As directed by a button-pushing Herbert Ross, "Undercover Blues" operates under the credo of "Grin, and the world grins with you." The ever-chipper Turner and Quaid try their damndest throughout, with Quaid often resembling a Cheshire cat whose face froze that way. throughout, with Quaid often resembling a Cheshire cat whose face froze that way. But all the pep in the world couldn't save this nonsensical mixture of low-rent espionage, low-ball slapstick and low-reaching cuddly family moments, like the baby's first steps captured in what looks like a Polaroid ad.

Waste in the health care system is deplorable, but waste on the movie screen isn't so great either.

More an argument than a fully fleshed-out drama ... The script is unconvincing; two key narrative twists, one related to the other, are deeply hokey.

Full of interesting little grace notes, and the cast is excellent, yet it grows more and more frustrating.

It remains a diverting, mildly entertaining movie, far short of provoking the controversy (or hysterical laughter) it apparently prompted during its release in Germany.

Let's say you find yourself at the multiplex, and the first 20 minutes of Mr. Woodcock happen to correspond with the 20 minutes you need to waste before your movie of choice begins. Those are the ideal 20 minutes to spend with this marginally promising--but ultimately unfunny--comedy.

Even for John Hughes, who writes movies in less time than most people write postcards, The Great Outdoors seems unusually slapdash.

One of those comedic pieces that steps off smartly but about halfway through starts to stumble home as it disintegrates into farce and squishy sentimentality. [23 Apr 1994, p.19]

Eastwood's foursquare directorial aesthetic tends to heighten, rather than camouflage, a screenplay's shortcomings.

Padding disguised as a feature-length screenplay, adapted from Belber's one-act.

Toward the end, the film resorts to placing a young girl in jeopardy in a pathetic attempt to pander to who knows what audience. Some people have praised the technical excellence of Aliens. Well, the Eiffel Tower is technically impressive, but I wouldn`t want to watch it fall apart on people for two hours.

Vivid in bits and pieces, Mid90s feels like a research scrapbook for a movie, not a movie. The more Hill throws you around in the name of creating a harsh, immediate impression, the more the impressions blur.

Here and there, the actor invests the kind of feeling that makes The Way come alive in human terms.

An Israeli-on-Arab version of "Shampoo," You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is terrible in many ways, and shoddy in every way that has to do with filmmaking. But politically it's sort of interesting.

In this third outing for the Griswolds - following the dismal "National Lampoon's European Vacation" in 1985 - the satirical edge has given way to sentimentality and a whiff of smugness, while the black humor has degenerated into broad slapstick. It's a tribute to first-time director Jeremiah Chechik's fine sense of timing that the obvious physical gags still generate some substantial laughs, though they arrive almost in spite of Hughes' tired script. [1 Dec 1989, p.Friday A]

You've seen worse. The film industry is capable of better.

Dog Days is in some ways a very strange movie, in the way it straddles the worlds of weirdo comedy and family-friendly fare. But ultimately, it's the pooches who steal the show.

Willis never develops a rapport with Def, and in the end it's not the predictable action but this lack of chemistry and camaraderie that sinks 16 Blocks.

The movie's rhythm and scope are pure sitcom, but that keeps the vehicle running smoothly over sizable plotholes. [15 Feb 1988, p.7C]

A manipulative look at dying with dignity and a lame yarn about as realistic as the fantasy in “The Princess Bride.”

No question, the new movie is amiable family entertainment, and Allen is such an affable actor that maybe kids won't begrudge him seeking romantic fulfillment in order to remain their favorite Santa.

The movie, full of talented performers in search of a more propulsive vehicle, settles for workmanlike cover-band status, which makes this a cover-band tribute to a jukebox musical - a long way from true, trashy exhilaration.

As Premonition zigzags toward its solution it loses its head completely, packing a risible final reel with left-field religious disquisitions and heartfelt warnings against infidelity.

The cinematic equivalent of Trix. It's just made to be enjoyed by certain folks more than others. Will girls like it? More than their parents.

Agora has everything except real drama.

Absurdly brutal slapstick is a tough thing to sustain across a feature. I spent a lot of The Three Stooges staring, not laughing. For me this was a stare-out-loud affair.

As a sort-of-true-crime comedy, spinning a yarn of middle-class larceny and extreme, deeply unlawful couponing, it’s likely to offend no one but the most grimly law-abiding consumers among us. But like the people it’s about, you want more.

Exploits the epidemic of kidnapping in Venezuela without offering solutions or insight--only sophomoric platitudes. Jakubowicz's talents as a filmmaker are many, but crafting an articulate, well-examined social theory isn't among them.

The problem with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is this: The closer the many-hands screenplay gets to the Christ-like sufferings and resurrection of Lord Aslan, the lion (voiced by Liam Neeson), the more conflicted the filmmakers' efforts become.

Aims for a sadness and desperation that is crudely announced rather than subtly demonstrated.

Snakes on a Plane represents a fairly craven mixture of deliberate cheese and inadvertent lameness, plus fangs.

Not even the film's occasional bursts of ultra-violence, or the endlessly oozing red clay, or Hiddleston crying a red tear, or Chastain swanning around in one flaming crimson ball gown after another, can infuse this gorgeous bore with anything like red-blooded suspense.

Whitman's a wily cross between Janeane Garofalo and Ellen Page and in her scenes with her motivational-speaker single mother (Allison Janney), you sense a better movie lurking in the shadows.

Despite a few good ideas and the uniformly splendid production and costume designs by Luhrmann's mate and partner, Catherine Martin, this frenzied adaptation of The Great Gatsby is all look and no feel.

The gentle erotic undertow in the friendship of Snow Flower and Lily has been toned down, and replaced by … niceness.

Just about everything in the video-gamey World War I picture Flyboys rings false, although the planes certainly are terrific.

Keaton is the one who brings both effortless gravity and subtle levity to a film that, without him, wouldn’t have much of either.

I did like seeing the (fakey-looking) sheep take flying neck-high leaps at various human throats, in scenes recalling the killer rabbit in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." And I enjoyed the Kiwi dialects. And I suspect King's next film will be better.

Though it does know how to hammer home a point, Hardware doesn't always have matching nuts and bolts. It has an anarchic quality, a jolting, disorienting rhythm that makes us unsure of time frame in certain stretches and of motivation in others. [14 Sep 1990, p.I]

It helps if you think of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" as sort of a "Sesame Street" for teens. Beneath the self-aggrandizing plot, the rock music, the dudespeak and the humor lurks a smattering of knowledge. The premise is spectacularly silly, but harmless. Bill and Ted are a couple of woolly-brained teens who spend so much time dreaming about the rock band they're going to start that they are about to disqualify themselves from a public education. [20 Feb 1989, p.7]

Plays like it was made by people who are 30 going on 13. The movie is as flighty and mixed up as the adolescent girl at its center.

The whole thing feels a bit desperate.

It sounds fun. It's a little fun. For a while. But Bekmanbetov shoots every killing spree like an addled gamer, working that slow-down-speed-up kill-shot cliche like a maniac.

Planes has practically no visual distinction, it's a complete knockoff, but I think it'll get by with the kids.

The dialogue comes straight out of "The Benny Goodman Story." That look, someone says to a staring, pausing Kutcher, "tells me you're on to something big." Nobody talks in this movie; everyone speechifies or take turns sloganing one another to death.

There are two comic storylines here, and I liked only one of them...The relationship between Travis and Myers is boring; too bad the whole film wasn't about the Scottish family. They deserve their own picture. [30 July 1993, p.C2]

With a lovely voice performance from Cena, the spirit of Ferdinand does shine through. But the rest of the story filler is mostly forgettable.

The belief here is that Landis simply has overstuffed what might have been a somewhat tender action picture with all manner of movie trivia and action scenes. After a while, the principal characters in the chase begin to move so fast that they become a blur and ultimately disappear.

The sole saving grace of Wrong Turn is its honesty. You get exactly what you expect -- blood, guts and people being taken to the killing floor. But just because it's honest doesn't make it good.

In the end the violence is too realistic (though not terribly graphic) to qualify as cartoony escapism, yet the movie lacks the sophistication, vision or satirical edge to lay claim to any higher purpose. It's merely dark for dark's sake.

This is a movie that can`t, or won`t, pay attention to the finer details. The result is that Hot Pursuit never quite catches fire.

Disappointing... Jack Nicholson parodies himself while Kubrick fails to provide any thrills. [11 July 1980, p.8]

Woodley is an ace at handling laughter through tears — "my favorite emotion," as a character in "Steel Magnolias" once said. She improves with each new film, even when the films themselves aren't much.

Dances in circles until you tire of admiring it.

I don’t know if this was due to the budget or COVID, but Marry Me feels small in ways that a big commercial rom-com frequently doesn’t and maybe that’s why you can’t fully shake the feeling that this Universal Pictures project is really just a marketing scheme cooked up to highlight Lopez’s real-life music career and some NBCUniversal properties, including the frequent cutaways to a decidedly unfunny Jimmy Fallon, which may be, ironically, the movie at its most honest.

Clarke has loads of talent, but in Me Before You she's undermined by director Sharrock's technique, and an endless slew of overeager reaction shots (She's clumsy! She's twinkling!) exacerbated by editor John Wilson.

There is a good movie here--Strait actually sings the songs that stand on their own, and he's appealing, despite the rock movie cliches.

Predators, plural, starts well and ends poorly, and in the middle it's in the middle.

Levy surely knew that the script at hand didn't warrant a full two-hour running time; even if you enjoy The Internship, as my son did, it feels 20 minutes over-full at least. Cut out half of the "Flashdance" and "X-Men" references, and you're halfway there.

A far more stylistically assured film than its fey predecessor, though it still carries almost no conviction.

One of those movies that promises much but doesn't deliver. Despite a lot of misplaced talent, this movie is as silly and forced as its title.

There's nothing wrong with Paranoia that a stronger director, livelier leading actors and several hundred fewer narrative conveniences wouldn't cure.

It's not much to hijack. But playing a lovelorn version of himself, in love with Adam Sandler in a dress, a lisp and breasts, Al Pacino holds a gun to the head of the comedy Jack and Jill and says: I now pronounce you mine.

It's supposed to be one of those stories of a child's innocence - that means nudity - told in an unfettered way. But the young people in the film who grow up together on a tropical island are dumb-dodo types. As a result all we watch for is the nudity and, it turns out, teen-ager Brooke Shields is doubled in her nude scenes by a 31-year-old model. So much for truth and innocence. [11 July 1980, p.8]

All of the kids have wonderful skin, unblemished by the slightest pimple and never coarsened by the California sun. As sordid as the material may be, Rocco can't help but prettify it. [11 Sep 1992, p.C]

At this point in the life of this ol’ archaeologist, Indy’s theme song has become not just a sound, but practically a sight to behold — even in a movie that isn’t.

Maybe Georgia Rule should be required viewing for Paris Hilton during her term in the slammer. But not for us.

Nearly two hours long, 30 Days of Night makes you feel the cold (though it was shot in New Zealand) and feel the fangs, but it also makes you feel like 30 days is a pretty long time.

It’s an unabashed feel-good weeper, and those eager for that type of fare might as well settle for this one. But an equal number will be put off by the bad dialogue, transparent manipulation and saccharine overkill.

The movie was attractively filmed by John Schlesinger, but the subject matter is stultifying and not the least bit spooky. [12 Jun 1987, p.A]

The movie grows more cloying and repetitive as it stretches well beyond two hours. Almost every main character boasts the same bashful, puppy-dog attitude toward romance.

It is Templeton's doubts that stir Graham's crisis of faith in 1949 before his first crusade in Los Angeles. And it is that compelling story line that is the movie's saving grace.

Both Jackson and Levy are better than director Les Mayfield's ("Blue Streak") meandering comedy.

The Instigators isn’t that bad, but it’s lazy, low-stakes stuff. Everyone on screen has done and been better.

What are Jolie and Freeman and McAvoy doing here, besides acting cooler than Clive Owen in "Shoot ’Em Up"? Cashing a check, that's what. Bekmametov may have talent, but the arrested-adolescent "escapism" of this picture emits a pretty bad odor.

Just sit, feel a little blue and watch Parker Posey wander through New York in an ugly conservative suit. In "Blade," at least she'll get a snazzier wardrobe.

It's a dim, thoroughly synthetic film, so far removed from its source--much less from any original creative impulse--that it barely seems to exist. [30 Jan 1987, p.A]

It is Field's bursting, big-eyed American-ness - a commodity she has carefully banked since her days as TV's "Gidget" - that generates the film's lurid fascination. [11 Jan 1991, p.K]

The Eye is a feast to behold, but it lacks substance and will leave most viewers wholly unsatisfied.

It's really a crock: a coming-of-age boys' prison film that has only a fanciful link with Behan's life. The film is a bastard grandchild of Tony Richardson's 1962 "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner."

John Wick 2 stages its gun-fu melees sleekly and sometimes well, from the catacombs of Rome to the subway platforms of New York City.

Cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding manages some lovely images, and some of Spottiswoode’s compositions remind you he's capable of fine work. But Hogg never comes to life, on the page or on the screen.

A fun-for-a-while attempt by writer-director Harmony Korine, American indie cinema’s effrontery kingpin, to go a little bit mainstream. Matthew McConaughey is the reason it’ll get by.

It's a middling film that wastes a lot of good opportunities, as well as two fine, charming co-stars.

Unexpectedly sour, The Dilemma barely qualifies as a comedy.

About overcoming adversity and one's innermost fears. On this count, Paxton hits the ball squarely in capturing the psychology of his characters, but hooks it into the sand trap of effects and thematic overselling.

The results are distressingly flat, frequently patronizing and, for a topical comedy, strangely out of it.

The film doesn't move to a satisfactory conclusion as much as it fizzles out in a series of protracted anti-climaxes. [15 Dec 1989, p.A]

For one thing, and it's a big thing, it's filmed all wrong. Director Taylor and cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen favor handheld, Rachel's-eye-view close-ups, by the woozy hundreds. The toggling editing rhythms get to be a bit of a chore.

Cusack puts in work as Paul, an old-fashioned hero. But he seems miscast and can't quite modulate the levels of camp in his performance.

It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.

Hitchcock adapts another Daphne Du Maurier novel -- a tale of pirates and distressed damsels on the Cornish coast -- with less memorable results than either "Rebecca" or "The Birds." But Charles Laughton is a nicely nasty two-faced villain and Maureen O'Hara a staunch heroine. [18 Jun 2000, p.22]

Perhaps it is time for the folks at Jim Henson Productions to start thinking up original stories again, or at least find material that lends itself to the Muppets' overall strengths, instead of playing into their weaknesses. [16 Feb 1996, p.F]

Too much. Too numbing. Too coy. And ultimately too violent.

A mild off-season cinematic bid for the young and the restless.

Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop is a stylish piece of work that leaves a sour aftertaste. [17 Jul 1987]

The film is sober, serious-minded and paced like a funeral march.

Four Good Days is a portrait of addiction that wants to dive into the ugliest parts: the detox, the physical deterioration, the flop houses, the things Molly did for drugs. But, despite Kunis’ haggard appearance, Four Good Days only flirts with ugly, pulling away from the most vile details at the last moments.