May walk like a comedy and quack like a comedy, but despite the absurd extremes to which it takes the squabbling-family formula, it inspires nary a chuckle.

The film, much like Willis' performance, never flatlines, but it never delivers the thrills you expect from this type of genre piece.

It's exactly what it appears to be: a funny-enough stoner comedy with a likable cast.

While the movie is a mess, it can be a fun ride as long as you first put your brain into "do not disturb" mode.

Could be fun, you might think. No. Bad acting and worse dialogue quickly put an end to that notion.

Blended is an Adam Sandler movie that isn't as bad as you feared it would be.

Director Jessie Nelson shoots it all like a Hallmark card that comes to life, which sounds like a cliche, which it is, which is the point.

A relentlessly unfunny comedy, it wastes the talents of Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara as egregiously as one could possibly imagine, resorting to lame jokes, cliches and incompetent storytelling to pass the time.

A movie that makes little sense, is dumb when it's not being stupid and yet is still at times laugh-out-loud funny.

Some movies are kind of fake good — at first blush they seem to have all the ingredients in place to be successful. But on further inspection, it’s all a trick. That’s the kind of movie this is.

The film is based on a popular series of young-adult books (big surprise), but one figures only die-hard fans will enjoy the result. The movie is slow-witted and moves at a glacial pace.

Like nine out of 10 faith-based films, it lets the message crowd out the other elements of good art: character development, thematic complexity, even basics such as a compelling conflict.

Earnest in its ambition but dopey in its execution, Winter’s Tale never takes flight.

There are a few scares in Come Back to Me. They would be a lot scarier if we either hadn't seen them coming, or hadn't seen them before.

Seventh Son is recommended only for the most far-gone of fantasy addicts, for whom it will serve as a sort of methadone. It won't exactly satisfy, but it will tide you over until the next season of "Game of Thrones."

Picture Alan Alda in the title role of "Dirty Harry," and you have a good idea why Tyler Perry playing a hard-edged cop in "Alex Cross" doesn't work. [19 Oct 2012]

Jang and Odagiri are good as the rival runners and soldiers. But they are surrounded by over-the-top performances, which play out like a mugging contest.

You can’t help feeling as if Miller has missed an opportunity. Punk rock was all about manic energy, unbridled (and often unfocused) passion. CBGB plays more like a folk tale.

Not even the snickering juvenile who lives in the deepest gutters of your brain will get a cheap thrill out of these antics.

It's an unnecessary movie, with some funny parts and a few callbacks to the original, as if visiting Las Vegas for a bit might bring back some of the original magic. It doesn't, but at least this time it seems like they're trying. A little, at least.

Checking subtlety at the door, Monteverde goes for broke on the emotional-manipulation front. Perhaps that's OK as a device for illustrating a parable, but it doesn't make for much of a movie.

It's no surprise The Boy Next Door is junk. What is disappointing is that it's not fun junk. It doesn't even merit a good hate-watching, because the whole thing is so meh.

For the most part the jokes here are tired. William H. Macy is a welcome presence in the small role of Phil's offbeat-but- intense boss.

A clever, funny movie that will entertain kids and adults.

Dumb, lazy, obvious and largely pointless.

The resulting film winds up like a compelling story about an iconic civil-rights event buried beneath an avalanche of stereotypes and bad writing.

By far the scariest thing about director Stuart Beattie’s I, Frankenstein, a terrible would-be horror story that somehow roped in a couple of really good actors, is that the ending seems to suggest the possibility of a sequel. Now that’s horror.

The movie is a big disappointment, because ultimately Slender Man does not get the full-on creep-out treatment such an intriguing character deserves. Here he's just a generic horror bad guy, doing standard horror-bad-guy things. He could be anything, really, and therefore winds up, like the movie, being not much.