Lisa Alspector

Viewers have almost two hours to become thoroughly disgusted.

The moody images and Michael Nyman's score aren't enough to salvage this banal 1997 science fiction story.

Makes for a tiresome antidrama populated mainly by unambiguously good characters who might as well be invulnerable.

The received notion that kids want their movies fast and furious is barely in evidence in this 1997 comedy, a laboriously slow suburban adventure.

The story--written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Richard Donner--was just dumb.

The kind of ugly-duckling role that's long been ironic for her (Bullock).

A kind of idealist fantasy that seems almost hamstrung by its plot.

Smug, uninsightful light drama.

Would have proved the point if it weren't so mechanically scripted.

Must have been slapped together fast: live-action stunts created by uninspired editing lead up to computer-generated imagery that's just as lame.

After loosening us up with some irresistible shtick that rigorously fulfills genre expectations, the movie subtly, systematically begins to break down familiar tropes in the depiction of attractiveness, attraction, and heterosexual courtship.

Trite transformation comedy.

A blandly twisting plot with no meaningful revelations or substantial themes.

With very little modification, this archly innocuous children's musical could have been marketed as a sequel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

This 1998 sequel seems almost deliberately designed to disappoint--our enjoyment is supposed to lie in making fun of the obvious red herrings, contrived opportunities to show cleavage, melodramatic dialogue, gullible characters, and inevitable to-be-continued ending.

Wasn't worth Allen's time and isn't worth yours.

Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin's straightforward script and Mimi Leder's toneless direction make this attempt so boring that the titles counting down the months, weeks, and finally hours to impact are best used to gauge how soon the movie will be over.

This gross sex farce actually has a point, though about half the population won't like what it is.

Full of meaningless tragedies left unjustified by the absurdly optimistic ending .. (an) intolerable story.

As if to justify a serious discussion of this comedy before dissing it, some reviewers have pointed out that it evokes Casablanca. Maybe that's why the plot seems imposed on the characters.

Virtually unendurable.

The inevitable isn't worth the wait.

One reason this production-design vehicle is so incredibly boring is that the characters keep having to explain the plot to one another.

This gross-out action comedy gets good mileage from its high-energy music and World Championship Wrestling characters, and leads David Arquette and Scott Caan are expertly pathetic.

This grasping comedy targets kids of all ages but will please no one as it exploits exhausted ideas about adolescence.

Grossly unimaginative.

First-time directors Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski must have written the script for this comedy when they were about 12--and not changed a word.

The shticky dialogue undercuts the solid genre plotting, which undercuts the humor.

Doesn't do much with its pseudosavvy characters.

The most subtly revolting aspect of the movie is how it manages to exploit violence for cheap thrills, in part by equating submission with love.

Wastes most of its 110 minutes making impotent jokes about male sexual behavior and the repugnance of old women.

This insufferable romance-adventure includes vague comedy as well as unintentional humor, and its target audience seems to be preadolescents who won't notice the calculated enthusiasm with which it sidesteps sexuality.

This multigenre parody is excruciatingly slow and unamusing; a go-go dancer in the opening and closing credits does as much in a few minutes to shake up our perspective on a bygone aesthetic as the entire narrative in between.

Wolfgang Petersen and writer Andrew Marlowe, apparently afraid to really make fun of any American icons, challenge us to take the story straight no matter what, but the only thing this ponderous movie has going for it is its unintentional humor.

Awful light drama.

The elaborate climax set in a Paris bakery is the least boring part of this trained-animal movie.

The grasping novelty of the visuals doesn't rival the uncharismatic leads or the hopelessly, unironically banal plot.

This asthma-inducing adventure set on K2 starts out seeming as if its corny storytelling and phony-looking settings were designed to show that it's as much about genre-movie conventions as anything else.

Ludicrous revenge thriller.

Schmaltzy comedy.

Seems like a miscalculation on multiple levels.

Failed romantic comedy.

Until the diverting special effects take center stage, this story, about an alien intelligence that builds an army out of flesh and metal, pathetically exploits genre conventions without generating self-reference, camp, or thrills.

This mildly moody SF thriller belabors standard dramatic conceits involving jealousy and sexual betrayal.

The characters seem both reduced and idealized, and the plot has turns a dispassionate dramatist would avoid.

Writer-director Peter Greenaway never uses narrative lightly...references to the act of filmmaking exhaust their impact pretty quickly.

Its ponderous explanations about why there are vampires in Arizona in the new millennium (blah, blah, blah).

The story is painfully slow.

A promotional tool that establishes its superfluousness simply by existing, this clumsy, smirking movie has a bitter soul.

Not particularly sensitive or funny comedy-drama.

Ill conceived or badly handled.

Isn't absurd enough to be funny.

Jamal (Martin Lawrence), starts trying to make the best of a bad situation, which becomes our job too.

Excruciatingly earnest yet convictionless movie.

Ugly Americans in Paris have run-ins with the native werewolf culture in this horror-for-laughs story, in which the characters' stupidity and the deadpan acting are out of sync--instead of being campy or clever, the plot and performances are just unconvincing.

Poorly paced action comedy.

Stylish but insubstantial thriller .

The labored storytelling in this movie about displaced ambition diminishes the impact of the powerful performances.

The filmmakers uphold an unfortunate tradition in movies based on TV shows by busily adding superfluous plot elements.

The writers must have racked their brains for the formula: two parts other movies to one part childhood revenge fantasies

Nearly toothless 1998 existential drama.

Adam Sandler displays no virtuosity and stirs no pathos in this special-effects comedy.

A euphemism for the right of anyone to make movies just as awful as those of big studios.

The insultingly trendy post-postmodern tale rationalizes its own product placement by using overkill.

It makes me sick all over again just describing this--the most affecting scene in a sluggish would-be comedy that reflects the dubious state of the art of fat male comedians exploiting themselves in 1997, the year its star died.

Formula thriller that exploits homosexuality better than murder-mystery clues.

Corky never becomes sympathetic, and without this fundamental irony the movie doesn't have a leg to stand on.