Boasts one moment, perhaps three or four seconds in length, so delightfully intense and uncharacteristically juicy that the rest of the film - most of the rest of the whole series, in fact - looks pretty pale by comparison. Not vampire pale. Paler.

Cherot shot G on a tight schedule, but instead of this age-old indie predicament generating a certain scrappy passion, the film just looks cheap.

The costumes are giving Halloween, the sets and props are giving Xena: Warrior Princess and the story and performances aren’t giving anything at all. Mortal Kombat II seems destined to go the way of the ‘90s sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation — directly into obscurity.

Teenage summer film trash such as The Heavenly Kid makes one root for the leaves to start turning brown.

Despite its admonitory tone, Belly spends so much time caressing images of material wealth, female exploitation, drugs and murder that one has to worry about its effect on youngsters. But with its uneven storytelling and acting glitches, Belly's dubious moral stance may be the easiest part of the film to stomach. [04 Nov 1998, p.2]

There is some excellent location-shooting in downtown Los Angeles during the climax, seen through the lens of a bodycam or quadcopter or drone camera. It’s not enough to save the aesthetic of the entire film, though, which is somehow both gray and nauseating.

As a period ghost story, it’s pretty pallid.

Gordon is lost, and his style of shooting - telescopic close-ups, which never give us enough space to appreciate the performers - feels wrong for comedy.

Phony, disingenuous family entertainment, suffocated by its green bean casserole approach to Middle America, spineless cardboard characters and paper-thin plot "twists."

A dreary, Carrie-type shocker about a high school student seeking to kill a bunch of classmates on their prom night. Very few thrills. [01 Aug 1980, p.10]

Just another self-absorbed teen chronicle, with the added twist of a little time travel and a surprise ending.

Cool New York City detective John Shaft is back again in, you guessed it, Shaft, with a modern update that goes completely sideways in all the wrong ways. This Shaft is a bad mother all right, and it'd be better if he just shut his mouth.

The movie plays like a very expanded version of what would make -- and likely has made -- a cute TV newsmagazine segment.

There is a great, even revolutionary movie to be made about pharmaceutical companies in America. Side Effects is definitely not it.

Seriously, the running time of Fantasy Island should be listed as “sometime tomorrow."

There's nothing original about the father-son conflict that forms the core of the film, nor is there enough suspense and drama.

Director Monteverde, whose previous feature, "Bella," came out nine years ago, clearly meant his film to lift up everyone and condescend to no one, least of all Pepper and Hashimoto. But Little Boy comes off as a picture-postcard fake.

But here's the problem: Bruce Campbell's character is a complete stiff, and so is everyone else he meets who isn't a special effect. The result is that we couldn't care less who wins any battle in the movie no matter how inventively photographed. What about a love interest? Embeth Davidtz, as the lady who's waiting, doesn't have a sexy scene in the movie. [19 Feb 1993, p.C]

Combine the uninhibited raunchiness of John Waters with the gross-out zeal of the Farrelly brothers and you get Another Gay Movie, a parody and comedy more numbingly disgusting than funny.

The movie delivers, in its chosen way. But it’s a soulless way. The violence may be for laughs, and many Neeson fans will likely respond to the larky brutality of Cold Pursuit, which is very different from the star’s previous mid-winter vehicles (“The Grey” is my favorite). But I don’t get much psychic recreation from this sort of action movie.

A weak romantic comedy.

Gere and Binoche are both terribly miscast--one far too charismatic, the other far too dowdy, which is something for Juliette Binoche. And the spelling bees? Dull. Dreary.

Worth your time and money? Fuhgeddaboutit.

A sleek, tight, fastidiously executed nothing.

Jason X conjures up more giggles than scares, assuming you make it through the first 15 minutes.

Maybe this review is more about me than about Conan O'Brien, but I really couldn't get past the odor of self-congratulation emanating from nearly every scene in Conan O'Brien Can't Stop.

In “Morbius” the actor’s willful disinterest in figuring out the rhythm of a scene, what’s important in it and how to bounce off his scene partners — well, it’s acting in a vacuum. What he needs is a director who can steer him away from his favorite scene partner, i.e., Jared Leto, long enough to activate the material at hand, even if it’s just a third-tier Marvel franchise hopeful.

It's a murky, empty-headed dive into the depths of the Antarctic and the heart of monster movie cliches that leaves you praying for most of the cast to get killed off fast, to put them (and us) out of our misery.

If "American Beauty" were a bland comedy, it would be Joe Somebody.

Despite the actors hired to deliver the story, the superassassin of American Assassin isn’t quite human. He’s just revenge in a henley T.

It’s a luxe treatment of some puny satiric ideas, toned up by a cast led by Emma Stone and Lanthimos first-timer Jesse Plemons, who won the best actor prize this year at Cannes. But everything has a chance to go wrong with a movie long before the actors film anything.

Falling Down is an intellectually sloppy, rebellious working-man adventure film that is little more than a set piece for Michael Douglas playing out a revenge-of-the-nerds fantasy. [26 Feb 1993, p.C]

Everyone in The Comedian deserves a better movie than The Comedian.

As scary and minor-chord heavy as FearDotCom can be, there's no big payoff, no logical resolution.

A huge waste of talent (Witherspoon's) and time (ours), a supernatural romantic comedy that is neither romantic, comedic, super or natural.

The difference between Head of State and a good comedy is like the difference between Chris Rock and a real actor.

Certain scenes in When in Rome signify nothing less than the death of screen slapstick, but I’m hoping it’s one of those fake-out movie deaths where it’s not really dead, not forever.

It's a glossy, well-mounted, slickly done but almost stuporously predictable affair, both formula-bound and utterly illogical.

Though I would agree it's original -- it's the first aboveground romance movie I've seen in which the heroine is repeatedly spanked, verbally tormented and tied to a chair by her lover--- it's not an experience I much enjoyed.

The film never adequately uses either the dramatic talents of Nolte nor the comic talents of Short. The young girl (Sarah Rowland Doroff) is most effective because she rarely speaks.

The whole thing might as well all be written in Minions chatter. It's wacky, but somehow dull, kind of like conversing with a Minion.

Offers the most onscreen explosions in recent memory. It's almost pornography for arsonists.

Barker, who wasn't involved with the earlier Candyman, has never yet matched his stunning 1987 writer-director debut Hellraiser-and he never will if he keeps coming up with projects like this. [17 Mar 1995, p.J]

Written by Marc Lawrence, a writer on "Family Ties," "Life With Mikey" has a sitcom sensibility. The script is simply incredulous, the lines are predictable and the stupid sight gags run from cake-in-the-face to, if you really want to know, retching-in-the-hat. One wonders why Lapine - a respected stage director ("Into the Woods," "Falsettoland") ever hooked up with this; obviously, he is determined to segue into films. [4 June 1993, p.F2]

It’s the last thing he wanted, I’m sure, but Eastwood’s latest ends up feeling like a stunt.

Director Godfrey Reggio gives us some ordinary and a few spectacular shows of people doing hard work to the accompaniment of the boring music of composer Philip Glass. This film is not in the same league with its fine predecessor, "Koyaanisqatsi." [20 May 1988, p.A]

The appeal of the film version, such as it is, relates almost entirely to eye-for-an-eye, severed-limb-for-a-limb vengeance, two hours and 41 minutes of it, with just enough solemnity to make anyone who thought "The Dark Knight" was a little gassy think twice about which superhero myth THEY'RE calling gassy.

Feels about 150 years out of date.

Snyder is not without skills, or ideas, but when a critic finds himself at odds with almost every aspect of a director’s visual approach to material like this, material like this becomes pretty joyless.

The whole endeavor is a naked attempt to cash in on the young adult fantasy trend spearheaded by "Harry Potter." There have been many attempts to snatch the Potter crown (and purse) but Artemis Fowl will not be the hot new kiddie fantasy franchise, based on this utterly charmless first entry.

I mean, whatever with the “X-Men” movies. It’s hard to even rent an opinion on the discrete strengths and weaknesses of a franchise that has devolved to the point of Dark Phoenix, a lavishly brutal chore nearly as violent as the Wolverine movie “Logan,” and a movie featuring more death by impalement and whirling metal than all the “Saw” movies put together.

What we get, while rarely boring, is a succession of senseless scenes bathed in formula-thriller blue light, full of blazing Uzis, exploding helicopters and sentimental male bonding.

This material is offensive. The film may end with a straight-faced reassurance that "no actual Torah scrolls were destroyed or damaged in the making of this motion picture," but it's perfectly willing to exploit the Holocaust for cheap, weak thrills.

So filled with illogical twists and ridiculous turns, that eventually it evokes unintentional laughs.

For me, the mechanics or even the (excellent) designs are not enough. Jeunet's archness keeps conventional empathy or engagement at bay, and by design maintains a tone of artificiality.

With Clockstoppers, Frakes hobbles along with a high-concept film that doesn't live up to its potential.

Blunt’s derring-do has its stray moments, and her comic wiles are most welcome. But this is blockbustering from a talented director whose talent has been pounded flat by the dictates of a script in the quality range of Disney’s “Lone Ranger.”

Knight and Day may well suffice for audiences desperate for the bankable paradox known as the predictable surprise, and willing to overlook a galumphing mediocrity in order to concentrate on matters of dentistry.

Nonstrously over-whimsical. It's a gigantic, fatuous whoopie-cushion of a movie-big, smiley and flabbergastingly dumb. Watching it, you may get an odd, overwhelmed feeling, as if you were being smothered to death by party balloons. [15 Oct 1993, p.N]

The new Walt Disney version of "The Three Musketeers"-plushly mounted, but ineptly written and cast-gallops along like a gargantuan tutti-frutti wagon running amok. [12 Nov 1993, p.C]

This is a fantasy grab bag in which nearly anything can happen.

No one ever said good taste was a requirement for good box office, particularly when the commodity in question is a summer teen flick, but it does help to have appealing characters in the leading roles and a script with at least the wit of a failing TV sitcom.

Fairly well done but deadly dull futuristic thriller.

Only Biel and Greer lift it above the level of bleh.

Black delivers the best line (“Do you want me to get naked and start the revolution?”), and Lithgow scores a giggle for calling his ex-wife “coyote ugly” to her face, but neither of them can disguise this lemon.

Presumably, this movie was designed to be a fun romp, and in that it fails.

The biggest script flaw is the curious lack of cause and effect in the relationship between Jack and Ed.

An amateurish sequel to one of the most repulsive movies in years, a teenage sex comedy with horrific caricatures of women. This time the nudity is diminished, but in its place are tasteless high jinks iwth the Klu Klux Klan [22 July 1983, p.3-10]

This is your warning that if you have any affinity for the ballet, avoid this at all costs.

Even with a new leading man and a more family-friendly rating, some things never change: The Mask still stars Industrial Light & Magic.

If the filmmakers wanted to talk so much, they should have just gotten together for a long, anecdote-filled, wine-soaked Spanish dinner party and amused themselves.

Despite the direction of John Huston, this story of a self-appointed Western judge (Paul Newman) isn't one of anyone's best. [06 Apr 1990, p.71]

With all the songs, gowns and corny jokes, kids under 10 will likely love it, and frankly, that’s who this is for, not the millennials or Gen Z kids who grew up with Brandy or Hillary Duff.

It has a charming actor named Scott James as Joe's buddy, Curtis Jackson. And it still has smartly produced scenes of black-clad ninja performing sleights of hand, foot, spear, dart, knife, chain and scimitar. What it doesn't have is a shred of originality. [07 May 1987, p.13A]

Gruesome and supremely disjointed foray into the world of hired assassins.

I wish the movie made emotional sense, because it’s all about getting in touch with whatever’s holding you back, but it doesn’t.

It may well be a hit, but me, I'm waiting for "Iron Man 2."

Easy Virtue may be a bauble, as Larita's described at one point, but Coward's examination of hypocrisy demands real skill. The style should suggest "whipped cream with knives," as Stephen Sondheim once described "A Little Night Music." Elliott's film is more like curdled milk with a spork.

Neither drama nor comedy, Summer Catch is a long, slow lob of a movie that never crosses the plate.

Meets the low standards of a mediocre TV movie.

A preposterous screwball psychological drama.

"The Misadventurer" is more like it.

The acting's not the problem, and it's a nice thing to find Moore playing a human-scaled human being, with a recognizable human touch. The material has a hint of it too. But only a hint.

A grotesque slumgullion of kung fu, studio schlock and pseudo-Dumas swashbuckling that leaves you longing for Doug Fairbanks --or even Don Ameche and The Ritz Brothers.

Shallow and repetitive.

How much of what we see in Third Person is the novelist's invention is part of the guessing game that goes on and on. And. On.

The breathtakingly bad Justice League, with its corny banter and terrible effects just might signify a return to that goofy Batman form.

The circumstances of the story might be “timely,” but “Dreams” doesn’t help us understand the situation better, leaving us in the dark about what we’re supposed to take away from this story of sex, violence, money and the state. Anything it suggests we already know.

The line between cool and cold is a thin one, however. Cool isn't the word for "Thirteen"; it's just smug.

Ted Danson ("Cheers") is made for the small screen; blown up he looks empty. And his co-conspirator, played by comedian Howie Mandel in his film debut, isn't much better in a role that obviously was designed to let him do his sound-effects-filled comedy act whether the story warrants it or not. The film's many chases will wear you out in short order, save for one funny speeded-up sight gag. [15 Aug 1986, p.A]

The storytelling proceeds in such a halting manner, with De Niro's speeches going on and on and on, that before long you'd kill for an easy scare.

If Set It Off had concentrated on easy thrills like that well-filmed drive-through-the-walls robbery climax, it might have qualified as pulpy entertainment. Instead, it's that deadliest of beasts: an exploitation movie with pretensions to social significance. [06 Nov 1996, p.1]

Because The Campaign tries to say something about truth vs. hogwash in election season, it's doubly sad the efforts of screenwriters Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell come to so little.

It's one of those movies where talented filmmakers waste time with stale, phony material.

A jumbled nonsensical mess.

It's rather sweet to think of Filth and Wisdom as Madonna's reconnection to her own boho Manhattan striver self a generation ago, and I did enjoy the last five minutes or so, when the movie essentially stopped and Hutz's band, Gogol Bordello, took over.

It wanders and putters and follows its main characters around.

Aiming for a piece with the raw impact of "Precious," on which he served as executive producer, he (Perry) ends up with 134 minutes of misjudged intensity.