Rene Rodriguez

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.

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

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]

The best moments in director David Koepp's slight, dull movie are the scenes in which bike messenger Wilee pauses at busy intersections to figure out the path of least obstruction.

The most intriguing thing about Lost Souls is how it managed to attract so much talent.

The saddest part about this whole affair is that it took Bugs and Co. 60 years to make their feature debut -- and this is what they get. At one point, Daffy Duck is discussing merchandising royalties and says, "We gotta get new agents -- we're getting screwed." In Space Jam , even the cartoons are in it only for the money. [15 Nov 1996, p.5G]

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]

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

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.

A stiff, unconvincing epic.

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

Combined with the sluggish story line, Daylight becomes a chore to sit through: The only people who want to get out of the tunnel more desperately than the characters in the movie are the ones stuck in the theater. [6 Dec 1996, p.5G]

Gives romance a bad name.

Laughable, contrived banality. You won't believe a second of it. [17 Sept 1996, p.25G]

With Kaboom, Araki takes a huge step backward from the maturity and restraint he demonstrated in 2004's "Mysterious Skin," his best and most-assured film to date.

There are several cameos in For a Good Time, Call… by famous actors portraying the girls' phone-sex clients, including Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen, but they've been clearly been left to improvise, and they don't put much effort into their routines.

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

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]

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

Just plain bad. Really, really bad.

Patronizing, dull and offensive, this drama about a knight in shining white skin out to serve justice in the name of po' black folk is Hollywood at its sanctimonious, bleeding-heart worst: A movie made by people who are sitting so high up on their hills, they long ago stopped realizing they're looking down at the world. [03 Jan 1997, p.5G]

A spectacularly mediocre movie.

What ultimately sinks The Visit is that Shyamalan, who had previously come up with new and ingenious ways to frighten us, resorts to familiar jump-scare tactics in which things suddenly pop into the frame, accompanied by loud sound effects. There’s no real sense of danger, no menace.

This Must Be the Place is as emotionally zonked-out as its protagonist, and just as difficult to warm up to.

With such a large cast, none of the actors is able to turn her character into a fully realized person.

Two for the Money, which was written by Dan Gilroy (Freejack, Chasers), is so badly constructed and illogical that its inanities manage to drown the actor (Pacino) out.

The characters in Secretary never feel the least bit human. Their quirks, sexual and otherwise, are all on the surface. Inside, where it counts, nobody's home.

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

The kind of schlocky, disposable time-killer that once might have starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, The Impostor is a relentlessly dull chase flick with an inexplicably high-toned cast.

It's up to O'Donnell to carry the show, and he's simply not up to the task.

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

An unsalvageable wreck.

Abduction is a crass and lowbrow attempt to cash in on a young actor's heat - an exploitation picture where the person being taken advantage of is too young to notice.

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.

Whatever goodwill Stuart Saves His Family manages to work up disappears by the maudlin, dramatic finale. [14 Apr 1995, p.5G]

British satire loses something when it's handled by Americans: You miss the perspective that a foreign culture brings, so instead of wit and humor, you end up trafficking in self-congratulatory clichés and sentiment.

For most of its running time, Wes Craven's New Nightmare is simply a s-l-o-w- tease to a paradoxical, reality-bending shockfest that never materializes. [14 Oct 1994, p.G9]

The whole thing is so listless and mechanical, watching it is a curiously dispiriting experience. You start hoping someone whips out a bear suit.

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.

Timeline gives Gigli serious competition for worst film of the year honors.

The Edge was written by playwright/filmmaker David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Mulholland Falls). Both excel at dissecting that complicated beast known as male angst, but both fall flat with this confused misfire that plays as a banal stranded-in-the-wild adventure for grown-ups. [26 Sep 1997, p.4G]

The brothers (Farrelly) produced Say It Isn't So, which bears their stamp in every frame and features all of the elements their movies are known for, except one: laughter.

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

It is absolutely, inexcusably terrible.

Drowns in its own noxious fumes. Who knew being bad could be so dull?

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

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

"The silence will kill you!" warn the posters for Silent House. That's only if the boredom doesn't get you first, though.

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]

It's as stupid, unimaginative and cheesy as the rest of them. [16 Aug 1993, p.C2]

Eye For an Eye is a Charles Bronson revenge flick with Sally Field in the Bronson role: It's Death Wish Gidget , and it's ridiculous. [12 Jan 1996, p.6G]

Curiously (and contrary to what its ads would have you believe), Aspen Extreme is painfully discreet when it comes to sex. Whenever the characters engage in a romantic liaison, Hasburgh nervously cuts away right after the first kiss. It's as erotic -- or even romantic -- as skinny dipping in ice water. The skiing sequences are the movie's saving grace, exquisitely photographed and thrilling to watch. If you go, try to stick around until the avalanche scene near the end: It's impressive, and it's the only thing you'll remember. [26 Jan 1993, p.E2]

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]

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

It is a grand-looking, grandly empty pageant.

The River Wild is simply a procession of banal, dull situations that add up to nothing. [30 Sep 1994, p.G4]

There’s exactly one good scene in all of The Hangover Part III, a hilarious bit of business halfway during the end credits that reminds you what made the original film so good.

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

A Middle Ages "Rocky" that spares no cliche in its unduly long, 2 1/4 hours.

Aggressively, defiantly stupid.

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

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]

An irritatingly contrived drama.

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.

Silly, overplotted conspiracy thriller.

The movie even fails on a psychological level, never illustrating how, in a pressure-cooker environment and swept up by mob-think mentality, we are capable of committing acts that innately repel us.

When Escape From L.A. isn't being ridiculous, it's merely dumb. It's no fun at all. [09 Aug 1996, p.6G]

Director Stuart Blumberg’s movie, which features a surprisingly starry cast, comes off as superficial and trite.

For all its noble intentions, the movie is really a work of crass exploitation -- an obvious and manipulative grab to cash in on the post-9/11 hero worship of the firefighting profession.

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

Feels like it's been pasted together from 51 other movies -- none of them good.

The movie is pure product, and proud of it: There isn't a single surprising moment in all of its 88 minutes, because Domestic Disturbance is designed to stick to tried-and-true formulas, instead of shaking them up a little.

Tomb is the kind of movie you sit through dreading the expository scenes, because the acting is so bad and the dialogue so pointedly written to make sure the little ones in the audience can keep up with the plot.

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

A feather-light musical rushed into production to capitalize on American Idol-frenzy, is nothing more than an excuse to give the two leads several musical numbers, a la those Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicello "Beach Blanket Bingo" movies, and with just about the same amount of substance, too.

The stupendously stupid The Program purports to detail one season in the life of the football team of Eastern State University as it struggles for a college bowl berth, but the players must overcome such inflated melodramatic claptrap it's a miracle they ever make it onto the field at all. [27 Sept 1993, p.C6]

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

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.

But the movie itself, despite a pretty funny scene early on in which Mitchell, a dyed-in-the-wool California surfer, tries to ingratiate himself to a class full of urban Cincinnati kids, is dull and conventional. Nice stunts, though. [21 Sept 1993, p.E6]

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

This is the kind of colossally misguided vanity project.

Bad enough to earn a rare spot on my hallowed list of ''The Worst Movies I've Ever Seen,'' An American Carol is testament that the country's culture wars are raging just as strongly within Hollywood as anywhere else.

A sluggish, soporific dud, the dreariest big-budget science-fiction adventure since "Dune."

The Mangler is one of the worst movies we've seen in years, and we've seen a lot of movies. [6 Mar 1995, p.5C]

A shockingly, unbelievably bad movie.

Monumentally silly thriller.

Hogan could actually hold his own in a supporting role in an action-oriented flick, but his casting here has all the subtlety of a WWF Wrestling match. Mr. Nanny, which runs a scant 85 minutes but feels far longer, has no business on the big screen and should prove encouraging to aspiring filmmakers: If somebody paid money to make this thing, they'll pay to make anything. [12 Oct 1993, p.E7]

The Ugly Truth is insulting to women, men and even goldfish.