Steve Persall

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

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

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

Nearly everything about Just Wright is just wrong.

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]

Plenty of ideas float through Ender's Game but the notion of honing a child into a war machine is one that sticks. Writer-director Gavin Hood's adaptation of Orson Scott Card's novel doesn't offer much else, bottled up with battle jargon and special effects debris as it is.

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]

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.

The Avengers is as brawny and lamebrainy as any comic book movie deserves to be, capped by a 40-minute assault pummeling senses as few action sequences ever have.

The pleasures of Lovelace are in its casting choices, allowing a brio trio like Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria and Bobby Cannavale to sleaze up a pivotal scene, and an unrecognizable Sharon Stone to go full Jessica Lange as Linda's shamed mother.

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

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]

Director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) has the proper foreboding drive in his technique to make every minute of his movie hum with fascinating dread. [21 Apr 1995, p.2B]

The most succinct evidence that Shakespeare was a fraud is offered by Derek Jacobi in prologue and epilogue, alone on a Broadway stage before a rapt audience. As usual in matters of the Bard, the play's the thing.

As wild as Medak wants it to be, Romeo is Bleeding isn't startling or - with the hellcat exception of Mona Demarkov - especially original. Even a fresh movie genre with an urgent title like New Violence can inspire some filmmakers to deliver the same old thing. [25 Feb 1994, p.6]

True Story may someday be used in both acting and journalism classes, the former for what students should do, and the latter for what they shouldn't.

Doesn't revolutionize the romantic comedy like "(500) Days of Summer," or even match the Farrellys or Judd Apatow for clever smut. But it is cheerful raunch delivered by a solid cast.

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.

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.

For Colored Girls is blessed with a Murderer's Row of black female actors, each tearing ferociously into Shange's words and gamely hanging on through Perry's.

Now and Then is much better when Hoffman, Ricci, Birch and Aston Moore draw us into their clique, with all their worldly poses and brittle facades. [20 Oct 1995, p.12]

Eat Pray Love is like one of those rich dishes Liz consumes in Italy; robustly flavored and guiltily pleasurable.

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]

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]

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.

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

The Campaign is below-the-Beltway humor, stretching obvious targets to raunchy extremes.

Penguins of Madagascar is fun while it lasts, and then mostly forgettable except for whatever shake-your-head lunacy sticks.

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.

This movie has everything up its sleeve and presto chango at its core, ending in defiance to the plot's established logic before viewers realize they've been had.

None of it is thrilling, but Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has a Saturday matinee goofiness that'll go well enough with air conditioning.

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 movie, saddle sores and all, is a lot of fun.

Cohen and Pogue never get a firm grip on how they wish to play this movie. Myth or mirth? Terror or tease? Draco's fire-breathing aim is mercifully off the mark when buzz-bombing villages, but microwave-sharp when it comes to heating dinner. [31 May 1996, p.3]

It's a nice movie, and can certainly be inspirational for the proper audiences.

The movie maintains its posture of mystery long after the solution is evident, and the best suggestion is to just smirk with the flow.

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.

Escape Plan is so dumb it's adorable, as any movie pitting Sylvester Stallone's grunt against Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent should be.

Casper often resembles a blueprint for the next Universal theme park ride, but it serves well as the summer's first family treat. This movie should make children happy, at least for another month, until Disney unleashes its Pocahontas punch. [26 May 1995, p.10]

As far as sophisticated caper flicks go, Tower Heist is oceans away from George Clooney's crew. Compared to other recent comedies, it's pretty light on the laughs.

Vallée's movie itself begins falling apart after being so artfully put together. Yet Gyllenhaal's performance is the center that holds, making Davis' melancholic obsession and irrational acts seem like the sanest things anyone could do. His disintegration is the actor's triumph.

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]

Gang Related isn't perfect; the plot does get a bit far-fetched at times, bordering on ironic overkill, and the last 10 minutes of bloody revenge is needlessly out-of-synch with the rest of the movie. You walk away from Kouf's movie not entirely happy about what it turned out to be, but overjoyed at what it is not. Sometimes, that's good enough.

When director Joseph Kosinski flips the switch on action, TRON: Legacy is entertaining enough. Especially in 3D IMAX, with a mega-audio system booming Deft Punk's droning Xbox-ready musical score, nearly drowning out the collisions.

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

Cumberbatch is very good, in a movie that isn't.

Politicians get painted with a wide brush in My Fellow Americans, a minor comedy made somewhat special by the actors who play those combative commanders-in-chief. You'll rarely see two actors do more to make a passably fun screenplay work - and appear so effortless doing it - than Jack Lemmon and James Garner in this movie. [20 Dec 1996, p.3]

Surprisingly, you won't find a more laugh-filled source of entertainment in theaters in any galaxy right now. [23 July 1993, p.8]

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

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.

Gutt is a wonderful villain, something the franchise has lacked, and even performs an original musical number - an Ice Age first, if I'm not mistaken. Dinklage has a sinister voice, and a subtle way of expressing the character's sillier moments.

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

Kenneth Branagh's version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein reverts to the creature's roots to become the most faithful adaptation ever of the horror classic. [04 Nov 1994, p.10]

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]

That John Hughes; he's a riot. Who else would think of packaging such cool ideas in a popular comic strip script and shoving it down kids' throats? To be fair, Dennis the Menace has a few very funny moments, thanks mainly to Walter Matthau, who is picture-perfect as Mr. Wilson. Mason Gamble has the right cowlicked, wide-eyed look to pass for Hank Ketchem's cartoon creation. And to the movie's credit - considering the mayhem going on here - nobody gets killed. [25 June 1993, p.9]

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]

Despicable Me 3 doubles down on Steve Carell's silly way with words, a smart idea after too much Minions gibberish spoiled Part 2. They're still here, in smaller doses and somewhat funnier for it.

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

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

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

Choosing any unwieldy subplot to trim from Rio 2 is tough, as they're each so vibrantly rendered.

Live by Night is ambitious to a fault, with so much material and technical pizzazz that a cable miniseries format might have been a better way to go.

Spike Lee's remake of 2003's Oldboy is as brutally perplexing as the South Korean original, and needless for both its repetition and tweaks. Nothing is really lost in translation, or gained.

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.

The reason this overstuffed movie remains tolerable is the inspired casting of Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr. as a combative father and son, and their determination to out-thespian each other.

Ready to Wear is a comedy - one of Altman's funniest - but it's the humor of humiliation, of the characters and the industry. [23 Dec 1994, p.16]

Ritchie stages plenty of gunfights and beatdowns to satisfy action fans, pausing to consider the beauty of violence before resuming speed and piling on more.

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]

For the most part, the performances can raise goosebumps, especially whenever Lea Michele, Amber Riley and Naya Rivera open their mouths.

Ted 2 isn't cinematically special; the plot structure and shot framing is identical to MacFarlane's animated TV shows. But my god, is it funny. Trashy, nasty as it wants to be funny. Wake up the next day still giggling funny. Yes, that funny.

A sequel needs to hit the ground running faster than Divergent does. Find more notes for Woodley's elegantly plain face to express.

The Greatest Showman is the feel-good (and feel good about it) movie every holiday season needs. P.T. Barnum is famous for saying there’s a sucker born every minute and he’s still right. For 105 minutes I’m a sucker for his movie, that may not be the greatest show on Earth but close enough.

Nostalgia counts a lot and needs to, with this sitcom-level material and Jon Turteltaub's uninspired direction.

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]

Moviegoers know exactly how these children feel awaiting the conclusion of The Baby Sitters Club, a dull, superficial adaptation of Ann Martin's popular book series that gives new meaning to the term "growing pains." [18 Aug 1995, p.8]

Emperor is also one of those movies in which the most intriguing occurrences are revealed by "what-happened-to . . ." title cards at the finale.

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.

Sean Connery's familiar, imposing manner and the seething stares of Laurence Fishburne generate a lot of tension, but it is the mercurial hamminess of Ed Harris as a death-row madman that gives the film the goosing it needs. [17 Feb 1995, p.10C]

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Above all else, Blues Brothers 2000 becomes an immensely appealing musical romp after the introductions are complete. [06 Feb 1998, p.8]

Lynn takes a familiar premise and makes it a small gem for 94 minutes, if not beyond. [30 Mar 1996, p.2B]

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

Anthony Hopkins, new to the franchise, is introduced in a prison cell, in stir-crazy shades of Hannibal Lecter. At 53, Catherine Zeta-Jones is nearly too young for this stuff.

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

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

Burlesque is what happens when an irresistible sex object like Aguilera meets Cher's immovable upper lip. It isn't always pretty but on occasion it's guiltily pleasurable.

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

Director Patrick Hughes' instinct isn't to find dark humor in violence, only to graphically depict it. There's a sadistic edge to The Hitman's Bodyguard that's unbecoming to its comedy.

It isn't Grant who makes Nine Months the funniest movie in months, but a supporting cast of crazies who raise the modern art of physical comedy to new heights, while Grant's character faces unexpected fatherhood. [12 July 1995, p.2B]

Solid work from an actor long thought incapable of as much. [6 Dec 1996, p.5]

Heaven Is for Real works in mysterious ways for a faith-based movie. It actually leaves room for doubt, in a genre founded on Christian absolutes. Tears aren't jerked; bibles aren't thumped. Believing gets easier.

A wheel-spinning homage gone terribly awry.

Hotel Transylvania doesn't raise the bar for animation or comedy but it's fun, and nice for once to have a different reason to say "boo" after an Adam Sandler flick.

Rock of Ages is nothing but a good time and sometimes less, slogging through the knee-deep hoopla of 1980s nostalgia at a jukebox pace.

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.

After years of watching Hollywood portray mentally disturbed people as either psychopaths or cuddly idiots, it's refreshing to see what Figgis and screenwriters Eric Roth and Michael Cristofer have done with Mr. Jones. Some of the old cliches rise up now and then - beginning with the casting of heroic Richard Gere in the title role - but Mr. Jones mostly maintains respect for its audience and its subject. [8 Oct 1993, p.7]

The A-Team is literally a blast, from the opening credits containing more thrills than the average shoot-'em-up (and more laughs than some comedies), to a climactic orgy of CGI destruction.

As a rollicking comedy, it isn't.

Wonder Wheel is one of Allen’s worst movies.

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

Thankfully, much of Red Tails is spent in the skies, where fighter planes swoop and zoom in thrilling dogfights with incendiary direct hits. Executive producer George Lucas apparently gave Hemingway the keys to his CGI kingdom, creating marvelously designed in-flight action and a sappy, snappy salute to the Tuskegee Airmen.

There is nice stuff found in The Lorax - Thneedville's artificial nature is inspired - and bad, like the original songs nobody will be humming when they leave the theater. But good intentions don't trump mediocre filmmaking. If that makes me a Grinch, so be it.

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

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.

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]

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.

Baruchel aside, The Sorcerer's Apprentice contains a few minor delights. One is Cage's surprisingly low-key approach to a role that he could be expected to play over the top.

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

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.

Despite its unsavory aspects, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is always a pleasure to observe, so artfully artificial with its green-screened backdrops and CGI props.

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

Fifty Shades of Grey isn't the howling pornucopia it could be, but it's sexy enough, spank you very much.

Knight and Day never makes sense from the opening credits. Heck, the title is only half-explained, and not as cleverly as the pun deserves. It's a movie that never gestated beyond the pitch: Glamorous stars in exotic locales, shooting and driving their way to safety through a gantlet of bad guys chasing a MacGuffin.

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

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.

The Little Rascals is marvelously quaint fun, proving that they can make 'em like they used to. Somewhere, Hal Roach is smiling, you betcha. [05 Aug 1994, p.16]

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

The heist movie genre gets a hip-hop makeover in Takers, a movie loaded with as much style as ammunition.

Justice League does remain fun as it unravels, an upgrade from every other DC flick. Yet a movie intended as the culmination of DC lore instead feels like just another sequel set-up.

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

Depp and Cruz only occasionally strike the sparks expected from two of the world's most beautiful people.

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.

Snatched amuses because of who's delivering the jokes rather than what the jokes are.

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.

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

If anyone gets a career boost from The Expendables it will be Dolph Lundgren, playing a drug-addicted loose Howitzer booted from the team and flipping to the bad side.

Perhaps the NCAA should investigate how Necessary Roughness ever made it to the big screen. The movie-making team that fielded this fiasco would receive more sanctions than the universities of Florida, Oklahoma and Houston combined. [27 Sept 1991, p.13]

The third act of Scardino's movie is very funny, and its finale featuring the exposure of an impossibly successful illusion is flat-out brilliant. It's just too bad that the movie's opening act is so sleight of humor, damaging the movie's potential. Now you see it. Then you don't.

It took brains to create such a sumptuous fantasia with pixels and keyboard swipes. Now, if it only had a heart.

Joyful Noise is a good movie when it lifts up its heart and lets people sing.

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.

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

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.

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.

A shocking and outrageous comedy that gets under your skin. Landis doesn't always know the difference between a laugh and a nervous giggle, but you can't just sit there unaffected. [25 Sept 1992, p.10]

Angels in the Outfield has a lot going for it, beginning with the engaging performances of Glover and Gordon-Levitt in the lead roles. [15 July 1994, p.8]

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]

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

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]

The fun of watching We're the Millers is guessing how raunchily low it will go, and realizing you've sorely underestimated these writers and actors.

It's deja vu all over again in The Hangover Part II, only dirtier and more dangerous, if you can imagine that.

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?

This Is Where I Leave You is packed with familiar regrets and lost-time makeups but these actors make every recycled moment count for something.

It's a very funny character needing more arc than Rauch's script offers or a shorter movie.

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

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.

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

The performances are spot-on, with former Tampa resident Morgan Simpson scripting a showcase for himself as Jefferson, and Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) as the enigmatic stranger, proving again that he's more than just a not-so-pretty face atop an intimidating body.

If only City Slickers II possessed the heart of the original, a quality it might have recouped at its climax. Yet, instead of a gentle lesson on the true value of life, the screenwriters tack on a Las Vegas epilogue that exists to present one more Palance zinger and a set-up for another sequel. [10 June 1994, p.8]

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.

Starting with a mountainside rescue setting up Ray's bravery, through cities ruined and a tsunami leveling San Francisco, San Andreas is gnaw-your-knuckle fun. Which is the roller coaster conflict that comes with the disaster movie genre, the closeness to horrific reality that attracts millions yet repels a sensitive few.

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]

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.

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]

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.

Farrell's diction is a noticeable upgrade from Schwarzenegger's but there's also his superior portrayal of sweaty apprehension and killer instinct.

Hocus Pocus is a sweet-spirited romp that could give clean-minded silliness a good name once again. [16 July 1993, p.6]

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.

This is a solid, sincere affirmation of faith and forgiveness. Praise the Lord, and pass the popcorn.

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

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.

Wang's high regard for women is intact, plus a keen eye for period detail making the 19th century sequences lovely to observe. But it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Schwentke keeps things lively and loud, with a mildly alarming body count, smashing glass and gunfire.

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

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.

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

The humor is an underdog's fantasy, tapping the same vein Murray bled dry with self-important camp counselors and military officers; the less cool they are, the harder they'll fall.

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

Stargate is a time-warped implosion of baffling space mysticism, a costume budget gone mad, and too much sand for any movie short of Lawrence of Arabia. It's pretty, vacant and pointless; an interactive computer game with which we just don't feel like getting involved. [28 Oct 1994, p.10C]

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

Russell remains one of our most adorable, underused actors, although this role lacks the emotional and comedic breadth of her turn in 2007's "Waitress."

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

For Love or Money is a featherweight romantic comedy that barely stays afloat, thanks to the effortlessly appealing personality of Michael J. Fox. [1 Oct 1993, p.11]

Not rocket science by a moonshot but sporadically dumb fun.

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]

Finally, a horror film that doesn't turn on the gore machine nor confuse dread with decibels. One of the most convincing members of the cast is the gloriously creaky old house that sets up the spooky action. [23 July 1999, p.03]

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.

Other than its campy title, not much about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 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]

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]

A Bad Moms Christmas is a comedy with better casting than jokes, a sequel sticking to the formula of using twice as much of whatever worked before.

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

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.

The pleasant surprises in Larry Crowne come from its side characters.

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

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

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.

This movie embraces everything that should make it lousy, calling out itself for aping the source's bad ideas then flipping the script with meta precision.

It's rambunctiously amusing but the laughs clot in your throat. There's a meaner streak this time to Kick-Ass and Hit Girl's exploits, or maybe Carrey's sensitivity is justified. Either way, the third act of Kick-Ass 2 is a visceral beatdown.

The Substitute is loud, dumb and sort of fun, but it'll be best viewed on your neighbor's cable TV, so you don't have to pay the bill. [19 Apr 1996, p.2B]

The next step in Matthew McConaughey's inevitable march to network television is The Lincoln Lawyer, a pilot disguised as a feature-length movie, with an entire season's arc crammed into two hours.

This is science fiction needing more work on the fiction part, an intriguing premise running its course halfway through. Passengers is too smart for starters to devolve into green screen spectacle relegating its attractive stars to unconvincing gapes.

Energetic performances plug plot holes and the most interesting villains die first, but Surviving the Game is a decent fix for action junkies before the summer blockbusters arrive. [20 Apr 1994, p.6B]

What Bay has really done is slice Beverly Hills Cop in two; Eddie Murphy's sandpaper personality in Lawrence and his silky style in Smith. [7 April 1995, p.7]

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.

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."

The recurring fight scenes had a campy quality that recalled the funniest flicks from Hong Kong. [30 June 1995, p.11]

The movie is pleasant enough thanks to Kendrick and co-stars, especially Merchant's daft mannerisms and Squibb's matronly spunk. It's solely their attention to the project holding ours.

Act of Valor will likely earn high praise from combat veterans and their families, the way movies like "Fireproof" and "Seven Days in Utopia" resonate with Christians. Civilians, movie critics and certainly pacifists won't be nearly as impressed.

The Boss feels like a fun character gradually wasted.

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

It's all harmless, if not entirely fun.

It's the garish swarm of colorfully twisted action that Batman v Superman needed, the anarchic approach such timeworn superheroes deserve. Suicide Squad characters aren't nearly as familiar, so writer-director David Ayer's movie is also messy, not entirely by design.

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

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

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.

Wan in particular is pacing today's movie horror by reverting to the past. There's a touch of Hammer Films in his haunted house atmospheres, and Roger Corman in his groaning comic relief from the dread.

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."

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.

Wolverine is a solid start to the ever-lengthening summer movie season, when all that matters is the bang and the bucks paid for it.

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

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.

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]

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.

Yes, it's Meet the Parents time again but flipped and filthier, in a good way. Why Him? had me laughing louder, more often than most smutcoms do, a NSFW blusher delivered by a keenly comical cast.

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

A sitcom pilot idea stretched to feature length boredom.

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 Gunman becomes a highly capable shoot-em-up but not much else.

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.

Guilt and obsession combine to create the most personally revealing effort of his career. [Restored version; 13 Dec 1996, p.5]

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.

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.

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

Our Family Wedding should embarrass Whitaker and each of his co-stars, perhaps except Carlos Mencia, whose chief attribute as an actor is that he's a so-so standup comedian.

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

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.

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

What happens in Vegas happens a lot in movies. Think Like a Man Too goes to the same casinos, strip clubs and pleasure pools with a fistful of jokers and an ace up its sleeve, the irrepressible Kevin Hart.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Gimme Shelter exists less as a social lesson than as a wobbly showcase for Hudgens' still-developing skills.

A nice but unnecessary movie for small children who can find the same level of entertainment on kiddie cable networks.

It's a capable Sunday school lesson with little for anyone to challenge and practically nothing that offends.

The Tourist is less likely to be remembered for its cat-and-mouse machinations than for the beautiful people carrying them out.

An imagined conversation between Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, after the premiere of Wrath of the Titans...

Depp is the only reason this haphazard take on the Lone Ranger legend exists, at least in this swollen state, begging the question of why Disney didn't name the movie Tonto.

In addition to being one of the finest golf movies ever, this film raises the bar on faith-based cinema.

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.

One of the family comedy treats of the season. [15 Oct 1993, p.6]

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

John Frankenheimer weaves a tidy sense of dread until he reveals what should scare us in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Then the movie degenerates into the equivalent of a roadshow tour of Cats gone horribly wrong. [23 Aug 1996, p.8]

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]

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

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

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

It's just an exhausted idea coasting on the charm of its stars.

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

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]

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

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

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]

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

The Farrellys whip up a miss-or-hit affair, the best jokes coming without much set-up, just non sequiturs and malapropisms.

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]

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

The Next Karate Kid is equally pointless; a fourth installment of a series that stopped kicking and started creaking in round 2. [11 Sep 1994, p.18C]

America's foremost smart aleck Dennis Miller adds grand giggles to familiar gore in Bordello of Blood. [17 August 1996, p.2B]

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]

Winter's War isn't tedious. Amiably bad movies seldom are. Theron and Blunt look fabulous doing silly, screechy things in Colleen Atwood's costumes. Chastain makes Sara a formidable match in battle and bed with Eric, who becomes less important as these wonder women converge.

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

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.

Identity Thief is a road movie with its creative lanes clogged, and a Mack truck comedian barreling through, anyway.

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

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.

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

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.

An affably crude bromantic comedy with an appealing set of bros.

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

Even stock characters -- Zoe's tirelessly supportive friends and relatives -- get style points for giving jobs to old pros Klein, Linda Lavin (Alice) and "Mr. C" himself, Tom Bosley. Of course, the babies are adorable.

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

From the impure perspective of someone who hasn't read King's series, The Dark Tower isn't half-bad. Faint praise, but this movie will take all it can get.

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.

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]

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]

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

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.

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 makers of Jingle All the Way have the nerve to declare what the rest of us have only grumbled about: that the superficial reason for the Christmas season is found nestled in your wallet. Schwarzenegger's ho-ho heroics should have moviegoers gladly tapping into that source into the new year. [22 Nov 1996, p.3]

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.

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

21 and Over remains enjoyable for what it is and all it cares to be, which is nothing any respectable movie critic should recommend, and I'm down with that.

While The Mummy isn't the big bang preferred to start the Dark Universe of classic monsters, it's a serviceable popcorn flick dangling hints of promising things to come.

Vacation is a Gen X comedy franchise rebooted exactly how audiences can expect in 2015, bawdier and less likable than whatever classic inspires it.

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

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

There came a time, during a screening of Eric Schaeffer's romantic comedy, when I knew exactly what would happen for the rest of the movie, and knew it wasn't going to get any better along the way. The depression was compounded when I realized If Lucy Fell had another hour to go. [8 March 1996, p.10]

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]