Mark Caro

This movie is phony, phony, phony -- from its Disneyland version of the Deep South to its pious lessons about the values of simple rural living.

The upside is that they're likable and play well together...The downside is that they're all still communicating roughly the same message, which lies somewhere between a wink and a nudge.

The theory seems to be that if you indiscriminately toss in enough familiar ingredients, you get soup. But Graveyard Shift is more like lumpy water. [29 Oct 1990, p.5C]

What is it about vampires that brings out the worst in filmmakers these days? [16 Aug 1996, p.2]

Now that Smith has gotten these characters and jokes out of his system, here's hoping he can turn to material that doesn't require winking at the audience.

The movie plays like a very expanded version of what would make -- and likely has made -- a cute TV newsmagazine segment.

If Set It Off had concentrated on easy thrills like that well-filmed drive-through-the-walls robbery climax, it might have qualified as pulpy entertainment. Instead, it's that deadliest of beasts: an exploitation movie with pretensions to social significance. [06 Nov 1996, p.1]

When the film at last reaches its supposedly shocking conclusion, it resembles an overinflated balloon that has finally burst. It is a film that demands that you pay close attention, then rewards none of your diligence. [12 Apr 1991, p.4]

The movie also features Doug E. Doug (Cool Runnings) as a bumbler of an FBI agent, a fluffy gray-and-white alley cat as D.C., and a climax overloaded with car crashes, pratfalls and forced mayhem.

Stiller, a DodgeBall producer, is revealing an unfortunate craving for the cheese of his childhood.

The movie is never more than the sum of its scattershot jokes; it's sloppily put together, with scenes seemingly cut mid-dialogue.

In making a movie that preaches love for odd ducks, Schumacher has turned Flawless into the oddest duck of all.

Blast is just shooting blanks. [12 February 1999, Friday, p.A]

Kalifornia is that deadliest of combinations: a pretentious B movie. It repeatedly smacks the viewer in the face and then pretends that it has some intellectual reason for doing so. [03 Sep 1993]

You watch the movie in a dumbfounded stupor. Why on earth was it made? [26 March 1999, Friday, p.A]

The difference between Head of State and a good comedy is like the difference between Chris Rock and a real actor.

My Father, the Hero isn't just a one-joke movie, but believe it or not, that's by far the best joke. [4 Feb 1994, p.K]

Recycling the regressive humor of his (Sandler’s) previous films, it piles on so much sentimentality that you wonder how anyone could consider him a renegade. [25 June 1999, Friday, p.A]

When a movie is structured around the unveiling of secrets, you ought to care what the answers are. But writer-director Adam Brooks (Almost You), never offers any compelling reason to do so.

Isn't much more creative than your average gross-out comedy.

Leans on just as many stereotypes as it tweaks.

First-time director Rachel Talalay and writer Michael DeLuca provide nothing but clumsily played stock characters who fail to earn the sympathy necessary for a stand-up-and-cheer conclusion. [15 Sept 1991, p.C6]

Packed with gratuitous dumb moments -- which is too bad, given that the premise has promise.

Baldwin's Kudrow is a one-dimensional, humorless variation on his corporate tyrant in "Glengarry Glen Ross." When the writers attempt to add color -- like with a female office worker who blathers about caffeine and Bart Simpson -- the results induce cringing. [3 Apr 1998, p.A]

The movie has a big, warm, fuzzy heart - and not a bellylaugh in sight. [30 March 1992, p.5]

In the end you don't believe what you're watching, and you don't care. This party is a drag.

Kollek's fondness for whimsical plot turns adds still more random elements to a movie that at times seems edited by a blindfolded monkey.

An overblown clunker full of bad jokes, howling cliches and by-the-numbers action sequences.