Mike Clark

The latest picture to give you the sense that Hollywood filmmakers simply plucked another old pop-tune title ripe for ripping off, then were shaken by the rude reality of coming up with a script to jerry-build around it.

This is a fascinating movie experience. [30 June 1989, Life, p.1D]

A rote variation on Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper that is marginally salvaged by those spunky Olsen twins from ABC's Full House. [17 Nov 1995]

Recapturing magic proves elusive -- or maybe the late Darren McGavin was just irreplaceable -- in an OK follow-up to 1983's beloved A Christmas Story. [11 Aug 2006, p.15D]

For a story that centers on intrigue in high places, the few even halfway-grabbing scenes come from the mild if unexplored sexual tension between co-Caine sleuthers Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Northam.

The movie-calendar equivalent of last July's "Six Days, Seven Nights," this star-powered romance overcomes a shaky start to outpace that passable confection by several runaway laps.

What works in a quirky foreign film can look silly with expansive Hollywood treatment. Crowe is smart enough to know this, so it's baffling he chose Vanilla over richer cinematic tastes.

Jeff Bridges has enough demons in The Door in the Floor to jam a crowd scene, but the actor's sheer likability remains undiminished.

If She-Devil is (at best) ragged, it's also a must for Streep fans. [8 Dec 1989, p.1D]

Whereas last year's exemplary "Sexy Beast" seemed to revitalize the British gangster movie, this equally brutal outing merely sustains it -- though with occasional twists that do linger in the memory.

There's nothing sleazier than sleaze that fails to titillate, and this drab blight on a hot cast is as sleazy as a preordained hit ever gets. [07 Apr 1993 Pg. 08.D]

By the time you've given up guessing whether S.W.A.T. wants to be a half-serious action pic or just affably jokey, its storytelling has turned so ludicrously melodramatic that it doesn't matter.

The sentiments here are thoroughly semper fi, but the result occasionally works at cross-purposes.

Of course, The Rock looks the part, though with a headband and buckskin, he'd also look like Tonto on steroids.

Long, lumbering, pretentious and for some a possible laff riot. [23 Dec 1994]

Is this a comedy, action pic or sensitive Belushi-Harris romance? Director Rod Daniel never establishes a definitive tone, though he comes close in the scene where James Brown's I Feel Good hits the sound track after some canine fornication. You don't need a dog to smell this. [28 Apr 1989, p.4D]

The script is so bereft of real surprises that it's best to keep the lid on what few there are.

Flimsy little comedy unworthy of its portentous title.

It's an extravaganza worth seeing once -- and maybe later on DVD.

Boorman's troubles usually come from going over the top (atop Exorcist II, there's always Zardoz). But this is one of his few misfires that almost anyone would call tepid.

The satire is surprisingly tepid.

Hostage is really about sleek Bruce - buff, bald and clean-shaven - as he goes to town on two sets of assailants.

Though there's something mildly disarming about a movie this unpretentious, a few more like it might end up turning The Rock into a TV actor.

Tepidly tolerable to under-8s. [15 July 1994, p.5D]

The plunk-ing of a rap/disco soundtrack onto a movie about debtors' prisons and 18th century British highwaymen?

It's tough to think of another child-adult pairing in a long screen tradition with so little emotional kick.

Rodman is more fun to watch here than either co-star, given his array of earrings and nose rings, plus hair that changes color more frequently than the first lady changes her do.

Spike Lee deserved a vacation after putting himself through the grueling emotions of Clockers, but Girl 6 is too flimsy to excuse even as cinematic R&R. Frenetic but lazily conceived, it's like one of those puny low-budget toss-offs Brian De Palma used to spring on us when he thought nobody was looking. [22 Mar 1996, p.4D]

The civilized running time and breezy editing between scattershot plot threads keep the attention in a superficial way, and it would be misstating the case to deny that the movie has some chuckles (the kind that don't linger).

Mary Reilly, a perversely courageous disaster that audiences will simply hate. [23 Feb 1996]

Dead-carcass spinoff of Jay Ward's animated TV favorite.

Almost everyone in this has done better, and those who haven't, like young Ms. Panettiere, have plenty of time to do so.

Think of a B-grade "Bulworth" with lesser talents than A-listers Warren Beatty and Halle Berry.

The starship Enterprise is back, piloted for the first time (from behind the camera, that is) by William Shatner. Though he doesn't exactly parallel-park Star Trek V: The Final Frontier into a meteor, the journey is (at best) an amiably lazy Sunday drive. [9 June 1989, p.4D]

Superstars usually avoid movies this spiritless, and it's tough to believe anyone could read this script and fail to realize the movie wouldn't end up going anywhere.

Smith is looking more and more like a developing major talent, so it could be years until we get a handle on this movie's legacy. The film is not only defensible as a cute one-shot, but also as a positive sign for the future.

No masterpiece but undeniably heavy on laughs, the movie is put over by the buffed, lubricated dynamics of two leads who substantially transcend what is otherwise a borderline tepid dose of family values. [9 May 1997, p.13D]

The movie is so uninvolving that it inspires renewed respect for Broken Arrow, which was equally stupid but excitingly filmed. Though its sound effects will shake up your marrow, you can experience the same effect by plunking $ 100 worth of change into a rumbling bed at the nearest seedy motel. [2 Aug 1996]

It's asking a lot of audiences to spend nearly two hours with characters as screen-unfriendly as the ones played by Biggs and Ricci, though both actors (and especially Ricci) do what they're asked to do.

Murky, pretentious and torturously inert.

The movie tries to juggle motherly love sentiment with wanna-be snappy ripostes with a violent streak that extends to threatening a grade-schooler with blinding and busted kneecaps. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]

Frequent Disney scripter Tom Schulman won an Oscar for Dead Poets Society. His latest, Medicine Man, ought to be in the Dead Movies Society. [07 Feb 1992, p.5D]

Becomes a little more compelling as it progresses because Lisa Kudrow (as the straight-arrow first Mrs. Holmes, who halfway stood with him despite her disgust) ends up being surprisingly well cast. She engages in some very un-Friends-like fiery exchanges that also give Kilmer his best scenes.

Potty humor to spare. [26 July 1996, p. D4]

Dumas' perennial story demands stars of stature or wit - components missing from this candy-bar wrapper of a movie. [12 Nov 1993, p.4D]

Movies of this genre don't often engage fresh concepts, but you have to give Wong major points for dreaming up "tan-line flambé."

Older youngsters not threatened by PG-13 levels of intensity might pester Mom and Dad to let them see this cinematic fluff-head. For everyone else, it simply is what it is -- which, despite a budget that could feed Star Wars' Jabba the Hutt for life, isn't very much. [07Feb1997 Pg 04.D]

Even by King-movie standards (and there are none lower), the misanthropy, grotesque humor, and all-out ugliness is itself in maximum overdrive. [27 Aug 1993, p.3D]

Close your eyes during this miserable romantic comedy.

Tested my own love of the game more than anything since the time Roseanne screeched the national anthem.

Spotty and uneven, Wedding shouldn't even have the embarrassed guffaws it has, and it probably wouldn't were it not for a robust cast.

The film never makes total sense, but at its best (the first half-hour), it comes closer to solidly junky titillation than the hapless Final Analysis. [20 Mar 1992, Life, p.1D]

There's the germ of a sexy idea in True Colors, which serves up a duplicitous friendship, Capitol Hill intrigue and even attractive scenery (indoors and out). Too bad some folks have disinfected it. [15 Mar 1991, p.4D]

All this dreary movie has is a terrible whodunit payoff.

One hesitates to call David Cronenberg's movie of David Henry Hwang's Tony-winning play conventional or tame, but certainly it is zestless given a filmmaker whose last three outings have been "The Fly," "Dead Ringers" and "Naked Lunch." [01 Oct 1993]

The result is passably speedy on the level of other TV retreads that seem miscast on the big screen.

If grossness gives you the giggles, at least a couple of the movie's effects indeed put a little "wow" in this cinematic bowwow.

It gets wackier as it goes, starting with Charlie Sheen cast against type as a guy who's getting no sex and turns down the chance. Bebe Neuwirth has some funny scenes as a lush.

Drab as it is, the movie is not impossible to endure -- in part because the concept has a timeless appeal.

A minimally tolerable excuse to splice one or two perfunctory scenes between song cues.

A lot of this goes down surprisingly well, even if Panettiere, through no fault of her own, is saddled with phony precocious dialogue that makes her sound like an ancient sage.

Unless it becomes a camp classic, Cain will soon go the way of Abel. [07 Aug 1992, p.2D]

Kevin Smith shows up briefly as a lab technician in the miserable Daredevil, and that's a pity. This is a movie that desperately needs the presence of Smith's trademark sidekicks Jay and Silent Bob, with Smith as Bob, ragging worse than ever on his old pal Ben Affleck.

Can't stars attract better scripts than this?

Except for a nifty climactic biker attack on the Mississippi statehouse, you've seen the rest. You won't however, see Boz on screen for long. A Stone face, yes - but not a great one. [21 May 1991, p.4D]

Irredeemably dull. [13 Aug 2004]

If anything, Grant seems to be getting funnier, and he now has the ability to elevate material the way another Grant -- Cary -- did.

Even the special effects alone aren't worth the price of admission.

Dramatically empty Norse warrior adventure.

Let's just say that if you loved Dana Carvey in Opportunity Knocks, you'll thrill to Taking Care of Business. [17 Aug 1990]

You feel some of the strain in this immaculately shot, designed and costumed farce, but it's fast and the cast is lively, even though a lost-looking Broderick rarely gets to shoot his patented bewildered look.

Anything but cutting-edge. [28 Jul 2003]

For all his talent, Martin Short has been consistently snakebitten in his choice of movies, a streak now extended by Disney's Jungle2 Jungle. Worse, this laugh-numbing venom has been transfused to co-star Tim Allen, until now a consistently successful big bwana in movies and bookstores and on TV. [07 Mar 1997, p.4D]

If you can imagine a relatively solemn take on this theme, RoboCop 2 is it. Though Irvin Kershner's direction is competent, there's not a whole lot of eye-twinkling in evidence. [22 June 1990, p.2D]

Vincente Minnelli and Pat Boone didn't work together every day, which is only one of the factors here to titillate fanciers of oddball cinema. There's also a dreadful but thoroughly offbeat script (from George Axelrod's play) about a male screenwriter who's shot by a jealous husband, only to be reincarnated as a woman. [07 May 1999]

But purely as an exercise in style, this movie has its moments.

Hollywood, never one to let a retro idea die, has entrusted the premise to Carlo Carlei, a young Italian filmmaker whose stylistical flourishes in 1992's Flight of the Innocent seem doubly grotesque when employed toward such flea-laden material. [02 Jun 1995, p.2D]

The cycle thrills here are everything: flips, collisions, a chase across the top of a fast-moving train and even a zoom down the aisle of one of the train's cars as the passengers take it in stride.

Black Hawk turns nightmare into great cinema.

Based on a popular children's book by Chris Van Allsburg and directed by that "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" guy Joe Johnston, Jumanji is a calculated but very entertaining special effects extravaganza. [15Dec1995 Pg. 01.D]

And as nice as it is to see dishy Jennifer Connelly roller-skate down the store's aisles, the scene is just one more instance of obvious padding to push the running time to (just) past 80 minutes. [2 Apr 1991, p.6D]

Young directed under his preferred nom de plume (Bernard Shakey), and you'll either want to see this or you won't. Will it influence your decision to add that Devo - yes, Devo - plays nuclear power workers who glow? [01 Sep 1995, p.12D]

A potential howler done in by a tendency to wear too much body tissue on its sleeve.

Fans of the stars should be satisfied. Those allergic to car chases, casual killings and the phrase "Oh, s - - -!" may suffer hives. [7 April 1995, p.3D]

What we get is a tweaked variation on the litany of men-disguised-as-women comedies: "Some Like It Hot" and "Tootsie," just for starters. Obviously, this sassy farce sounds recycled and certainly appears to be in the coming attraction. Yet it's also funnier than expected in ways you wouldn't expect.

When the cast starts wondering where the roadkill is, someone says, "Follow the smell." Good tip: That's how you'll know where Wax is playing.

What it isn't ... is a particularly compelling contribution to the impressive and by now enormous collection of Holocaust movies.

You keep waiting for there to be more, but there never is -- other than the fact that it all gets gorier and uglier as the dyspeptic look on Jones' face progresses from a four- to a six-a-day scotch-and-peppermint schnapps hangover.

Except for one good recurring gag with a brakeless Cadillac, Fletch Lives is best when it's most offensive. What an unprecedented thing to say about a Chevy Chase movie - but it's true. Compared to much of the rest here, Chase's airplane nose-picking is pretty funny. [17 March 1989, p.4D]

Clumsy, miscast thriller.

This would be a lot more amusing if at least one street in town ran uphill; maybe it's generational, but does even Corey Feldman know what the title means? [11 Aug 1989, p.3D]

At least this movie has flashes of humor, thought nearly all come courtesy of Newman. [12 February 1999, Life, p.8E]

A movie that has neither dramatic focus nor a single memorable performance, aside from one or two that are memorable for the wrong reasons?

Action star Chow Yun-Fat's latest is as thin as the buzz cut he sports in Bulletproof Monk.

Ten minutes into the picture, you're searching the screen for life-support machines.

Double the Van Damme equals double the dopiness in the August dog-days exploitation pic Double Impact. And though it falls somewhat short of being double the pleasure/double the fun, the film is made for one of those round-the-clock theaters with Doublemint gum stuck to the floor. [09 Aug 1991, p.5D]

Broken Toys is beyond repair [18 Dec 1992, p.6D]

Whether we're talking this go-round, the original or the second sequel the finale seems to promise, I'd rather try standing drunk on a see-saw (though maybe not over dirty syringes) than see Saw.

At least director Dwight Little (Free Willy 2) gives us enough B-movie speed to keep Orchid from becoming a fountain of aging.

The movie's opening half-hour is merely dull, but the final hour is brain-damaging. [11 Dec 1998]

There's no buildup (hence, no suspense) and no combustion between the leads. Dillon and Young are both better than their reps, and Dearden orchestrated the sizzle between Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Something must have gone terribly awry here. [26 Apr 1991, p.4D]

There's so little action or suspense that this Cell isn't too likely to multiply itself into a sequel.

If you can't find a more scintillating brand of dirty to enjoy during your own nights (Helena or Hoboken), you're not trying very hard.

Has less substance and depth than its title.

Costner, allegedly smitten with his client, had more chemistry with the Warren Commission in JFK. [25 Nov 1992, p.1D]

Whatever reason Denzel Washington may have had for deigning to grace a melodrama as scummy as Virtuosity, the actor has wound up with something that is even worse than 1991's Ricochet in his otherwise creditable filmography. [4 Aug 1995, p.4D]

Judged strictly as a movie (especially a subliminally disturbing movie), Vertigo hasn't lost a thing. You watch this guy going slowly over the brink and realize, good grief, this is Jimmy Stewart. [Restored version; Oct 1996, p.3D]

The movie grows progressively more routine in quarter-hour increments, eventually collapsing under the weight of its own insignificance.

The new version has a few jolts, some occasionally effective smoke-and-mirrors photography and a lead (7th Heaven's Jessica Biel) who could teach a grad course on walking provocatively in blue jeans.

The trouble with indulging Taking Lives is that it's taking your time.

Appallingly mean-spirited.

Pulpy, fairly speedy but just the same old urban thing by its wrap-up.

When have we seen the same performer playing both parts in a sexual situation? It happens here, not once but twice.

With tangy Fisher equaling the leads in a sometimes scene-stealing role as Moore's mom, the actors emerge unscathed. Brosnan's part, in fact, is among the actor's most convincing non-Bond characters.

Almost nothing about Raising Helen rings very true, other than the camera's crush on Kate Hudson.

Stone is competent, if not commanding; as neighbor lovers, she and Baldwin have less chemistry than the Taster's Choice coffee couple. [21 May 1993, p.1D]

Sports-satire misfire. [31 July 1998, p. 2E]

At least 2 Fast is self-aware enough to know that it's trash, which is worth half a bonus point. Lack of pretension helps the viewer get over the fact that this is just another retread.

Navy SEALS no doubt fancies itself as being taken from today's headlines, but ''taken from the pages of a Chuck Norris script'' is more like it. [23 July 1990, p.2D]

Hurried, harried. [14 February 1997, pg.D4]

A mongrel of a movie.

Don't say you weren't warned. There are instant clues that this ill-timed Michael Douglas vehicle is a dually unfortunate viewing experience.

Transforming Clouseau's perennial nemesis into a more urbane smoothie, Kevin Kline delivers like a pro.

As an artsy but minimally bohemian type, Russo maintains her dignity, an extraordinary accomplishment.

Spaced Invaders (grave emphasis on the first ''d'') is the kind of kids' piffle Touchstone/ Disney turns out in its sleep once or twice a year. This time, slumber segues into a heavy coma, halfway into 102 criminally overlong minutes. [01 May 1990, p.4D]

Kris Kristofferson, as a scaled-down old gray mentor to Blade, still looks like the visual equivalent of your five worst college hangovers.

Likely one-week box office wonder.

Don't put yourself through this hell.

The movie gets a mild boost when her escape briefly takes it from just another crummy supernatural thriller into an OK escape melodrama, albeit one dependent on a whopper of an unlikely occurrence.

There's sad news to report about The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D: Put on the cardboard glasses, and you can still see the movie.

A hopeless if harmless boxing picture whose principals just happen to wear uniforms outside the ring, Annapolis is set in a U.S. Naval Academy where no one ever seems to attend class.

An enjoyably cast, superbly shot, jolt-generating device...It isn't art, but it'll crush your bones.

Truth be told, the movie isn't among the worst sequels of this summer.

Despite a cast and production that seem to promise one of the year's first movies of any note, Cool never translates its promo-photo flashiness into authenticity on screen.

When movies have degraded to the point that Tyson is acting more than Quentin Tarantino is directing, maybe it is time for an industry shutdown, strike-induced or otherwise.

This dispensable comedy has a few unexpectedly loopy surprises, including an outlandishly gay detective (played by versatile actor William Fichtner), who loves the Ice Capades but loathes insurance fraud.

You can't accuse this film of bogging down in cheap psychology, yet you come out dissatisfied and without a clue about what made this person tick.

At least this movie seems more aware of its trashiness than "National Treasure" was. It's therefore freer to have some off-the-cuff fun the way Steven Seagal's more tolerable vehicles once did.

Leaves a bad taste, not only because of its bad-luck timing, but also the staleness of its script.

Often livens up stale material with disarming loopiness and zest.

Though the picture falls apart whenever the two leads aren't on screen together, you can argue that That isn't that inferior to its predecessor.

Hip-hoppish Honey is in the harmlessly junky "let's put on a show" tradition of "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," minus electricity but with a budget for supporting-cast navel rings that 1984's break-dance sequel certainly didn't have.

The movie keeps switching focus without ever getting its bearings, and when Brando exits earlier than expected, there's little but mayhem to fall back on. Moreau and mayhem are synonymous, to be sure, but we already know this going in. [23 Aug 1996]

After "Chocolat" and this, how about a moratorium on candy-centered comedies?

A film dealing fully with Hoffman's final years might have had a lot more punch.

T&H isn't art, but it's surprisingly good ''arf'' - and I know what I like. [28 July 1989, p.5D]

A plot-twist whodunit that even Forrest Gump might crack, it's also a Hall of Fame howler from long-inactive Richard Rush, whose direction of 1967's Hell's Angels on Wheels now seems comparably placid. [19 Aug 1994, p.10D]

Though the movie is more mediocre than abysmal, Ryan's recently banged-up filmography (remember In the Cut) could use what every fighter needs at ringside: a good cut man to stop the bleeding.

Except for some climactic gunplay in a zoo that looks suspiciously like a set, every plot thread is a retread - 500 layers deep. [18 May 1990, p.4D]

Holmes, of Dawson's Creek, will be up the creek if she can't avoid movies like this. And so will you if you see it.

It's all fast and furious up to its draggy finale, and yes, it could spark a sequel. Prepare yourself for coming dread in 18 months: "A Man Together."

Prince blows it here by alternately reaching beyond his abilities and sabotaging what he does well. [06 Nov 1990, p.5D]

Each actor does his own thing for his own audience demographic.

The character played by lead Paul Giamatti is a dead-on Shyamalan protagonist: emotionally distanced and something of a train wreck.

The result is far from perfect, but to its many merits, add timing. You never get a movie with this kind of story in mid-August.

The desperately titled Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man takes place in 1996, an apparent ploy to sugarcoat a script that would be unswallowable set today. Of course, even if it were set in 3996, this film still would be one helluva tight cram down the old esophagus. [23 Aug 1991, p.4D]

Ultimately, it's just too long and redundant, too violent and unpleasant, too stupid and full of itself. But otherwise, lordy. [19 May 1989, p.4D]

Terry Gilliam's “12 Monkeys” can teach The Thirteenth Floor a little something about how to have fun with time travel. And with one number less. [28 May 1999, Life, p.7E]

Sarah Jessica Parker contributes next to nothing as a work/sack partner who ends up imperiled by a sadist fixated on Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. The director/co-writer is Rowdy Herrington, who has now surpassed what was his most ludicrous claim to fame: Putting Brian Dennehy into a boxing ring with teen James Marshall in Gladiator. [17 Sept 1993, p.4D]

Rambo III is hardly the first Stallone-y baloney to climax with a commie wipeout; it is the first to palm off its star as the product of a Buddhist monastery. Like, whew. Rambo in a monastery is almost as stomach-turning as E.T. in a brothel. [25 May 1988, p.1D]

You can have a better time title-scanning "Johnny" pics in an alphabetical video guide than you can enduring the latest Blade Runner knockoff. [26 May 1995, p.3D]

Friedkin's latest is good for a few jolts, but also too many unintentional yuks. [27 Apr 1990, p.1D]

Even at its best, the movie plays like a clip reel.

At least Van Damme parodies himself just enough to avoid an all-out battle of the blands . At least director Roland Emmerich slyly allows supermarket Muzak to play during Lundgren's one big emoting scene. [10 July 1992, p.5D]

Evil's one strong presence is lead Milla Jovovich -- and not because the script gives her supercop/soldier anything interesting to say.

There's not a cliché that isn't nailed.

Goo oozes without mercy in A Walk to Remember.

It has been said that no one sees a movie for the sets, yet an exception might be made here for Horizon's visually staggering production design -- truly an event itself. The story, though, is such a transparent variation on the Alien ouevre that your tolerance may hinge on how much you can shrug this off. [15Aug1997 Pg03.D]

If Costner's clout gets this 124-minute snooze even three weeks of business, dust off the Tom Cruise Cocktail award. [16 Feb 1990, p.4D]

More amusing than a lot of expensive Hollywood comedies [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

The lark-ish Perfect Score is on the high side of the time-killer it sounds like.

What do you call a filmmaker who thinks imitating a screen benchmark can make up for emotions that are evading her actors -- Clueless.

Anyone who pays to see it will certainly feel as if he has been clipped.

Waterlogged trip to nowhere. [13 February 1998, p. 3D]

Plays a little like a pacifistic variation on Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon."

I cry for I Spy— or I would if this latest and laziest imaginable of all vintage-TV spinoffs were capable of engendering an emotional response of any kind. Comas are physical, not emotional.

You can feel the movie going wrong in the first scene.

Sporadically amusing but sometimes slogging.

Clumsy urban thriller.

A Disney Thanksgiving movie that plays like a Halloween holdover is odd enough. Even so, it wouldn't be that bad if you stuck your hand into the trick-or-treat bag and found a hefty, succulently dressed and edible turkey instead of the other kind.

The film is funnier off court than sizzling on it, the preferred balance in a broad farce that's only in it for the laughs. Irrelevant to real life but performed with enough gusto to justify somebody's 91 minutes, it at least allows the actors to hold their heads up. Not with pride, but not with shame, either. [19 Apr 1996]

A little soon for any movie this millennium to reunite overacting Matthew Lillard, underacting Freddie Prinze Jr., feigning mousy Linda Cardellini and the more obviously lip-glossy Sarah Michelle Gellar.

For a big-screen disposable, Doom has a few jolts, a few good laughs and an attractive female lead to whom you want to say, "What's a nice girl like you doing on a Mars like this?"

Give Dozen a slight edge to the mournful "Yours, Mine & Ours" as a holiday season bottom-feeder, because Martin and Levy are better at slapstick than Dennis Quaid.

A bottom-rung Bette Midler vehicle disguised as a biopic of novelist Jacqueline Susann, the movie is a wannabe satire shackled by misplaced reverence.

The tepid result is like "Courage Under Fire" without the compelling Meg Ryan angle, or Travolta's 1999 "The General's Daughter" without the sexual squalor. It all feels a little moldy.

Actor John Corbett, so clean-cut in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Raising Helen," goes surprisingly scruffy here as someone who apparently studied music under Grizzly Adams.

Imagine a movie so broadly conceived that it was written, directed and all parts were played by Charo — billed in her '70s heyday of Love Boat gigs as the "Cuchi-Cuchi Girl." That's what you get here.

David Mamet handled such small-town whimsy better in 2000's "State and Main." Hackman could play his role in his sleep, but Romano IS asleep. Result: Welcome to Mildport, and that's being kind.

Imagine viewing Men in Black through the fog of a brain-embalming hangover and you won't have to buy a ticket to this piece of space junk. [12 Feb 1999, p.8E]

This is an amusing vehicle for Gibson. At least this time, the bird doesn't fall off the wire. [10 Aug 1990]

Kid's tone is off 100% of the time. The young actors are irredeemably bland, and two of the adults (Michael Des Barres' bank president, James LeGros' Storm Trooper-like security guard) are hammy enough to make James Brown seem controlled.

It's one bad apple.

The only good thing about Impostor is the appropriateness of its title for a film posing as the first 2002 release.

A contrived, unpleasant and very drawn-out affair.

Don't buy a ticket for this one, even if the theater is having a fire sale on Raisinets.

No comedy this vile should be brazenly foolish enough to give itself this title. [25 November 1998, p. 3D]

In Roy Orbison terms, enduring this movie is like working for The Man.

It's for people who have always wanted to see Willie Nelson ("Uncle Jesse") lob Molotov cocktails on a freeway and smoke weed with Joe Don Baker, who plays Georgia's governor.

Jade recalls Sliver (even before its fizzled finale) by reuniting Eszterhas with producer Robert Evans, the faded genius and ill-pegged comeback producer who fared better with last year's lively autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture. Judging from his last two movies, the aging kid stays on the D-list, too.

Desperate Hours is a monumentally awful take on The Desperate Hours, a '50s best-seller/stage hit, later Humphrey Bogart's movie-gangster swan song. [05 Oct 1990, p.4D]

As far as acting goes, neither Olsen is ready for Euripides' Medea, yet each projects well enough in their shared big scene.

The tone is consistent, but consistently uneventful. [06 May 1994]

Trashy and disturbingly violent yet fairly zippy and amusingly cast.

The movie goes wrong from the start.

This remake is shorter than its predecessors, a welcome earthly reward.

This unbearable cross-generational fantasy, with Coreys Haim and Feldman, has one bit that sums up its overall ineptitude. It's a romantic interlude featuring the great Sinatra standard Young at Heart; instead of the 1954 hit version on Capitol, the filmmakers use the 1962 Reprise remake - photographed on a revolving turntable (and with the wrong label) as a 78! A 78 in the era of Gene Pitney? - what preschool did the filmmakers graduate from, anyway? [8 Sept 1989, p.3D]

So much luck is pressed with an absurdly overblown finale that 60 seconds will likely be Swordfish's shelf life after a couple of noisy opening weekends.

The skiing scenes are lively enough, and one avalanche scene is even better - but cliches, overlength and jarring lapses in continuity mean that Barbra Streisand needn't spearhead a boycott of this Aspen. It can clear theaters all by itself. [25 Jan 1993, p.2D]

De Niro's scowl and Murphy's sass are inherently funny, though in this case both actors are forced to call in moviegoers' long-established goodwill.

A pitiful update that saddles poor Cedric the Entertainer with the unenviable task of taking over Jackie Gleason's premier creation, Ralph Kramden.

Only the makers of "Freddy Got Fingered" might crack a smile because it now has competition for worst movie of the year.

Poor Rutger Hauer - the new decade apparently isn't his. This hearty trouper's latest, Blind Fury, is nobody's swell time at the multiplex. [30 Mar 1990, p.5D]

Life is a crock -- or something like it.

Fire Birds may actually be duller than Clint Eastwood's Firefox. It's doing a full-tilt boogie to 3 a.m. cable right now. [25 May 1990, p.4D]

While compellingly watchable, it's as overheated as Cage-the-actor's 1991 soft-core (and direct-to-video) "Zandalee," also set in New Orleans.

The picture is all Lawrence and Zahn, whose dynamics get something going, though not enough (please!) to spark a buddy sequel.

Remarkably, the plot has much in common with "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," yet that bundle of fun has enough vision to make even its Barry Manilow interlude seem appropriate.

Slap Happy. [16 February 1996, p.D4]

Bulletproof is both offensive and depressing, from its sociopathic mix of graphic violence and slapstick to its severe career blighting of the once-formidable Ernest Dickerson. [6 Sept 1996, p.3D]

Low on Diesel fuel, though probably amusing enough if you're part of the intended demographic, which appears to be the age group that likes to stick fingers up noses.

The murkiest-looking movie since Ben Affleck's “Daredevil” and about as lacking in charm.

You don't envy the three soldiers who get shot for desertion, but you do identify with their desire to flee.

If you're going because you want to see an entertaining horror movie, good luck.

Geared to 16-year-olds who can't name the governor of their state, this movie ought to be closed down by the health department.

Unpleasantness alone doesn't sink a movie. But miserable tidings intensify when there's not only a high ick factor but also floundering storytelling.

One of those movies that goes for a jarringly new emotion every 30 seconds or so while the story's foundation is collapsing.

This 140-minute I-don't-know-what-it-is unravels like a ball of yarn after a bout with a tiger on Colombian catnip. Lee exhaust me.

The latest entry in the cottage industry launched by 1980's Airplane! oozes diminishing returns. [5 Feb 1993, p.5D]

Too distinctive-looking to dismiss out of hand, but it would help to be able to look through a magic viewfinder (or maybe magic eraser) and make its script disappear.

Anyone who sees this movie is going to be 20 minutes ahead of it, though there won't be that many after Weekend 1. With domestic disturbances, someone calls the cops. With this DOA, someone had better call the coroner.

Far from being a run-of-the-mill slasher pic.

A race-car drama full of flashy but empty images and a soundtrack that makes you feel as if you're being shaken on a motel rumblebed.

Enough low-grade laughs to entertain significantly more than some of the more prestigious year-end releases.

No abomination but forgettably mediocre. [19 March 1999, Life, p. 13E]

Drawn out and dishonest in equal measure, Sam fights it out with "The Majestic" for the title of worst "important" movie of the year.

It'll be 30 years this Thanksgiving since Elvis starred in Blue Hawaii. Polynesian kissy-face has been going downhill on screens ever since. [02 Aug 1991, p.5D]

What do you have to smoke to understand this?

At least the models' avarice and teasing provide a chuckle or two, as their dates line up panting at the door. Purely by default, their contribution makes this a slightly better working-woman romance than "The Wedding Planner."

You do get conscientious Hanks' miscast floundering (it's not pretty); Bruce Willis' lazy performance (it's beyond miscasting) as a hack journalist; showoff camera pyrotechnics; the thudding of dialogue that was hysterically funny in the book; an appallingly wrongheaded ending (even to non-readers); and the most numbingly needless and stupid off-screen narration yet. [21 Dec 1990, p.1D]

Underdrawn and overheated, Cool World will leave you cold. [13 Jul 1992]

If this is Dumas, there's a "b" in the middle and an extra "s" at the end.

The story keeps reinventing itself (some of the later plot twists are among the funniest), but a little goes a long way at 112 minutes - maybe 25 minutes more than this sporadically pointed conceit really needs.

Hollywood's oddest movie in a while, which means that however insignificant this primer in flight-attendant training is, causing boredom isn't one of its transgressions.

This is by far Kaufman's worst outing since becoming a major filmmaker more than a quarter-century ago, and the fact that his only other stinker from this period is 1993's "Rising Sun" means that maybe he ought to stay away from cop melodramas.

Eventually evolves into a murder mystery that isn't very compelling.

The movie's biggest drawback is a failure to deliver what's promised.

It saves its clunkiest scene for the finale. No fair telling, but the key words are "political," "propaganda," "outdoors" and "orphans."

Earth to Earth's young director, Mark Piznarksi : It's tough turning straw into gold, isn't it?

Fred is DOA, but he and the Diceman will kick up a storm at December's 10- worst time. [24 May 1991, p.7D]

Desperately conceived by even the most insipid standards of contemporary teen-queen cinema, A Cinderella Story operates under a rotting pumpkin of a supposition.

When the most notable thing a film offers is the sight of Dennis Farina in drag, you can't expect much.

MTV addicts may want to check out Shore, whose sound effects (akin to electrical interference) amuse for maybe five minutes. Otherwise, Encino Man is even worse than Medicine Man, which came from the same studio. In a just society, both of them would go the way of Atlantis Man. [22 May 1992, p.12D]

Put an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of word processors, and one of them may indeed write War and Peace, as the old theory goes. But more likely, they'll come up with something like David Mickey Evans' screenplay for Ed. [15 Mar 1996, p.5D]

Gere has never seemed more squirrelly.

Destined to be on DVD by the time 2004 reaches the 50-yard line, Ten is more stale than it is ungodly.

As in "Arachnophobia", director Frank Marshall can't decide whether he's making a thriller or a laff-it-up lark. [09 Jun 1995, Pg.03.D]

If Sandler felt compelled to take on a role immortalized by Gary Cooper, at least it wasn't as "Sergeant York," "Lou Gehrig" or the sheriff in "High Noon."

But this isn't Diceman's feat of clay. Instead, Ford Fairlane runs fairly well on high-octane silliness. [11 Jul 1990, p.4D]

An air of self-congratulation hangs over the empty tank of gas called Jawbreaker, as if writer-director Darren Stein just can't wait to dazzle us with the gaudy visuals he's soldered onto a standard-issue black-comedy script.

This isn't the worst movie Warner Bros. has brought out this summer (Scooby-Doo, boo on you), but for it to work, you have to accept the irredeemable stupidity of almost every character. Time better spent: a Shaquille O'Neal film festival on video.

The filmmakers, who include the hitherto ace action director Jan De Bont ("Speed", "Twister"), have neither hearts nor minds in gear. [13Jun1997 Pg.04.D]

For such a clumsy and (I'll bet) likely-to-be-panned comedy, Her Alibi has its moments - more, certainly, than its painfully silly trailer suggests. [3 Feb 1989, p.4D]

Vanilla Ice was fairly amusing striking terror into Debbie Gibson when they were perversely cast as co-presenters on the last Grammy telecast. On the big screen, though, he all but exudes irreversible brain damage, as if he's taken too many noggin spills off a motorcycle. [25 Oct 1991, p.4D]

This unearthed cheapie and fast-forwarder's delight is redeemed by the dubbed- in cathedral tones (they're vintage gladiator pic) coming from our hero's larnyx. [20 Dec 1991, p.3D]

Another 48 HRS. doesn't offer a whole lot beyond Eddie Murphy, Nick Nolte, and Walter Hill's action-scene flair, but are you telling me the first 48 HRS. did? Bottom line: Eddie-Nick enthusiasts and Paramount accountants won't cry 96 tears. [8 Jun 1990, p.1D]

Anything goes, though director Ronny Yu keeps the idiocy on a fast pace.

Burdened with so many poky scenes that it approaches the level of the distributor's "Drowning Mona" and "Whipped," both candidates for the year's worst.

Steven Seagal's acting style is so minimal that we can almost believe a script that tells us that his character's near-death experience left him flatlined for 22 minutes.

Myopic Whitey, continually passed over for a lifetime achievement athletic award, bears a passing resemblance to Columbia's all-time No. 1 animated star, the nearsighted Mr. Magoo. It's nice to think that if he ever went to this movie, he wouldn't be able to see it.

It's just too soon after those silly talking dinosaurs to put up with any movie about a talking horse.

This Paramount release doubles the insult because it rips off the title of one of the studio's best-remembered Jerry Lewis comedies.

OK, Time Warner, a joke is a joke, but the time of tolerance has passed. Get your creatures out of our faces unless you're willing to regale us by afflicting them with Mad Pokémon Disease.

Suspense takes a vacation in sequel. [13 November 1998, p. 6E]

The two m's in 8MM could stand for "messy melodrama." [26 February 1999, Life, p.5E]

Even if this movie wasn't based on a computer game, Starship Troopers' reputation would still have just shot up another 50 notches. [19 March 1999, Life, p.11E]

An odd mix of seediness, sideburns and even scorpions, the movie nearly matches the Lisa Marie-Michael Jackson marriage for weirdness.

Icky and incompetent (special effects aside) in equal parts, this groaner makes 1994's "The Mask" look like something you'd study in a film graduate course at NYU.

Didn't work this time, David. Maybe next season.

Structured loosely enough to work in all the excrement and incest jokes necessary to seem hip these days.

The movie is so silly I found myself snickering a couple of times, just before slumping down in my seat in mortified embarrassment.

That sound you hear is from jet engines gassing up, about to zoom Underclassman to DVD-ville.

None of this is erotic, but it is pretty silly. Silly enough to make this the low point of the movie year so far. [30 Apr 1990, p.1D]

This is a movie in which you rarely know where you are or who's doing what to the next person.

A few chuckles will be had by both the rabble and more learned brains.

The only thing a movie this unrefined needs is a vaudevillian in baggy pants and someone hawking peanuts in the aisle.

The movie is an insult to the intelligence of the entire human race.

Clean up the language, and this little roach of a movie could play the bottom half of a double bill with Rowan and Martin's “The Maltese Bippy.” [26 March 1999, Life, p.9E]

I don't mind that Nights is a potty-mouth benchmark; crude verbiage is appropriate to the leads, as well as the film's subject matter. This is, however, an amazingly mean two hours. Even the funniest gag involves Murphy's fatal shooting of three men. [17 Nov 1989, p.6D]

Jumps at chance to be silly.

This is 90 minutes of gags of the lowest order, yet Poirier occasionally injects them with more energy than anything in "Heartbreakers."

With its long takes and a talky script involving an influx of revolving-door eccentrics, Nuts has the feel of a badly filmed play - akin to, say, any 12 of the worst Neil Simon screen adaptations. [21 Dec 1994, p.6D]

The word on Rollerball is "troubled," though troubled is what you call a high school junior with 50 snakes under his bed. Catastrophe is more like it.

To crystallize its fundamental flaw, here's a movie about Manhattan that takes 75 minutes just to get to Manhattan - followed by another 15 that could just as easily have been shot (and possibly were) in some East Topeka alley. [31 July 1989, p.4D]

There are laughs here, but easily as many groans.