Looking Glass ultimately feels trapped between leaning toward Lynchian identity weirdness and suggesting a classically character-driven slice of indie exploitation, despite a suitably retro Tangerine Dream-like score that vibrates suspensefully when needed.

Experiencing Beast of Burden's inept dialogue and uninspiring direction on screen is a continual trial.

It's a no-go from the get-go with its labored stabs at humor and satire, doltish characters, utter disconnection from reality (even for a spoof) and scenes stretched to the breaking point.

Horton shows clear affection for the genre, but only the most indiscriminate horror fan could love this lumbering five-headed monster.

Bleeding Steel is a cartoonishly crazy, completely nonsensical cyberpunk action flick that is torturous to behold, and well below Chan’s caliber.

It’s a chaotic jumble of movie references, cellphone footage, emojis, trigger warnings and edgy teen content. But it’s the fumbled “feminist” commentary that is just embarrassing to watch.

The film's first half is so annoyingly glib and faux-amusing, it sets a misguided tone that distances instead of engages.

The first 15 minutes have some funny bits, but the movie winds up sapping you. It's a kind of whoopee-cushion nightmare, as if you woke up one morning and noticed that everyone on the street was drooling on his or her tie.

Writer-director Brian A. Metcalf avoids the usual found-footage looseness, instead relying on scripted dialogue and professional actors (including former child star Thomas Ian Nicholas, who also produced). The cast is strong but their lines are painfully stilted.

Truth be told, Lies We Tell is a pretentious and muddled dud of a melodrama.

Ultimately, Wastelander is a movie for fetishists, who likely won't care about the emptiness at its center so long as its surfaces are as smothered with cheese as the straight-to-VHS junk they loved as a kid.

Turning this movie off before it starts is actually a good idea: not because it's dangerous, but because it's lousy.

This cautionary thriller about an unjustly imprisoned airline mechanic has a chance to be a canny blend of gutsy melodrama and J'Accuse against the prison system. But, by the end, it has gone as slick and corrupt as the crafty old con (F. Murray Abraham) who advises Tom Selleck's framed Jimmie Rainwood on jail survival. On a fundamental moral level, An Innocent Man is guilty as hell.

7 Guardians of the Tomb should be a B-movie blast, but it never seems aware of its own silliness.

However gaudy its credits, it is one more--and one of the worst written--in an endless line of clenched-up, crashed-out, buddy-buddy L.A. cop star vehicles. A waste of talent and energy on all levels.

González maintains a glacial pace and a hushed tone, while withholding so much information that the film is confusing and only comes together in retrospect. It's a grueling experience, with a modest payoff. By the time it finally ends, every word in its title feels apt.

Greenaway is a man of distinctive ideas and insights who this time out has expended his abilities and perceptions -- and those of many others -- on an exercise in grossness that depresses rather than enlarges the human spirit. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is sensational, all right, but hardly entertaining. [13 Apr 1990, p.F12]

Coming up short on tension and long on talky exposition, Josie emerges as a Southern-fried dramatic thriller that fails to deliver the pulpy goods despite a nicely rooted Dylan McDermott lead performance.

The most you can say for Police Academy 3: Back in Training is that it's no worse than "Police Academy 2" -- which was awful. [24 Mar 1986, p.Cal-7]

The crime thriller Bent, not to be confused with the acclaimed Holocaust-era drama of the same name, is a routine programmer filled with surface characters, generic tough-talk and forgettable plotting.

Ergüven's vision is a wild, melodramatic journey that offers no answers or insights, and by the end it only leaves one feeling, well, completely flabbergasted.

A few minutes of thriller-like tension early on gives way to a lot of tediously scripted scenes of whisper-acting that rarely breathe life and humanity into what should be a potent turning point story in a religion's history.

Carrey's quietly exacting, uncharacteristic performance, though not qualifying as a saving grace, hints at some promising new career directions in the same manner Robin Williams successfully tapped a darker side with "One Hour Photo." All Carrey needs now is a better film.

While those vibrant Vietnamese backdrops make for an enticing tourism pitch, audiences are advised to skip this girls trip.

A depressing reminder of what Hollywood considers “original” material these days, “Red Notice” plays one of those self-consciously convoluted, ultimately derivative long cons that strain so hard to seem breezily insouciant they wind up wearing you out. By the end, it’s the clichés that warrant a rest.

It's all rather low-rent and generic, not particularly distinguished by its overused Bayou setting.

When the film, directed by Jason Winn, should accelerate, it turns sluggish, attempting to dot a few too many i's — thematically, emotionally, racing-wise — in telling its only marginally compelling story, with the lackluster Tom-Jeremy dynamic driving too much of the action.

There isn't a scintilla of surprise to any of it, and arm wrestling as a sport isn't really much fun to watch unless it's the match in The Fly. The only diversion is keeping track of the shameless advertising plugs that dot the film, like toadstools after a rain. It's not quite reason enough to go out to a movie, however.

As Replicas races headlong toward its conclusion, the filmmakers manage to avoid every potentially interesting choice for far dumber, and far more inexplicable, conclusions.

This adaptation completely bungles the update.

While The Escape of Prisoner 614 has the right cast for a good old-fashioned romp, this movie barely moves.

The dissipating focus and the turgidly explanatory dialogue ultimately affects the legitimately surprising twist at the end, one in keeping with espionage's great theme — the intertwining of loyalty and betrayal — but that lacks oomph after so awkwardly uninvolving a buildup.

The Assassin's Code features a few plot twists, but none surprising. The situation and the characters are just too stock.

Writer-director-star Brian Gianci keeps a snappy pace, and his cast is admirably willing to take chances, but when the humor doesn't land — which is most of the time — the movie's tough to take.

Its C-movie horror should only be experienced while under the influence when your judgment isn't at its best.

The key to every successful comedy, romantic and otherwise, is having central characters who are likable or at least relatable to some degree. It's a basic concept that's lost on writer-director Max Heller's Born Guilty, a shrill urban relationship satire whose lead protagonists are so insufferably self-centered and whiny, there's little hope for redemption.

By the time the film reaches a third act low on logic and heavy on exploding heads, it's clear that "Hover" never had the right parts to take flight.

All in all, just another boring genre exercise.

This choppy film, which is saddled with a subplot about a dogged insurance agent (Richard Portnow), becomes more mechanical than emotional, leapfrogging time, logic and process as it scrambles to its too clever-by-half conclusion.

Written by and starring a bleached-blond Blake Jenner, Billy Boy is ambitious in its structure, style and editing, but the final product is disjointed and irritating.

The endless sharing and chaotic conflicts that ensue among these largely uninviting men prove more tedious than convincing, with flashback bits that are more redundant than enlightening.

A numbskull comedy about a couple of guys (Rob Morrow, Johnny Depp) on the make at a resort hotel.

Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder may have worked together in the past (most notably in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”), but Destination Wedding, a painfully indulgent anti-romantic comedy about a pair of miserable misanthropes who bond over their shared contempt of the universe, forces their screen chemistry well beyond any reasonable limits of tolerance.

Unfortunately, while its intentions are as pure as the heart of its heroine, the biography offers little depth or insight into Yadvi. She is presented more as a flawless saint than a human princess in this drama mired in poor narrative structure and few details.

If there’s one word to describe the girl-power comedy “Like a Boss,” it’s incomprehensible. Structurally, industrially, philosophically and emotionally incomprehensible. What should have been an easy breezy buddy comedy is rather a flabbergasting tone salad.

Trying to straddle the space between “Primer,” “Dark City” and “Memento,” 7 Splinters in Time ends up a frustrating trip to no man’s land. Despite an ambitious premise and style, the neo-noir sci-fi indie is a fractured narrative that can’t achieve what its lofty ideas intend.

Spotty acting and casting, many thinly drawn or over-the-top characters, weak stabs at humor, and some awkward editing and dialogue further undermine this well-intentioned effort.

The film looks amazing, but the writing is painfully pretentious and the acting beyond stiff and amateurish, so it’s impossible to gain a foothold into this story.

The well-intentioned script from first-time writer-director Saila Kariat tries for emotional honesty but feels like a soap opera, and the cast doesn’t help it advance past dour melodrama.

Techie buzzwords like “hacking” and “bitcoins” fly, but it’s all just for show. It’s not about the tech, despite a convoluted subplot with an FBI agent in pursuit. The real story is of Sam and Josie, but uneasy romance is misguided to be sure.

The woodenness of China Salesman, coupled with the general oddness of a two-fisted adventure yarn about hyper-aggressive telecom companies, gives this movie some “weird cinema” appeal. But if you can’t tolerate stinky cheese, leave this one on the shelf.

Peppered with dream sequences and flashes of its protagonist’s thoughts, Beach House is a murky mess. It feels more like a draft for a college creative writing class rather than a finished work.

For a movie with so many flying feet, American Ninja 3 is amazingly short on kicks. [28 Feb 1989, p.2]

In short, writer Robert Mark Kamen gave director Avildsen and his cast too little to work with for The Karate Kid Part III to have gone into production in the first place.

Whatever magic the first two movies may have had -- and it wasn't always that apparent to anyone over the age of 10 -- has long since congealed, like stale pizza. Or mock turtle soup. [22 Mar 1993, p.F9]

No matter how spare and arty The Night Eats the World is, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before.

Hell Fest has exactly one genuinely nail-biting scene.... Otherwise, the movie does little to update, subvert, or comment on the trappings of classic thrillers like “The Funhouse” and “Halloween.”

A movie to make ninnies whinny, audiences gag and horses hide their heads.

Crashingly unimaginative. But its real offense is making such poor use of Nielsen.

Director and co-writer Jason DeVan assembled a good cast, and has solidly constructed scare sequences strewn throughout Along Came the Devil. But even at its best, the movie feels stitched together from incomplete, ill-fitting pieces.

Despite an energetic supporting cast, including Martin, Alyssa Milano, Danny Aiello and Garry Basaraba, the two leads sleepwalk through this limp and formulaic endeavor.

This 20-year saga of an uneducated, working-class single mother who sacrifices everything to give her daughter the chance she never had is so recklessly shameless it verges on camp parody.

Though it strives to be clever, the only time Nine Months manages to be genuinely witty is in its closing credits, when it displays baby pictures of its stars. It's a small touch but it's not overdone, which is probably why it provides such a contrast with its surroundings. [12 July 1995, p.F1]

Writer-director Hadi Hajaig was obviously shooting for a mid-1980s indie vibe along the lines of Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild,” but aside from an overstuffed soundtrack that goes heavy on the B-52’s, there’s nothing particularly engaging or nostalgic going on beneath all the forced irreverence.

Action star and martial artist White is full of his usual charm and wit, but he and his sparks of humor feel out of place in this otherwise dour film.

The sap in this movie rises almost as high as the Angels. It's a special kind of kiddie sentimentality: fantastical and self-congratulatory.

Sgt. Bilko is one of those joyless comedies that have lately become so prevalent, a halfheartedly amusing film that avoids originality while relying on old and tired material. [29 Mar 1996, p.F1]

Maximum Impact is a dopey international thriller that’s fully aware of how dumb it is, This doesn’t make it a good movie, but it does make it easier to sit through.

Filmed in Nashville several years ago, it isn’t really surprising that this poorly paced production has spent so long on the sidelines.

Amateurish clunker whose martial-arts action footage is almost as laughably dismal as its acting.

Last Curtain Call may lament the emptiness of its protagonist’s hedonistic and selfish lifestyle, but the film itself offers few pleasures with its poor pacing and cliched script.

8 Million Ways to Die is a ponderous, convoluted improbability, with more inexplicable actions and situations than "The Big Sleep," which is the last time those two films will ever be mentioned in the same sentence.

Perhaps in the unique case of The Healer, it could just be said that although the cause may be noble, the end effect is decidedly less rewarding.

Haunting almost serves as a reverse image of a successful film, demonstrating by what it lacks exactly what is needed to do things right. [23 July 1999, p.F15]

For the most part, Cats is both a horror and an endurance test, a dispatch from some neon-drenched netherworld where the ghastly is inextricable from the tedious. Every so often it does paws — ahem, pause — to rise to the level of a self-aware hoot.

Director George Gallo, taking a cue from his 1991 film, “29th Street,” romanticizes everything in a nostalgic glow, but without a sturdier script featuring fully dimensional characters at his disposal, the performances prove to be as unconvincing as their ethnic accents and period wigs.

This is a film that’s better off unseen despite its lovely visuals.

Riddled with as many plot holes as those highways and byways have potholes, the heavy-handed writing and direction, with its awkward close-ups and purposeful, sustained takes does its cast few favors.

The script from director Scott Smith and co-writer Kevin Guilfoile thinks the rivalry between the two collectors is enough to sustain the narrative, but it doesn’t devote much of its energies to developing the relationship between Alan and Paul.

A proverbial whimper of a finale, Freddy's Dead, the sixth in the series, feels like the product of people who have no vested interest in keeping their franchise alive...You notice almost immediately how underpopulated the movie feels--by ideas, by special effects, even by phobic young cast members waiting to fall asleep and be slaughtered.

Actress and screenwriter Jessalyn Maguire brings her own challenges with anxiety and depression to both the lead role and the script, but the good intentions don’t create a good film with this psychology-driven drama.

Writer-director Nathaniel Atcheson has found a clever way to tell a lot of story without many resources — although the end result is still more exhausting than enticing.

Taking aim at American society’s seriously broken criminal justice system, Iroc Daniels’ well-intentioned multi-character drama The System compensates in compassion for what it lacks in a more accomplished delivery.

Raising awareness of social injustice is a good goal, but not enough to hold an audience’s attention.

Problem is, filmmaker Martin can’t seem to decide whether he’s making a tribute or a send-up, and the overlong, yet under-plotted, results, with awkward close-ups and prolonged, flatly delivered exchanges, take their toll.

The story veers off track, and Rokesh can’t cleanly execute the wild tonal shifts and haphazard story beats.

The biggest mystery in the serial-killer thriller Night Hunter isn’t the identity of a super-predator, or the location of his abductees. The real question here is how such a preposterous compendium of crime movie clichés could attract a heavyweight cast.

If nothing else, The Church proves something: Better an amusingly terrible, eye-catching horror movie than a slick, nondescript, boring one.

A dialogue polishing by Barker, plus his own direction, might have made a crucial difference. What it got instead was a script inescapably convoluted by the need to justify a third sequel...Like the other sequels, Hellraiser: Bloodline goes in for elaborate special effects and decor, but the film is murky and morbid, laden with a heavy dose of grisly sadomasochism that's more repellent than intriguing.

Strong lead performances by Aaron Paul and Emily Ratajkowski are squandered in Welcome Home, a low-tension suspense picture with pretensions of saying something profound about broken relationships.

Director John Pogue brings some grit and energy to the action sequences, but ultimately Blood Brother is just a compendium of pulp clichés, with nothing to say about these characters or the worlds they inhabit.

At every turn in Speed Kills, director Jodi Scurfield and a team of screenwriters sand the edges off a complicated, multi-decade saga, making a featureless knockoff of seemingly every sweeping true-crime movie of the past three decades.

A sluggish film that incessantly tries but never quite hits its big-as-a-barn emotional targets.

It’s better than a number of indie films in its craft — particularly the thoughtfully composed cinematography from Kieran Murphy — but a flawed script ultimately keeps it from eking out a win.

Write When You Get Work doesn’t work. Not as a romance, not as a Robin Hood-tinged caper flick, not as a social commentary on racial inequity or classism, and not as a male-buddy picture — all elements director Stacy Cochran attempts to wedge into her often muddled, under-focused script.

Clumsy and corny, the film plays like a pat showbiz cautionary tale, half-heartedly reworked into lurid pulp.

Oliver Parker’s Swimming with Men is a lazily formulaic male-bonding comedy.

It’s a potentially warm and delicate story that required a scalpel, but saw the blunt end of a sledgehammer instead.