The basic plot of Thomas Hardy's great novel "Jude the Obscure" comes through accurately enough, but its sublime irony and sardonic wit apparently got lost in the misty English countryside.

Plenty of mad moviegoers will put this in their diaries as one of the worst pictures in ages.

The movie gives us a Round Table and a flashing Excalibur but no magic, no mystery, no mythic resonance. Mostly there's a lot of slashing swordplay that should appeal to the picture's target audience of young males.

Why are Steve Carell and Tina Fey wasting their time, and ours, by appearing in the miserable comedy Date Night?

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

Barry Levinson's filmmaking style is often imaginative. The story contains horrific scenes of sexual torture as well as sadistic killings and other disturbing material, though.

Tries to be daring and iconoclastic but winds up seeming as spoiled and childish as its main characters.

This is fatuous twaddle with a nasty, misogynistic edge.

A perfectly funny idea -- call it "Ms. Ditz Goes to Washington" -- that's never allowed to take on real comic life. I laughed exactly once.

Borderline unwatchable, although, as is true of all Gilliam movies, it certainly is different.

A strong candidate for worst picture of the year.

Sadly it's been botched. Guess Who serves up such flat dialogue and stilted situations that it's hard to sit through.

Audiences may want their own speedy divorce from this irritating collection of stale jokes, pointless vulgarities, and warmed-over clichés.

Alas, the movie is less clever than its characters.

Een fans of Jay and Silent Bob may find the story too slender and the jokes too repetitive to be much fun.

The story is nonsensical, the filmmaking is monotonous, and the acting - aside from Marlon Brando's brilliant cameo as the cultist - is weak. [14 May 1997, p.14]

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

The movie's real spectacle is the sight of so many talented people slogging through such idiotic material.

Falls flat, with more "sound design" than delicious music, more slick film editing than graceful ballroom gliding.

Imagine a movie where every character is more self-centered than Ted Baxter in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" of old, add a caboodle of idiotic jokes, and you have some idea of this ugly, unfunny farce.

The result is a quickly paced, slickly filmed entertainment that's also as crude and rude as the PG-13 rating will allow. It's mighty mean-spirited too, aiming "satirical jibes" at everyone from black illiterates to white rednecks, from breakers of the law to enforcers of the law, from society's elites to society's dregs.

This superficial treatment makes so many dubious decisions - oversimplifying issues, for instance, so there'll be more time for high-flying emotion - that 1960s veterans may be moved to protest rather than praise.

The comedy is shamelessly stupid and flagrantly vulgar by turns.

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!

Ron Shelton's romantic comedy has no more visual excitement than a televised golf tournament, but the climax is truly surprising, and there's solid acting by Don Johnson and Cheech Marin.

A hodgepodge of violent action, ostentatious effects, and lunkheaded jokes, stitched together by a hackneyed plot. [01 Jul 1994, p.13]

The camera work is pretty, but the drama is flat and lifeless, more concerned with titillating its audience than illuminating its historical background. [20 Feb 1998, p.B2]

Get cracking, filmmakers. It'll take a lot of doing to beat this creep-show for worst picture of the year. It's about a computer programmer who beats the devil in a series of spooky challenges. No fewer than seven directors worked on it, and it doesn't make any sense at all. [23 May 1985, p.25]