Steve Persall

Pitch Perfect 3 totally eclipses the heart of a charming franchise, turning the scrappy Bellas a capella posse into needy Charlie’s Angels wannabes. It’s a movie taking popularity for granted, a finale saying goodbye with a "you’re welcome."

Wonder Wheel is one of Allen’s worst movies.

Doremus captures each insipid moment with hand-held camera urgency and clumsy jump cuts.

Valerian displays reckless imagination and zero personality.

A Cure for Wellness is a repellent curiosity, rich in atmosphere yet starved for dramatic morsels a sound plot might nourish.

The Space Between Us is romantic science fiction with zero gravity and less to recommend.

The Comedian is a phony movie about funny people, starring a great actor understanding next to nothing about stand-up comedy.

This is a soulless endeavor that would alarm if Ford devised it on his own. Instead, he shares blame with Austen Wright's novel Tony and Susan, adapted into parallel narratives; one empty, the other leaking blood.

Keeping Up With the Joneses is the sort of strenuous comedy giving zany a bad name.

Ben Affleck is Agent Double-OCD in The Accountant, an effortlessly dumb thriller barely more entertaining than an audit.

A wheel-spinning homage gone terribly awry.

What truly makes The Neon Demon frustrating is Refn's undeniable talent for arresting images. His color schemes and framing make each second fascinating to observe, even when the dialogue is stultifying.

For their next act, the illusionist con artists from Now You See Me will make every ounce of goodwill that movie earned disappear.

It's difficult to not be cynical and redundant to declare this sequel needless for anyone except accountants, considering the studio involved. But this ranks among Disney's most shameless shirkings of its responsibility to creatively entertain, in order to pursue profits.

The Angry Birds Movie is simply a pointless swirl of color and motion to babysit small children on home video in a few months. Sadly, such movies aren't an endangered species.

In 2002, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was at least a unique cultural take on movie cliches typically reserved for Italian and Jewish squabbles and makeups. Now it's all stale baklava, made with love but past its prime. Opa? Nope-a.

The pleasures of Allegiant are unintended, those little bits of business taken so seriously that serious viewers must laugh.

John Hillcoat's Triple 9 is doubly disappointing, wasting talent and our time with underworld cliches previously covered in other movies that ultimately didn't matter. This cynical slice of lowlife will join them soon enough.

What truly becomes aggravating about Zoolander 2 is its dependence upon a parade of famous people doing supremely unfunny things.

Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight is vile art, bludgeoning viewers for three hours with indefensibly gratuitous race baiting and blood.

Victor Frankenstein is misshapen as the bad doctor's creature itself, straining without wit or viscera to be a devilish horror romp.

The central mystery has been drastically altered to fit Julia Roberts, its most telling clue diluted, and a signature sequence that made soccer exciting now makes baseball duller.

The movie takes something primally appealing and attempts to explain it, fetishize it, turn it into something deeper and more dramatic than it is.

Fantastic Four is so mediocre that its title seems like a violation of truth in advertising laws.

Basically it's Ghostbusters meets Wreck-It Ralph, without the sustained charm or wit of either.

All Crowe's movie has going for it is casting, a lineup of favored actors wasted in a screenplay unsure of what it wants to be. Aloha is by turns a love quadrangle that never materializes, an ode to Hawaiian sovereignty, an opposites-attract cliche and an outer-space weapons caper, all of which is clumsily executed.

What really offends about Hot Pursuit is its lazy approach to comedy, and so many short cuts making bad jokes possible.

Get Hard becomes an increasingly unpleasant comedy, wasting two very funny stars in a barrage of prison rape gags, lazy stereotypes, toilet stall indignities and insincere acceptance of people already marginalized in movies.

The only thing Black or White adds to the discussion of race relations is another one-sided argument.

On the plus side, Scott's plagues are cool. But it's a long slog to crocodile rocking, pestilence and Proactiv-proof sores.

The sequel is merely crude for crudeness' sake, lazy as they come.

There are cheesy pleasures found in Left Behind's ineptness.

The Boxtrolls is a visually repellent pile of stop-motion animation, populated by grotesques and filmed in the palette of an exhumed casket's interior. It can frighten small children and bore anyone, with its cracked, cackled British wit.

If anyone could harness McCarthy's dynamo presence while protecting her from looking bad, it should be Falcone. Instead, Tammy suggests no one had the heart to tell this hot Hollywood couple that it wasn't working.

If the first 90 minutes of Girl Most Likely grate and disappoint, wait until the final 10 or so, when directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini try covering their maniacally depressive tracks like cats in a litter box.

Fans of either Smith will be sorely disappointed. The elder never before appeared this listless on screen, and the younger misplaced his unforced rapport with the camera that made the Karate Kid reboot so impressive. Only Shyamalan delivers what moviegoers expect from him, and that's a shame.

This movie never realizes how ridiculous anything it does truly is, right up to the last-second promise of another sequel.

Jack the Giant Slayer is merely cable TV fodder waiting to happen and not worth a hill of beans, magic or otherwise.

Cloud Atlas, surely the most incoherent waste of time and money on screen this year.

Alex Cross is slipshod cinema hoping to capitalize on a star out of his orbit here.

End of Watch is a repellent movie, first for its shaky-cam conceit rendering much of the action incomprehensible, and finally for seeking to entertain viewers through the thuggish execution of a police officer.

Save the money you might spend for a ticket to see For a Good Time, Call... and just read a dive bar's restroom wall for free. That's the sub-level of comedy here, with a litany of crude sexual euphemisms and phallic images passed off as jokes.

The word "sappy" comes to mind, constantly. So often that I wanted to make like a tree and leaf. Frankly I'm stumped, wondering exactly who the audience is for such a drab slab of saccharine uplift.

This messy mix of sci-fi horror and post-Superbad raunchiness didn't make me laugh once. Not a single snicker, chortle or smile.

An amoral mosaic of carnage and carnality.

Other than its campy title, not much about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is fun.

Two flesh-and-blood performers stand out among the machinery. One is pop singer Rhianna, looking lovely as usual despite the military gear and quite comfortable with high-powered artillery. The other is Gregory D. Gadson, an Army veteran who lost his legs to a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Move along, guys. Nothing to see in The Lucky One, unless you're in the doghouse at home and need to make nice.

Most annoying is John Carter's scarcity of action. This much buck should buy more bang.

Carnahan didn't make a movie unfit for mankind but it certainly isn't worth mankind's money.

Through it all, Marshall sticks to his rose-colored principles: You gotta have hope, listen to your heart and take leaps of faith. Plus a new one: Parker should never make it through a movie without at least one pair of fabulous shoes.

By the time Melancholia finally crawls to its conclusion, his (von Trier) round orb in the sky isn't as depressing as the rectangular screen.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 confirms suspicions that all four books could've made a heck of a single movie.

Niccol fashioned an uninspired and downright dull sci-fi gimmick and doesn't even explain how it happened.

This Thing is purely for the gorehounds, and they aren't likely to leave impressed.

Machine Gun Preacher comes alive only when Sam is pulling a trigger, which is most of the second hour. You can find the same thrill from watching a grindhouse descendant like "The Expendables" on cable TV.

I wouldn't even DVR What's Your Number? if under house arrest and starved for entertainment. I've got this movie's number, and it's zero.

30 Minutes or Less merely puts together actors with only one funny talent each, making them do it over and over again.

The Change-Up is the "Human Centipede" of gag-me comedies.

Can we please get over the notion that every superhero in a skintight suit deserves a movie? Green Lantern is the latest wallet drainer emptying the comic book bench, more thudding than "Thor" and sorely incoherent.

The Art of Getting By is enough to drive a movie critic to drink. The next round's on the kid in the overcoat.

Something Borrowed is a romantic comedy in which absolutely no one deserves to end up happy.

For the love of movies, stay away.

Your Highness is drive-by directing at its laziest, linking late-night sketch ideas in a quest for comedy as difficult to locate as the Holy Grail.

Hop is harmless, which is the worst best thing to be said for any movie. It never decides whether to be a kiddie flick or a grownup lark and winds up as neither. As Roger might say: "Puh-puh-puh-puhleeze, don't waste your time."

It's all megalomaniacal junk from Snyder, but that isn't his most offensive move.

A timid new take on the old fairy tale, and it's pretty grim.

Yes, there is a hell, and this movie is showing at its local multiplex.

Billed as an action comedy, The Green Hornet isn't funny, and the action is often too frenetic to make any impression.

Country Strong is a country music melodrama, but I'm not sure which country.

A comedy abomination, tasteless and useless to a stunning degree, with storied actors smugly collecting paychecks for sullying their careers.

A smarter-than-average bear becomes a dumber-than-usual kiddie flick with Yogi Bear, the lone Christmas release specifically aimed at children, so it automatically qualifies as their lump of coal.

If only one character in Stone reacted as someone in his position would to the preposterous situation at hand, the movie would be 15 minutes long.

There is some glint of acting potential in Farley's puffy face, but this movie doesn't mine it. Director Penelope Spheeris was well prepared for the maturity level here, after she directed The Little Rascals last year, yet seems content to place Farley and Spade in the same situations she crafted in Wayne's World. Farley would be wise to be more selective in his career, or else he'll wind up as a comic prop in insurance commercials. [4 Feb 1996, p.2B]

Director Ted Demme (Jonathan's nephew, Who's the Man?) guides this predictable action with a leaden hand. It's as if he, like everyone else in The Ref, is holding back, awaiting Leary's next inspired, caustic riff. That's a lot of pressure for a cult-level comic in his first lead role. He doesn't always measure up. [11 Mar 1994, p.8]

Underwood's film doesn't have a fraction of the insight or genuine comedy of City Slickers and it's a few years too late to be fresh material. Overall, Heart and Souls is an odd title for a movie that has a distinct, depressing lack of both qualities. [13 Aug 1993]

The Last Airbender makes the cartoon version with its ratchet-jawed characters and clunky animation seem like a Pixar classic.

Return To The Blue Lagoon is as pretty as a travel brochure and just as thin on substance and entertainment value. [02 Aug 1991, p.13]

Mike Myers' first film excursion beyond Wayne's World feels like one of those boring, aimless Saturday Night Live sketches that typically ruin the final 10 minutes of each show. So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mess, from its cliched mistaken-identity premise to one-liners that sound "borrowed" from other comedians or school-yard jive sessions. Above all, this tedious comedy proves that, as a movie star, Myers should never be let out of that basement in Aurora, Ill., that he shares with Dana Carvey. [30 July 1993, p.11]

As far as unnecessary movies go, Predators is a pip.

Last Man Standing can't live up to its Japanese and Italian predecessors or even its title. [20 Sep 1996, p.5]

Shore's new "comedy" Son-In-Law proves without question that this MTV maniac is one of the most tedious one-note performers in any branch of show business today. Considering that his brain-addled manner serves as a role model for many teenagers is more offensive than his lack of talent. [2 July 1993, p.9]

Ghost in the Machine doesn't possess the funky, laugh-at-me mentality of good trash, or the good sense to know when its half-baked storyline is getting old. [30 Dec 1993, p.10B]

I'm Still Here is amateurishly shot and edited, as if ineptness equaled some higher level of veracity. Ironically, it's the only Joaquin Phoenix movie anyone has cared about in years.

None of these complaints would matter if The Bounty Hunter possessed even a smidgen of inspired comedy. It doesn't.

You don't need to watch National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon I to understand what a sloppy comedy concoction it is; just listen. What you won't hear is laughter, even in a crowded movie theater. I haven't experienced such a silent audience for an alleged comedy since last year's horrid Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot.

The biggest target, however, is O'Neal, whose monotone and slurred lines deaden each scene in which he speaks. He's trying so clumsily to do this acting gig right and keeps tripping over his size-22 feet by absurdly wiggling his eyebrows or forcing a joke. You get the impression that he doesn't know what his lines mean. Finally, we realize that acting is just one more thing that O'Neal can't do as well as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. [15 Aug 1997, p.6]

It's sad to see mercurial talent unused, and even more disheartening to see it completely wasted. Color of Night, the first film in 14 years from director Richard Rush, is a dreadful miscalculation of a comeback; a sexual thriller equally lewd and ludicrous. Rush has already disavowed the reworked version opening nationwide today, promising his original vision will be available later on video. [19 Aug 1994, p.7B]

Even an ear-splitting sound track of gunfire, explosions, rock 'n' roll and revving engines can't drown out one noise that should deeply disturb film fans the sound of Butch and Sundance spinning in their Bolivian graves. [27 Aug 1991, p.3D]

Another paper-thin premise comes back to haunt moviegoers. [5 Nov 1993, p.5]

Williams uses some interesting lighting effects and settings (including a subplot about the burgeoning heroin trade in Omaha, of all places). Yet, he has no idea of how to motivate actors or tie several scenes together with dramatic purpose to keep the movie from going belly-up. [06 Nov 1998, p.10]

Everybody's cyber-pal Ashton Kutcher is perfect casting for Killers, since the screenplay is shallow as a Tweet and the movie appears to have been shot with a Nikon point-and-click camera he plugs on TV.

Airheads is a rock 'n' roll radio comedy in which laughs come at a very low frequency. [5 Aug 1994, p.8]

This is summer entertainment at its mindless, violent worst featuring plenty of squishy, crunchy sounds and sickening makeup X effects to satisfy undiscerning blood-and-guts audiences. Moviegoers looking for pacing, character development or delightful thrills must seek shelter elsewhere. [11 July 1992, p.3D]

Nearly everything about Just Wright is just wrong.

Perhaps if I hadn't laughed so hard at a recent revival of Blazing Saddles, then Mel Brooks' new film, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, wouldn't be such a dismal disappointment. [28 July 1993, p.6B]

A sitcom pilot idea stretched to feature length boredom.

The only memorable aspect of She's Out of My League is Eve's performance. Not that it's good, but it does possess the hypnotic quality of a flicker ring.