The thesis-driven story precludes much dramatic discovery, and the looming shuttle disaster only exacerbates the sense of heavy-handedness.

This frantic sequel finds the diaper-obsessed heroes and their foolish parents marooned on a desert island, where they encounter the family from a more charming Nickelodeon cartoon.

Like so many other CGI behemoths, this dull action fantasy ultimately squashes rather than inspires one's sense of wonder.

Part of the idea here was to play in the ambiguous zones where Las Vegas tackiness, LSD hallucinations, Gilliam beasties, and lots of vomit become difficult to separate.

As silly as it sounds, but strangely dull.

Godawful allegorical western from the height of the cold war (1958), with lanky Yankee Gregory Peck caught between two superpower ranchers who are fighting it out over water rights. Directed by William Wyler in that glassy, studied way of his that gives craftsmanship a bad name.

The pretty-pretty visual style is evidence of a close study of Days of Heaven, as well as a complete misunderstanding of it. With Leo McKern and William Daniels; photographed by Nestor Almendros, forced into garish effects far below the level of his talent.

The script is stupid, the acting is wooden, the special effects are laughable, the vintage-80s synthesizer score is cheesy. The movie's paranoid premise is boiled down from two superior sci-fi movies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Day of the Triffids (1962). And there are no trolls.

Huyck's direction is resolutely uninvolved—every shot of every arrhythmically paced scene cries out for instant anonymity—and only Jeffrey Jones's sardonic scenery chewing as an archetypally deranged scientist keeps things marginally watchable. Lea Thompson is completely out of her element as Howard's sexpot girlfriend (though graduated, thankfully, from the treacly virginality of SpaceCamp), and as for the guy(s) in the duck suit . . . well, he/they deserve our condolences and prayers.

Landis never bothers to account for the friendship that springs up spontaneously between these two antipathetic types, but then he never bothers to account for anything in this loose progression of recycled Abbott and Costello riffs and fumbled Strangelovean satire.

Angry fish travels to the Bahamas for the Christmas holidays, plotting revenge against the family of a vacationing New England widow (Lorraine Gary). Noel, noel, a charming gift idea with suggestions of inverted seasonal myth—until director Joseph Sargent swamps it all in antimythical literalism and predictable lunchtime theater.

The ugly, aggressive, proliferating effects were all I could begin to contend with, and trying to keep interested in them was like trying to remain interested in a loudmouth shouting in my ear.

With very little modification, this archly innocuous children's musical could have been marketed as a sequel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

An appalling piece of junk that tries to redo The Odd Couple and Grumpy Old Men in presidential terms.

If Frank Capra had directed the Three Stooges in a Disney Christmas release, the results would have been considerably better than this godawful Fox comedy (1994) by writer-producer-director George Gallo.

The film is ugly on so many levels—from art direction to human values—that it's hard to know where to begin.

Under the direction of last-minute replacement Richard Benjamin, the results are insufferable—grotesque, chaotic, demoralized.

Pretentious, boring, and consistently uninvolving, this effort by producer Robert Evans and director William Friedkin to make comebacks with an incoherent Joe Eszterhas script simply won't wash.

Queasily suspended between drag theatrics (Faye Dunaway and Brenda Vaccaro camping it up on a soundstage replica of a carnival spook house) and Spielbergian wholesomeness (Canadian Helen Slater as a toothy, Aryan Ubermadchen), this is one comic-book feature that doesn't fly.

This 1998 sequel seems almost deliberately designed to disappoint--our enjoyment is supposed to lie in making fun of the obvious red herrings, contrived opportunities to show cleavage, melodramatic dialogue, gullible characters, and inevitable to-be-continued ending.

Director Colin Higgins plays foul with the audience, constructing some of the most dishonest suspense sequences ever filmed, and ends with a thriller that is obnoxious and manipulative in the extreme. If it were exciting, I suppose it wouldn't matter, but it's not: Higgins can't be bothered to bring the slightest bit of conviction to his plot, which takes nearly two hours to run its unimaginative course.

The most obnoxious case of masculine swagger since Andrew Dice Clay, with just a tad of Paul Lynde thrown in for spice, Jim Carrey defies you not to bolt for the exit while playing the title hero in this 1994 comic mystery.

None of the characters or ideas is allowed to develop beyond its cardboard profile.

Imagine combining bad imitations of the "Ace Ventura" and "Austin Powers" movies and you'll have a rough idea of this feeble Dana Carvey farce.

Distributors are clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel with this flimsy exposé of presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Wasn't worth Allen's time and isn't worth yours.

If your idea of a good time is watching a lot of stupid, unpleasant people insult and brutalize one another, this is right up your alley.

Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin's straightforward script and Mimi Leder's toneless direction make this attempt so boring that the titles counting down the months, weeks, and finally hours to impact are best used to gauge how soon the movie will be over.