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]

Here's what is bad: this movie.

Does anyone openly admit to enjoying these things? Small kids may find Ernest's slapstick antics mildly amusing, but even the most fervent Ernest fan (if there is such a thing) will grow tired and annoyed very quickly here. [12 Nov 1993, p.E4]

The vilest film of the season.

Parts of The Bodyguard are inadvertently hilarious, as in a romantic encounter involving Houston, Costner and a samurai sword (she unsheathes it so very, very carefully). Others just seem to go on, and on, and on -- at two hours and five minutes, this one is easily a half-hour too long. [25 Nov 1992, p.E4]

Sometimes it seems as though Hollywood can't make a decent action movie anymore. Now that's a thought to make you go ballistic.

Estevez is a self-important performer and his cockiness mutes most of the movie's laughs. If not for Sheen, a much more appealing comic actor than his brother, Men at Work would hardly be palatable. [29 Aug 1990, p.D5]

It is a grim and monotonous affair despite the overkill of bad guys -- a trio of evil spirits plus a bonus serial killer -- mixed with a few cheap shocks futilely intended to make the audience jump.

Chasing Papi leaves you wishing Hollywood would just forget about Latinos altogether. If this is how they really see us, I'd rather not know.

Please. Quick. Somebody stop Jim Carabatsos before he writes another movie. Carabatsos, author of the vile new Clint Eastwood movie Heartbreak Ridge, has created another trashy screenplay in No Mercy, thus affording stars Richard Gere and Kim Basinger the chance to sully their careers. [19 Dec 1986, p.7]

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

Humdrum hybrid of stale sitcom characters and creaky sports cliches.

The Last Boy Scout is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hollywood. The problem is the script, which is awful. [13 Dec 1991, p.G5]

Does King's tale play a part in the film at all? Kind of; half of it is there, but they've left out the really scary images from the story. The only thing The Lawnmower Man accomplishes is to remind you how boring it is to watch someone else play a video game. If they ever start marketing this virtual reality stuff, however, someone's going to get very rich. [9 Mar 1992, p.C4]

A fluffy, feel-bad drama, with some serious things to say about the viability of homosexual men as fathers and role models.

Airplane II opens promisingly with a spate of hit-and-run gags, but the picture sags in the middle and lies flat for the last half-hour. Bringing on the rigor mortis is the appearance of William Shatner, playing the lunar-base commander who must guide Hays' troubled space shuttle to a safe landing. [14 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Illegal Tender is the sort of crime movie in which nothing, not one detail, has been observed from real life; it's composed entirely of fantasies and falsehoods lifted from bad movies and hip-hop videos.

Camp classic? You bet.

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 movie is heavy on shock and gimmickry, thanks to Renny Harlin's frenetic and flamboyant direction. The wafer-thin plot is little more than an excuse to showcase the astonishing achievements of special-effects makeup artists. [19 Aug 1988, p.D9]

Despite the movie's bouncy ebullience (courtesy of a terrific period soundtrack) and dashes of fantasy, the film quickly becomes an endurance test.

The story is thick with implausibilities and, like the source, almost unbelievably turgid in the telling. [20 Nov 1987, p.B5]

There is also a last-minute "Sixth Sense" twist, although it definitely won't make you sit through the movie again to see if the filmmakers cheated.

This movie didn't have to be good, but that it's so boring in its badness is tough to swallow.

The plot gimmick not only makes the sequel unworthy of Highlander, it nearly destroys the charm of the original, which was its worldliness, the idea that these guys were chosen humans. [05 Nov 1991, p.C7]

This is one of those what-were-they-thinking flicks, a movie so inane you can't imagine how anyone thought they'd created something watchable. [02 Nov 1996, p.5G]

Director Deran Sarafian and cinematographer Russell Carpenter give Death Warrant a great gloomy feel and know how how to use extreme close-ups as effective eye candy. But candy is about all we get. [18 Sep 1990, p.C3]

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.

Chuck Norris is also in this movie, although you should know that he gets roughly five minutes of screen time, half of those devoted to his telling of a Chuck Norris joke. That is as funny as the movie's self-aware humor gets.

The ghoulies in question are at least momentarily diverting, which is more than can be said for the rest of their movie. [26 May 1985, p.C6]

Coincidentally, this is the second movie in two weeks about a haunted seafaring vessel ("Below" is the other), and if you see just one, this shouldn't be it.

Battleship is a board game for children, so it stands to reason a film adaptation would also be aimed at kids. But did they have to gear it to really dumb kids?

At the very least, Corman would have remembered to make the movie fun.

In The Arrival, Charlie Sheen makes a startling discovery that, sadly, has nothing to do with the suspicion that he should have ended his flagging movie career ages ago. [31 May 1996, p.6G]

Ricochet would be utterly unremarkable (in the small universe of violent and atmospheric cop dramas that make no sense) were it not for the cast, which includes some A players. [07 Oct 1991, p.C1]

For the most part, Tombstone is inept. Some of the performances are wincingly bad: Dana Delany, playing a touring actress with the hots for Wyatt, is particularly embarrassing. Director George P. Cosmatos (Leviathan) firmly cements his hack status: He takes nearly an hour to get things rolling, then fails to build any sort of momentum. [25 Dec 1993, p.F1]

Ballard made The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf, and he's good with spectacle;: His second-unit crew this time found ways to shoot the controlled violence of big sails in good wind that take the breath away. But the rest of Wind is just out there flapping. What a mess. [14 Sep 1992, p.C5]

The performances -- even those by Rosanna Arquette and Jeff Bridges, as Sarah and Scudder -- are simply trashy; they're throwaway stuff. [30 Apr 1986, p.C7]

The set design of Thirteen Ghosts may have been expensive, but its thrills are cheap.

A lobotomized campus comedy. [3 May 1994, p.E6]

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

An excruciating and melodramatic comedy.

If this is magic, I'll take "Gigli."

This excruciatingly dumb, formulaic picture, which somehow required the work of four screenwriters but contains not even one single, fleeting moment of wit or humor.

Hot Dog...The Movie! involves soft-core quickies and schoolyard one-liners and is not much fun at all. [14 Jan 1984, p.C7]

Four Christmases is sour to the point of curdling, a satirical look at the holidays a la "Bad Santa" that does exactly what that film avoided: come off as both off-puttingly misanthropic and gloppily sentimental.

Zapped strains for laughs with a few weak attempts at film parody. The references here are to Star Trek, Taxi Driver and The Exorcist (in this context, flying vomit is supposed to be funny). They only make us wish we were watching a different movie. [09 Sep 1982, p.C7]

Even Ben Stiller looks bored out of his mind in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and he got paid several million dollars to star in it.

Never before has Egoyan made a picture this egregiously, relentlessly bad.

My Favorite Year moves from bad joke to bad joke, but it does move. [08 Oct 1982, p.D9]

Why does The Big Year's trailer intentionally hide what the film is really about? Here's why: Because bird-watching - or birding, as practitioners prefer to call it - makes for a stupefyingly boring movie.

Porky's Revenge is just what you'd think it is, only not as good. And folks, when a filmmaker promises a cheap, quick and dirty sex comedy and can't deliver, that's disappointment. [26 March 1985, p.D5]

The Back-up Plan is about as much fun as 36 hours of labor, only you don't get to go home with a baby at the end. Instead, you leave with a throbbing headache and a lot of questions about why anybody still thinks Jennifer Lopez can anchor a movie.

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 most remarkable failure of the film is that the principals don't seem even to like each other very much, despite their habit of facing the future arm in arm. There's a lot of cute flesh up on the screen, signifying nothing. [28 June 1985, p.D1]

As much as She's Gotta Have It exceeded expectations, School Daze sinks beneath them. This is one low- down flop of a movie. [12 Feb 1988, p.C5]

A Kiss Before Dying is nothing if not devious. But it's also a textbook example of incompetent direction. [29 Apr 1991, p.C5]

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

Head Office has fleetingly funny moments -- Don (Father Guido Sarducci) Novello's attempt to lure women into his limo to listen to boring pop tapes, a Don King rap that's almost as funny as his hair -- but overall, this is one movie that's bankrupt. [7 Jan 1986, p.4]

Manny & Lo is a gals-on-the-run film that aims to be Thelma & Louise for the My So-Called Life set. Instead it's as engaging as a public service announcement. [23 Aug 1996, p.8G]

This movie demands that the viewer -- and even its own characters -- turn into thumb-sucking 3-year-olds with no need for plausibility or logic, as long as there are lots of flashing lights and whooshing noises emanating from the screen.

But there's nothing in this amateurish movie that the opening credits of last year's "Go" didn't do better.

Craven packs routine teen-confrontation material into the plot as filler, and still has trouble getting to 90 minutes. His ending is contrived and nonsensical even by the standards of the form. [14 Oct 1986, p.B7]

You need lots of gifted people chasing after the same bad idea to make a movie as colossally misguided as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Tale is anything but spellbinding.

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]

A movie about lunatics with chainsaws that is neither funny nor frightening. [25 Aug 1986, p.C5]

What is most beguiling about The Libertine is that it allows Wilmot to self-destruct without ever giving us cause to care or relate.

The talented actors are game, but they are done in by the shallow nature of their characters, none of whom behaves in a manner remotely resembling real life (they don't really seem to be related, either).

Even if you do believe the story, Fire in the Sky will bore you silly. [17 Mar 1993, p.E2]

A film that has too little to entertain grownups, and perhaps too much for children. It's a blunder. [21 Dec 1983, p.C8]

Those looking to Craven for a new spin on an overworked genre are entitled to feel disappointed. [03 Sep 1984, p.B4]

Full of It's message is directed straight at 9-year-olds -- lying is bad! -- and yet there's plenty of sexual content. Unfortunately there isn't much else.

The Slugger's Wife is awful, easily the most inept mainstream Hollywood entertainment in memory. [29 March 1985, p.D19]

Transcendence is "Her" for dummies.

Routine chop-sock of the non-Hong Kong school. [04 Sep 1985, p.D5]

Universal Soldier, for all its sound and fury, isn't much fun. [15 July 1992, p.E5]

In the end, Phantasm II is a bland mixture of the horror movies its predecessor spawned. [8 July 1988, p.C5]

Despite all the freaky business on display - and there are moments here when you cannot believe your eyes - The Paperboy suffocates you with boredom like a hot, wet blanket. You want to push it away and escape. It makes sleaze boring.

Beyond the anemic script, though, Caddyshack II fails because Dangerfield fits the character better. His bulging eyes and neurotic demeanor fuel his lethal jabs. Even though he's still the stand-up comic, his well-established routine makes it easier to believe him. [27 July 1988, p.D1]

The bar scenes do make for a great, although brief, package.

Silly, tedious, inept disaster.

One of the most anticlimactic finales I've ever seen in a movie

In the romantic comedy Mannequin, a dummy comes to life. The movie never does. [18 Feb 1987, p.D6]

One Crazy Summer's only truly funny bit of business occurs when two evil kindergartners are transformed for no reason at all into pigs. You laugh here, not because it's riotously funny, but because the scene is one of the most stupid things you'll ever see...Much like the film it's contained in.

With the original Candyman, the filmmakers took chances in their efforts to scare you. With the sequel, they are simply chasing the quick and easy buck. [17 Mar 1995, p.4G]

Film remakes of old TV shows are all the rage in Hollywood. And several, including the inventive Brady Bunch Movie, have managed to seamlessly close the generation gap. Not so Sgt. Bilko, which succumbs to friendly fire. [02 Apr 1996, p.3C]

The best moments in director David Koepp's slight, dull movie are the scenes in which bike messenger Wilee pauses at busy intersections to figure out the path of least obstruction.

There's nothing here you haven't seen before, especially if you own a PlayStation.

The most intriguing thing about Lost Souls is how it managed to attract so much talent.

The saddest part about this whole affair is that it took Bugs and Co. 60 years to make their feature debut -- and this is what they get. At one point, Daffy Duck is discussing merchandising royalties and says, "We gotta get new agents -- we're getting screwed." In Space Jam , even the cartoons are in it only for the money. [15 Nov 1996, p.5G]

Chain Reaction has the unenviable hurdle of following up a summer load of action flicks, but this one would have felt like a dog in May. When Lily sees Eddie wrestling with the controls of an airboat and asks "What are you doing?" he yells back "The best I can!" Keanu, you could have done a lot better. [2 Aug 1996, p.5G]

The film was conceived and executed as a star vehicle. Wrong stars, wrong roles, not much happening here. And for George Harrison and his Handmade Films, the first big bust. [20 Oct 1986, p.C4]

You don't believe Celeste for a minute when she tells a new guy that she needs to be alone for awhile. You know he's coming back in short order to provide the happy ending. Here's hoping she doesn't want him to get a job, too.

Derivative and lead-footed, Trapped in Paradise is another addle-brained comedy that portrays small-town folk as inbred, backwoods hillbillies who wear funny hats with ear flaps. Writer-director George Gallo, who penned Midnight Run and Wise Guys, tries to shoehorn holiday cheer into the formula, with stifling results. [02 Dec 1994, p.G5]

Full of intriguing possibilities, it is a film propelled by a puff of hot air, not a tornado of brilliantly realized political, philosophical and artistic ideas. Sometimes, it is so embarrassingly bad that one can only laugh and wonder how Lumet could have missed the windmill by so much more than a mile. [31 Jan 1986, p.D9]

Johnston fails to make a story set in 1891 England relevant to contemporary audiences.

Implicit in the artlessness of this scene is the filmmakers' sense of the formulaic nature of their work, which requires no higher art than bartering with the butcher for spare parts; when the teen van moves out, like a fisheries truck loaded with trout for the spring re-stocking, it's a nod to the genre and a wink for the grown-ups in the crowd. The rest is in your face. [16 Aug 1982, p.B4]