Steve Persall

Magic Mike XXL is darker, and between money-rain showers, duller. It's the movie many feared the original would be.

A drab dream with squirmy-cuddly aliens, floating space bubbles and too many Rihanna musical interludes.

It takes too long for The Commuter to build a head of steam but it’s medium speed ahead after that.

Multiplicity is a pleasant comedy, in the blandest sense of that adjective. It's what you call a billboard movie - a quick-pitch concept easily advertised with snappy star images, flat in its execution and merely a passing distraction to an audience. [17 July 1996, p.3D]

Someone describes the T-800 as "nothing but a relic from a deleted timeline." Too harsh to lay on Schwarzenegger yet, but certainly it applies to the Terminator franchise.

Steven Spielberg’s The Post is a fake news movie, a true story told phony to further an agenda.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword isn't a movie as much as a feature length montage of bastardized lore and rejected Game of Thrones pitches.

To paraphrase Joe Bob: Heads roll, arms roll, a face gets squashed like an overripe papaya, about 15 gallons of blood, several gratuitous shots of nekkid women, and plenty of beasts - including the Cryptkeeper, who bookends the flick with his usual pun-laden flair. Joe Bob might say check it out, then feel sorry he did. [13 Jan 1995, p.8C]

It's the little pleasures in mediocre movies that mean a lot.

Although it's based on true incidents, Mulholland Falls never seems grounded in any semblance of realism. It's a theme park stageshow gone horribly wrong, with spasms of ultra-violence that distract us from the so-called mystery at hand, but never help us ignore those darn hats. [26 Apr 1996, p.3]

What keeps Daddy's Home watchable is Wahlberg's checkmate machismo, as the intimidating foil necessary for Ferrell's namby-pambyism to register.

Cena handles rough stuff like a pro, and his poker-faced wisecracking isn't bad. But he probably shouldn't quit his day job.

Closed Circuit is a shaggy paranoid thriller in which conversations aren't the shorthand of people who know each other but wordy exposition for those strangers in theater seats.

Disney always invites its artists to give a character tics that match the actor, but Warner Bros. didn't take that extra step toward quality. That's the difference between doing whatever it takes to get the job done properly, and simply doing as much as you can afford. [15 May 1998, p.3]

McKay's frustration about the financial crisis is obvious, his instinct of how to engage viewers less so. Buyer beware.

It only took one sequel for 3 Ninjas to learn what four mutant turtles discovered the third time around: The best way to liven a dull, repetitive premise is to take it on the road. [06 May 1994, p.6]

The Beaver plays like a thickly veiled confessional and plea for forgiveness. It's too creepy for comfort.

Malaise isn't Tom Hanks' thing, so A Hologram for the King with its death of an IT salesman vibe isn't a good fit. Hanks is far too indelible as a can-do personality to play why bother.

Safe is the operative word here, since One Fine Day wouldn't think of messing with its casting chemistry to take any comedic risks. Clooney is as benign here as he was dangerous in From Dusk Til Dawn. Somewhere in the middle, I bet he'll make a terrific Batman next summer. [20 Dec 1996, p.10]

It Comes at Night lays down a heavy layer of dreadful promise and doesn't follow through. Edgerton's fine performance is overshadowed by a title and ad campaign springing a bait-and-switch scam on horror fans.

Kechiche's doting on entwined limbs, thrusting pelvises and oral stimulation, all carefully posed and continued longer than necessary to get his point across, races beyond titillation to creepy voyeurism.

Close's performance is technically perfect and emotionally pinched, which is exactly what her role calls for, but it doesn't make a compelling movie.

Apted is a gifted British director with a keen eye for the way American subcultures live. But in Thunderheart he allows the hunt for a big box office cop smash to interfere with a cross-cultural tale that could stand on its own. [3 Apr 1992, p.9]

A Walk in the Woods is a trifle compared to 2014's Wild, which tracked a similar real-life journey toward self-discovery in richer detail. But darned if Redford's easy charm and Nolte's gravelly lack of it aren't enticing throughout.

The only surprise is that Garry Marshall didn't direct this jumbled, star-studded kibitz and rename it "Mothers Day."

Writer-director David E. Talbert, working from his novel, tackles each musical interlude, montage and mad dash to an airport like he's the first person ever to think of them.

Despite its overt feminism, Neighbors 2 makes the sorority unravel when its guiding man leaves. It's one of several mixed messages in the screenplay, possibly due to having five writers' fingerprints on it.

With each musical reprise and imitated frame, Condon continues a fight of comparisons he can't win. Either imitate a classic faithfully or leave out the songs and make your own version. Or just leave perfection alone.

Kids isn't a cure, it's a symptom of mercenary moviemaking. Some will call it heroic, but that's just a smug synonym for exploitation. [25 Aug 1995, p.9]

As a cinematic effort, Atlas Shrugged: Part I is competent; in service to Ayn Rand's epic novel, it's less so.

Gold isn't a bad movie, just lifeless except for McConaughey.

Will Forte plays his pitifully deluded creation to the hilt in a penknife movie. There's a lot of material here that only occasionally succeeds on Forte's insanely focused performance.

Any resemblance between Allied and a much better movie on the subject isn't coincidental but unfortunate.

Brand is amusing, in a nutty "Get Him to the Greek" sort of way, while Moore delivered one of the funniest performances ever.

What nags me about Battle Los Angeles is that Liebesman never realizes what he set up to happen after the fade-out.

Every fallen-star cliche director/co-writer Brett Haley employs goes down smoother with Elliott's baritone and unforced cool. He has deserved a spotlight role for years and now deserves a finer one.

It's all bathetic enough for Labor Day to be subtitled The Prisons of Madison County.

Lewis' performance is a spectacle of ego and last-chance craft that could only be possible for a legend near the end.

The Hollars plays like a Zach Braff cast-off, with its strenuous quirks and strummy musical interludes.

Rules Don't Apply is affably mediocre, even tolerable between brief pleasures. The movie's lone constant amusement is Beatty's madcap portrayal of Hughes, keeping aloft his Spruce Goose of nonromantic not quite comedy.

Dark Shadows manages in two hours what the TV show took six years to do: become irrelevant and remembered only for how sloppy it was.

The Boss Baby is a bun needing more time in the oven, some rethinking of what sort of animated comedy it wishes to be.

Hail, Caesar! is maddeningly hit-and-miss.

The fourth episode in a saga that didn't need a second, Age of Extinction, is 2 hours and 45 minutes of numbing dumb and dull end credits listing the artists cashing in. It is exactly what moviegoers who made this franchise thrive deserve.

When we-know-who finally gets what's coming, The Girl on the Train briefly reaches its campy feminist potential, after two hours of taking a transparent mystery too seriously.

The only bright spot in Tomorrow Never Dies is watching Chinese action star Michelle Yeoh eventually get a chance to grab a couple of machine guns and start rocking the house. She's a dynamo who has held her own alongside Jackie Chan, so it's disappointing that Spottiswoode doesn't find more opportunities to let her kick some tail. [19 Dec 1997, p.8]

Despite another charismatic turn by Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood, Marshall gradually feels less like his movie.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance offers Cage plenty of opportunities to tap his inner circus geek, to twitch, cackle and flail without shame, going full tilt batwing crazy. Not since he danced in a pagan bear suit in The Wicker Man has Cage appeared this unconcerned about what the audience will think.

After such a revolutionary acting career, Andy Serkis should be expected to make an equally inventive directing debut. Breathe is anything but that.

There are too many convenient romances, trumped-up crises and reversals of conscience to clear up while those poor whales suffer. Big Miracle isn't an entirely bad movie but a wholly misguided one.

First Knight isn't sparkling enough to be a legend, isn't grubby enough for realistic drama or bad enough to completely dismiss. Call it a near-myth. [07 Jul 1995, p.6]

Inferno is another docent tour dressed as an action movie, a baby boomer's fantasy of travel and intrigue.

Baywatch is a running gag in slow motion, a thong-in-cheek TV retread swapping wholesome jiggles for dirty giggles. There are places for such humor but beaches don't have gutters.

It's the Topps style of filmmaking; like most baseball trading cards, Little Big League is flatly two-dimensional, distinctly lacking action and with little value, unless its engaging young star, Luke Edwards, turns out to have a brilliant career. [24 Jun 1994, p.9]

Donaldson mimics the original shot-for-shot in some sequences, adding sordid violence that would have been too extreme even for Peckinpah. What's needed is a fast Getaway. This is merely Donaldson, Hill and glamorous stars spinning their wheels. [11 Feb 1994, p.6B]

Conan the Barbarian has its small, insipid pleasures, if you're in the mood.

Wright is an insanely funny filmmaker (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) yet only the front half of that description carries over to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Hereafter doesn't feel like a Clint Eastwood film; it's more like a very special edition of John Edward's psychic TV show.

Without previous knowledge of Andy Diggle's comics, The Losers looks like every other globetrotting gunpowder flick in which good guy bullets never miss and bad guy bullets never hit their targets.

Lara’s appealing enough in humor and drive but Vikander brings deeper notes than the script and green screens require, from sorrow and fear to first-kill horror. Tomb Raider isn’t a place to expect good acting even from an Oscar winner, but Vikander persists.

The movie is unambitious and sweet and nothing more. Precisely what we expect from producer-director Ivan Reitman these days, after good-natured audacity got his career started with hits like Animal House and Stripes. [9 May 1997, p.5]

Like its heroine, The Age of Adaline is afraid of its emotions, and stuck flat-footed in time.

That first movie was obviously a calculated grab for Harry Potter-type movie success but didn't feel like a rip-off. This one skews younger, to an easier-to-please demographic, closely resembling other fantasies since.

It's all harmless, if not entirely fun.

Whatever laughter Lottery Ticket earns is through familiarity with these exaggerated characters, and actors going the extra mile to make viewers believe they haven't seen this material before.

Striking Distance is the kind of movie that Last Action Hero wanted to be: an outrageous cop-movie spoof with equally gratuitous parts of dumbness and decibels. The problem is that, unlike his Planet Hollywood partner Ah-nold, Bruce Willis doesn't seem to know that he's goofing on himself. [17 Sept 1993, p.7B]

Calling Dead Men Tell No Tales the most entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean movie since the original is a backhanded compliment with all the bilge water under the bridge since then. Time to deep six Capt. Jack Sparrow. This franchise should tell no more tales.

Entourage the movie operates like Vince's pals, making itself feel important solely through who's famous nearby.

Apatow hates leaving anything on the cutting room floor. You could excise entire chunks of The Five-Year Engagement - the donut experiments at college, a couple of wise soliloquies, most of the stuff involving Violet's sister (Alison Brie) - and never miss a beat.

This is such a generic endeavor — not a poor effort, just one that doesn't attempt to do anything besides splash a screen with color and movement.

Go see Won't Back Down and enjoy it. Just don't believe it's anything more than a stacked deck with a lot at stake.

Some ideas simply work better on book pages, rather than on film where illogic is exposed.

Transcendence is a movie without villains, thrills or, after Nolan fanboys show up, much of an audience.

Every decade needs a nonsensical sci-fi space oddity - a Barbarella or Buckaroo Banzai - to keep the underground element amused. Tank Girl should keep the Internet clicking for a while, with its imposing strangeness and violent pop-apocalyptic action. [1 Apr 1995, p.2B]

So-bad-it's-fun. [6 March 1992, p.5]

The movie's only constant pleasure - heck, the whole franchise's - is Eugene Levy as Jim's dad, widowed and wondering if it's time to date again.

The first half is nothing but silly setups for a stretch run that admittedly has its moments of wacky pandemonium, just not enough.

The plot, dealing with aliens infiltrating our world, still made as much sense as it possibly could, and the special effects guys really don't go to work until the last two reels. [31 May 1996, p.8]

There is nowhere logical for the story to go since it wasn’t intended to run this long. Sex is everything in this movie because nothing emotional or thrilling registers beyond the moment.

The terror of Sept. 11 feels like little more than a dramatic hook, an easy way to make audiences cry. Oskar and the event defining him deserve better.

Ain't no mountain high enough, no plot valley deep enough, to keep Idris Elba and Kate Winslet from setting off romantic sparks in The Mountain Between Us. But this movie surely doesn't do them any favors.

Office Christmas Party contains enough lunacy from McKinnon, Bell and Vanessa Bayer to nearly recommend, then enough lame plot threads, Rob Corddry and Olivia Munn to reconsider.

MacLaine keeps things interesting, snapping off one-liners with precision that comes only through experience.

Fury reeks of self-importance, a strange arrogance for a fictional World War II drama drenched in more blood than ideas.

Flipper is a nice movie, a safe movie for Saturday matinees, but it isn't very exciting or entertaining. [17 May 1996, p.5]

The Intern is a movie outmoded in style and strangely retro-sexist in spirit.

Pawn Sacrifice tells a fascinating story in unspectacular fashion, resulting in a draw.

The junk in Lucy doesn't entirely eclipse the moments when weird is fun.

A movie as slight as Fluke shouldn't be expected to draw gasps and cooing at the drop of a plot twist. [02 Jun 1995, p.9]

At some juncture — much earlier than director Gareth Edwards intends — Godzilla needs to stop being an extra in his own movie.

It’s so respectful that vibrancy suffers. Coco is a bright pinata of a movie that breaks and nothing falls out.

I spent several minutes not caring what was happening with the story but just observing the patchwork illusion of oversized props, short stunt doubles and computer grafting of big faces on small bodies. Nice work.

The Great Wall is a so-so movie with eye-popping images.

Denzel Washington’s labored portrayal of a shambling legal savant named Roman J. Israel, Esq. is the least of the movie’s worries. This is a story of shifting ethics that should be dramatic, but shaky logic prevents that from happening.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was supposed to settle a fanboy debate older than Adam West. Instead it raises another: Is being a superhero really this much of a drag?

Simply put, Reeves doesn't seem bright enough to master all of the techno-blab he struggles to recite and pantomime in Andrew Davis' return to the thriller genre, Chain Reaction. [2 Aug 1996, p.3]

Rock the Kasbah isn't respectful of truth, or consistently funny in the way it lies.

Poor Thor. Dude can't even hold center stage in his own movie. He's the Asgardian god of stolen thunder, upstaged at each ab turn by Loki, malarkey and Odin's eyepatch.

Let's cut to the chariot chase. The latest screen version of Ben-Hur would be little more than a condensed miniseries without it, framed for small television screens, with performances to fit.

This Grudge Match is winners take all and losers bought tickets.

By all accounts, Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was a monster. That's exactly how Johnny Depp plays him in Black Mass, a dark blob of underworld cliches and bad contact lenses.

Out to Sea is nothing more than a puffed-up Love Boat episode sailing on risque gags that wouldn't be amusing at all if they weren't recited by old folks. [02 July 1997, p.1D]

Reiner made another one of those stodgy courtroom pieces and forgot the first rule of a witness: Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. [03 Jan 1997, p.5]

Imagine a stuffy Merchant Ivory production blended with muted Michael Crichton sci-fi and you have Never Let Me Go, at least as it plays on screen.

Egoyan's self-importance mars every frame of his film. [24 Mar 1995, p.9]

Shame smears the lines between daring and taunting, and art versus indulgence. When it ends there's the urge to take a shower, and not a cold one.

I deferred to the wisdom of Grouchy Smurf (George Lopez): "I didn't hate it as much as I expected to. But I still hated it."

Big Stone Gap isn't everyone's cup of sweet tea. It's a homespun tale populated by broadly drawn characters and solid actors — Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Krakowski, Anthony LaPaglia — sounding like they gulped hush puppy batter.

Slap together Meatballs and The Big Chill and you're left with Indian Summer, a movie that feels like cold leftovers from countless other feel-good ensemble comedies. [23 Apr 1993, p.9]

As a rollicking comedy, it isn't.

Comedy and narrative demand more rhythm than simply scamper, jabber, fall but that's what Minions bring to the table.

The Raven isn't nearly as much fun as it should be.

At times the screenplay by brothers David and Alex Pastor strikes the proper tone for claptrap.... Mostly, though, the dialogue thuds in circles.

Fifty Shades Darker is what you'd expect from encoring a regrettable one-night stand. Not a keeper, but nothing to gnaw off your arm about.

Give the Olympic ice skating fantasy The Cutting Edge a so-so score of 5.2 on technical merit and a low 4.6 for artistic interpretation. This Rocky romance movie is lovely to watch and difficult to swallow. [27 March 1992, p.8]

Life Happens still has the obligatory relationship cracks and repairs to wade through but it's finally tolerable.

Flat and polished is a fine condition for mirrors, not movies. There is imagination galore but no genuine magic in Mirror Mirror, a Grimmly disappointing take on Snow White's fairy tale.

It's a story told accurately, if not particularly well.

With these performances, Celtic Pride becomes nothing more than a three-corner comedy stall. [19 Apr 1996, p.9]

Operation Dumbo Drop has the lumbering pace of a pachyderm. [28 Jul 1995, p.8]

The movie zings when Jenkins is snapping off venomous wisecracks, or O'Hara speaks politically incorrectly with only the best intentions. But those moments aren't enough to raise A.C.O.D. above the level of a failed pilot for a racy pay channel sitcom.

Like the live action Beauty and the Beast, its best impressions come from imitating the source, lifting visuals and dialogue to deja vu effect.

As an actor, Meryl Streep is incapable of making false moves. That doesn't mean she's incapable of making false movies.

The problem isn't entirely Lehane's script... It's the way Belgian director Michael R. Roskam, making his English language debut, is so visually uninspired by all this meanness.

Unstoppable isn't unwatchable, but it is a letdown after "Speed" and some of the Speed-on-a-(fill in the blank with a vehicle) flicks that followed. Forget missing Hopper; even Keanu Reeves might make this movie more entertaining.

Extraordinary heroism deserves a less ordinary movie.

13 Hours is another flag-wrapped paean to true-life Alamo heroism in the vein of Lone Survivor, hoping for ticket sales like American Sniper. Neither of those movies carry the political burden of 13 Hours, and Bay isn't one to channel it.

Atomic Blonde is a rare case of a woman toplining an action flick, but it hardly feels revolutionary.

Bale operates in full brood throughout. Studi is a strong presence stymied by the movie’s misplaced priorities. Hostiles is another Western in which Indian characters are props for white man problems.

American Ultra is a clumsy mix of courtship and gunpowder, passion and horror leading to a romantically sick-humored conclusion. The end nearly justifies director Nima Nourizadeh's means of getting there. But not quite.

Yes, this is a great time for escapism at the movies. But there's a point at which escapism throws what we're trying to forget back in our faces.

Somewhere, Wes Craven is laughing up his sleeve, and Robert Englund is grinning. It's nice to know that you're irreplaceable.

This is a comedy never proceeding beyond its idea pitch and attractive casting.

The movie veers between disapproval, farce and something uncomfortably close to envy, with a trio of game performances barely holding things together.

The movie is geared to preschoolers, so only parents dragged with them may complain. There's only that Looney Tunes overture to savor before the Acme production begins.

I seriously doubt that it happened this way, with such convenient strife and truncated solutions. The movie is about baseball but plays like T-ball, with each situation teed up for easy swings.

If you prefer hipster romantic comedies that are unromantic and not too funny, Lee Toland Krieger's movie may be your grande half-caf caramel mocha frappe.

The three young stars biding time in Tom Gormican's listless rom-com are too gifted for one mediocre movie to bury.

A comedy as lazy as Sandler's previous boondoggles.

I honestly thought Eclipse would be different, after "New Moon" showed stirrings of cinematic life.

A terrible title for a not-much-better movie, missing a grammatically correct question mark and most of the point with romantic comedies.

The Host doesn't strive for social allegory, as previous body snatcher flicks have done with the Red Scare, civil rights and Watergate. If anything it's merely a teenage girl's fantasy checklist for prom.

Everything plays out brutally, and the acting's not bad. But it's unsettling for external reasons beyond its control.

Jobs the movie isn't as fascinating as Jobs the man, much less the myth of entrepreneurial superiority he left behind.

Sure, the plot is paper thin like most reboots, but CHiPs is less about the story and more about the special effects and stunt riding, which are jaw-dropping.

The movie's best performance — and worst defamation — belongs to Tony Shalhoub, playing the first victim as a conniving, egotistical jerk who deserves to be kidnapped, maimed and ruined financially.

Man on a Ledge makes bigger leaps of logic than Nick will if he fails a gravity test. If the transparent sting springing him from Sing Sing doesn't roll your eyes, then wait for the climax when Nick becomes a kind of plainclothes Spider-Man.

Veronica Mars, the movie, plays like a two-parter without commercials. Its uninspired framing and static action suits a TV screen better than a multiplex's.

As far as Sabrina goes...may she rest in peace for at least another 41 years. [15 Dec 1995, p.7]

Watching Spectre unfold, lumbering and slumbering, on the heels of a franchise high is a shock, so much talent coasting this time.

It's enough to make Kim Jong ill.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner makes a troublesome filmmaking debut, wasting a dream cast for a comedy in a fitful story of family tension, mental illness and corrosive self-absorption.

Rough Night wouldn't be fresh or funny no matter what gender it's written about or for.

With its flat acting and titillating format, The Lover is soft-core and mostly a bore. [14 May 1993, p.9]

George Clooney’s latest directing effort, Suburbicon, is a movie tipping off why it’s going wrong before it actually happens.

Director Stephen Herek (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and screenwriter Steve Brill dreamed up these fantasies for their so-called comedy about youth hockey. They could have devoted more attention to writing decent jokes. This childish mix of slap shots and slapstick lumbers along as awkwardly as a skater on a melting ice rink. [02 Oct 1992, p.12]

The movie's glaring problem is the design and execution of Chappie, whose look is unremarkable except for a pair of polymer rabbit ears ready for meme posterity.

That epilogue suspiciously looks tacked-on by Warner Bros., who did the same thing with Roberts in The Pelican Brief when the climax was too downbeat. Just one more anti-climactic chance to see Roberts flash that halogen-bulb smile, even though it thoroughly contradicts what preceded it. It leaves a bad taste, and one realizes that it's the same old tainted salmon Hollywood has been serving for years. Somewhere, Thelma and Louise are gagging. [4 Aug 1995, p.8]

One can forgive the threadbare script and Edwards' pedestrian direction for those scenes when Benigni shakes, stutters and stumbles through the lovely French scenery. [30 Aug 1993, p.6B]

Jackie Chan, master of martial arts comedy, wishes to be taken seriously as an actor. Seriously. The Foreigner is no place to start and a smart place to finish.

Despite its haunted house setting, the movie's most visible cobwebs are found in Jane Goldman's screenplay, adapted from Susan Hill's novel.

Jungle 2 Jungle is a culture-clash comedy based upon a French film that was roundly panned when it flopped upon our shores last year. Dumb plot. Dumb jokes. The usual. [07 Mar 1997, p.08]

The movie has all the propulsion of a trolling motor, traversing long-charted dramatic waters.

Sinister is basically a collection of bogus snuff films linked by standard haunted house tricks - everything creaking and slamming, with the power conveniently shut off.

A distinct lack of merriment marks each frame of this film, with Scott determined to erase all fond memories of past Robin Hoods.

Richie Rich is a movie fashioned with dollars, not sense. [21 Dec 1994, p.8C]

If not for a few choice performance moments and a couple of peppy montages, Wanderlust would be cinematic compost, recycled and thoroughly smelly.

After a lucrative career of bashing well-made scary, epic, disaster and date movies, Friedberg and Seltzer have a source begging to be mocked.

Murder on the Orient Express is prestige gone off the rails, a tony chunk of nothing that doesn’t beg the question whodunnit as much as why?

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a downgrade from the first, doing lots of thing wrong that 2012's sleeper hit did right.

Fallen begins in unremarkable fashion and trails off from there, idling its way through bland psycho-religious violence and spooky lighting. [16 Jan 1998, p.8]

Jonah Hex isn't abrupt by design but by desperation.

Disney's remake of Mighty Joe Young has little to recommend except more realistic special effects than the 1949 original and a handful of kid-sized thrills. The movie feels designed only to pass some time in a theater, without much attention to anything except building the perfect cuddly beast. [25 Dec 1998, p.8]

Filmmakers simply can't make Tarzan like they used to. If someone tries, like director David Yates did with The Legend of Tarzan, he's just another superhero, swinging on vines rather than spider webs. Natives can't be restless. Lions won't be wrestled...Tarzan fans leave feeling Cheetah'd.

Paul Haggis is positive that withholding information while John makes "A Beautiful Mind" flow charts and deals with bad dudes will keep it interesting. Haggis is wrong.

A sloppy, schizophrenic effort; a rollicking parody, a somber romantic tragedy, an orgy of violence and an incomplete work on all fronts. [24 Dec 1993, p.9]

It's genial entertainment, packed with the sort of nonsense kids love and a family-values message parents can respect, but it simply isn't focused or funny enough to convince anyone that Culkin - or co-star Ted Danson for that matter - has the chops for lasting stardom. [17 Jun 1994, p.8]

Brill's film isn't as offensive as it could be, nor as funny as it should be. Heavyweights is a case of no pain, and no gain, either. [19 Feb 1995, p.16C]

Blended is simply more of the stale Sandler formula that audiences wisely haven't sought as much.

As director and writer, MacFarlane appears to have forgotten everything about cinematic standards of pacing, characterization and meaningful smut, resulting in an encore that's slow, sketchy and dumb-dirty.

Harrelson and Dern's efforts aside, Wilson is indie ennui at its emptiest, a vessel of misshapen wit with a hole in the bottom. Its nihilism is exhausting. Oddness gets oppressive when a movie goes through more mood swings than its unbalanced heroes.

Nothing to skip school over but at least it's not in 3-D. No sense in paying an extra ticket charge for something belonging on TV, anyway.

Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is superb, casting gauzy glows and sensual silhouettes against impressively designed sets. Allen drops a few philo-cynical lines worthy of his reputation but not nearly enough.

Fey and Poehler remain game throughout, mustering a bit of besties magic here and there. Sisters flips a tested formula to become the New Coke of comedy, looking familiar and bubbly on the surface, disposable before it's finished.

Sloan and director Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year) are content to drift along on the star power of Goldberg and Danson, who are certainly appealing actors, but push every wisecrack and doubletake into bad dinner theater territory. [28 May 1993, p.6B]

DuVernay finds herself in the unenviable position of being both the right and wrong person for an important job. A Wrinkle in Time is gratifying for what it is, a step forward for creative women of color, and so disappointing for what it turns out to be.

Timecop has its fleeting moments of fun; mostly when Van Damme finally starts ribbing himself, years after Stallone and Schwarzenegger poked a hole in their own musclebound images. But director Peter Hyams and screenwriter Mark Verheiden (who co-created the Timecop comic book character) aren't nearly as clever as they think they are. [16 Sep 1994, p.6]

Sugar Hill is a movie that manages to be as self-destructive as its two central characters, Harlem drug-runners Roemello and Raynathan Skuggs. Like those two desperate (and disparate) brothers, Leon Ichaso's film ultimately wastes its potential and our time. [26 Feb 1994, p.7B]

This is certainly the talkiest of the seven films in the series and Craven never comes close to convincing us this could all be true. [14 Oct 1994, p.10]

For all its professional sheen, Species is a film that mistakenly believes it is smarter than the audience, scarier than any movie before it, and completely original. It's enough to make you laugh, if the filmmakers ever gave any impression that we're supposed to do that. Instead, we sit through 111 minutes of box office staples - sex, violence, more sex, more violence - and keep track of the better movies that Donaldson rips off. [07 July 1995, p.9]

Date Night is really just another example of what happens when funny sitcom stars are lumped together in a movie, believing that laughter exponentially increases with screen size.

The best moments in Wayne's World 2 have been done before and better - a kung fu movie spoof and a running gag based on Oliver Stone's The Doors (which was unintentionally funnier). Surjik trots out a slew of star cameos and cinema salutes, but without the verve of Hot Shots!, Fatal Instinct or Wayne's World itself. [10 Dec 1993, p.6]

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a tarnished sequel demolishing the original's balderdash charm in tumble-dry camera moves, CGI slosh and Elton John f-bombs.

Director Joe Wright's movie barely gets off the ground, and gets old quickly.

Fortress is a 91-minute sentence of bland deja vu for sci-fi watchers.

The Night Before isn't anything Harold, Kumar or Billy Bob Thornton didn't desecrate before and better.

The fifth edition of the franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard, is the brawniest and most brainless of the bunch.

Jade is another thriller where convenient shocks substitute for clues and motives come from the groin, not the mind. [13 Oct 1995, p.6]

The concept is rich with potential to offend yet after a promising opener Cody doesn't seem interested.

Hark's visual style occasionally strays from standard operating procedure with an arty camera effect or an odd angle. Those flashes of inspiration only serve to make the cliches - such as a coliseum showdown complete with land mines, snipers and a tiger - clunk a little louder. In the big game of entertainment, Double Team barely gets off the bench. [5 Apr 1997, p.2B]

A movie that wouldn't get much attention if the creator of "Titanic" and "Avatar" (as the ads overhype) weren't tangentially involved.

The Program trudges along like a fat freshman walk-on in a muddy practice field, piling up one collegiate scandal after another without a moral in sight. [24 Sept 1993, p.6B]

What is most surprising about The Indian in the Cupboard is its listless pacing, without emotional goosebumps. Director Frank Oz's films (Little Shop of Horrors, Housesitter), usually possess an energy to carry audiences along. [14 July 1995, p.8]

Clash of the Titans redefines 3-D but in the wrong way; the movie is dull, dingy and, well, let's just say dull again.

Step Up Revolution is a bad movie with a few good moments, usually when the cast sets aside delusions of acting prowess and does what comes naturally to them.

An offbeat romance as dysfunctional as its lovers. [17 Feb 1993, p.5B]

Any movie that features a dramatic actor like Kurt Russell playing straight man to a goofball like Martin Short already is sailing on choppy waters. Toss in a script that leaves no cliche unturned and the result is Captain Ron, a seafaring comedy that keeps its creativity in dry dock. [18 Sep 1992, p.8]

Chaplin is a screen biography of a comedy legend that takes itself much too seriously. [08 Jan 1993, p.8]

Wind only hits full stride during the racing sequences, filmed with stunning authenticity by cinematographer John Toll. This movie should be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for Toll's work. But there hasn't been such a threadbare film so dependent upon its camera work since Days of Heaven. [11 Sep 1992, p.10]

Death Becomes Her is a comedy so dark and disjointed that not even some terrific makeup effects can cover its blemishes. [31 July 1992, p.5]

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]

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.

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

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

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

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."

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

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.

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

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.

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

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]

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

Valerian displays reckless imagination and zero personality.

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

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.

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

Like many sudden heroes, these lifelong friends led unremarkable lives until fate stepped in. Eastwood is committed to depicting every single unremarkable step along the way.

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

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]

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

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.

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

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

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.