Like an early Woody Allen film or a classic Marx brothers feature, more of Hoodwinked's gags flop than hit, but they come at such a steady rate, you hardly notice.

The best stuff comes early in Ruby Sparks, which was written by Kazan (granddaughter of Elia) and directed by the husband and wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine).

While the attentive art direction of Running With Scissors pays scrupulous and imaginative attention to period detail, the film overlooks its greatest asset: Burroughs.

Aside from satisfying some kind of ghoulish curiosity about how such an incident could possibly happen, there's precious little in Death of a President to justify the extremity of its central conceit.

As far as production values go, this Peter Pan is a work of art. So why, then, does the movie feel so crushingly dull?

McGrath makes literal what the other movie only hinted at -- that Perry falls in love with Capote -- turning the relationship between author and subject into something far less complicated and more mundane.

For all its peripatetic energy, Limitless still winds up with the same-old blazing guns and wanton destruction of property. No matter how smart you may be, Hollywood will figure out a way to dumb you down.

An Innocent Man might have been a decent enough study of justice gone horribly awry -- if the screenplay weren't so crudely manipulative, if the bad cops weren't such cardboard villains and if the title character had been played by a more appropriate (and better) actor than Tom Selleck. [06 Oct 1989, p.G4]

The film feels more like an extended epilogue than a stand-alone adventure, which may be because it is the shortest (105 minutes) entry in the series.

Wild Bill is handsomely mounted and nicely acted, but it's also strangely irrelevant, a big ho-hum of a movie. [01 Dec 1995, p.5G]

An exercise intended exclusively for fans of the genre, another crude, hard-R bloodbath from the studio that brought you "High Tension" and "Saw."

The presence of Culkin in the cast should not deceive parents: This isn't a kids' movie. It's just not much of a grownups' movie, either. [24 Sep 1993, p.G5]

This version was directed by Gene Saks, who is Simon's stage director, and who presumably knows what he wants. Getting it is another story -- Saks seems to have been so concerned with cooling down the play, taking the "theater" out of it, that he let the warmth go, too. [25 Dec 1986, p.B1]

Antonio Banderas looks a little older, Catherine Zeta-Jones snares a bigger role, and the powerful charms of both are weighed down by an absurdly plot-heavy script.

What's lacking is any sense of Beverly's brightness. She's supposedly smart, but she never displays a shred of intelligence.

Comes off curiously flat.

Benjamin's creative visual style isn't enough to lift a weak story. [18 Mar 1988, p.D7]

Bad Milo! directly envokes a number of earlier pictures Vaughan clearly adores, including "Basket Case," "It’s Alive" and even the workplace satire "Office Space." But the movie fails to ground its promising (if preposterous) scenario in any kind of recognizable reality.

As far as titles go, Cote d'Azur doesn't quite cut it for this topsy-turvy French comedy, in which an innocent seaside vacation gets really messy once a family full of busybodies starts poking around in one another's business.

It's frustrating to watch Levin try to reason with far-gone street-corner evangelicals (whose arguments are preposterous at best) when he might be building a stronger case by other means.

Think of The Beyond as a Rorschach inkblot of a horror film: It's by turns impressionistic, repulsive, ridiculous and baffling. In the right frame of mind, it can also be a hoot. [17 Jul 1998, p.7G]

The whole enterprise sags and wheezes like the tired, we're-in-this-strictly-for-the-money sequel it really is.

It's a testament to the personalities of the actors, as well as the foundation laid by the original film, that we retain an emotional connection to the main players in Revolutions.

The film seems just right for kids, though what older fans of Cruise ("Risky Business") and Scott will make of it is far less clear. [22 Apr 1986, p.B4]

The Night Flier flirts with being a decent chiller, one that for a time values the dark morality tale over the oozing entrails. In the end, it gives in to its cheap soul (it was made for and first shown on HBO) and sometimes cheesy plot (adapted from one of King's sillier stories), but not before it conjures up a creepy tone and an aptly unappealing main character. [6 Feb 1998, p.12G]

A surprisingly dull and witless film. [21 Jul 1984, p.C1]

For all its respectable airs, The Accountant mostly induces shrugs. Sometimes, B-movies fare better when they settle for being their lowbrow selves.

Splashy, uneven version of the musical, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve). Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra seem miscast, but Jean Simmons is delightful as the Salvation Army woman Brando falls for. [04 Aug 1989, p.G37]

The trouble with Kinky Boots is that director Julian Jarrold doesn't seem to know whether his movie would play better to young hipsters or the blue-haired old lady crowd.

In the guise of a loving homage, Making Contact manages to steal shamelessly and for the most part ineptly from its betters -- Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Poltergeist, Carrie. There is barely an original moment in the film, which is nonetheless almost incomprehensible. [02 Sep 1986, p.B5]

A thoroughly wholesome, if not particularly entertaining, experience. [17 Jul 1992, p.G5]

Hanks is pleasant doing his standard playboy schtick. Aykroyd is even better, showing his ability for mimicry while revealing true feeling as an actor. He can't help it, though, that Friday's stridency grows tiresome. And that's Dragnet's main problem. As funny as the movie is, the excesses weigh it down the longer it runs. [26 June 1987, p.D1]

The main problem with The Hulk, really, is that there isn't enough Hulk in it.

It's all pretty hoary stuff, but you'll be willing to overlook most of it because the premise is so compellingly delivered, with flashy sturm und drang, by director Wolfgang Petersen. [10 Mar 1995, P.5G]

Much of it makes no sense whatever, and the most interesting element is watching Neeson and Adam Baldwin, who plays a psychopathic Mafia underboss, steal the picture from under Swayze's nose. [7 Nov 1989, p.C8]

The shrill musical score alone will keep you awake, but for a film filled with romance, zombies, mad scientists and existential quests, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is surprisingly dull. [04 Nov 1994, p.G4]

Isn't so much bad as it is puny: a sporadically amusing, occasionally funny, but ultimately bland and pointless time killer.

Disappointingly straightforward remake.

Ichaso demonstrates he's ready for the big leagues: His movie is noble and slick, technically accomplished. But it never touches the heart. [26 Feb 1994, p.G3]

Doesn't make much sense on a story level, and it has a cheap, slapdash look that indicates no one behind the camera was interested in anything other than another fat payday.

A slightly dull film by photographer Sam Jones.

Sets out to be a study of grief and how to overcome it, but it rings too false to offer much hope - or entertainment.

Director Fred Dekker does a serviceable job with what looks like a tight budget, and the movie will satisfy undemanding Robofans, but as a whole, Robocop 3 has the feel of a movie made to squeeze an extra few bucks out of a tired franchise. [08 Nov 1993, p.F2]

Pretty in Pink is not a bad film, but for those who do not come to it predisposed to re-indulge the agonies of young love, it is less than memorable. [3 March 1986, p.C6]

You start out fearing Don’t Breathe, but by the end you’re laughing at it — and the humor is not intentional.

McGillis, though, is the film's worst enemy. Her wooden attempts to recreate Kathleen Turner circa 1981 undermine too many scenes.

What to Expect has no standout character who's consistently funny, and it must operate within the confines of a "kids are the most important thing in our lives" mentality, which is more tiresome ground, comedically speaking.

It manages just to be pleasant.

The good news about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first in a planned series of stand-alone movies set in the “Star Wars” universe, is that the last half-hour of the film is a sustained stretch of rousing action, indelible images and cliffhanger thrills. It’s pop sci-fi bliss...The bad news about Rogue One is that getting to the good stuff is a slog — and the movie is pretty long.

Exactly the formulaic, by-the-numbers movie it appears to be. These Tigers deserved better.

The talented cast fails to gel into a dynamic ensemble.

Not entirely unwatchable.

A sporadically funny, always predictable, weirdly downbeat fantasy.

Self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers.

It's a gorgeous pastiche of flowers and Gothic architecture that, like a painting on a museum wall, never quite involves the viewer. You'll be momentarily enchanted, then forget it entirely. [14 Aug 1993, p.G5]

The result: Rather than being funky, Jetsons: The Movie is plain fluffy. [6 July 1990, p.G5]

Where it succeeds smashingly is in the sound department.

The Kite Runner is earnest and sentimental and formulaic and obvious. Watching it, I could understand the fuss over Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel, but the film didn't make me want to read it. That's not a slam against the book, but a way of illustrating just how literal and bland the film adaptation turned out.

Diary of the Dead is at its best when Romero is just goofing off, like when he shows us home video footage of a children's birthday party.

Remains naggingly hollow, a cerebral exercise in whimsy that isn't nearly clever or funny enough to seem like more than grand self-indulgence.

Freedom Writers is prone to throwing in unnecessary plot developments, so it never quite succeeds as anything more than "Dangerous Minds" Redux.

18 Again is one for the VCR. On the big screen, there's not enough Burns for your money. [08 Apr 1988, p.C1]

Unstoppable is the slowest, talkiest movie you'll ever see about a runaway freight train loaded with toxic chemicals.

While patience is a virtue in a marriage, we shouldn't need quite this much to make it through a movie.

The sad thing about Rising Sun is that for all the controversy surrounding the book, it plays as just another cop drama set against an alien landscape. As so often happens in Hollywood these days, the alien locale is Los Angeles, an L.A. under assault from within and without. Rising Sun the movie doesn't have all that much to say about that condition. It sticks to the safe stuff. [30 July 1993, p.G4]

You come out with a sense you've seen it all before.

It's hard to knock The Cutting Edge without feeling like a grouch. It aims to be nothing more than an old-fashioned love story with plenty of banter between its two leads and a straightforward plot about Olympic ice skating. The actors work hard...But the script rings false from the get-go; the dialogue is straight from the school of clever quips and snappy comebacks, and the romantic plotline has been done so many times before, it's beyond cliched. It's too flimsy to carry a whole movie. [27 March 1992, p.G13]

Though the fight sequences deliver the necessary kicks, Double Impact's script is a study in missed opportunities. [09 Aug 1991, p.G5]

Once you get past the initial hurdles, Iron Eagle has the kind of sappy charm and a variety of overblown performance that shapes kids' movies. It is not plausible for a second, but neither, on the face of it, was Bambi. [22 Feb 1986, p.C7]

There’s nothing more to this movie than the set-up. Even though Cypher is slowly bleeding to death, and Kitai is running out of oxygen capsules that allow him to breathe in the toxic air, there’s no sense of urgency, either. At least Shyamalan, sensing the thinness of the material, doesn’t stretch things out.

As long as the movie's set in Mexico City, The Matador is a slick and entertaining black comedy, but the instant Danny heads back to Denver, it comes flying apart at the seams.

The principal appeal remains the series' principal weakness as well. These films are all about the blurring of the boundary between dream and reality, which strikes at the heart of what film is all about. But this also means that at regular intervals, someone wakes up to find that it was all a dream, one of the hoariest and least satisfying devices in the history of bad drama. [15 Aug 1989, p.C5]

If Andrews oozes regal poise and Hathaway radiates movie star allure -- and they do -- credit the actresses, not this flimsy fairy tale.

Sorry, folks, but he just looks too much like one of the Fruit-of-the-Loom guys. [7 June 1996, p.7G]

Director Matthew Robbins keeps the pace light, nonviolent, and more entertaining than a made-for-TV movie. The fashion show's the action. His film is really about a face, and a look, and a haircut. [19 July 1985, p.D4]

The payback in Law Abiding Citizen doesn't have a cathartic kick, because the revenge is so extreme it's horrifying.

Geronimo: An American Legend is noble but hopelessly bland. [10 Dec 1993, p.G4]

Even if you can get past the acting -- and in the case of the beautiful, blank Alba, that's asking a lot -- the film just sits there, not exactly torturous, but never very exciting, either.

Midlands finds some measure of success in its use of regular, real-looking people -- as opposed to the oddly glamorous characters who turn up in most romantic comedies -- but it's as though the writer used up all the personality traits before he got to Shirley.

A decent cast, led by Peter Weller (as the geologist/hero) and Rambo vet Richard Crenna (as Doc), grapples gamely with the script and hauls down the paychecks. [21 Mar 1989, p.C7]

De Palma does some borrowing, too. He always does. Pick your Vietnam War favorite -- Platoon, Apocalypse Now, et al. -- and you'll find an "homage" in Casualties of War. But you won't find the scale or depth that either the war or the genre deserve. It's a big disappointment. [18 Aug 1989, p.G5]

Often feels choppy, as if chunks of connecting narrative had been lopped off in the editing room.

Necessary Roughness, a football comedy of unnecessary blandness, has the same problem as the Miami Dolphins: It dies in the second half. [3 Oct 1991, p.F4]

The Muppet Christmas Carol never approaches the freewheeling atmosphere of earlier Muppet movies. While all the familiar Muppet characters appear, they often seem stilted; watching Kermit and Miss Piggy acting as Bob and Emily Cratchit is nowhere near as much fun as watching them play themselves. With too few exceptions, the movie doesn't allow the Muppets to inject their own personalities into their characters. [14 Dec 1992, p.C6]

Director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) re-creates 19th-Century Paris beautifully, and poetry scholars might find the movie worthwhile strictly for its subject matter, but Total Eclipse comes off as a big downer that confuses dreariness with substance. [03 Nov 1995, p.6G]

From a purely cinematic standpoint, The Underneath is Soderbergh's most daring work yet, full of elliptical flashbacks and fast-forwards; ominous camera angles and cinematic tricks. But Soderbergh's movies (sex, lies and videotape, Kafka, King of the Hill) have always been cunningly smart, and The Underneath is not. [28 April 1995, p.5G]

Micmacs is a wan fizzle of a fantasy, a spirited, imaginative spectacle that never quite takes flight.

There’s a rollicking Wild West adventure buried deep inside The Lone Ranger, a bloated, mega-budget revival of the story of the iconic gunslinger and his Native American sidekick Tonto.

The movie isn't really about America and Japan at all; it's about set-ups for gags. [14 Mar 1986, p.D2]

What The Bank Job ends up stealing is all your precious time.

If anything, the 1983 To Be or Not to Be is more tasteless, while a great deal less engaging, than the original. [16 Dec 1983, p.E20]

Director Moshe Mizrahi, who did the Academy Award-winning Madame Rosa, cannot decide whether he has a light comedy or a heavy drama, and the film wavers between the two. [26 Nov 1986, p.D5]

Double Dragon is not a great accomplishment, but it never stands still long enough to get dull, its sense of humor grows on you, and its lack of pretentiousness is refreshing. [07 Nov 1994, p.C2]

The players are game. Too bad they don't have much of a coach or a plan.

Something we've all seen before, far too many times, not only in its premise but also in its lame parade of scatological jokes and its sad, tired pratfalls.

The film isn’t overlong. But it tries to fit so many themes into its brief running time — that it merely touches on most conflicts instead of exploring them in depth or with any delicacy.

The picture is perfectly watchable but rarely compelling, because the filmmakers are too timid to take any chances.

Disney is trumpeting that Operation Dumbo Drop is "inspired" by a true event. In fact, it is loosely based on a short story by a former Green Beret. But it still doesn't fly. [28 Jul 1995, p.7G]