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.