Are teenagers really supposed to identify with a clumsy caricature such as Charlie, who, in spite of all his expulsions and school crimes, comes across as a gawping, perpetually surprised infant in an adult body?

It's a deeply, creepily dishonest piece of work. [27 Oct 1989, p.G]

A bad script. Bad casting. What`s left? How about the guilty party you can spot within minutes? Add a complete lack of suspense to that list and it ensures that Blue City will be on this critic`s list of the year`s worst movies.

Given the grosses of the original, a sequel to Teen Wolf was inevitable-and it was inevitable, too, that the sequel would lose the quality of innocence and unconscious artfulness that made the first film work. The material has been broken down, analyzed and reassembled with scientific precision; what was instinctive in the original has become self-conscious and calculated in the followup, and the spirit is gone.

Laughing at the freaks and then feeling bad about it is the sole reason for the existence of this pale little film.

We keep waiting for the movie to stand for something more than a manual of cruelty, but it never does, even though director Cimino makes a heavy-handed attempt through Western locations and Red River Valley on the soundtrack to recall the heroism of another age. [05 Oct 1990, p.C]

In a film which can't seem to decide whether it's comedy or drama, folksy or sinister, every scene is played for ambivalence. The result is a definite maybe. [23 Sep 1988, p.L]

Big problem straight off: tone. The violence isn't slapsticky; it's just violent.

The confusing screenplay, by John Eskow and Richard Rush, makes a few fumbling attempts to get a plot going (Downey crash-lands and has to be rescued by Gibson; later, their CIA bosses try to frame them for drug smuggling), but mainly the movie tries to get by on attitude, which is a mistake when Mel Gibson is its main perpetrator. [10 Aug 1990]

Max Payne offers max pain along with min invention, and the only thing that keeps it out of the bottom of the Dumpster--it’s more of a top-of-the-Dumpster movie--is the presence of Mark Wahlberg.

The exhausting slapstick violence is the film's chief variation, and it's no fun at all.

The film's rhythm is sluggish, with gore strategically placed in case the audience nods off. [08 May 1990, p.3C]

Clifford can muster no interest in the cardboard characters or absurd plot developments, which leaves Gleaming the Cube to limp along listlessly between indifferently filmed skateboard demonstrations.

Otis` character is one of the most stupid ever placed on film. She mouths platitudes at best; she walks slowly and wears revealing clothes at all other times. If she`s a lawyer, she cheated on her bar exam.

About as sharp an updated version of the original as is Jennifer Lopez's song of the same name a modern, Latina version of the Beatles classic.

Despite the superficial Hitchcock trappings, from the Bay Area locales to trains and high places, the comedy thriller is neither particularly comic nor particularly thrilling, and after this outing, director Carpenter (Halloween, Starman) may wish to stay out of sight as well. [28 Feb 1992, p.B]

It's a wholly passive performance, and one that touches not at all on Pryor's special gifts. This man desperately needs a new agent.

There are some cute visuals now and then, but overall Good Burger may raise your blood pressure and, if you suffer through the entire 94 minutes, perhaps even lower your IQ.

Red One is the holiday fantasy built on retribution, punishment and crushed hopes we deserve right now.

Serves up horrendous lead acting, murky cinematography, bland atmosphere, unengaging romance, mug-crazy cameo performances, bash-on-the-head satire and ill-timed slapstick gags that look like outtakes from a Bozo the Clown show gone berserk. [20 Oct 1995]

Called upon to blend the fey and the fiendish, the usually fine Cage is reduced to acting like some kind of combination of Dudley Moore and John Carradine. Throughout, though, he seems to be enjoying it; I can't imagine why. [2 June 1989, Friday, p.E]

There is nothing to redeem this movie, and no real reason to see it.

The Sisters isn't just bad Chekhov; it's bad Chekhov modernized and then plunked in front of a camera.

A dim-witted remake of the great "Bonnie and Clyde," with Estevez playing a decent young man saddled with an unfair criminal record that prevents him from getting a job. [9 Jan 1987, p.AC]

For the record, this movie stars George Burns and Charlie Schlatter, and its one distinguishing feature is a consistent tastelessness, which still doesn't manage to make it much fun. [08 Apr 1988, p.H]

Crass but imponderable, bizarrely mixing glowingly back-lit sentimentality with stomach-churning violence and juvenile sex jokes.

I saw Resurgence an hour and a half ago, and I feel like an alien wiped my memory clean already.

Some may enjoy the cacophonous, raunchy, lowest-common-denominator dreck that The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard has to offer. To those I say, godspeed. But it’s undeniable that the actors, the audiences and the filmmakers all deserve better.