Without anyone to care about, Cobb's script problems become increasingly intractable. Confronted by Cobb's volcanic personality, the film is completely nonplussed, unable to decide if it should be amused, piteous, reluctantly admiring or just plain disgusted.

Cutthroat Island is a bloated, jokey production whose motto, no doubt tattooed on the back of some poor assistant director's neck, could well be, When in doubt, blow something up.

This capably acted, if unevenly paced film often lacks focus and depth.

With its uninspired ending, Alien Invasion: S.U.M.1 squanders its cool concept and a compelling, nearly solo performance by Iwan Rheon.

A creaky recount of the relationship between affluent, New England-born painter Catharine Robb (Julie Lynn Mortensen) and her rural-Canadian artist husband, Peter Whyte (Juan Riedinger).

Art Show Bingo might be sweet, but it's dramatically inert.

My Fellow Americans is a gang-written comedy that doesn't have a political bone in its body, or much evidence of a funny one, either.

Granted, it’s all pretty stimulating. But when the jolts subside, there’s not much for viewers to cling to, to steady themselves.

Hopkins and company don’t bring much special or personal to the material. The plot’s predictable and the shocks are routine in Slumber.

As a screenwriter and director, Goldbloom is green but well-intentioned, with later moments redeeming some early ugliness.

This Hellboy can be something to see. It can also be a giant bore.

The blades of the brotherhood may be sharp, but the execution is exceedingly dull.

This debut effort from Hickman lacks the dramatic tension and connective tissue to truly compel, but his gritty, high-energy aesthetic can no doubt be applied to better results with a stronger script.

Looking for bathroom humor, beer jokes, heavy metal, unapologetic smut and a dude in a furry monster suit? These movies are a one-stop shop for just that kind of good-natured vulgarity.

Please Stand By has its surface charms...but if you look under the hood, the film just doesn't work.

The whole point of this anemic venture is to get down and party, but it comes across as a pale passe carbon of "Animal House" that's not half as much fun.

The filmmakers seem to have been trying for the kind of animated film noir that has been done so skillfully in Japan, but Cinderella the Cat never approaches that level level.

Kevin Costner very definitely isn't Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and his noticeable awkwardness in that rebel's role underlines the problems this muddled, fitfully effective version of a most durable English legend has in deciding which face it wants to present to the world at large. While the makers of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves may have set out to bury the poor old duffer of Sherwood Forest in a welter of trendy banter, they have ended up burying themselves as well.

What makes Furlough such a wan, dispiriting experience is how indecisive and fundamentally timid it seems. Rather than subtly braiding drama and comedy together, as real life often does, the movie oscillates jerkily between the two modes, as though hesitant to commit to either one.

Over the course of almost two hours, all the amped-up visual effects and slapstick silliness can become awfully exhausting, making a hinted-at sequel ultimately feel like a threat.

A film of epically hollow sentimentality, a movie that tells you how to feel every step of the way and ends on a symphony of false notes. The moment when we learn what Mr. Holland's Opus really means makes the ending of It's a Wonderful Life look like an exercise in restraint.

None of this amounts to much. The original had some squirmy points to make about femininity and motherhood that this Inside lacks. But the movie works on a gut level … as in, "Sharp blades are scary when they're pointed at a pregnant belly."

God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, directed by Michael Mason, is less strident than the two surprise hits that preceded it, but it still tells a programmatic story, rooted in presumptions.

The actors can't turn the strained stabs at poetry into the affecting meditation that was clearly intended.

Director Dimitri Logothetis, again scripting with his Kickboxer: Vengeance co-writer James McGrath, barrels through the chockablock action with requisite energy. But dialogue and performances (including Mike Tyson as Kurt's prison mate), are often laughably subpar.

Curvature is a forgettable sci-fi thriller whose intriguing start gives way to an arcane, convoluted plot that fails to viscerally or emotionally engage.

With such a fractured narrative, it's difficult to get into a groove with these short, shallow and over-simplified stories.

Its story of redemption means well, but its good intentions can't compensate for characters that are often unlikable and unbelievable.

Cadillac Man splutters briefly to life about two-thirds of its way through, but to sit until that moment, deafened by the movie's shrillness and embalmed by its humor, is a lot to ask of even the most amiable audience. [18 May 1990, p.F1]

With the indie two-hander I Think We’re Alone Now, starring Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning, this talented director is stuck in neutral with the illogical, unremarkable concerns in Mike Makowsky’s ham-fisted screenplay.

Since the humor in Moving never rises above the level of a stale sitcom, the film defeats proven comedy director Alan Metter and even its star, Richard Pryor, stuck in the squarest, most strait-jacketed role of his career.

The film contains many moments of canine uber-cuteness that although not unbearable, are definitely a bit much. Fortunately, the kids here are less aggressively adorable and feel fairly authentic.

Nick Nolte and Martin Short make a frequently hilarious odd couple, but the film itself is shamelessly sentimental and often slapdash.

Both frenetic and witless--a bad combination. It's the sort of action-comedy vehicle that stands a chance of succeeding only if the star chemistry is strong enough to compensate for all the uninspired calisthenic derring-do.

Despite its clammy atmosphere and two credible and appealing leads, the movie is mechanical in its rhythms and unimaginative in its terrors.

A preachy, empty story, enlivened by a great central performance and generous dollops of self-delusion, not the least offensive of which are Topor's and Lansing's quoted comparisons of their movie to the moral climate of the Holocaust. To paraphrase dear Joseph Welch, have they no shame? [14 Oct 1988, p.4]

The old debate over nature versus nurture is played for (sporadic) laughs in Birthmarked, a satire that's unable to deliver on a promising hypothesis.

Unnerving camerawork, editing and sound design rule this nightmarish, nonlinear effort which features credible glimpses into the world of celebrity, if not the music business itself. But dialogue, characterizations and acting (Eric Roberts has a negligible cameo) feel decidedly secondary to the film's more jarring visceral elements.

The Outsider is a slick copy of multiple, much-better films and TV series. It's so well-polished it's practically featureless.

Its bubbly tone is often at odds with the casual cruelty present. Status Update layers in a message about social media's filters and fakery, but it isn't enough to make this a movie worth sharing

Stakeout is this summer's suntan lotion: It won't linger in the memory any better than it would survive a quick dip in the pool.

Unfortunately, writer-director Yan England never focuses on any one lesson long enough to make a complete or satisfying statement. The result: a potentially meaningful movie that hands us a double dose of despair when a ray of hope was needed.

The original film was not a time capsule; it was a snapshot, capturing a unique time and place. The new film simply doesn’t have the same spark and energy.

You're either on board with this brand of outré exploitation or you're very much not on board. Return to Nuke 'Em High a.k.a. Vol. 2 is strictly for die-hard fans.

Instead of real people, they've created fast-moving upscale wise guys, so thoughtless, so utterly self-absorbed that you're quite content letting them simply love themselves--they do it so well...The St. Elmo's Fire bunch, for all their wheel-spinning melodrama, is all surface--all speed and stylishness without a bit of emotional resonance beneath.

For all its temporal twists and lyrical, sometimes remarkably photorealistic backdrops, Shinbo’s movie has none of “Your Name’s” narrative intricacy or stunning visual richness, much less its radical cross-gender empathy. These Fireworks look depressingly flat from any angle.

Director Christian Duguay is much more comfortable handling the sledgehammer superficialities of near-miss action and prankish boyhood than the complicated, turbulent emotions surrounding children imperiled during wartime.

Kingsley is certainly committed to the arc of tough guy stripped bare, but his gifts aren't served well by an artificially studious attempt at applying Understanding 101 logic to a perpetrator of atrocities.

Robbie is fascinating to watch, as always. But in this case she's providing 100-watt star power to a tacky little table lamp.

Death Becomes Her is a black comedy that is so pleased with its blackness it frequently forgets to be funny. [31 July 1992, p.F1]

The primary characters and setting of "Barren Trees" are solid, but the overly complicated storytelling falters.

The Dixie-set, coming-of-age tale Krystal, directed by William H. Macy and written by Will Aldis, is too forced, chaotic and randomly eccentric to make for a fully engaging and cohesive emotional experience.

A misfiring, underdone epic that takes its inspiration not from life or literature, but from a toy line and the cartoon series it inspired.

It's the material that's a problem, its sheer emptiness. Gottlieb and co-writer Ed Rugoff are clumsily trying to re-create something that's better if it's done cannily, with no illusions.

Counterfeiters is an amateurish first film, with inexperienced actors, clunky writing and a homemade ambiance. But the ambition and moments of inspired style are be lauded.

Each moment in Always at the Carlyle feels like a pitch. Though it's effective in presenting the hotel's appeal, the salesman's greasy fingerprints linger, a stain which would never be welcome at the pristine spot.

As the name suggests, Modern Life Is Rubbish romanticizes analog relationships — and is meant for anyone who does the same.

Although the prospect of watching a mash-up of "La La Land" and Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" holds promise, director-writer Josh Klausner, in a departure from his screenplays for "Shrek Forever After" and "Date Night," opts instead for offbeat spiritual enlightenment, but is unable to sustain a delicate tone that becomes increasingly twee as it goes along.

Kids is more tedious than titillating, one of those cinematic irritations more interesting to read about than to see.

Color Me You lacks details that would make its characters, their relationships and their actions feel real.

It's confusing and inconsistent, and no amount of Keener can truly anchor it.

Social Animals is far darker than its colorful, exhibitionist exterior lets on. As the film builds to a climax, it swings wildly in tone, each scene feeling disconnected from the one before.

This crime spree may have style to spare, but that's about all that's holding it together.

Rambo is an inane sequel to a fairly good melodrama; another example of an attempt to repeat an earlier success that goes wildly out of scale.

Iron Eagle has an unintended hilarity that builds and builds. But don't take this as one of those so-bad-it's-good endorsements: The film is a total waste of time.

Deviations from the historical record aren’t a problem in and of themselves; it’s what those deviations add up to (or don’t), and what they say about the motivations of the artists behind them.

Writer-director Kyle Wilamowski smothers his bid for nuanced emotion in the cardboard mechanics of bad-decision drama.

This mannered character study comes across as more affected than affecting.

Among the more glaring issues are performances that sound distractingly contemporary and obvious budget constraints that serve to suffocate the overly talky chamber piece instead of providing much-needed breathing room.

What the movie does have going for it is Ricci, who in the past few years has become a master at playing offbeat heroines in violent stories. Ricci is convincingly terrified in a film that’s never scary enough to justify her performance.

Doke's cast of unknowns has trouble bringing a convoluted plot to life. As it unfolds, Goodland stacks up more preposterous B-movie notions than Doke's thin script can support.

Johnson tries too hard to make all his mayhem meaningful, to minimal effect. Still, this picture should entertain Adkins’ growing base of fans, who ought to appreciate that the star gets more freedom than usual to be delightful as well as dangerous.

You don’t need to be well-versed in rom-coms to know that, in the process, Harper and Charlie will ultimately fall into each other’s arms, but getting there proves to be a slog courtesy of screenwriter Katie Silberman’s talky, sitcom-ready dialogue and director Claire Scanlon’s ponderously uneven pacing.

There's a razzly-dazzly beauty in Barbara Ling's designs and Kanievska and cameraman Ed Lachman shoot them wittily. But it's swallowed up in the story's empty outrage.

Given the flimsiness of the material, why settle for D. H. Lawrence when you can have the Playboy Channel instead?

Despite its pro-forma nature, the setup for Siberia — a lone hero in over his head in an unfamiliar world — actually starts out well but refuses to play out in satisfying ways.

The situation and the performances are strong, but without a good story to hold everything together, it all falls apart in the end.

There’s real ugliness here, with the creative torture visited on the victims being enough to unsettle all but the most hardened of horror fans. Unfortunately, the ugliness isn’t solely in the on-screen violence. Transphobia and misogyny flow through the film as much as blood, staining what might have been a solid genre effort.

The modestly watchable, at times intriguing romantic mystery Intersection is never quite skillful or convincing enough to forget for even a moment how many far better haunted hunk-meets-femme fatale thrillers have come before it.

Sam Firstenberg--a decent enough action director who's shepherded along three previous ninja movies--here has a story so preposterous that nothing short of a mutiny could make the movie work.

There’s some well-crafted dialogue and decent acting, including from Joseph R. Sicari as a besieged producer. But this overly talky and stagey film, which takes place mostly in Colt’s hotel room and trailer — and frustratingly off-set — lacks the requisite catharsis and charisma to sufficiently engage.

Christian Audigier the Vif lacks the strong narrative structure that would make it a better documentary, and it often skips details about Audigier’s life and experience that might have offered deeper insight into the designer.

Gutierrez is ultimately too enamored of his quasi-feminist, visually convulsive upending of damsel myths to let his actors enjoy themselves the way De Palma or Dario Argento would.

Given the script’s basic dialogue and narrow characterizations, it’s fortunate that there’s such an evocative locale to help us further imagine the lives of the film’s idiosyncratic folks.

In most ways, a sequel-as-usual: a little warmer, with slightly less zip and flurry.

Actor-turned-director Peter Facinelli makes his behind-the-camera debut, and beyond the film’s many script issues, it’s not entirely without its charms. Peter and Daisy might not make sense, but Gibson and Hinson almost sell it with strong chemistry.

Judy Greer, the wonderful film and TV actress, makes an inauspicious directing debut with this unevenly paced, tonally awkward comedy.

Jungle Cruise, despite its more-than-capable leads and its much-vaunted attention to detail and verisimilitude, never feels transporting in the way that even mediocre blockbusters were once able to muster. It’s less an expedition than a simulation, a dispatch from a wild yet oddly pristine world where seeing is never close to believing.

Hope Springs Eternal is fine as a leading role for Frampton, who has had small supporting roles in bigger projects such as “Bridesmaids,” but her star power far exceeds the boundaries of this limited project.

Other than Shaw's turn, which gets dampened in the determinedly frolicsome finale, there's little to like in Three Men and a Little Lady. Selleck is charming. Danson, aided by latex and a Carmen Miranda outfit, has two funny scenes. Travis has a lovely smile, which she overuses.

Writer Dennis Marks and producer/directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera can't seem to decide whether they're making a with-it musical for teen-agers or re-creating the ingenuous humor of a '60s TV show, and don't do either very well.

There's something sordid about the way the filmmakers offer up this -- shall we say questionable -- entertainment as a refreshment. [4 Feb 1994, p.C-15]

Barney looks both more real and more magical on video; on film, he's clearly a doofus in a felt outfit.

A heavyweight cast and superb location-shooting carries The Padre, an otherwise meandering crime thriller.

Flipper is push-button family filmmaking that could have used a stronger sense of porpoise. Plotwise, it ain't much.

Although it comes under the increasingly crowded category of Why Did They Bother, McHale's Navy does offer an example of a movie that tries to be all things to all people. As long as they're 13 and male.

Alfonso Arau's romantic fable A Walk in the Clouds is so confounding a miscalculation that its every development causes your jaw to drop in sheer amazement.

The film is loud and labored--its sense of adventure kicking in so late that it scarcely matters. [12 Feb 1999, p.F15]