Disney's Hocus Pocus, if frequently saccharine, at least has the power to engage the viewer.

The Wolfman isn’t scary. In fact, it isn’t much of anything.

Halfway through the movie, I decided a better title for this weepie contraption would be “The Hurt Letter.”

The filmmakers can't decide what sort of picture they're trying to cook up, so they keep oscillating among shallow psychological drama, high-tech action sequences, and comedy scenes that are themselves an uneasy mixture of sitcom-style dialogue and self-mocking campiness.

Clumsy filmmaking and a hoked-up screenplay make this a strong contender for worst picture of the year. [13 Nov 1987, p.21]

Morgan is a wonderful writer when he's working from the headlines, but his "personal" movies, like "Hereafter" and this one, release a bleary, pseudo-profound aspect of his talent that's best left in the dark.

If Freedomland reminds you of Spike Lee's "Clockers," that's not by accident. Like that film, it's adapted by Richard Price from his novel and is set in the neighboring Northern New Jersey communities of Dempsy, predominantly poor and African-American, and the largely white blue-collar suburb of Gannon.

There's nothing fresh or off-beat in Final Destination 3, no talent that is struggling to get out. The only thing struggling to get out was me from the theater.

The dialogue is utterly inane, but the high-tech effects deliver the sort of thrills that disaster-film connoisseurs expect.

Eddie Murphy is one of the most alarmingly gifted comic actors America has ever produced but he persists in making comedies that are beneath him.

Brest deserves credit for letting the story unfold at a thoughtful pace, but the drama falls apart in the last half-hour, gushing with exaggerated emotions and abandoning its fairy-tale premises for an unconvincing feel-good finale.

This sentimental drama is wildly uneven as it switches between ballpark scenes, which are very involving, and romantic episodes, which are badly overplayed.

Whatever novelty this series ever possessed has gone down the proverbial tube. The actors are on autopilot, and Adam Herz's screenplay panders to its immature target audience so cravenly and relentlessly that it verges on incompetence.

Dumont's methods are radical, but there's a fascinating method to his seeming cinematic madness.

Verhoeven's lurid thriller has moments of welcome self-parody, but most of the action manages to be sensationalistic, homophobic, and tedious at the same time. [20 Mar 1992, Arts, p.12]

The murder-mystery plot is told in rough-and-tumble style, full of sound and fury but signifying almost nothing in the end.

Benton builds the yarn carefully, drawing us into a web of suspense with a string of deftly timed surprises. But after a while, you get the feeling you've seen this all before. [02 Dec 1982, p.19]

Director Marc Forster and screenwriter Jason Keller take the easy way out by turning Childers into a Bible-thumping Rambo. Just because the Childers of this movie is not, to put it mildly, introspective, is no reason why the filmmakers had to be equally dense.

Joseph Zito directed this cheap exercise in hate, suspicion, and mayhem. [06 Dec 1984, p.50]

What emerges most strongly, though, is a staggering degree of ignorance among everyday Americans about the basic meanings of democracy, liberty, and national security. [20 Aug 2004, p.15]

A little of this movie's preppy, whiny expostulation goes a long way.

If a movie that uses the word "relationship" 7,000 times puts your teeth on edge, stay away.

Brooklyn’s Finest does indeed provide a new genre twist. This must be the only cop movie ever made where a character is driven off the deep end by mold.

MESSAGE Nuclear blackmail is a horrible crime but can be defeated by vigilant and courageous authorities.

The drama is likably low-key but builds little excitement, and Bowie's star billing says more about the power of his agent than the number of scenes he appears in.

Youngsters may enjoy it. But the humor is generally of the genre heard in the boys' locker room at the high school gym.

Alas, the movie isn't nearly as amusing as its premise, but it's refreshingly different from most run-of-the-mill teenage fare.

As the murderer, Stanley Tucci is intensely creepy but, like almost everybody else in this movie, he’s more gothic figment than flesh and blood.