Rene Rodriguez

Mr. Jones is an even bigger disappointment when you consider it's directed by Mike Figgis (Internal Affairs, Liebestraum), who has shown talent for off-kilter thrillers. Saddled with a routine and unimaginative script here, he indulges in well-worn cliches, including setting his big scene between Gere and Olin against a thunderstorm (which inadvertently drowns out part of Olin's dialogue). [9 Oct 1993, p.G4]

The genius of a feature film based on the 1980s TV series is that it can't help but exceed expectations that are so low to begin with.

It's a strange kind of spiritual movie -- one that aims for the gut more often than the heart.

The results, for the most part, aren't pretty. The newly expanded Balseros, which adds an hour of footage to the previous film, is an even more compelling, if grimmer, work than the original.

A late-summer delight, a sleek, handsomely made bauble buoyed by a cast much stronger than the flimsy material deserves.

You need lots of gifted people chasing after the same bad idea to make a movie as colossally misguided as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

If any of this screams "cheap Generation X marketing ploy," you're right on the money. [31 March 1995, p.5G]

Even the women in Festival in Cannes feel more like sketches than fully realized people -- the aging actress, the naive hopeful, the newly minted starlet -- leaving you nothing but the showbiz satire to chew on.

What ensues is an uneasy mix of farcical slapstick and comedy of errors with a violent, blood-soaked tale of inner-city crime.

But we must admit, if a bit shamefully, that we laughed heartily during big chunks of Tommy Boy, thanks primarily to Farley. The charismatic oaf is at his best on SNL when playing eager-to-please dolts blissfully unaware of their utter incompetence and stupidity, and that's what Farley is here. And he runs with it. [31 Mar 1995, p.4G]

It's the smartest stupid movie of the summer. [5 Aug 1994, p.G5]

She's Out of My League essentially plays its central premise straight, although the film does find time to veer into gross-out humor.

The movie is all surface and trades on fortune-cookie wisdom.

Forget all that accuracy business and just enjoy the movie for what it is: a large-scale, passably engrossing tale of valiant knights doing valiant deeds.

It might have all seemed hip and edgy 10 years ago, but today, it just feels tired.

Musical Chairs is about overcoming impossible odds and never giving up and chasing your dreams – all that afterschool-special stuff - but it's also charming and upbeat, and it's stuffed with great, vibrant, insanely catchy music. No Bee Gees, though.

At heart, The Ghost and the Darkness is essentially Jaws with paws -- at one point, you can see the lions' silhouettes circling under a sea of roiling dry grass. It has all the requisite elements for a sweeping, old-fashioned jungle adventure -- except the adventure. [11 Oct 1996, p.6G]

This laborious, talky, fleetingly engaging, ultimately silly picture is about as good a movie as anyone was ever going to wring from Dan Brown's inescapable bestseller.

There's a mean little Hollywood satire squirreled away within Hollywood Ending, but you have to look hard to find it.

It's all rote, sleep-inducing formula, but it might have still worked if the movie weren't so timid and unimaginative.

Where "Seven" seemed to radiate diabolical evil, Saw just radiates idiocy.

The dullest, clunkiest, big-budget fantasy since Steven Spielberg flattened Peter Pan in "Hook."

Project X is an astounding, superlative movie about adolescence - a brutal, unapologetic comedy about the fantasy every high school kid carries around in his head about being popular and cool and beloved.

Too bad, though, that whenever the characters stand still to talk, Knight and Day induces stupor in the viewer.

Once in a while, A Good Man in Africa hits that elusive sweet spot between serious drama and lighthearted comedy, serving at once as a satire of political corruption, a drama about personal integrity and a comedy about carnal lust and culture clash. Most of the film, though, is a mishmash of conflicting tones, veering from one emotional extreme to another so clumsily, it's impossible to keep up. [09 Sep 1994, p.G5]

Misses out on just about everything that made the original work, most notably Falk and Arkin, whose odd-couple pairing was the foundation on which the entire movie rested.

It's whenever the music stops that the movie runs into trouble.

It's even better as a love story that just happens to make you laugh.

The movie moves at a relentless clip, and the characters react intelligently enough to their situation to make it crackling good entertainment -- with bite. [15 Oct 1993, p.G5]

The movie earns its R-rating with some graphic (and hilarious) sex scenes and a torrent of four-letter words, but this is a much more sophisticated enterprise than a mere gross-out comedy.

This is easily Bay’s best movie, the work of a filmmaker with a cracked sense of humor that he is able to share with the audience.

The Little Rascals is nowhere near as annoying as it could have been -- you will actually catch yourself laughing in spots -- and the tykes will love it. [05 Aug 1994, p.G5]

Straw Dogs is an artful provocation - a meditation on masculinity and societal mores in the guise of an explosive thriller.

Inadvertently does with the civil rights movement exactly what Banderas set out not to do: trivializes it.

There's a terrible beauty to the work of Larry Clark, the controversial photographer turned filmmaker, that transcends chic nihilism.

A crackling crime drama assembled from a scrap heap of hoary cliches, Takers proves that everything old can sometimes really be new again.

What makes Whatever Works so enjoyable, aside from the unusually high number of effective one-liners the script contains (this is Allen's funniest movie since Mighty Aphrodite), are its supporting characters.

Everything about this excruciatingly dull, talky film screams made-for-network-TV: The I'm-only-here-for-a-paycheck performances by famous actors; the Crate and Barrel catalog mise-en-scene; the syrupy, heartwarming score that lays the pathos on so thickly you gag on it.

Awfully amiable and dull. Instead of honoring musical gods, the film seems to think Pat Boone was headlining.

Impossible to watch passively. It may be a work of pure fiction, with the requisite preposterous plot turns, but it still has the air of a ''what if?'' scenario, and it is perfectly, thoroughly chilling.

A hostage drama without any tension. It is a love story without any heat. It is as curiously empty a movie as we've seen all year.

There's no question The Invasion works in a mechanical, by-the-numbers manner. But it's what the movie leaves you with -- absolutely nothing -- that is the scariest thing about it.

Even within the context of the superhero universe, the Silver Surfer initially makes for -- let's face it -- a somewhat silly-looking creation.

Part 1 does something that no other previous Twilight movie had achieved: This one draws you close and keeps you there.

Although a happy ending is preordained, at least Joe Forte's script takes the less-obvious route there.

The kind of movie that rockets so far beyond the line of credibility and so deeply into the realm of utter stupidity, you start to wonder if the filmmakers aren't putting you on.

Makes for a compelling comedy-drama about family ties. It's only when the cancer takes center stage that the movie feels like a wash.

The performances are shaky, rendering Latter Days as a movie that you've seen before, and done better, too.

It's a redundant comedy, like hearing the same tired joke for the 100th time.

Even the most forgiving moviegoer will recognize this movie as the blatant cash-grab that it is.

Despite all the freaky business on display - and there are moments here when you cannot believe your eyes - The Paperboy suffocates you with boredom like a hot, wet blanket. You want to push it away and escape. It makes sleaze boring.

But most of Sniper is a bore. The details of their assignment are never spelled out, the middle of the film sags, and, in any case, it's hard to work up much enthusiasm for these snipers, heroic though their mission may be. In the movies, heroes must be larger than life: There's just not much excitement watching two guys hide in a bush, waiting for a clear shot. [3 Feb 1993, p.3]

It's lifted from pretty much every movie or TV show you've ever seen about police corruption, only not done as well.

Like its predecessors, Tokyo Drift suffers from a terminal lack of levity.

It's an uncommonly optimistic meditation on death and lament, befitting a filmmaker whose movies (Jerry Maguire, Singles, Say Anything), no matter their subject matter, always double as a celebration of life.

An involving, sweetly touching love story, buoyed by Crowe's natural, poetic dialogue and his knack for writing characters (especially women) who feel like real people instead of plot devices.

Despite the actors' admirable efforts, everyone in The Door in the Floor is too affected, too fancifully written, to come off as anything other than conceits.

There's nothing here that hasn't been done before, and better, in any given "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" sequel.

A funny and constantly surprising exercise in comic tension.

It's the summer's most avant-garde experiment, and those who hate it (and there will be plenty) will complain the movie doesn't have a point. Then again, neither did Seinfeld, and look how that turned out.

Disappointingly straightforward remake.

In Country Strong, the Oscar-winning Paltrow gets upstaged and outacted by the kid from "Tron" and the snotty brat from "Gossip Girl." Who'd have thought?

Jason Statham gives the best performance. Dolph Lundgren gets the best character arc. Terry Crews gets the best gun. Jet Li gets the best kill (you'll know it when you see it).Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the best cameo. And Sylvester Stallone? He gets the blame.

A compendium of missed opportunities, uninspired action and clichés so tired, you wish the screenwriters had called 911, too.

It's bottom-feeder entertainment wrapped up in high-minded airs.

The good news about The Scorpion King is that The Rock turns out to be a charismatic, ingratiating screen presence.

Oz the Great and Powerful is an oppressive, bloated bore.

The things that stay with you are the dull, boilerplate love story, the laziest performance of Liam Neeson’s career as a murderous gunslinger and the distracting amount of makeup Seth MacFarlane sports in the film.

Last Man Standing is utterly bereft of humor -- Hill plays every scene perfectly straight -- and it's a drag. There's no cleverness to Smith's machinations, no joy in watching his plans come to fruition. [20 Sep 1996, p.6G]

A devilish little comedy whose urbane, satirical humor will probably sail right over the heads of audiences weaned on Scream.

With all the obvious work that went into this beautifully detailed, giant-scale movie, and considering the historical importance of the subject matter, was it too much to ask for a trace of intelligence, or maturity, or even insight?

It's pretty stupid, although it's never exactly boring.

In the sequel, Weitz lays on a pop song and slow-motion during a critical scene involving the sudden reappearance of a fearsome villain, giving everything an MTV-slick, teen-friendly gloss and reminding you this is just a movie -- a somewhat silly and hollow one.

The movie is quick and breezy for its first half-hour, then seems to grind down to a deadened pace: The actors' routines lose their freshness, and the nonexistent story line becomes apparent. The jokes get worse, too. Fortunately, at 80 minutes, the film is too brief to drag. [21 April 1992, p.E7]

The Legend of Tarzan doles out big beats of action at regular intervals to keep you awake, like a drunkard clashing trashcan lids in an alley late at night. But your eyelids grow heavy anyway.

No, it’s not all that sophisticated. But compared to glib junk like Zoolander 2, The Brothers Grimsby is practically high art. Unlike Ben Stiller, at least Cohen is trying.

The fact that Innocent Blood works so well comes as a surprise, since Landis (Oscar, Spies Like Us) hasn't made a satisfying movie in years. But this second foray into the comedy-horror genre seems to have revitalized him: At times, Blood rises to the level of some of Landis' funniest stuff, including Trading Places and Animal House. [25 Sept 1992, p.G5]

You know this supposedly risqué comedy is in trouble when the funniest gag involves a foot cramp during sex.

It's blunt, to the point, aggressively manipulative and, at 86 minutes, not a minute longer than it needs to be.

The plot in Angels in the Outfield plods some, enough to make younger kids fidget. Once the premise is established, the movie relies on a noisome reporter threatening to expose the celestial help to add suspense. The humor is aimed squarely at kiddies and is of the nerdy-guy-sits-on-a-tray-of-nachos variety. [15 July 1994, p.G4]

The movie, while no big deal, makes for much more entertaining viewing than other highly touted vehicles currently fighting for your moviegoing dollars. [25 Apr 1994, p.C2]

This genial, lyrical little movie seems guaranteed to broaden Kitano's fan base in the United States.

The experience of watching Funny Games, be it the original or this version, is never forgotten, whatever your ultimate impression of the film.

The Ruins is, with one major caveat, about as good an adaptation of Scott Smith's bestselling novel as Hollywood was ever going to make.

I could tell you what Double Team is about, but life is short. Instead, I'll tell you that Van Damme and Rodman play the good guys, and that they trade lines like "You're crazier than my hairstylist!" and "You look like a carrot with earrings!" [5 Apr 1997, p.1G]

For a good hour or so, The Raven is gruesome, ludicrous fun. Then it's just ludicrous.

A severe bout of sequelitis afflicts this eagerly awaited but only sporadically amusing follow-up.

At least The Game Plan does have Johnson, whose innate charisma will make it easier for adult viewers to endure the film without ruing the decision to make a family outing to the multiplex.

Terrifyingly dull movie.

This huge, unwieldy movie is busy and overcrowded.

I will tell you what The Village is not: It is not scary. It is not all that interesting. It isn't even much of a movie.

Jobs works much better as a history of Apple than it does as a portrait of the genius who dreamed it up.

Looks exquisite, but don't bother digging deeper.

For the farce it so desperately wants to be, the film often feels slack and too reliant on so-so punch lines for laughs.

Killer Elite is too formulaic to overcome a been-there, done-that feel.

At least LaBeouf makes for a likable hero. He's got the same kind of easy, natural charisma as Will Smith -- who, come to think of it, starred in another techno-paranoia thriller, "Enemy of the State," that Eagle Eye strongly resembles.

This is pure Disaster 101 formula, although distilled to the minimum amount of dialogue and characters possible.

So superficial and formulaic that even Garner's mega-watt grin can't completely save it.

Surprisingly enjoyable.

It's an unabashedly square picture, and proud of it. It is also a warm, funny, earnest movie, a stand-up exercise in a kind of Hollywood melodrama -- the feel-good weepie -- that has long been out of fashion.

Considering the talent involved, Fathers' Day comes off as a whopping disappointment. Williams and Crystal are a good team: You just wouldn't know it by watching them here. [9 May 1997, p.4G]

Chain Reaction has the unenviable hurdle of following up a summer load of action flicks, but this one would have felt like a dog in May. When Lily sees Eddie wrestling with the controls of an airboat and asks "What are you doing?" he yells back "The best I can!" Keanu, you could have done a lot better. [2 Aug 1996, p.5G]

Doesn't make much sense on a story level, and it has a cheap, slapdash look that indicates no one behind the camera was interested in anything other than another fat payday.

A pastiche so derivative and pointless, it leaves you wishing Allen had not bothered.

Always a joy to look at -- and even if the story isn't half as profound as the filmmakers think it is.

Medicine Man is an adventure story with a message: We must save the Amazon rain forest. It's certainly a noble cause, filmmakers forgot to make their movie any fun. [08 Feb 1992, p.E6]

Often feels choppy, as if chunks of connecting narrative had been lopped off in the editing room.

Although the picture is nominally the story of a man with a murderous temper, it is less a thriller than a metaphor for the plight of illegal immigrants.

Johnston fails to make a story set in 1891 England relevant to contemporary audiences.

Most certainly a personal work -- so personal, in fact, that I can't imagine anyone but Coppola being able to sit through it.

A slight, not entirely engaging mystery with slight overtones about the dangers of racial profiling that, unlike "Clockers," treats its urban-plight theme as a backdrop, instead of its main subject.

A welcome antidote to the depressing, feel-bad sadism of recent horror hits like Hostel and Saw II, Final Destination 3 puts the fun back in watching stupid people die Rube Goldberg-elaborate, ridiculously gory deaths.

The screenplay by W.D. Richter (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) turns Needful Things into a pitch-black comedy -- a rather lifeless one, unfortunately. There are more laughs than scares, though the movie still carries a creepy undercurrent of nastiness that pops up periodically, to great effect. [27 Aug 1993, p.G5]

Exactly the formulaic, by-the-numbers movie it appears to be. These Tigers deserved better.

The real love affair in For Love of the Game is between Costner and himself.

Best of all, though, is Seann William Scott as the profoundly annoying, profoundly vulgar Stifler.

The finished film has been tinkered with and tweaked so thoroughly that it borders on the incomprehensible.

The first Hollywood horror flick I've seen that seems like it was made specifically for 12-year-olds.

Great actors can do more than carry a movie on the strength of their performances: They can also elevate it to a height it does not necessarily merit, and for much of In the Valley of Elah, Tommy Lee Jones does exactly that.

By turning Brooklyn's Finest into a morality tale, Fuqua lets the movie slip right through his undeniably talented fingers.

Another joyless, brain-numbing adventure through lackluster Indiana Jones territory.

Taxes the patience of even the most willing viewer with its sheer nonsense: It's distractingly illogical.

The result is almost suffocating: a movie that has been tinkered and fussed with until there is no spontaneity left -- no warmth or life or messiness.

Most of Wells' details are there, and so is the basic premise, but the soul of the thing -- the point -- is missing.

For all its ambition, Daredevil can't overcome the fact that at its colorful center lies a perfect blank in a bad suit.

Transcendence is "Her" for dummies.

Director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) re-creates 19th-Century Paris beautifully, and poetry scholars might find the movie worthwhile strictly for its subject matter, but Total Eclipse comes off as a big downer that confuses dreariness with substance. [03 Nov 1995, p.6G]

So thunderously unfunny...There is no reason for an 82-minute movie to feel so very, very long.

Does King's tale play a part in the film at all? Kind of; half of it is there, but they've left out the really scary images from the story. The only thing The Lawnmower Man accomplishes is to remind you how boring it is to watch someone else play a video game. If they ever start marketing this virtual reality stuff, however, someone's going to get very rich. [9 Mar 1992, p.C4]

The whole enterprise sags and wheezes like the tired, we're-in-this-strictly-for-the-money sequel it really is.

A grand, eye-popping film, a beautifully photographed epic with the depth of a Bugs Bunny Cartoon.

As much as I laughed throughout the movie, I cannot mount a cogent defense of the film as entertainment, or even performance art, although the movie does leave you marveling at these guys' superhuman capacity to withstand pain. Compared to these jackasses, Vin Diesel is a big, overpaid wuss.

The lack of imagination in Stargate is distressing. Who would agree to fund such an expensive project based on such a perfunctory and dull script? All the creativity here has been spent on nice costumes and some cool morphing Anubis headgear. The story is so cliched it's laughable. [28 Oct 1994, p.G6]

The picture is perfectly watchable but rarely compelling, because the filmmakers are too timid to take any chances.

Isn't so much bad as it is puny: a sporadically amusing, occasionally funny, but ultimately bland and pointless time killer.

Fox has that same spark about him early on here, but as For Love or Money grows more and more conventional, you can see him coast right through the thing. He looks bored, and since the proceedings depend so much on him, once he checks out the movie has little to offer. [1 Oct 1993, p.G5]

The Family is the rare breed of pitch-black comedy that effectively uses violence for laughs or gasps, depending on the situation.

Generic but breezily entertaining.

Oh, what a hollow experience Dark of the Moon is! Bay is so afraid of boring his audience, he pitches every scene at the same high volume right from the first shot, and the effect is exhausting.

A wan gloss on a horrific nightmare.

The Haunting is ultimately another example of Hollywood at its most bloated and misguided [23 July 1999, p.9G]

Even Ben Stiller looks bored out of his mind in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and he got paid several million dollars to star in it.

Enormous in its scope and colossal in its stupidity.

Even if you do believe the story, Fire in the Sky will bore you silly. [17 Mar 1993, p.E2]

Even if you don't buy the ending, however, High Tension makes for ghoulish, sick fun, and Aja, who is already at work on a remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes, clearly takes this horror stuff very seriously. The genre can always use a few more like him.

Director Maren doesn’t trust Shannon to convey this inner monologue via his performance — just one example of the film’s plodding lack of wit or sophistication.

Even a film as shabby and humdrum as Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which never musters up the wit and beauty of a single frame of "Lady and the Tramp," is not without its pleasures.

The film seems simple and facile at a glance, but these characters and their dilemmas stay with you. These days, any of us could suddenly be Larry Crowne.

If you're going to make a heist picture, then at least have the decency to make the heist itself interesting. Otherwise, do like Tarantino did in "Reservoir Dogs" and just skip it altogether.

With the original Candyman, the filmmakers took chances in their efforts to scare you. With the sequel, they are simply chasing the quick and easy buck. [17 Mar 1995, p.4G]

Battleship is a board game for children, so it stands to reason a film adaptation would also be aimed at kids. But did they have to gear it to really dumb kids?

An overwhelmingly tactile experience. Scott brings you so close into the action, the grit and smoke and blood seem to spill off the screen and into your head.

Little Ashes succumbs to the dreaded Masterpiece Theater syndrome as a talky historical drama weighed down by self-importance.

This is the rare breed of Hollywood studio production that has the brash spirit of an independent picture and the sharp wit of a stand-up comic.

The Purge isn’t just stupid; it’s also pretentious and often makes no sense.

An excruciating and melodramatic comedy.

Sarandon blends into the background, having practically nothing to do except stand around and wring her hands as the two men in her life battle it out in a passive-aggressive war. It's enough to make her want to run off with Thelma.

Feels static and constricted, its intensity dulled by overreliance on dialogue.

Too much of this lame comedy feels like it was written to satisfy a contract, with gags (like the business with the perpetually horny dog or the toddler who knows sign language) that are way beneath the talents of this cast.

What seemed edgy and brash in Kick-Ass is now routine and old-hat. The first movie was a brash satire on formulaic comic-book movies — exactly the sort of picture the sequel turns out to be.

This is a gleefully repulsive movie. Spun is bound to be described as bold and cutting-edge by those who confuse shock value with achievement. Most people, however, will just long for a shower after it's over.

The film emits a subtle yet distinct John Hughes vibe.

The movie is so grand in scale that you can’t help surrender to the spectacle, even if the stuff that’s going on with the people in the film is often close to risible.

It's not that Sahara is offensively bad: It's just that the picture, loud and busy as it is, never really finds its own identity.

Strikes out toward freakishly original territory after all. Fans of the off-beat, your movie has arrived.

Running Scared is a vicious and brutal B-movie jacked up to hysterical, hallucinatory proportions -- a pulpy, violent action picture that torments the viewer as much as its characters, and I mean that as a compliment.

The biggest problem with Surviving the Game is that, after a rather lengthy and uninteresting buildup, the movie never delivers the action it promises. [19 Apr 1994, p.E2]

Ultimately, Bad Boys is too slick for its own good; all gorgeous photography and little story. It's like a two-hour-plus music video. But it probably will be a hit. Lawrence and Smith are hot, and if the Beverly Hills Cop formula worked with one comedian, it should certainly work with two. [7 April 1995, p.5G]

Four Christmases is sour to the point of curdling, a satirical look at the holidays a la "Bad Santa" that does exactly what that film avoided: come off as both off-puttingly misanthropic and gloppily sentimental.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more routine, more shamelessly by-the- numbers flick than this one. Predictability? In the case of Nowhere to Run, everything feels recycled -- even the title. [21 Jan 1993, p.F5]

There isn't a single scene in this story about a traveler from another planet (Jim Caviezel) who crash-lands on Earth during the Iron Age that doesn't remind you of another, better movie.

The Hunted is so openly, defiantly derivative of 1982's "First Blood," you figure there has to be a copyright lawsuit brewing right this very minute.

Compared to other summer blockbusters, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is as cheesy as the TV show. The computer animations are second-rate, the sets are theme-park attraction quality. [30 June 1995, p.6G]

It would have taken another director (the late David Lean, for instance) and a better script to make this movie into the serious, full-blooded epic it wants to be. But Power of One succeeds in entertaining and getting audiences to think about the tragedy of apartheid; flaws and all, it's still worth seeing. [31 March 1992, p.E6]

A biopic that is as messy as the life it details.

There isn’t a moment of spontaneous fun or humor in this long, turgid movie, the latest let-down for rabid DC Comics fans who’ve been waiting for someone to pick up the baton Christopher Nolan left behind and do this universe justice. With “Suicide Squad,” the long wait continues.

By the time Ceremony reaches its admittedly clever finale, you're too wrung out from Angarano's tiresome antics and Winkler's unconvincing dialogue to care who ends up marrying whom.

The result is far funnier and much less annoying than you might expect.

A shapeless, chaotic, overly frantic comedy that manages to make almost no sense, even if you're paying close attention.

Coulter wants to explore the act of mourning as a theme, and how death sometimes reminds us that every minute of life should be savored. On that level, Remember Me certainly succeeds.

Even if you can get past the acting -- and in the case of the beautiful, blank Alba, that's asking a lot -- the film just sits there, not exactly torturous, but never very exciting, either.

The movie takes an excessively long time to cover short narrative ground, and the plot is muddled enough to confuse the target audience. [24 Mar 1993, p.E5]

What Alexander lacks in narrative clarity, it makes up for with pomp and pageantry.

The more Shrink tries to get you invested in the emotional turmoil of its characters, the more you want to reach into the screen and shake them and tell them to get over themselves.

Yes, Aloha is a mess. But messes can be fascinating, and there’s a lot of tenderness and beauty and heartbreak here, too.

Winds up making a very good case for never going out of your way to help anybody.

Sadly, Jupiter Ascending turns out to be the exact opposite: the worst movie the Wachowskis have ever made.

Homefront is done in by uninspired action scenes in which Statham’s athletic prowess is rendered unwatchable by hyper-editing, a shameful reliance on child-in-peril cliches to move the story forward, and so many loose ends that you wonder if 20 minutes were accidentally cut out from the movie.

Director Fred Dekker does a serviceable job with what looks like a tight budget, and the movie will satisfy undemanding Robofans, but as a whole, Robocop 3 has the feel of a movie made to squeeze an extra few bucks out of a tired franchise. [08 Nov 1993, p.F2]

A failure on every conceivable level -- from its trite, pedestrian dialogue to its static, torturous pacing.

Man on a Ledge just made me think of an old Van Halen song: Jump.

Double Dragon is not a great accomplishment, but it never stands still long enough to get dull, its sense of humor grows on you, and its lack of pretentiousness is refreshing. [07 Nov 1994, p.C2]

Just because the new The Day the Earth Stood Still is green, though, doesn't mean it's dull. If anything, there's a lot more mayhem and destruction this time around.

A high-tech freak show, a gallery of grotesqueries that are fascinating and repellent.

The tone is all over the place, which makes the movie difficult to take neither seriously nor as popcorn fluff.

One of the most anticlimactic finales I've ever seen in a movie

The new Fame is practically identical to Alan Parker's 1980 original -- I mean, it's the same damn movie -- except for all the parts with heart and humor and poignancy and soul and fun.

In the end, they are only moments, and even at a merciful 86 minutes, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights feels formidably long.

This lavish, spectacular reworking of director Desmond Davis' beloved 1981 original is the rare sort of remake that actually makes sense: With all due respect (and copious apologies) to the generation that grew up with the first film, Clash of the Titans just wasn't very good.

How can a movie as overstuffed with funny people as The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard be so listless and leaden?

A big, boisterous action-comedy - a funny, exciting and intentionally goofy summer movie that just happens to arrive in the middle of January.

The best thing you can say about Just a Kiss is that it isn't every romantic comedy that throws in suicide, bondage and a plane crash in between all the bed hopping.

The combination of youthful irreverence and military indoctrination is jarring.

It's the damndest thing, watching this light but genial movie self-destruct. It's as if writer-director Barry Levinson set out to sabotage his own film by gradually turning what should have been a minor subplot into the story's main subject.

With a script co-written by Penn himself and based on a well-regarded novel by the late French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette, this one has to have some meat to go along with the gunplay, right? Sadly, no.

This odious, hypocritical movie marks director David Gordon Green's graduation into full-on hack.

Stops dead the second the monsters fall out of view. It doesn't help that the movie's post-apocalyptic future is of the unimaginative backlot variety, or that the movie takes itself so seriously.

What's missing is originality and story and inventiveness.

The movie's hokey mysticism and heaving melancholy is closer in spirit to a solemn Hallmark greeting card.

This new, presumably improved Chainsaw is just as humorless as the original, but it's also slicker, glossier and resoundingly artificial.

Even though Taking Lives is not very good, it does contain a) a cool car chase and b) a sex scene in which Jolie goes topless. For some, this will be enough entertainment.

Witless, unoriginal mishmash of gangsta-drama clichés.

The vilest film of the season.

An enjoyably preposterous thriller. [13 Oct 2008, p.E6]

You expect more from King. The man obviously knows a thing or two about terror, yet Sleepwalkers is a pastiche of old B- movies. Bad B-movies. [16 Apr 1992, p.F3]

Eventually, though, Seeking Justice devolves into the usual business of chases and elaborate double-crosses that leave behind all vestiges of realism for the sake of popcorn thrills.

Emits a fishy odor, like a recruitment film for an obscure cult you'd rather stay away from.

Plays like a colorful but inert timekiller that you might tolerate while dozing off in front of the TV, but only because you are too sleepy to reach for the remote control.

Death to Smoochy? Yes, please.

After a while, hearing Martin say ''Zee area eez zecure!'' doesn't cut it any longer, and that's pretty much all The Pink Panther has to offer.

The problem with Men, Women & Children — and it’s a big one — is that the movie isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know.

Think of The Beyond as a Rorschach inkblot of a horror film: It's by turns impressionistic, repulsive, ridiculous and baffling. In the right frame of mind, it can also be a hoot. [17 Jul 1998, p.7G]

Crossing Over is a result of the sledgehammer approach writer-director Wayne Kramer (Running Scared, The Cooler) takes to his subject matter -- the same heavy-handed tactics that earned "Crash" three Oscars.

No, it's the movie itself -- an unimaginative, generic affair memorable only for its incessant and flagrant plugging of Apple computers and iPods -- that should put a stake through the franchise for good.

Gives romance a bad name.

Only genuinely talented people can make pictures this bad and misguided. “This whole thing is unacceptable,” Lil remarks at one point. That goes for the movie, too.

Even the story-within-a-story structure doesn't pay off. This material needed more substance and ideas - and less flash and sumptuous production values.

May not reinvent the wheel, but its expertly delivered thrills would hit the spot at any time of year.

Bergman can't bring individual scenes together into a collective whole, and the ending (which was reshot at the last minute) closes things on a disappointingly limp note. [28 Jun 1996, p.5G]

Played by Adrian Sparks in a style better suited for dinner theater or a Key West tourist attraction, Hemingway comes across as a complete cypher. Everyone in the film keeps talking about his genius, but other than a scene in which he writes a short story on the back of a napkin, the movie doesn’t try to humanize or explore his talent.

If Annapolis is not the worst movie to date of this still-young year, it is certainly the most hackneyed, as well as the most depressing.

A surprisingly ambitious entry into a genre that felt bankrupt and over more than a decade ago.

A forced and wholly unnecessary sequel.

The film suffers from a severe lack of urgency and emotional engagement. You can't get involved in a movie in which the characters all seem to be harboring double identities.

There’s a rollicking Wild West adventure buried deep inside The Lone Ranger, a bloated, mega-budget revival of the story of the iconic gunslinger and his Native American sidekick Tonto.

Charlie St. Cloud is primarily a vehicle to prove the actor can do more than dance and sing. It's more of a demo reel for Efron than a movie. His predominant fan base, though, won't mind a bit.

A Jerry Bruckheimer production, which gives the movie a disquieting sense of stupidity.

A handsome, sincere, well-meaning bore.

The movie contains little in terms of traditional action, and Refn never uses it in a rousing or exciting manner, either. That would break the nightmarish spell this strange, beautiful film casts on the viewer. A mother’s love has never been this ruinous.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough of Brando and Kilmer: Too much screen time is eaten up by the monsters, plotting their perfunctory uprising against their creator. Worse, the confusing climax never comes close to fulfilling the promise of the opening credits sequence (the best of any movie this the summer). But The Island of Dr. Moreau has sublimely weird moments in it that are hard to shake, and for starved horror fans, nowadays you take what you can get. [23 Aug 1996, p.5G]

What Crush lacks in substance and originality, it makes up for with sheer likability.

For all its derring-do, Cutthroat Island is sluggish, flat, tiresome. Watching it is like being stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for an endless two hours. [22 Dec 1995, p.4G]

Such a dull, clunky, joyless mess, it's hard to believe the people who made it understand much about movies.

As written, Seven Pounds would have always been a melancholy experience, but a lighter touch would have helped to keep you from noticing the implausibility of its plot.

Dismayingly predictable and rote, a simple premise played out in the most obvious way possible.

The movie's attempts at zaniness are flat, almost embarrassing.

A movie as annoying as its oddly punctuated title, After.Life is a misguided and empty-headed attempt at psychological horror that succeeds only at talking the viewer to death.

Isolated moments in Color of Night hint at Rush's visual creativity. He can spin afresh the most perfunctory scenes -- watch the clever way he shoots a simple fender-bender, or his spectacular take on an opening-scene suicide. But as the story falls into place, the visual embellishments feel increasingly hollow, like fancy icing on a grocery-store sheet cake. [19 Aug 1994, p.G5]

Too much of this well-acted but dangerously slow thriller feels like a preamble to a bigger, more complicated story, one that never materializes.

Raises a few questions -- like just what were they thinking?

Most of this is tedious instead of unintentionally amusing.

The fight sequences are well handled, the three leads are pleasant (and quite good, it seems, at the martial arts) and the violence is bloodless and amusing, with all kinds of cartoon sound effects thrown in to soften the chop-socky violence. If the audience at a sold-out Saturday afternoon showing I attended is any indication, 3 Ninjas delivers the promised action-packed, empty-headed goods. As long as your age is still in the single digits, that is. [10 Aug 1992, p.C6]

The movie, which has more than 10 credited producers, feels like one of those slick, for-the-money projects Hollywood studios cook up via graph charts and marketing surveys.

What saves Fly Me to the Moon from being a total wash is the actual mission itself.

Momoa, a familiar face from "Game of Thrones" to "Baywatch," has the muscles but not the imposing persona and barbaric presence that Conan requires.

It lacks the simplicity and resonance of classic fairy tales: It's so muddled and belabored, it's hard to imagine the tykes ever staying awake long enough to hear how it all turned out.

In its early moments, the movie evokes everything from "The Social Network" to "Casino." By the end, the film has become as exciting as a game of Old Maid. R-rated thrillers are hardly ever this dull and listless, but this movie manages to eradicate all of Timberlake’s charisma and makes you flash back to Affleck’s "Paycheck"/"Gigli" era. How does this even happen?

This is ultimately a movie about highly intelligent people in pursuit of trivial nonsense: At least Mulder and Scully caught a real monster every once in a while.

There are three or four big laughs scattered throughout The Pink Panther 2, along with a smattering of decent chuckles. But all those moments combined account for maybe five minutes of screen time, which leaves you with another hour and a half of movie to sit through.

Bordello of Blood isn't quite awful, but there's nothing in it better than its catchy title. [19 Aug 1996, p.2C]

Take away the art direction, and Johnny Mnemonic is nothing more than a clunky chase flick, done with little skill or subtlety. [27 May 1995, p.6G]

A curiously inert and talky action picture about good-looking mutants on the run from bad (but equally good-looking) ones, Push wastes a decent idea and stylish direction on a script that's much more Ingmar Bergman than Stan Lee.

Universal Soldier, for all its sound and fury, isn't much fun. [15 July 1992, p.E5]

A spectacularly mediocre movie.

The best stuff in Jumper comes early, while the movie is still busy explaining its scenario. It's only when all the pieces are in place and the story actually kicks in that things start to fall apart, and quickly.

At least the special effects in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are remarkable: You never tire of the endless variations of robots Bay and his computer-generated effects crew come up with.

For all its tangle of characters and plot twists, Van Helsing isn't the slightest bit involving, and more than once (especially whenever Beckinsale is onscreen), it is unintentionally hilarious. But it's the rare kind of movie where the badness just adds to the fun.

A horror/sci-fi/action mishmash that aims to be the kind of brainless timekiller once used to round out the bottom of a double bill at the drive-in.

Does the movie bear any relation to the video game? Not much. Do the dinosaur effects steal Jurassic Park's thunder? Keep dreaming. Will kids want to see it? Depends on how big Nintendo fans they are. Super Mario Bros. is like watching somebody else play a video game: It's flashy, colorful and wholly uninvolving. [29 May 1993, p.5]

An unsalvageable wreck.

If Dreamcatcher ultimately feels like an unwieldy pastiche, at least it's never boring.

Freddy simply isn't as scary as he used to be, even though Jackie Earle Haley, taking over from Robert Englund in the role, plays Krueger essentially straight, keeping the one-liners to a minimum.

In Happy Tears, Posey lands a juicy starring role designed to showcase her eccentric energy, and she's so delighted by the opportunity that her happiness infuses the movie: She keeps the first half of Happy Tears aloft on a cloud of endearing tics and mannerisms.

The third -- and thinnest and weakest and least funny -- installment in Ice Cube's popular Friday series.

For the first time in the film series, Harris wrote the screenplay himself, which means the movie is practically identical to the book. In other words, they both stink.

Freejack is among the most incoherent sci-fi action films we've seen in a while, despite the credentials of producer- screenwriter Ronald Shusett, who brought us Total Recall and Alien. [24 Jan 1992, p.G5]

It does boast loads of cool gadgetry and some impressive special effects. It's not much, but at least the movie always gives you something to look at.

A $100 million production of a 10-cent script, is so clunkily written, so bereft of any engaging ideas or emotions, you'd think De Palma would have sneered at it on first reading and passed

When Ephron gives Ferrell and Kidman a musical number that's supposed to be sweet and uplifting, the movie feels downright creepy.

Even when his scripts aren't working, Shyamalan knows how to frame shots and build suspense. The Happening, even more than his previous films, has a visual elegance and subtlety that helps to overcome the less successful aspects of the plot.

It takes a concerted effort to make a movie as relentlessly stupid and grating as 15 Minutes.

If Ghost in the Machine isn't the stupidest thriller of the year, it certainly holds the pole position in the race for that honor. The film combines computer hacking, virtual reality and serial murder into a plot so preposterous, so incredibly ridiculous, you keep watching just to see what the filmmakers will dare to do next. [31 Dec 1993, p.G5]

The payback in Law Abiding Citizen doesn't have a cathartic kick, because the revenge is so extreme it's horrifying.

A surprisingly straightforward romp in slasher-flick cliches, Friday the 13th is replete with gee-whiz gore, gratuitous sex and nudity and party-loving teens with a penchant for ending up on the wrong end of a pick ax.

In Celtic Pride, a comedy about sports fanaticism, two obsessive basketball followers want to see the underdog Boston Celtics win the NBA championship so badly that they kidnap the star player from the opposing team to make him miss the deciding game...Instead, they should've kidnapped the screenwriter and made him write a better movie. Celtic Pride is jaw-droppingly bad, a comedy so bereft of anything remotely humorous that you find yourself watching the extras in the background, desperately searching for something resembling entertainment. [19 Apr 1996, p.6G]

Year One is not really THAT bad and not ENTIRELY without laughs.

Jingle All the Way is at its best when piling on the slapstick, which director Brian Levant ( The Flintstones ) wisely does often. [22 Nov 1996, p.6G]

May prove too dark to make the list of Schwarzenegger's biggest hits. But the movie suggests the actor still has a lot to offer -- and he's willing to take some chances, too. Welcome back, Arnold.

You don't go into a movie called Ninja Assassin expecting a hell of a lot, but this shockingly disjointed and relentlessly dull picture can't even deliver the martial-arts kick its title so plainly promises.

Just plain bad. Really, really bad.

An overly convoluted, tiresome mystery that exists primarily to antagonize the audience, Basic consists almost entirely of dense exposition, then concludes by laughing at anyone who tried to pay attention.

There are so many romantic-comedy cliches crammed into Valentine's Day that watching it feels like surfing through the channels of an all-chick-flick cable service.

It's not much, but it isn't awful, either, provided you're interested in this sort of thing to begin with.

There's something innately distasteful about The Crush. Here's a movie that casts a hopelessly lovestruck -- and mentally disturbed -- teenager as a villain. The camera ogles Silverstone's body every chance it gets, then invites you to hiss at her as she goes about her evil deeds. What's more, the movie -- which is nothing more than the latest take on the increasingly routine female-from-hell genre -- takes itself very seriously, giving the proceedings a realism that only serves to heighten the unsavoriness of the thing. [8 Apr 1993, p.F3]

There are several stretches when the movie is actually hilarious.

Chasing Papi leaves you wishing Hollywood would just forget about Latinos altogether. If this is how they really see us, I'd rather not know.