specific, this fiercely anti-erotic film makes even the chilly "Eyes Wide Shut" play like "The Big Easy."

the first techno-misfire from Walt Disney Pictures, an over-elaborate film that leaves you feeling harangued, harassed and assaulted.

It's doubtful that records are kept about this sort of thing, but consider the possibility that Clash of the Titans is the first film to actually be made worse by being in 3-D.

A painfully contrived and artificial exercise in futility.

Soon becomes a sadistic experience in its own right. Experiencing this pretentious wallow -- overwritten, under-thought and overdone -- is a very sophisticated form of torture.

Feels more planned than passionate, scary at points but unconvincing overall.

Affleck and Paltrow, who've been excellent elsewhere, display less chemistry than they've shown in magazine photo shoots. Even Woody and Bo Peep had more going on between them in "Toy Story" than these two manage here.

It's a portrayal so unconvincing it makes it close to impossible for the rest of the film to function as intended.

Decadence has rarely looked so pathetic, lethargic and dispiriting as it does in this listless film.

Coppola decided that he really wasn't making a horror film after all, but rather a love story, a comic burlesque, a costume drama, a piece of erotica, whatever. But no matter what else you do with it, a Dracula that cannot manage to be more scary than silly is as pitilessly doomed as that elegant old Transylvanian himself. [13 Nov 1992]

Writer-director Steers has chosen to overload "Igby" with phony archness and forced black humor, making it not the place to look for satisfying acting.

It has a tendency to run ragged and spends an unhealthy amount of time idling pointlessly at intersections.

Tiresome, inept farce that's not even a fraction as clever or entertaining as it likes to imagine it is -- a complete waste of time.

One of those movies that makes you want to throw up your hands in despair, disgust, or maybe both.

While adapting accomplished fiction such as this is a lure Hollywood can never resist, some characters breathe better on the page, and that is the case here.

Misconceived, misguided and a completely miserable viewing experience, this is one to avoid at all costs and for all time. [06 May 1994]

The only thing about The Naked Gun that won't make you laugh is the film itself...To mix a metaphor in appropriate style, the filmmakers have really beaten a dead horse into the ground with this one.

What audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even minimal originality.

The Quick and the Dead is showy visually, full of pans and zooming close-ups. Rarely dull, it is not noticeably compelling either, and as the derivative offshoot of a derivative genre, it inevitably runs out of energy well before any of its hotshots runs out of bullets.

The Basketball Diaries is a lose-lose proposition. Although it masquerades as a cautionary tale about the horrors of heroin, this epic of teen-age * Angst is more accurately seen as a reverential wallow in the gutter of self-absorption.

It's as sad and painful to report as it is to experience, but Hollywood Ending makes the conclusion inescapable: Woody Allen has become his own worst enemy.

By coddling viewers and micromanaging our responses, The Other Sister shows almost as little respect for the audience as Elizabeth does for her feisty, underappreciated daughter.

The hard truth is that the line between being deadly earnest and unintentionally silly is thinner than these people think, and Beyond Borders turns out to be an unreal film about a real situation, unavoidably cartoonish, as was the earlier "Tears of the Sun," in its attempt to join crucial issues to ridiculous melodrama.

The Majestic isn't. Rather it's "The Film That Wasn't There," a derivative, self-satisfied fable that couldn't be more treacly and simple-minded if it tried. And it tries, oh, how it tries.

The thrill is definitely gone, leaving a disappointing and unpleasant mess in its place.

Not only have bothersome plot changes been made, but the entire tone of the book has been transformed from tension to tongue-in-cheek with dismal results.

A haphazard film about half as sophisticated as the average beer commercial.

Those foolhardy enough to place themselves at the mercy of 8MM can expect the following emotions: disgust and revulsion, then anger, followed by a profound and disheartening sadness. There are some films whose existence makes the world a worse place to live, and this is one of them.

Doomed to be inconsequential and forgettable.

Jack is more depressing than the weight of its demerits because of the quality of the work both these men have done before.

This noisy retread, a secondhand facsimile of a movie, is, except for the headache its boisterous sound level leaves you with, as forgettable as a bad day in the Disneyland parking lot.

Overall, Charlie Wilson's War is glib rather than witty, one of those films that comes off as being more pleased with itself than it has a right to be. It also suffers from being not all of a piece, with mismatched elements struggling to cohere.

With no plot, character or dialogue worth experiencing, let alone remembering, the film merely occupies space on the screen and hopes for the best.

Don't imagine there is any reason to see Fair Game.

Laurence Fishburne is one actor who has charisma to burn, but even his incendiary performance can't ignite Hoodlum, a would-be gangster epic that generates less heat than a nickel cigar. [27Aug1997 Pg 8]

Hollow, simple-minded and about as profound an experience as stepping in a pile of road kill.

Given the polyglot nature of the cast, with actors from at least five countries taking their best shots at the English language, it's unclear why Cage felt he needed an accent or, stranger still, why it took him a reported seven months to come up with this one.

Though it strives to be clever, the only time Nine Months manages to be genuinely witty is in its closing credits, when it displays baby pictures of its stars. It's a small touch but it's not overdone, which is probably why it provides such a contrast with its surroundings. [12 July 1995, p.F1]

George Clooney's first effort behind the camera was doubtless more stimulating to direct than it will be for audiences to watch.

By any rational standard, this film is kind of a mess. Even if you agree with its politics, you will probably weep at the ineptitude of it all.

Rock is undisputably gifted and charismatic, but when Down to Earth takes his edge away, the film's energy goes with it. And without energy, no comedy can survive.

Pedestrian and awkward, this film is a disappointment not only in comparison with Lee's earlier epic, the underrated " Malcolm X," but also in comparison with another film with similar aims, Rachid Bouchareb's "Days of Glory."

Not clever or polished enough to be successful as farce, unwilling to supply any reason to care about any of its characters, unable to make the points about the role of fashion in society it thinks it is, "Ready to Wear" is madness without the usual Altman method.

The result is a calculated, cynical piece of business that epitomizes the creative bankruptcy and contempt for the audience that infects so much of the blockbuster side of Hollywood.

Watching Tank Girl is as disorienting as waking up in someone else's bad dream. You want to get out as fast as possible, but all the exits seem to be blocked.

So exasperating in its contradictions, so frustrating in its fakery, so deeply irritating in its pretensions, it's frankly hard to know where to begin to dissect it.

Loaded as it is with undeveloped notions about feminism and individuality, nothing about it is really memorable except the appealing musicality of the fine k.d. lang/Ben Mink score, which deserves better. [20 May 1994]

Even in thriller terms, nothing rings remotely true here, with even the baseball action--including a game that is not called despite enough rain to unnerve Noah--laced with a heavy dose of preposterousness.

A misguided romantic serio-comedy aimed at women and gay men that ends up caricaturing both.

Such a tedious Hollywood farce, so unpleasantly glib and relentlessly shallow, that Pacino's excessive performance is not even the worst thing about it.

This is a Laura Ashley on Safari meditation on bored rich people searching for fulfillment and a new life among the photogenic wildlife of Kenya. Just wake me when it's over.

Some movies make you sorry you've seen them, and The Cell is one of those. Creepy and horrific, it's a torture chamber film.

Fake or not, I'm Still Here is no fun to watch, and in fact Phoenix's situation comes off as so dire that it becomes a reason to doubt the film's authenticity. Filming someone having a mental breakdown is embarrassing and exploitative at best.

Lacking most kinds of inspiration and geared to undemanding minds, this project is so overloaded with hardware and stunts, it's a relief to have it over.

Just because people are objecting to Max for all the wrong reasons doesn't make it a good film, and it's not. It's a bizarre curiosity memorable mainly for the way it fritters away its potentially interesting subject matter via a banal script, unimpressive acting and indifferent direction.

A trying experience. As we watch Rochester fall apart in spectacular fashion, it's clear that a major lure for the venturesome Depp was the chance to play a grotesque, to become a pestilent physical wreck with an artificial silver nose. There's more in that role for the actor, however, than there is for us.

Too glib too often to make much of an impression any way you look at it.

Even Willis seems a bit bewildered at times, as if asking himself how he managed to get into such a mess. [24 May 1991]

The most disheartening line in 187 is its last, written in bold type across the screen just before the credits roll: "A teacher wrote this movie." It's enough to make you weep, and not just because it's painful to think that this muddled and manipulative film was penned by someone in a position to mold impressionable minds. [30 Jul 1997, p.F1]

"Implausible" is a mild word for the shenanigans Gang Related expects us to swallow. Writer-director Jim Kouf has loaded a lifetime's worth of ploys and contrivances, feints and jabs, into this unpleasant, interminable, more-than-usually pointless film. [8 Oct 1997, p.F4]

A bad movie for connoisseurs of the genre.

Falling Down encourages a gloating sense that we the long-suffering victims are finally getting our splendid revenge. The ultimate hollowness of that kind of triumph reflects the shallowness of a film all too eager to serve it up. [26 Feb 1993, p.1]

A complete waste of time and potential.

Though the Strick-Robinson script is solid from line to line, the film's plot is finally too implausible for anyone to rescue.

Lacks even a vestige of subtlety and is rarely so much as amusing. Viewers with fond memories of the brothers' wildly funny "There's Something About Mary" will be astonished at how few laughs the current venture has.

Sgt. Bilko is one of those joyless comedies that have lately become so prevalent, a halfheartedly amusing film that avoids originality while relying on old and tired material. [29 Mar 1996, p.F1]

It would be lying not to say that some of the moviemakers here aren't working at the top of their craft, or that the movie won't reach audiences. On its own terms, Kindergarten Cop is nearly fool-proof: the last word in glib, shallow, soulless, spuriously warm-hearted commercialism. [21 Dec 1990, p.1]

If Penélope Cruz were any less attractive, maybe someone would have noticed how dull this mild, would-be romantic fairy tale has turned out.

Such a classic combination of feckless dramaturgy and rampant excess that giving way to giggles is the only sane response.

Yet another silly disaster movie, where the special effects are believable and the characters aren’t.

The best thing that can be said about this lethargic coming-of-age tale, noticeably undernourished at 78 minutes, is that it's better than the even more pathetic "Stolen Summer."

Seems merely tired and stale, the opposite of fresh, marked by ideas for jokes rather than things that are actually funny. Then, without warning, it goes from inept to complete disaster, sinking from indifferent to fiasco in the blink of an eye.

Haunting almost serves as a reverse image of a successful film, demonstrating by what it lacks exactly what is needed to do things right. [23 July 1999, p.F15]

Though he claims to be a seeker, someone who "has to find out" why believers believe, Maher sets out not after answers but cheap laughs that preach, so to speak, to the converted.

Sporadically funny, often strange and almost never poignant.

After sitting through M. Butterfly, you'll wonder why they even bothered to try. [01 Oct 1993]

Buried under the miscalculations, the shamelessness, the off-putting and inappropriate broadness are sporadically visible souvenirs of a good project gone bad, hints of the unusual, bittersweet story that got away.

Redford's Gage is so busy being exquisitely sensitive and polite he neglects to project any energy, and without it the crucial morning-after part of the movie gradually collapses under the weight of its own self-importance. [07 Apr 1993 Pg. F1]