What makes this sequel work is the charm of its story.

The vilest film of the season.

It's hard to figure how the combination of director Carl Reiner, comedian John Candy and a movie with the title Summer Rental could come to nothing. [10 Aug 1985, p.D7]

An enjoyably preposterous thriller. [13 Oct 2008, p.E6]

You expect more from King. The man obviously knows a thing or two about terror, yet Sleepwalkers is a pastiche of old B- movies. Bad B-movies. [16 Apr 1992, p.F3]

The few jokes it does land can't make this more than a look-what's-on-late-night-cable event.

Director Jean-Marie Gaubert, who also directed this film's French predecessor, keeps the silly story barreling along.

Trailers make it seem as though Radio is all about football, but it's not, and once the film leaves the fall sport behind it wanders around in no particular direction until it reaches an abrupt, poorly executed ending.

The comedy is slapstick, the colors Day Glo, the outcome inevitable.

Has some very funny moments, it is weighed down by gooey sentimentality.

The film is supposed to be about tolerance, but the only acceptance comes in terms of how the islanders accept the Mormon teachings. Somehow, that doesn't quite feel divine.

Brosnan and Moore may not be substitutes for Tracy and Hepburn, but they're more than capable of making you smile for now.

There's an old-school innocence to Marshall's style, and it's satisfying to be whisked away from reality to this parallel universe where we find it possible to laugh amid such a fundamentally tragic scenario.

Eventually, though, Seeking Justice devolves into the usual business of chases and elaborate double-crosses that leave behind all vestiges of realism for the sake of popcorn thrills.

Emits a fishy odor, like a recruitment film for an obscure cult you'd rather stay away from.

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]

The undeniable star is the diminutive comedian. He’s the glue that holds the movie together when it wanders into the weeds and starts believing it’s a serious meditation on relationships.

The movie does miraculously end up making good use of a couple of running jokes, and the cast soldiers on, though the laughs are meager. But mostly, Girl Most Likely is a case of good actors in serious need of worthwhile material.

(Theron) and Depp give lazy, almost irrelevant performances... resolutely unmoving.

Plays like a colorful but inert timekiller that you might tolerate while dozing off in front of the TV, but only because you are too sleepy to reach for the remote control.

The humor tends to be broad, but the spritely pace doesn't allow for too much lingering on the jokes that don't land (really, we've seen enough morning sickness bits to make us gag).

Not entirely unwatchable.

Navy Seals is all action, no talk, and it never slows down enough to let you see how dumb it is. But the sudden lack of enemies in a world gone crazily, treacherously peaceful is a problem for Hollywood. [20 July 1990, p.G5]

The formulaic movie would be forgettable but inoffensive if it were anyone else posing for blue screen CGI effects.

Until it collapses into a pile of contrivances, Don't Say a Word makes for a serviceable, workmanlike thriller.

Death to Smoochy? Yes, please.

After a while, hearing Martin say ''Zee area eez zecure!'' doesn't cut it any longer, and that's pretty much all The Pink Panther has to offer.

The remake seems to have been written and directed by people whose only experience with children is the long-distant memory of having been kids themselves so many years ago.

Derivative and self-important, Third Person is a concept and not much more, precisely the sort of film that makes you wonder why anybody would bother to see it at all.

The problem with Men, Women & Children — and it’s a big one — is that the movie isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know.

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]

In the spirit of The Howling and a half- dozen imitators since, My Science Project is salted with in- jokes and sly gags about its subject, beginning with a reference to The Time Machine and extending to far more subtle clues. John Stockwell, as Harlan the hero, is at least as interesting as the rest of the generation of teen-throb actors already widely referred to as the brat pack. [13 Aug 1985, p.B13]

The devices in the script are more obvious than the special effects. [27 Apr 1990, p.G5]

Crossing Over is a result of the sledgehammer approach writer-director Wayne Kramer (Running Scared, The Cooler) takes to his subject matter -- the same heavy-handed tactics that earned "Crash" three Oscars.

At a preview showing Thursday night, Porky's II was greeted by laughter that ranged from hearty to thunderous. That's definitely OK. By all means, let the good times roll. Go for $120 million this time. Just keep that snake out of my comfort station. [25 June 1983, p.C1]

Writer-director E. Max Frye (Something Wild) strives for social satire but clogs his script with dopey characters and old Archie Bunker one-liners. [06 Mar 1993, p.E3]

No, it's the movie itself -- an unimaginative, generic affair memorable only for its incessant and flagrant plugging of Apple computers and iPods -- that should put a stake through the franchise for good.

The new Steven Seagal film is, of course, almost unbelievably stupid and vile, but there's something else going on as well this time. Something new. Something . . . tedious. [16 Apr 1991, p.C5]

Gives romance a bad name.

If you try hard enough, you might be able to forget that the story doesn't make a lot of sense or provide adequate thrills, although it tries to scare you a couple of times in the cheapest possible way.

The result is like a low-rent "Wizard of Oz" or "Labyrinth," sticking close to the formula of a kid who falls asleep and wakes up in a fantastical wonderland where everything's just a little bit off.

Only genuinely talented people can make pictures this bad and misguided. “This whole thing is unacceptable,” Lil remarks at one point. That goes for the movie, too.

Even the story-within-a-story structure doesn't pay off. This material needed more substance and ideas - and less flash and sumptuous production values.

Don't waste your money.

May not reinvent the wheel, but its expertly delivered thrills would hit the spot at any time of year.

In an ironic twist, Mira Nair's big-hearted yet by-the-numbers biopic of Amelia Earhart never -- unlike the famous aviatrix -- takes chances.

Bergman can't bring individual scenes together into a collective whole, and the ending (which was reshot at the last minute) closes things on a disappointingly limp note. [28 Jun 1996, p.5G]

My Chauffeur has moments of pure daffiness, unhinged stuff. But it is also the most ineptly made comedy in years, so badly made that it is ultimately unwatchable. [20 March 1986, p.B6]

Played by Adrian Sparks in a style better suited for dinner theater or a Key West tourist attraction, Hemingway comes across as a complete cypher. Everyone in the film keeps talking about his genius, but other than a scene in which he writes a short story on the back of a napkin, the movie doesn’t try to humanize or explore his talent.

If Annapolis is not the worst movie to date of this still-young year, it is certainly the most hackneyed, as well as the most depressing.

A devastating disappointment. Badly acted, amateurishly directed and woefully unfunny.

Like most Norris vehicles, The Delta Force is long on spurious action and short on production values. It's also silly, but it's more than that. Rambo asked, "Do we get to win this time?"; Norris' Delta Force gets to go back and win last time. [19 Feb 1986, p.D8]

A surprisingly ambitious entry into a genre that felt bankrupt and over more than a decade ago.

A forced and wholly unnecessary sequel.

Pryor and director Walter Hill do a competent job collaborating on comic pace in Brewster's Millions. But the screenplay by Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris isn't audacious enough to twist the ending and let Pryor's character grow. Brewster's Millions is a pleasant summer laugh, but it's not comedy that bites.

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.

The film suffers from a severe lack of urgency and emotional engagement. You can't get involved in a movie in which the characters all seem to be harboring double identities.

Isn't a total crock.

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

Features one of the more pointless cameos ever when Tom Waits shows up abruptly in the desert to spout mystical nonsense about Domino trading her life for somebody else's. The scene has absolutely no place in this jarring, violent movie; Waits is just another of Scott's distractions.

Basically the first movie all over again, with plenty more of the bridge-jumping, rocket-launching action that audiences loved about the original.

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.

Evan Almighty may not be enough to make you shout ''Hallelujah,'' but it's not the cinematic equivalent of a plague, either.

With an exciting way out, the audience would have gladly overlooked all the loose ends from earlier in the movie. But the way Hall plays it, he undermines the early style and intelligence of his all-black action movie, taking audiences for the wrong kind of ride in the end.

Charlie St. Cloud is primarily a vehicle to prove the actor can do more than dance and sing. It's more of a demo reel for Efron than a movie. His predominant fan base, though, won't mind a bit.

A Jerry Bruckheimer production, which gives the movie a disquieting sense of stupidity.

Amiable, sporadically amusing farce.

But in addition to the sex and violence, there is also surprising style, humor and, yes, drama -- drama that actually serves to justify much of the violence.[11 Jan 1985, p.D14]

Funny in the juvenile, crass way we expect.

A handsome, sincere, well-meaning bore.

Witless and dull, Penelope Spheeris' feature-length hillbilly saga is the product of no less than four screenwriters. It's scary to think what it might have been like had it been written by only one or two of them -- I mean, what does a half-joke sound like? [15 Oct 1993, p.G5]

Flowers' ''style'' suffers from attention deficit disorder, leaving just enough vital information for you to follow the convoluted plot. But just when one story gets rolling, he's off and chasing another.

It's safe to say that without De Niro Analyze This and That couldn't even exist; or rather, if they did, they would be unwatchable. De Niro is that important to the mix.

It's possible to achieve hilarity and pathos, but it's not easy, and Litvak isn't quite skilled enough to make the sex jokes rest easily beside the final grandiose and pat confessions. As a result, When Do We Eat? merely whets your appetite for a fresh take on family matters.

Something about the sequel, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, doesn't seem nearly as obnoxious as the original.

It's not awful; it isn't dull. But The Golden Child is a kids' film, and there are times when Murphy himself seems uncomfortable, as if he knows he's making a movie he wouldn't pay to see. [13 Dec 1986, p.B1]

The dancing, while reasonably entertaining, isn't anything you haven't seen before on MTV or BET, although the soundtrack might be a worthwhile investment for hip-hop fans.

Given the rather cramped capacities of his crowd, this makes Estevez a prodigy of sorts: His Wisdom isn't good, but like Estevez' work as a performer, it's never quite bad enough to write off. [5 Jan 1987, p.C1]

It's the sort of film that's entertaining while you're in the theater.

In the hands of director John Lafia, who uses many tricks of the genre (none of them his own), this is all less horrifying than it sounds, and a good deal funnier. [09 Nov 1990, p.G5]

Ultimately the story of someone who preys on other serial killers, but can't seem to come up with an original way in which to do it.

The Principal has no principle. It aspires to be a gritty look at a troubled inner-city school, but despite all its tough talk and its seething students, it's a cornball fantasy. [18 Sep 1987, p.D5]

The movie contains little in terms of traditional action, and Refn never uses it in a rousing or exciting manner, either. That would break the nightmarish spell this strange, beautiful film casts on the viewer. A mother’s love has never been this ruinous.

If the other theme-park movies are as appealing, go ahead, bring 'em on.

Chuck Norris, whose action dramas are often unintentionally funny, edges into spoof territory with Firewalker, and the result is inadvertently dull. It's a curious cycle, a kind of primordial rhythm of bad moviemaking.[2 Dec 1986, p.B4]

Unfortunately, there isn't enough of Brando and Kilmer: Too much screen time is eaten up by the monsters, plotting their perfunctory uprising against their creator. Worse, the confusing climax never comes close to fulfilling the promise of the opening credits sequence (the best of any movie this the summer). But The Island of Dr. Moreau has sublimely weird moments in it that are hard to shake, and for starved horror fans, nowadays you take what you can get. [23 Aug 1996, p.5G]

Too easily, and predictably, resolves itself.

What Crush lacks in substance and originality, it makes up for with sheer likability.

For all its derring-do, Cutthroat Island is sluggish, flat, tiresome. Watching it is like being stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for an endless two hours. [22 Dec 1995, p.4G]

Such a dull, clunky, joyless mess, it's hard to believe the people who made it understand much about movies.

Only in the execution does Madonna stumble: Despite the undeniable romance of the historical material, she has made a movie more concerned with how things look than how they feel. Which should not surprise anyone.

Alan Metter (Back to School) directed this wildly uneven trifle. Most of the jokes are tasteless or stupid. [08 Mar 1988, p.B5]

As written, Seven Pounds would have always been a melancholy experience, but a lighter touch would have helped to keep you from noticing the implausibility of its plot.

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]

The Hotel New Hampshire, in which John Irving's novel comes to the screen, is such a mess that it does not feel like a film at all. It's a kind of endurance contest, an epic bout with the cutes, in which the audience is made to confront a long, quirky line of performers playing oddball "types," and is then given only a handful of platitudes by which the explain the experience. "Sorrow floats" is the story's most profound statement, though there are others. [3 Apr 1984, p.C5]

Dismayingly predictable and rote, a simple premise played out in the most obvious way possible.

The movie's attempts at zaniness are flat, almost embarrassing.

Together (Hunter/Murphy) they're actually sort of fun to watch, and it's amusing to realize, not quite halfway through the film, that its most potent chemistry exists between them.