Just when it seems about to become a real corker of an adventure movie, plunges into incomprehensible action, idiotic dialogue, inexplicable motivations, causes without effects, effects without causes, and general lunacy. What a mess.

All very nice, sometimes we smile, but there's nothing compelling.

A comedy so listless, leisurely and unspirited that it was an act of the will for me to care about it, even while I was watching it.

While the lead actors deliver lovely performances, it’s a shame they have to work with material so ham-handed and overbearing.

Everyone in The Boy Next Door has to behave like an idiot at least once or twice, just so the movie can keep going. It’s an act of mercy when it finally grinds to a halt.

It is happy to be goofy.

There must be humor here somewhere.

The Electric State short-circuits from a severe case of Character Overload, with great actors mired in hopelessly silly and underwritten parts.

It is a terrible film, and it skirts (but does not cross) the line of offensiveness...but it is undeniably watchable in the same way you can’t turn away from a talent show featuring a medley of acts that are pretty awful but quite confident they’ve got something to share.

If you like the comic strip, now in its 56th year, maybe you'll like it, maybe not. Marmaduke's personality isn't nearly as engaging as Garfield's. Then again, if personality is what you're in the market for, maybe you shouldn't be considering a lip-synched talking animal comedy in the first place.

Despite all its sound and fury, Legend is a movie I didn't care very much about. All of the special effects in the world, and all of the great makeup, and all of the great Muppet creatures can't save a movie that has no clear idea of its own mission and no joy in its own accomplishment.

The kind of movie Mad magazine prays for. It is so earnest, so overwrought and so wildly implausible that it begs to be parodied.

Stroker Ace is another in a series of essentially identical movies he has made with director Hal Needham, and although it's allegedly based on a novel, it's really based on their previous box-office hits like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run.

A pleasant, genial, good-hearted, sometimes icky comedy that's like spending a weekend with well-meaning people you don't want to see again any time real soon.

This is an OK movie about a serious subject and an important milestone in the road to gay freedom and equality. It’s just a shame it didn’t accomplish the kind of cinematic punch as did the Oscar-winning “Milk.”

Despite the pairing of the eminently likable and talented Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler as the leads, and about a dozen recognizable (and usually funny) supporting players, The House is a fetid, cheap-looking, depressing and occasionally even mean-spirited disaster.

It’s badly written and inertly directed, with actors who don’t have a clue what drives their characters. This is one of those rare films that contains no chemistry at all. None. The actors scarcely seem to be in the same scenes together.

I laughed, yes, I did, several times during Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. That's proof, if any is required, that I still possess streaks of immaturity and vulgarity.

Sweet, in its meandering way. It has no meanness in it, no cynicism, no desire to be anything other than what it is, an evocation of the fun of living your life as a skateboarder.

There's so much flashing forward and backward, so many spins of fate, so many chapters in the journals, that after awhile I felt that I, as well as time, was being jerked around.

The "Be Kind, Rewind" stickers on patrol car bumper stickers may well address the quick fate of "Two If by Sea," but there will be a lot worse comedies on the rack with greater reputations when that happens. [15 Jan 1996, p.31]

While the talented and versatile director Paul Feig (“Freaks and Geeks,” “Bridesmaids,” “A Simple Favor”) displays an admirably ambitious reach, and there are some impressive visuals, The School for Good and Evil never quite finds its footing.

The movie crosses two formulas -- Fish Out of Water and Coming of Age -- fairly effectively. Because it isn't wall-to-wall action but actually bothers to develop its characters and take an interest in them, it was not at first considered commercial by its distributor, New Line, and languished on the shelf for two years.

Here's a case of two actors who do everything humanly possible to create characters who are sweet and believable, and are defeated by a screenplay that forces them into bizarre, implausible behavior.

The movie might have worked if it had been a satire of those awful made-for-TV Family Problem Movies.

Love may or may not be endless, but there’s no limit to what can be contrived in a movie like this.

On a few occasions it's very funny, but it never quite goes over the top and gets the big laughs it is obviously aiming for.

Slap-happy entertainment painted in broad strokes, two coats thick.