I admit I would've had a hard time getting through it without the help of Simmons and Addai-Robinson, over there in the B plot. The character at the center of the story is treated with respect and admiration, but in dramatic terms he's about as real-world plausible as Batman.

As a director, Bogdanovich seems caught in much the same predicament as that of his characters, a victim of his own history. [28 Sep 1990, p.B]

But after introducing these issues, director Jonathan Kaplan ("The Accused") takes the easy, unimaginative way out by turning Liotta's character into a complete lunatic in the manner of the psycho-husband who terrorized Julia Roberts in "Sleeping With the Enemy." How much more interesting "Unlawful Entry" might have been if his character had been played brighter and less easily dispatched than simply with a bullet. [26 June 1992, p.C]

This 1989 movie looks much of the time like an old idea that's been too enthusiastically colorized. The prison sequences work best, and they seem almost like a completely separate film.

Too sympathetic to really dislike, but too benign to leave an impression. [05 Jan 1990, p.G7]

The script by Jordan and Ray Wright, from Wright’s story, wastes little time in getting to what “Fatal Attraction” enthusiasts might call the bunny-boiling bits. But the movie frustrates. And it squanders Huppert, which really is a waste.

Solemn, inchoate and close to complete enervation, Francis Coppola`s ”Gardens of Stone” seems less a movie than a depressive symptom–a mass of feelings that Coppola has been unable to transform into art.

When everything and anything is possible, nothing feels urgent or truly dramatic. The movie devolves into a melange of digital effects and sequences of glamorous slaughter, as Lucy swaggers around, with that big brain, and slouches toward becoming a full-lipped deity.

Species carries the whole idea of the erotic thriller--that '80s yuppie genre that mixed sex and slaughter--past cliche into howling absurdity.

Stolen Summer is no disaster, though. It's merely one more misfire fortunate enough to attract actors like Bonnie Hunt and Aidan Quinn, who almost make it work.

The pathos: considerable. The sight gags, involving Crystal puking chili dog on a kid's face, or the grandson with an imaginary friend peeing and causing an X Games skateboarder to wipe out: artless. The results: tolerably amusing.

The emotions and crises feel pre-sanded, smooth to the point of blandness.

The arrival of Ra (Jaye Davidson), bearing sci-fi cliches, changes Stargate from a merely hokey movie to one that is truly ridiculous.

Works so well for the first 40 minutes or so, that when the bottom falls out of it, I felt more than disappointed. I felt betrayed.

Enough with the snatching, already.

By the time this film hits the 45-minute mark, temps aren't the only ones watching the clock. [22 May 1998, p.A]

The entire film is poorly lit, and the melancholy music, much of it from the wonderful Wilco spin-off band Autumn Defense, gives us the sense that things are getting heavy. But in the end, we observe more than feel.

More an uninspired letdown than a flabbergasting turkey... One reason for this lack of bite lies in the werewolves themselves. They're a bit too teddy-bearish, even oddly cuddly, and the fright scenes work better when you don't see much of them.

Akira remains the work of a cartoonist, rather than a born animator: Too much of the movie is played out in the static frames of a comic strip, and when movement is used it isn't to define character (as in Disney) or establish a rhythm (as in the Warner cartoons) but simply for its physical impact. Pounding away, it becomes monotonous. [30 Mar 1990, p.D]

A bimbo-rama of the type you'd see on USA Network's "Up All Night." [24 Jan 1992]

An expensive-looking new detective thriller that should have been much better.

Billy's burning, self-destructive energy is about all Young Guns has going for it-the suicidal kicks James Dean found in chickie races are here transposed to six-gun shoot-outs, filmed in a slow-motion process that strives vainly to evoke Sam Peckinpah. [12 Aug 1988, p.H]

The idea that rich people are an alien tribe is just one of many that get lost in Wittenborn’s distracted script. Instead of exploring the concept, he throws out random incidents until he hits one that sends the film into a dark, grotesque spiral.

The results are boring boring.

The Mountain Between Us falls flat, struggling to truly enthrall beyond a basic love story.

The comedy part of the equation is awfully mild, however. This is a movie that aims for warm smiles rather than belly laughs.

In 2024 a movie about a live-TV countdown to destiny, once upon a time in ’75, needs more than moderately skillful reverence, and reaction shots of people cracking up at colleagues, to show us what it might’ve been like to be there.

This is a gentle, diffident concoction. But it has barely enough pulse to power a hummingbird.

Class Action occupies itself with long passages of family melodrama, most of it as familiar as the courtroom drama but far less entertaining. [15 Mar 1991]

Some stunts and jokes are genuinely clever.

By the second hour of The Battle of the Five Armies, the visual approach becomes a paradox: monotonously dynamic epic storytelling.

The film's didactic passages cancel out its dramatic integrity, and the results are strangely neutral and unmoving.

Tries for both civilized wit and primitive joy -- and mostly misses both.

Filling his movie with bright colors and giddy energy, Branagh has made a labor of love in which the labor is all too apparent.

One can hardly argue with the desire to make a wholesome movie for families that extols honesty and decency, but it all comes too easily, too superficially.

What began as a sketch movie ended up like a slightly better than average "SNL" flick, though Odenkirk, Cross and a number of famous and semi-famous friends do get some chuckles out of their story of Ronnie Dobbs, compulsive troublemaker. [16 Sep 2003, p.C3]

Although his is not a perfect film, Tollin employs his soap-opera dialogue and aim-for-the-solar-plexus message quite unapologetically.

The Goldfinch is both too long and too short; dull to watch but scanty on the details about logistics, character, and just how anything of note actually occurs. The mystery of the film is something to be endured, rather than solved. But the real mystery is our leading man. We never know who Theo is as an adult, or if we’re on his side, or why we should care.

A tasteful, intelligent, well-acted film about one of the most ghoulish serial killers in American crime history - and I'm afraid that's a good part of what's wrong with it.

Feels like a demonstration reel for toys, action figures and future DisneyQuest installations.

Isn't novel entertainment, but adults who accompany kids to it are not likely to feel that it is a form of abuse for either of them.

The Cutting Edge is certainly inoffensive enough, with the exception of a scene in which Doug teaches Kate to loosen up by taking her out to drink shots-a cliche that doesn`t need perpetuating. But if the studio didn`t have enough faith in the movie to release it until well after the Winter Games, the reason probably has something to do with the movie`s lack of faith that an audience can accept anything beyond a 0.5 degree of difficulty.

I didn't half-mind Fired Up, but half a mind is more than it deserves.

Too ambiguous, too meandering to envelop us. It's ambitious work but ultimately cold, distant and difficult to piece together.

Plot doesn't matter much here, as Scary Movie 3 exists solely to reference and lampoon other movies, in this case "The Ring," "Signs " and "8 Mile."

It's meant to be open, heartwarming and real, but beneath its often attractively performed surface, the clichés are grinding as heavily as in any ''Rambo'' picture [21 Oct 1988]

So fast, sleek and riveting it almost makes you expect miracles -- which never materialize.

The result is a film that feels hidebound. And nobody ever called a dance-driven movie "hidebound."

Like the film itself, Jim Doyle is smart enough to be engaging and lovely to look at, but he's too one-dimensional to be satisfying.

The acting is quite deft, if extremely broad, but screenwriter Kundo Koyama seesaws uncertainly between jokes and grief.

The show has its moments-some funny scenes, some wild stop-motion Phil Tippett computer action, some of Torn's scenery-chewing. But they're only moments. RoboCop 3's main problem is that nobody fouled up its program. It's a RoboMovie. [05 Nov 1993, p.C]

With tonal inconsistencies and poorly written characters, any awe inspired by Alita: Battle Angel is replaced with a profound sense of confusion.

As its awkward subtitle suggests, the execution is more than a little sloppy.

Criminal feels like the kind of high-concept, unapologetically preposterous action movies of the heyday in the '80s and '90s. If that's your thing, it's a hoot.

De Broca never develops the transforming love onscreen and ends up with an awkward and indigestible movie.

Sadly, this noble effort is loving but lame.

The film's big lap-dance sequence is impressive, however, if only for the sheer athleticism of Elizabeth Berkley's contortion. Later, when she pulls the same stunt in a swimming pool, we recognize the show for what it is--a male fantasy film in which the women are little more than rag dolls. [22 Sept 1995]

Ambitious but clumsy, it's a movie to appreciate rather than to be engaged by.

It seems that director Neil Jordan is trying to make some comment on the way classic fairy tales try to force adult attitudes on young, free spirits, but the method by which we are brought to that realization is tortuous. [22 Apr 1985, p.4C]

No one member of the ensemble cast stands out, though one member stands effectively outside it - cult director Sam Raimi, of the "Evil Dead" series, doing a hilariously deadpan Jerry Lewis imitation as Stick, the camp's addled handyman. Just what Raimi is doing in the film is a mystery explained only by the press notes: turns out that Binder and Raimi are old Tamakwa campmates. [23 Apr 1993, p.C2]

American Pie 2, which brings back the same cast for more of the same, is just another by-the-numbers, money-hungry sequel with a lot of recycled shaggy-sex jokes and gross-out gags.

It's a sweet little snack of a movie that leaves the heavier courses for some other outing.

With the movie's attentions spread so thin, almost everything begins to seem peripheral - even if almost every loose end is tied together, no matter how unlikely the connection.

Hoffs' Dublin appears to consist of stock street footage and a lot of stand-in California, which makes a hash of an exterior scene in which the characters complain about the incessant rain as the sun clearly shines through the damp.

A fine shoot-'em-up remake. The story is mildly gripping, and the action is fresh and entertaining.

The words "Welcome foolish mortals" open Walt Disney Pictures' The Haunted Mansion, a movie based on Disneyland and Walt Disney World's classic theme park attractions. The foolish mortals, of course, would be those who pay $9 a ticket at the door.

Jetsons: The Movie is a throwaway; with a little effort, it might have been something else. [6 July 1990, p.C]

Colleen Atwood's costumes are the best a film adaptation of a popular book can buy. They rustle like nobody's business. The film itself is equal parts silk and polyester.

For all its crashes and flash, this is a movie that drifts away as we watch it. Muscle cars and all, it's often a waste of gas.

The silliness still outweighs the steaminess. [1 May 1990, p.2]

In between all the sentimental (i.e. corny) mumbo-jumbo is a potentially fascinating subplot.

This one's likely to vex both history buffs and those who require some drama with their drama.

Stearns grapples with notions of gender, violence and identity. But in this mannered, ironic take, his punches don't land hard enough to leave a mark.

Apted and his collaborators are so in awe of their subject they neglect to bring him to full human life.

With its old-timey special effects, multiple plots and silly humor, it scampers through its 102 minutes untethered to the demands of strict logic, continuity or character development. This film is just out to have a good time. Often, it succeeds. [27 Apr 1990, p.D]

The joys of singing give the movie a hook, but when Duets aims for lyricism, it's got a tin ear.

It’s not bad. The reboot of The Naked Gun tosses off a few sharp and/or stupidly effective gags of the hit-and-run variety, nice and quick.

The Raven squanders a promising scenario while half-burying Cusack's mercurial skills as a leading man with the wiles of a character actor.

Single All the Way cannot sustain itself on Urie’s considerable charms alone, but he’s been so underused since the days of “Ugly Betty” that it’s thrilling to see him in a starring role. If only it was a better one.

Maybe every filmmaker should make their own Dracula — it’s a text that certainly can be quite illuminating

The music is great. Jaafar Jackson is a star. But the movie itself is uncomfortably problematic in a way that’s hard to overlook.

When the crashing chords and defiant lyrics of "Be the Rain" close things out, there's a burst of idealism and energy that redeems everything. If you see Greendale, treat the movie charitably and dig the music.

The novel's interesting character of Alice, Jonathan's mother, is so cut and drained of complexity that it becomes a polite, blank waste of Sissy Spacek's talent.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is anything but light, though it very nearly is unbearable.

The animated result isn't bad. It's an adequate baby sitter. But where's the allure in telling the truth? Twentieth Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios present "Adequate"?

Thoroughly dull. [23 Nov 1990]

Has the shelf life of a dented milk carton. Pop-culture movies in general age rapidly due to ever-changing slang and fashions.

Hector Elizondo and Robert Loggia are fine as the team's coaches. [27 Sept 1991, p.C2]

To say Enemy of the State is senseless is an understatement. This is a movie where logic is the enemy.

Teenagers, who may not have seen this picture's many hero/outlaw predecessors, might like its the pop soundtrack, better-than-average acting and modest punk attire. Everyone else is likely to find Billie Jean the very thing that becomes a legend least. [22July 1985, p.3C]

What it gains in fun, the film loses in credibility, as the production number itself more closely resembles a high-priced Las Vegas extravaganza than a quickly organized charity event.

In a movie built around two characters, Pitt does not hold up his 50 percent.

Drably shot, unimaginatively written and shallowly acted, it's a poor example of the "daffy, goofy, sex-crazed guys" occupational comedies that flourished throughout the job-obsessed '80s. [19 Feb 1999]

A broadly played, by-the-numbers comedy that pits your consummate classic nut case against your quintessential screwed-up shrink. [17 May 1991]

The slapstick is crudely executed. And the movie never makes up its mind regarding how nasty the ghost of Kate is going to play her revenge tactics.

With her low voice, jumpsuits, cleavage and Segway, Miles (Harmon) is all satire all the time, and we love her for that.

It's not a ridiculous degree of complexity per se, but screenwriter Matt Cook mistakes solemnity for gravity, and a high body count for dramatic urgency. The cast is terrific, unfortunately.

Griffin may well get there, but he's not there yet.