Even if some of its history and buckles are askew, the film is still an original take on a Christian redemption story.

The Meg is simply mediocre, PG-13 monster-moviemaking at its mind-numbing kinda/sorta best-ish. Meh.

It’s a history lesson wrapped up in a romance, gallows grim but far too often unnecessarily heavy-handed in a way that drives home the factual historical horrors it portrays while somehow managing to feel like a sizably budgeted but no less maladroit television movie of the week.

Bad as it may be, though, the film falls that one precious inch shy of being quite so awful that it achieves cult status; in short, it's just not bad enough to be any good.

There’s probably a movie out there that can call a happy, anatomical truce between Viagra-hopped, horizontal-dick jokes and heart-on-the-sleeve love stuff, but this ain’t that.

The movie aspires to be an inspirational screwball comedy of sorts about the stresses of motherhood, but the situational humor lacks the spontaneity necessary for some crazy fun.

The script is replete with filler inserted in the name of “real life”: bad jokes and silly riddles, spontaneous songs, and improvised scenes in which conversations go around in circles.

The filmmakers assume familiarity with the show's documentary premise and in-jokes (e.g., deputy Garant giving all his commands in French), which will make the movie even less accessible to novices.

Less extraordinary and considerably more banal, given the sci-fi/comedy subject matter, is Men in Black 3's story, which jumps the ectomorphic shark in high style but with a deficit of actual belly laughs.

Connery didn't want to play Bond anymore, and it shows in this forgettable picture. From a stirred, not shaken, martini to the ninja training school to the "surgery" to make Bond Japanese (by shaving his chest hair), there's nary a moment of this film that doesn't make any viewer cringe.

Yet another clunky thriller predicated on having Liam Neeson afford it some form of legitimacy, this Mark Williams-directed film is part political intrigue, part actioner, part family drama – all destined for the bargain bin.

Like the cartoon on which it's based, Inspector Gadget has moments of absurd fun and droll wit, but they are fleeting and few.

My favorite line from the movie: "The god---- truth won't fit in your brain." How's that for cheap gimmicks for getting out of having to make a movie make sense?

I’m not saying there isn’t comic gold to be mined in the topic of cunnilingus and the senior set, but The Big Wedding couldn’t hit pay dirt even if it face-palmed the film first.

Fathers' Day offers little in the way of comic relief.

It's just raw, uncoated stupidity that sticks in your throat.

Wolverine is a noisy mess, an origin/prequel that's nicely full of Jackman's ace glare as Wolverine and seriously killer snarl – The Boy From Aaarrrgh! – but utterly devoid of any of the borderline subversive smarts that made Bryan Singer's "X-Men" outings so contemporarily resonant.

Despite a title change from "The Boat That Rocked" to Pirate Radio, this British import exudes about as much outlaw swagger as Tom DeLay in a dance competition.

This ship has sailed, sank, and not to put too fine a bowsprit on it, sucks.

I wish that movies, like scholastic football, could be judged on a "no pass, no play" basis.

Given its can’t-miss potential, you’d think this would be one kick-ass movie. So why is The 15:17 to Paris such a trainwreck?

It’s like being haunted by outsized chimney sweeps that never bathe. And for the most part, it’s about that scary.

Terrifically dull, full of ear-searing sound design and much yakkity-yakking about the fate of humanity but entirely lacking any sort of soul or sense of good old summer matinee fun.

Even though She’s Out of My League ends exactly where you think it will, it does so without ever having actually gone anywhere at all.

This remake of Fred Zinnemann's well-regarded Day of the Jackal (1973) not only fails to match the modest entertainment value of Frederick Forsyth's workmanlike source novel, but actually moves into late contention for the title of 1997's most tedious movie.

As middling comedies go, this is neither as smart as it ought to be nor as dumb as you'd expect.

Perelman eases the transitions between the past and the present with echoing phrases and situations, but they all seem rather pat and contrived. Does he really think that repeated refrains from the Zombies oldie, "She's Not There," won't be a dead (so to speak) giveaway?

A film about Geronimo and about the great feared Chiricahua Apaches would offend, should offend our sensibilities. We should be forced to confront and understand a different way of thinking. This is a more civilized movie, a more noble movie, a remarkably and consistently boring movie.