Add marvelously imaginative directing -- finally Yakin fulfills the promise he showed in "Fresh" almost a decade ago -- and you have a colorful, creative, deliciously frolicsome romp.

A fumbling comedy directed by Dennis Dugan that could have benefitted from surgical reconstruction. How about some liposuction to siphon off all those lame jokes?

Keaton doesn't have quite enough filmmaking savvy to balance the story's heart-wrenching and smile-coaxing aspects.

Pokes and prods the viewer to watch the brutal, indiscriminate methods of Rio's SWAT-like cops and then demands only one conclusion: That cops in Rio's drug-infested slums must do what they do and if that means rampant point-blank executions, so be it.

It’s impossible to take this movie seriously, certainly not as seriously as it takes itself.

There are a few clever lines and Cleese has some sensational moments, but that's not enough to make the farce seem fresh.

Frankly, it's excruciating to watch.

A dark comedy about a bachelor party gone awry, it is excessively violent, ghoulish, and gory. Very Bad Things is lack-of-taste taken to the extreme.

The story is inspirational in a superficial way, but the filmmakers focus so exclusively on their attractive heroine that the picture loses any real connection with Africa.

The cast is cute and the action is colorful, but the comedy isn't as captivating as it sets out to be.

Viewers of that age may overlook the contrived situations and the awful acting, which consists mainly of frozen grins. Nobody else will.

Amy Adams is such a likable actress that she makes the romantic comedy Leap Year worth watching even though we’ve seen it all before.

The most entertaining scenes focus on the lovable louts and losers who share the boardinghouse where the protagonist - based on a comic-book character billed as a superhero without superpowers - prepares his grisly exploits. The rest is mayhem.

A number of good actors, including Kevin Kline and Susan Sarandon, are utterly wasted in this idiotic story, which can't make up its mind whether it's a comedy or a drama. [17 Jan 1989, p.10]

Suffers from a lack of chemistry.

This dark psychological story falls short in terms of filmmaking and acting, but it's original enough to stand out from the crowd.

The movie's heart is in the right place, but it looks and sounds regrettably bogus.

Who can really differentiate between these films anyway? In the end, they all devolve (evolve?) into clashing, clanging bots.

As dopey as its heroes, and the cast's admirable energy isn't enough to keep the story punching through the final round.

Has some smart flashes, and a few of the young performers resemble real people and not the usual prefab teen idols.

Sol doesn't knit the complicated story into a coherent flow, but there are many visually striking moments along the way.

Paris Hilton also turns up, still trying to be famous for more than being famous. She has a ways to go.

This low-key drama is always warm and mellow, although it doesn't build much of an emotional charge.

It's all so resolutely uninspired that even the kids in the audience may want to duck out.

Burns is one of the great entertainers of all time, but he's written out of the story much too soon, leaving us little to watch except Schlatter doing an endless Burns imitation. [08 Apr 1988, p.21]

Conjures up enough involving moments to create some drama.

The dialogue is dumb ('zilla has the best lines, "arrrrrggh" and "maaroarrr"), New York is waterlogged, and Godzilla isn't on screen enough.

Alex & Emma isn't nearly as clever as Reiner's classic "Misery," a very different look at a male writer and his female companion. But it's diverting fun.

The director, Roman Polanski, is often at his weakest in the comedy field, and the insipid vulgarities of this picture are poor substitutes for inventive gags. Yet he shows some of his erstwhile ingenuity when he crowds the screen with sumptuously filmed images of richly costumed characters, much in the manner of his underrated ''Dance of the Vampires'' a number of years ago. [25 July 1986, p.23]

Some of the human-interest stories are compelling, but too much of this film is as dry as a high school classroom presentation.

Strains to be shockingly original but winds up as cheap and cheesy as its characters.

Muddled screenwriting and uninspired directing.

Whitaker and Schreiber, both of whom are capable of brilliance, are stuck in one-dimensional roles. It’s not only the characters who have mechanical organs; the film itself is equally lifeless and cold.

A few mildly amusing gags don't outweigh the trite situations and mean-spirited attitude of this comedy.

Perfect Stranger is far from Hitchcock, and Berry, although she gets an A for effort, can't do much with the half-baked characterizations.

Full disclosure: I have to say I did laugh during Your Highness. Twice, I think.

The best you can say about This Means War is that it would make a good date movie for couples in the witness protection program.

Graham was good in films such as "Boogie Nights" and "Bowfinger" where her apparent innocence was a smoke screen for her lustful connivance. To be effective in the movies, she needs something to counteract her wholesomeness.

Quirky acting combines with Ferrara's dark, brooding style to give the throwaway story a noteworthy measure of dramatic and cinematic interest.

The movie works fairly well as a pitch-dark comedy, and very well as a dead-on satire of upward mobility and its discontents.

The comedy is shamelessly stupid and flagrantly vulgar by turns.

If the heroine really had seven days left, she wouldn't waste it watching stuff like this.

The chemistry may be good, the movie isn’t.

The story is harmless enough, with its bloodless violence and happy resolutions. The images are a bland mixture of cliches lifted from Tolkien and "Star Wars," among other sources, served up in wretched TV-style animation. Little children may like it, but they won't be richer for it. [06 Jun 1985, p.31]

There are a few hilarious bits, but even those are drowned out by constant gunfire and Morgan’s motormouthing. Willis is going through the motions; Scott is funny, if irritating; Morgan is irritating and not so funny.

There is one bit of good news. For all you abominable snowman fans out there, "The Mummy" is filled with yetis. And, boy, are they ever angry.

More concerned with quickening our pulses than broadening our minds.

If only there was less mush and more meat in this stew.

Adam Sandler is funny as the volatile hero, and the screenplay is just abrasive enough to keep the story surprising.

Intermittently insightful, but a disappointment from the talented Munch.

The comedy as a whole is very slight.

The tonal problem of the second installment, which often resembled a drug-infested pulp thriller instead of a comedy, is also problematic here.

At 225 minutes long, it feels like a trilogy in itself. That wouldn't be a problem if it had energy and imagination, but those qualities are missing, as is any sense of historical or philosophical context.

Opium- addicted Allan Quatermain becomes none other than Sean Connery. At least he gives a real movie-star performance, which is more than the other gentlemen manage. Extraordinary? Balderdash!

The young cast members, including Justin Long and Ryan Reynolds, are often spirited and funny, and restaurantgoers are left with a valuable lesson.

Beneath its regrettably banal surface, White Noise raises the creepy question of whether intimidating, even malign forces may be lurking in those fancy gadgets that fill our living rooms and offices.

It's as forgettable as they come.

A movie that at best is irrelevant and at worst is unwatchable.

As soon as I finish writing this review, I'm going to try traveling a few hours in the past. That way, I can improve my life by skipping this movie!

The story is a string of sub-Scorsese clichés, and if engaging actors like Malkovich and Hopper seem to be sleepwalking through their roles, imagine how unwatchable Diesel manages to be.

It would take a more expert director than Newman to pull the lumpy Harry & Son screenplay into shape, with its many trite scenes that can't decide whether they're funny or sad or in between. [19 Apr 1984, p.25]

So vulgar and incoherent that even Hackman's gifts can't score a touchdown.

Ultimately, it's more an emotional hodgepodge than a compassionate look at real human problems.

Numbingly inane comedy.

This intensely topical satire tackles a wide range of important issues, from corporate whistle-blowing to the toll sexual license takes on stable family structures.

The movie's one good performance is given by the house, full of ominous inscriptions, inscrutable chambers, and fiendish machines. The human characters are played with various degrees of manic overacting.

Santa Claus's bag couldn't hold as many clichés as the screenplay dishes out.

At times, Bullock seems as confused by the plot as we are. Even if you cut the writer Bill Kelly and the director Mennan Yapo a lot of slack, there are plot holes galore. May I suggest that it's time to declare a moratorium on movies about time?

The astonishingly inept finish could serve as a primer in screenwriting classes on how not to wind up a family drama.

The only point of interest in New in Town is sociological. In the current economic climate, this comedy about workers whose livelihood is rescued by a benevolent boss represents the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy. Don't spend your hard-earned discretionary cash on it.

Polson's well-filmed thriller swims down the usual lanes for this sort of story, and everyone looks way too old for senior year; but many of the suspense scenes work fine, and Bradford is terrific as the endangered hero.

The treasure hunt in Fool's Gold is, of course, meant to be about more than money. But the only reason for this movie to exist is to make money.

Oldman makes a four-course dinner out of the scenery with enough slash and burn to leave you wondering if he is vying with Nicolas Cage for the title of filmdom's biggest hambone.

Animated version of the Rogers & Hammerstein musical.

The story takes place in 2013, but you'd hardly know it from the age-old clichés Kevin Costner purloins to tell this overblown action yarn, which relies so heavily on ideas borrowed from John Ford westerns that the Hollywood giant should have been credited as codirector; too bad Costner can't invest them with Ford's kind of life and originality, though.

George Clooney looks great in a cape, but this fourth installment in the series has invested so much capital in razzle-dazzle special effects that it hardly matters whose head is under the pointy-eared helmet.

Breillat is a smart, serious observer of sexuality's often disruptive role in human life, but this existential drama is sadly pretentious.

The film means well, but each scene gets clobbered by sappy screenwriting.

Skillfully acted, idealized, uneven.

If there is to be a sequel to this thudding slab of cacophony, why not just go all the way and make John McClane a superhero?

The first Revenge of the Nerds was a pretty stupid movie. But it was partly redeemed by its genuine affection for the nerds themselves - it made us like them a lot, and you couldn't help feeling good when they came out on top. Nerds in Paradise is also a stupid movie, with more than its share of cheap vulgarity, and it doesn't do so well at making the heroes really lovable.

The acting is sincere and the camera work is pretty, but this art-movie variation on "The Sixth Sense" doesn't have enough energy to fulfill the high promise of Berliner's previous picture, the enchanting "Ma vie en rose."

It would take a lot more than holy water to rescue Season of the Witch from mediocrity.

A highly calculated attempt to recalibrate with raunch the family entertainment template and cash in.

Admirers of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and other Dick literature will enjoy this nonfiction look at the writer, his career, and his eccentricities, some of which were as bizarre as his fiction.

This romantic comedy is so awfully misjudged and ineptly executed in every department that, while it isn't quite a contender for the "so bad it's good" category, this critic was nonetheless dabbing tears of laughter from his eyes.

Repetitious teen-targeted fluff.

The sweetest thing about Sweet November (a remake of the 1968 movie) is the on-screen magic between Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves. But that's pretty much where the magic ends.

The blend of live action and animation is competently done, but the subtly mean-spirited screenplay has more sour meows than hearty laughs.

As coarse, vulgar, adolescent action comedies go, Beverly Hills Ninja comes across as relatively tame - less profanity, less violence, less sex than typical for this "Naked Gun" wannabe.

Even as they've smoothed the novel's rough edges, moreover, the filmmakers have tried to cram a maximum number of its incidents into about two hours of screen time. This gives the picture a hectic pace that adds to its feeling of weightlessness and unreality. Poor casting, especially in the major roles played by Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith, doesn't help.

Cube is cute and Long is lovely, but the youngsters are too brash and smug to bear. At least there's a heartwarming end to the excursion.

The Muslim women in “SATC2” are props in the froth. Come to think of it, so are Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda.

The bad thing about A Guy Thing isn't the talent of its stars but the warmed-over triteness of the material they're forced to work with.

The film tries to revive the sort of good-hearted optimism associated with Frank Capra classics of the 1940s era, but pictures like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" were never so simplistic, syrupy, or tedious to sit through.

Cartoonish effects and overacting make this more corn than catnip.

The subculture of weekend warrior bikers is such rich comic material that the ineptitude of Wild Hogs is doubly offensive.

It's intermittently amusing, and Bening actually gives a performance instead of a star turn, but the claws should have been sharper.