Although we see many strange things happen (and some of them are seen through wondrous-looking special effects), we never have a clue as to what's really going on, and why. [24 June 1985, p.B6]

Interesting. Not worth the trouble, but interesting. [22 Apr 1988, p.C5]

As intriguing as Hardy is to watch, the picture can’t overcome its cinematic-stunt vibe.

Yes, the Naked Gun series is showing its age, resorting to spoofs that have been done countless times before (there's a long, mostly unfunny parody of prison movies) or sketches that simply don't work (like a lame Thelma and Louise takeoff.) This type of rapid-fire, joke-a-second comedy is on the verge of cliche -- imitations like Fatal Instinct, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon, and the Hot Shots! series have turned what was fresh and rollicking into a formidable challenge. Audiences have grown used to this style of stupid humor, so if a movie is going to employ the Airplane! format, the jokes have to be funny. [18 Mar 1994, p.G5]

In his quest to capture truth and honesty, (Korine) has made a movie that is practically impossible to like.

By turning Brooklyn's Finest into a morality tale, Fuqua lets the movie slip right through his undeniably talented fingers.

Although there are some initial feints at using zombies as a metaphor for third-world issues and cultural differences, the picture forgets all that stuff by the final reel. World War Z opens with an undeniable bang. But if this is the way the world ends, we’re going out with a whimper.

As Seeking a Friend for the End of the World crawls toward its sentimental finale, you're rooting for that asteroid to get here, quick.

This is, in other words, an adventure film for the 6-to-12 set, a movie for the void left by Disney's forays into the elusive teen market. All but the most easily frightened children should enjoy it; all but the most easily diverted adults are likely to find it tedious. [01 Aug 1983, p.C6]

There is no faulting the big set pieces, which are shot and edited skillfully. But without involving characters to go along with them, those sequences make for awfully empty movie calories.

An idea whose time is long overdue, a tricked-out jumbo jet custom fit to meet the needs of today's savvy black traveler.

When one actor plays both hero and villain, the viewer knows that what is being shown is not an authentic dance.

It's bottom-feeder entertainment wrapped up in high-minded airs.

Truth should have felt like a tragedy, a story about a monumental but fascinating failure of journalism, the flip side to the upcoming Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of sexual abuse within the Catholic church. Instead, Truth wants to make your blood boil. It succeeds — but not in the way the filmmakers intended.

Angry, potentially offensive movie.

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

The clownish humor is imbued with a great, genuine pain. Unfortunately, the twist proves too much for the filmmakers to handle. The second half of The D Train collapses into a series of plot curlicues and narrative dead-ends. The picture loses its nerve and opts for a pat, wan resolution.

Although there's no denying the threadbare nature of the script, watching Murphy riff can be a formidable entertainment on its own.

It's a routine, who's-the-slasher melodrama, and for all its visual allure -- Stone and Baldwin bump and grind, in living color and in third-generation, off-monitor black-and-white -- it drags, and drags. [22 May 1993, p.E1]

After a promising start, this ambitious but ultimately clunky and unwieldy movie dissolves into a pile of ideas in dire need of dramatization.

You won't necessarily applaud The Notebook's excesses, but its final moments of grace will leave you in a sodden heap on the theater floor.

Altman seems lost here. We expect Ready to Wear to go behind the glamour of the fashion industry, uncover the pimples and scars on those flawless faces and bodies, wrinkle a few overpriced cat suits. But the movie is as superficial as its subject. [24 Dec 1994, p.G1]

The movie is sweet and reflects Disney's usual care, but there's nothing in it to match that title. [23 June 1989, p.H11]

The film is weighted down by a dour sensibility at odds with the book's insouciant charm.

A high-tech freak show, a gallery of grotesqueries that are fascinating and repellent.

The problem with Saved!, which is often bright and likable, is that its central point -- extremism, religious or otherwise, is bad -- is too obvious for a satire.

Captain Ron is tropical and picturesque. But like a scenic island postcard, it has little scope or depth. [23 Sep 1992, p.E4]

The acting is strong, especially from the raging Grant and the comically wistful Griffiths. Still, Withnail and I doesn't come off as an affectionate contemplation of the director's down-and-out days. [25 Sept 1987, p.5]

Falling into the trap that sinks most horror sequels, Blair Witch amps the jolts and shocks with more visceral frights (there’s some business involving an infected foot wound that is truly unnerving and also super gross) to diminishing results.

Full Grown Men marks the feature debut of director David Munro, who was born and raised in Miami and shoots Florida like a native.

Despite the great care and research that went into the movie, Frost/Nixon pales in comparison to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" when it comes to humanizing the infamous leader.

The first Hollywood horror flick I've seen that seems like it was made specifically for 12-year-olds.

A well-acted, well-crafted but excruciatingly tepid romantic film about a subject that will attract poetry lovers and yet test even their considerable patience.

I will tell you what The Village is not: It is not scary. It is not all that interesting. It isn't even much of a movie.

Unfortunately, The Island grows dumber as it goes along, gradually disintegrating into a generic good-versus-evil spectacular that not only defies all known laws of gravity and physics, but also suffers from the lack of morality that plagues Bay's films.

Overdone performances mar the fine ones -- (Turturro) has become, alas, a hambone.

For all its Buck Rogers-style derring-do, gorgeous vistas of an Art Deco New York and sepia-toned cinematography, Sky Captain is a static, uninvolving experience.

The idea of cracking a secret message from the enemy during war is thrilling; making the process interesting to watch is more problematic.

Corny? You bet. But it also proves surprisingly inviting -- for a while, anyway.

Chan's string of chop-socky films were never boring. Shanghai Noon is.

This is certainly not a movie worth going out of your way for, but don't be surprised if you happen to come across it on cable one rainy Sunday afternoon and find yourself watching it to the end. Even Lopez pulls off a few good moments.

Yes, it's all pretty silly. But for those who can stand the annoyance of the cardboard glasses, there are worse ways to kill a hot afternoon. [23 July 1983, p.D6]

A surprisingly sappy misfire from brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, a hug-it-out, touchy-feely movie that succumbs to the maudlin sentimentality they had avoided in all their previous pictures (The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus).

Start with a heaping helping of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Throw in some "Percy Jackson," a dash of "Twilight," a spoonful of "The Vampire Diaries" and a sprinkling of "Harry Potter," and you end up with The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

Heartburn doesn't have enough good inside semi-fiction to be of much interest to the Washington cognoscenti, and it's not enough of a movie to stay in the memory of the outside-the-beltway crowd more than an hour or two. What it is is a chance to see our two most celebrated actors at work for a while between films. [25 July 1986, p.D1]

Time Regained is not really worth the time it takes to see it.

The idea, apparently, was to combine elements of E.T., Gremlins and run-of-the-mill slasher films, while keeping the whole thing palatable for pre-teens. Only Steven Spielberg has been able to make this combination work, and even he has had trouble with it; director Stephen Herek, who also worked on the Critters script, is the wrong Steve. [30 Apr 1986, p.C7]

It's only near the end, when Romanek sets out to release the tremendous tension he's built up, that One Hour Photo loses its bearings.

As a film, though, Gimme Shelter is unremarkable, a predictable story of redemption that happens awfully fast, to a girl who only seems to be in peril briefly — and has a rich dad to bail her out.

If any of this screams "cheap Generation X marketing ploy," you're right on the money. [31 March 1995, p.5G]

The good news is the updated version is scarier than the original, thanks to snazzier special effects, a shorter running time, moody lighting, a few solid jolts and one icky moment involving a bratty babysitter and a closet. The bad news is the film rehashes every horror movie cliché you can imagine.

It's surprising to see a three-hour movie about Chicanos being distributed by a major studio, and Hackford had an opportunity to do something special. Instead, he simply gives us more of the same. [30 Apr 1993, p.G5]

Oshima, the director who was once celebrated for the elaborately scandalous eroticism of In the Realm of the Senses, is here merely impenetrable -- though whatever it is that Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is about, Oshima does seem to mean it. [30 Sep 1983, p.D2]

The movie is so grand in scale that you can’t help surrender to the spectacle, even if the stuff that’s going on with the people in the film is often close to risible.

Isolated moments in Color of Night hint at Rush's visual creativity. He can spin afresh the most perfunctory scenes -- watch the clever way he shoots a simple fender-bender, or his spectacular take on an opening-scene suicide. But as the story falls into place, the visual embellishments feel increasingly hollow, like fancy icing on a grocery-store sheet cake. [19 Aug 1994, p.G5]

While the story starts tying up its loose ends nicely, as the end approaches, the film turns flat. It's a disappointment.

What saves Fly Me to the Moon from being a total wash is the actual mission itself.

The real love affair in For Love of the Game is between Costner and himself.

The phrase “casting is everything” has never felt truer than it does with 2 Guns, an unremarkable, standard-issue shoot-em-up that rests entirely on the charisma of its two stars.

You expect something far different and better than the same-old.

You should know right up front that even if you realize you're being manipulated you are probably going to weep anyway.

A romantic comedy with enough gimmicks to fill a dime-store thriller -- see Tom almost get run over; see Tom fall in the pool; see Tom get an arrow in his rear. [3 Feb 1989, p.C1]

A loud and relentlessly overstated B-movie, and yet not entirely stupid.

Neither scary nor thrilling, although it's reasonably entertaining despite an abundance of haunted-house clichés, the usual inexplicable scary-movie behavior and an almost-naked John Hurt.

The fact that License to Wed isn't as unbearable as its trailers make it look doesn't mean it's good. It's not. It's just another mediocre addition -- worse than the best sitcoms, better than the worst.

Because it's Pacino, though, Simone is never quite boring.

For all its sweat and muscle, Gladiator packs a weak punch. [6 March 1992, p.G5]

Stops dead the second the monsters fall out of view. It doesn't help that the movie's post-apocalyptic future is of the unimaginative backlot variety, or that the movie takes itself so seriously.

If Magic Mike XXL is bulging with anything, it’s inane conversation.

Truly, a modern fable in period dress...But boring. No other word for it. Director Franc Roddam (The Lords of Discipline, Quadrophenia) is a plodder. He can make dense films, ornate films, but he brings no special life to his projects. Here, he cannot escape the sumptuous confines his art directors have created or the too-rich images of cinematographer Stephen Burum. When the movie needs to race, it lurches instead, like the monster staggering castleward at the head of a torchlight parade.

Someone involved with Prizzi's Honor, the new film from John Huston and starring Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner, doubtless thinks it's a fine satire, a comedy so black it will have us all squirming. There's no other explanation for the long stretches of time the movie spends on "idle," all that potential power, going nowhere. [14 June 1985, p.D1]

The premise is marvelous, the music more than adequate (assuming you're a metal fan), the performances appropriately dumb. And it's seasonally funny. [28 Oct 1986, p.D5]

Who would have thought one of the best things about the new Farrelly brothers' movie is a cameo by Tony Robbins?

It's like watching "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" as remade by "Nightline."

Kline is OK. Mastrantonio isn't, really -- she plays Priscilla on the edge of a groundless hysteria. Kevin Spacey, fresh from a tightly controlled performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, loses it here. But the real villain is the ramshackle story. It's just a mess. [17 Oct 1992, p.4]

The movie's hokey mysticism and heaving melancholy is closer in spirit to a solemn Hallmark greeting card.

It turns out to be under-powered and low-wattage. Breakin' 2's plot could use about six months on the Nautilus equipment to tone it up. [19 Dec 1984, p.C5]

A good story, but its potential is never realized.

The film relies a bit too much on the humor of older women flipping each other off and mouthing obscenities, although it is hilarious to see the usually proper Smith frantically chopping up a roofie to slip into Sidda's drink.

Annie DeSalvo, a first-time director and screenwriter, can't escape the made-for-TV feel but does manage to give her cast, mostly once-big names fallen from grace and popularity, flashes of humanity between lessons about various saints and sermons disguised as dialogue.

What you'll remember most are a pretty face and the hot and steamy sex scenes. That is not enough.

You come away from the movie lamenting the missed opportunity and wondering what a stronger, bolder filmmaker would have done with this material.

The Mummy was certainly no "Raiders," but as far as summer movies go, it was just good enough.

Richard Mulligan attempts to provide comic relief for the comedy, in the role of a grizzled archangel, but it's a thankless task. The most interesting element of the film is its premise. [26 July 1985, p.D8]

I respected The Beaver for having the conviction to treat mental illness seriously and without compromise. But did it have to be so maudlin, too?

Feels like the shell of a wonderful story.

Night and the City is the most disappointing big- expectations movie of 1992. It's hard to overstate the magnitude of its failures. There is almost nothing right about it. [23 Oct 1992, p.G5]

A little like a secular, more sophisticated "Touched by an Angel" episode.

A slice of '40s-vintage, small town Mississippi life, full of laughs and sweetness and a sorrow that may send more sensitive little ones home crying.

Despite Fanda's shenanigans, and many are out-loud funny, Autumn Spring is not that uplifting though it isn't a downer, either. It's more an ode to friendship and marriage.

It's fitting. Valentin and Jane may be awakening from life's slumber, but mostly they're just putting us to sleep.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is lightweight, small-screen stuff. It has some genuinely funny moments, especially in the comic repartee between Johnson and Rourke. These guys have a likable chemistry, and they might be worth teaming up again. Next time, let's hope they have a script. [26 Aug 1991, p.C3]

Disney's half-baked recipe for box-office success. Hocus Pocus is a pretty lackluster affair, owing to excess characters and a choppy, wandering script. [16 July 1993, p.G7]

The Cotton Club never seems to go anywhere, so that we are caught up short when it seems to have gotten somewhere. Then it's over, finished in Hines' blaze of glory, and a few minutes later one wonders what one has seen. It's big and colorful and terribly thin. [14 Dec 1984, p.E18]

Mostly due to luminous writing, Baxter's novel evoked a sense of magic, but this Feast, though never completely uninteresting, leaves you hungry for enchantment.

Race never delves under the skins of its characters, because they’re intended to be used only as symbols — reminders of an important chapter in history rendered quaint by this noble but patronizing movie.

A surprisingly straightforward romp in slasher-flick cliches, Friday the 13th is replete with gee-whiz gore, gratuitous sex and nudity and party-loving teens with a penchant for ending up on the wrong end of a pick ax.

Once in a while, A Good Man in Africa hits that elusive sweet spot between serious drama and lighthearted comedy, serving at once as a satire of political corruption, a drama about personal integrity and a comedy about carnal lust and culture clash. Most of the film, though, is a mishmash of conflicting tones, veering from one emotional extreme to another so clumsily, it's impossible to keep up. [09 Sep 1994, p.G5]