Monaghan’s comic timing saves this go-nowhere affair from 100 percent lousiness.

Dominated by Adam Sandler's D-minus Bela Lugosi impression, the 3-D animated feature Hotel Transylvania illustrates the difference between engaging a young movie audience and agitating it, with snark and noise and everything but the funny.

Heavily laden with antinuclear messages, bad dubbing and worse dialogue, Godzilla 1985 is a pale imitation of the original film, a calculated bit of cinematic nostalgia that leaves one yawning. [20 Sep 1985, p.J]

Macy's character finds romance with the Madrid, N. M., diner owner played by Marisa Tomei. They're the only two people on screen who relate in any way. But there's no movie here. There is only a tired "City Slickers"-inspired idea for a movie.

Resembles an old Nine Inch Nails video. Missing from the mix are any characters with whom you'd want to spend one minute around a campfire.

From Miles Teller to Kate Mara to Reg E. Cathey, everyone on screen in Fantastic Four speaks in a flat, earnest monotone with a determinedly low-keyed air bordering on openly not giving a rip.

Though the film does contain a few minutes of patented Carpenter camera magic, it is unable to sustain either story or character. For all its flash and color, it is a dull film--an artless dig in the Spielberg garden. [02 July 1986, p.C3]

The First Power is nowhere above average for the genre, and frequently far beneath it. [09 Apr 1990, p.2C]

Even overlooking the fundamental inanity of the movie, one is left to contend with some offensive racial stereotyping.

This is going to be more of a consumer warning than a traditional film review, because Red Sonja is like a can of dog food covered by a label featuring a picture of a sirloin steak.

Unimaginatively recycles all the teens-in-the-woods gorefest conventions.

The movie has a big, warm, fuzzy heart - and not a bellylaugh in sight. [30 March 1992, p.5]

Pirates is tedious round after tedious round of mutiny and rescue. Screen people are hanged and stabbed and garroted with great care, but there's nothing to put the audience out of its misery. [22 July 1986, p.5C]

The Money Pit, a miserable ripoff of the old Cary Grant comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, has nothing to do with such nuances of the human experience. Instead, it is an action comedy that regularly throws its actors around and through pieces of plywood, into and out of windows.

The fight scenes are staged cleanly enough by Newt Arnold, a veteran assistant director (to Sam Peckinpah, among others) making his debut at the helm. But the contest format is hopelessly repetitive and inert, the characters would seem underdeveloped in a comic book, and the restricted setting ensures that the action will never develop any real scale or velocity. The Chinese may take it on the chin in Bloodsport, but their own movies are infinitely better.

The film is utterly lacking in the campy quality of the World Wrestling Federation telecasts.

A funny thing happened to Larry Doyle's 2007 debut novel on the way to the multiplex. It turned into its own ring of coming-of-age comedy hell.

So, as we watch this movie go through its predictable paces, we also watch two actors, one in character and one not. And that is an awful lot to ask an audience to suffer through just to see Russell deliver another dependable piece of work. [3 Feb 1986, p.C2]

This film should have clocked in at 90 minutes, tops, rather than almost two hours. A good, healthy scissor-snipping might have allowed some of its quirkier aspects (like the use of a stun gun and a jaw-dropping lab result) to stand out more.

Mother's Day is a total mess, but what's truly offensive is that they didn't even try to make this cynical, post-Sunday brunch cash grab even remotely watchable. Your mom deserves so much better this Mother's Day. Go see "The Meddler" instead.

This is the laziest kind of filmmaking.

The film, directed by Nancy Savoca (True Love) from a screenplay by Bob Comfort, is one of those sensitive dramas that defines its sensitivity by how brutally it can hammer the audience into feeling pity for its characters. [04 Oct 1991, p.L]

Put together enough pointless, random details, and you get Gigli, a movie that's less incompetent than bewildering.

Superman IV is a pathetic appendage to the series, a dull, shoddy film that makes the minimal 1950s TV series seem rife with production values by comparison. [27 July 1987, p.10C]

The film starts out gently enough, capturing the after-hours banter of the chauffeurs as they play cards and try to ward off Casey`s intrusion. Unfortunately, this charming opening quickly degenerates into a film so needlessly obscene and offensive that it is hard to imagine what its creators were hoping to achieve.

It’s tolerable, I suppose, if you don’t have to listen to it. Unfortunately it’s a musical so you have to listen to it.

It's tempting to call traveling on Juwanna Mann, except it never goes anywhere. This film fouls out.

For the most part, The Gold Diggers is not even chuckle-producing. At best, it might warm a cockle or two or provoke a bit of a smile.