Matthew Gilbert

The humor in Leave It to Beaver is doggedly bland, with a conventional story line that's no more inventive than watching four episodes of the TV show scrunched together and interwoven. [22 Aug 1997, p.F6]

There's about one TV commercial's worth of funny gags in PCU a poorly executed one-joker about political correctness on campus...But any laughs quickly become redundant and wear thin, and the uselessly involved plot spirals off into absurdity. [29 Apr 1994, p.49]

It's a neighborhood comedy for kids that squanders the high energy of a group of young actors on a stubbornly unimaginative script. [25 July 1997, p.C5]

Like "Fire Birds," another recent special-team flick, Navy SEALs is a transparent attempt to showcase adventure sequences. Plot? Character? Who has time for subtlety amid all those dangerous maneuvers? It's all an excuse for the action - but even the action in Navy SEALS is dismal. [20 July 1990, p.32]

There are two entertaining small characters in Freejack - Amanda Plummer as a gun-toting nun and Johansen as Estevez's exploitive pal. As the lead, Estevez is appealing, if bland. He takes his future shocks in stride. [18 Jan 1982, p.12]

Never quite scary, never funny for long, never enough over-the-top. It's never compelling plotwise, either, especially toward the sloppy ending, when Mantegna is inexplicably erased from the plot. [26 Oct 1996, p.F3]

This remake of The Desperate Hours, the 1955 Humphrey Bogart criminal-on-the-lam suspenser, is crisp and atmospheric - and doggedly ordinary. [05 Oct 1990, p.46p]

There are the obligatory bonding scenes, including a boxing match and an early morning heart-to-heart, but without tension and warmth. Jones manages to be lovable, but he and Cage never manage a chemistry. [25 May 1990, p.50p]

The dullest and shoddiest action-adventure flick of the year, with only a few cute Sean Connery moments to rescue it from total, sheer and utter bogosity. [01 Nov 1991, p.29]

With little going for it except its references to part one, The Neverending Story II is a neverending disappointment. [09 Feb 1991, p.11]

The problem with the realization of this concept, Drop Dead Fred, is its lack of subtlety. The filmmakers go too broad. Where there should be whimsy, there is grating farce. The character of Fred is like "Laugh-In" comedian Alan Sues doing Monty Python comedy skits on Billy Idol for "Sesame Street." Whenever he's onscreen, he's picking his nose and slinging food and muttering insults. Early into the movie, he gets on your nerves. [24 May 1991, p.52]

Cool as Ice ends up seeming tired as well as twisted. The man whom promoters call the rap-era Elvis has negative charisma. [19 Oct 1991, p.11]

It's a movie Playboy spread, with irksome misogynist overtones. And, as the camera swoops liberally along the tropical seaport, it's hard to imagine how such a lovely spot was made to seem so tawdry and so tedious. [28 April 1990, p.8]