Lawrence Van Gelder

In films, as in the ring, heart and will without exceptional talent don't produce winners.

All its 89 minutes of fast cuts, swooping overhead shots, sun, surf, song, sunburn and sex cannot obscure the extent of its shallowness.

When it comes to father, sons and mob life, stick to "The Godfather."

All the special effects in the world cannot compensate for an inability to generate tension, establish and sustain pace or create any character whose survival is worth rooting for.

Amateurish and incoherent.

Not very funny, intellignet or grippingly plotted, it is likely to appeal only to those who think that anything to do with marijuana - smoking, sharing, stealing or selling - constitutes the Everest of rip-roaring hilarity. [17 Jan 1998]

For all its experimental intentions, Loudmouth Soup feels familiar: a claustrophobic Hollywood satire that's short on kinesis and long on conversation.

To imagine the life of Harry Potter as a martial arts adventure told by a lobotomized Woody Allen is to have some idea of the fate that lies in store for moviegoers lured to the mediocrity that is Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.

Pallid writing, awkward acting, familiar situations and tired jokes make the morons, wimps and losers of Meatballs Part II easy to pass up.

That "The Keeper" was made by a novice is evident in the visible seams between the present-day narrative and the flashbacks; the whole thing plays like a loopy amalgam of stilted costume picture and after-school special.

Comes off as noisy and ill conceived, long on morphing monsters, short on storytelling talent and uneven in its efforts at animation.

There is an explanation for everything, but it is a long time coming and not worth the wait.

Begins to seem not so much an examination but an exploitation.

Brilliant film of nature has been warped into something jarringly unnatural.

A sadistic, bloody, foul-mouthed action movie.

Cause for fright in only one respect: the possibility that it could spawn sequels.

A mound of standard-issue parent-child conflicts and enough self-help cliches to drive Polonius to the aquavit barrel at Elsinore.

Despite the presence of such performers as E. G. Marshall and Sean McClory and the comedy team of Penn (the hustler) and Teller (the Arab), My Chauffeur remains a victim of low literacy, muddled characterizations, frequently rudimentary acting and unrealized yearnings toward humor.

Screwballs establishes that - in the absence of talent - teen-age prurience, old Thunderbirds, rock music and hula hoops do not add up to entertainment.

Ridiculous without being awful enough to be hilarious.

Gang Related is a preposterously overplotted tale of two police detectives with moral compasses so defective that they have buried their brains and consciences along with 10 of their murder victims long before the film even begins.

A tepid vat of cinematic sludge...O'Neal will doubtless survive this latest misadventure, as he did last year's outing as a genie in "Kazaam," but only the most devoted of his admirers will want to watch him lumber through "Steel."

Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin are appealing performers, but none of the energy, professionalism and gameness they display -- can surmount the mess that surrounds them in this misguided comedy.

Even pretensions toward the humorous and hip cannot save this blood-drenched film from its innate tastelessness.

As long on adrenaline and special effects as it is short on genuine novelty and intellectual content.

Tedious descent into cinema hell.

Five-year-olds who have read their Shakespeare will recognize that Turbo is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Light on originality and low on suspense though high on design and special effects.

Torturously boring.

In the spring a monster's fancy lethally turns to thoughts of lust. This thought, reduced to a level contemptuous of taste and reasonable intelligence, underlies Species II.

Vampires aren't the only things in Bordello of Blood that can't stand up to daylight. Neither can the plot.

Monotonously paced and too long, Jersey Guy also suffers in its early scenes from attempts at humor that probably read better on the page than they play on the screen.

J.D.'s Revenge crosses the line from a stupid movie to a potentially harmful one.

Poor old Mr. Magoo should have been allowed to rest in piece. This film suggests that when you loot a crypt, you're likely to find a corpse.

It is the absence of genuine comedy that exposes glaringly the film's fundamental attitude of condescension and scorn toward blacks and women, and a tendency toward stereotyping that clashes violently with its superficial message of tolerance, compassion and fair play.

Throughout this lame film, directed by Stephen Kessler and written by Elisa Bell, situations are developed -- complicated directions to a hotel room, Clark clinging to the face of Hoover Dam, Ellen the object of Mr. Newton's seductive charm -- and left to wither without a payoff.

Here's the lowdown on the latest chapter in Mortal Kombat: deadly dull.

With its heavy symbolism and awkward, lurching pace, A Hole in One leaves viewers with little more than the vague conviction - which I think I already had going in - that falling in love is better than an ice pick to the brain.

In the end the elaborate gimmickry of Inspector Gadget cannot conceal its very ordinary storytelling.

The law of averages demands that every once in a while a movie must come along starring young nonprofessional actors who aren't very good. That's unfortunately the case in 15.

Memo to Shaquille O'Neal: Don't give up your night job.

A quintessential Renny Harlin film: a big, dumb, loud action movie.

Film Geek has a likable premise, an unusual setting in downtown Portland, Ore., and a pleasantly homemade indie feel. Unfortunately, Scotty Pelk, as written by James Westby and played by Mr. Malkasian, is actually so irritating, so genuinely hard to take, that like the rest of the characters in this semiautobiographical movie, we soon find ourselves itching to get away from him.

Suffers from clumsy exposition and uneven acting, except in the case of Eddie T. Robinson.

The team that gave the world "Dumb and Dumber" returns with something feeble and feebler.

Think of it as a modern-day variant on a Shakespearean comedy, only without the verbal felicity or dramatic structure.

This clunky juvenile comedy lurches among multiple story lines without fully realizing the comic potential of any.

A modest but engaging mixture of comedy and drama that derives most of its energy from the performance of Callie Thorne.

Eventually becomes preaching that is likely to tax the credibility of the unconverted.

If it were medically possible to overdose on claptrap, Orca would be compelled to carry a warning from the Surgeon General.

The scenery, however, is handsome, and Miss Pays is indeed the sort of beauty who might have inspired Fitzgerald. But on the subject of credible motivation, Oxford Blues is likely to have left him depressed.

Mostly dross, an unintentionally hilarious compendium of time-tested cinematic clichés that illustrates the chasm between hopeful imitation and successful duplication.

A high-concept, low-reward hodgepodge that mingles elaborate stunts and shootouts with stereotypical ethnic humor.

When it comes to entertainment, children deserve better than Pokémon 4Ever.