Steve Persall

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

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.

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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]

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

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

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.

An amoral mosaic of carnage and carnality.

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

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