According to legend, a silver bullet can kill a werewolf. Too bad it can't slay bad writing, without which the ill-conceived Red Riding Hood would not exist.

Just My Luck is way too long for such a slight premise, and Lohan, so appealing in Mean Girls, is years too young for the part.

A Disney family film, with all that the term implies: It's playful, corny, silly, adventuresome and enjoyable.

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

Sweet but colossally dull relationship movie.

The plot, a series of missed connections, grows boring. The action scenes have no oomph. And the actors are lost. As the disheveled Dan, Cusack is charming, but he can't make this tired tourist tale go. And he can't fall down a mountain as well as Kathleen Turner. [19 May 1987, p.D5]

You Again is at its funniest in the early scenes, when everyone is pretending all is well beneath forced smiles and plotting eyes.

It's never a good sign when a movie's credits include: ''Tony Orlando as himself.'' But the crooner is the highlight of the dreadful Waking Up in Reno.

There's only one excuse for the sentimental and ham-handed I Am Sam, and it's not to tout the rights of the mentally disabled.

A garish clashing of sacred images and bloody semihorror, this is a movie that defines the category: interesting failure.

Swiss director and co-writer Dominique Othenin-Girard constructs his film like a carnival spook house -- something or someone shocks you every three minutes. They are familiar gimmicks, but the director adds suspenseful twists that are fun, too. [17 Oct 1989, p.C1]

Return to the Blue Lagoon? Why, exactly, would anyone want to? [05 Aug 1991, p.C3]

Time to give the shoot-’em-up thing a rest, guys: It’s tired and played out, and so are you.

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.

Nobel Son is not good. Nor is it bad. It exists, instead, somewhere in the middle ground of interesting enough to hold one's attention without actually providing any fresh, sensible or nonderivative developments.

There's good stuff around the edges of the film -- all that word play and all those visual gags demand that you pay attention lest you miss something even in the slow scenes. But at the center, no magic. [01 Aug 1986, p.D1]

The movie operates on the same principle as the first: Show that each of us, however nerdy, has value; demonstrate that an ideal appearance can mask a nasty person; and give heart to nerds of the world by presenting these losers as triumphant. It does all these things, but not nearly as well as the first Nerds. [10 July 1987, p.D5]

Berliner deserves something better, as do all the actors -- even Moore, who's starting to look very interesting and European.

The sloppy charms of Just Married don't exactly break new ground, but they don't make you want to swear off romantic comedy forever, and in these "Maid in Manhattan" days that's saying something.

But the movie itself, despite a pretty funny scene early on in which Mitchell, a dyed-in-the-wool California surfer, tries to ingratiate himself to a class full of urban Cincinnati kids, is dull and conventional. Nice stunts, though. [21 Sept 1993, p.E6]

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.

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 Ugly Truth is insulting to women, men and even goldfish.

Unfortunately, this dimwit concept barely has enough spark to power a single strand of Christmas lights, much less rival the classic-by-comparison "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" in side-splitting Yuletide snafus.

The film is even slower and less engaging than is standard for its undistinguished genre. [22 Nov 1983, p.B5]

It really is terrible the way films are being marketed to teens. They deserve decent movies, but instead they get glop like Head Over Heels. There ought to be a law.

Embarrassingly shoddy film.

The enigma of Reeves, sort of a human black hole on screen, works well in "The Matrix" but it drains the life from weepy romance.

Look beyond the perfunctory dinosaur flatulence jokes, and Viva Rock Vegas is really quite sweet and clever.

Now here's the reason America won't love Garfield: The Movie: Garfield's gone from the listless feline we all know and love to a fast-stepping, break-dancing cat about town. What's worse, the other characters are even farther from their roots.

It still stinks...It's just a miss. [21 Dec 1990, p.13]

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]

Frothy as it is, SATC2 is best when it's about the women, not the wardrobe.

Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker are supposed to pass for a married couple, but they have all the chemistry of two actors who just met and shook hands moments before the cameras rolled. They don't even seem to like each other much.

Young girls are the only ones likely to enjoy this vapid road-trip movie.

There is humor in the familiar just waiting to be rehashed for new generations, and A Guy Thing surely isn't the last stupid leave-'em-at-the-altar film we're likely to see.

Winds up suffocating you with its aura of bogus, store-bought nostalgia.

Silly, tedious, inept disaster.

Wild Hogs is a paint-by-numbers comedy, borrowing most of its broad strokes from sitcoms, and not clever ones like "The Office" and 3"0 Rock," either.

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

It's not every movie that makes you wish Vin Diesel would run in and start blowing up stuff.

There isn't a moment in the entire picture in which you will recognize an element of your own life.

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

Its failure to be extraordinary is thus all the more cutting, and its redundancy all the more unforgivable.

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

Though this sequel is not nearly as violent as Child's Play 2, it's every bit as vulgar and preposterous, funny despite itself and vicious, too. It is, in short, of interest only to those too young to see it. [31 Aug 1991, p.E4]

Never achieves takeoff.

Sitting through Little Fockers is a soul-sucking, dispiriting experience.

There are jokes in this story of a 7-year-old adoptee from Heck, but most of them are funny despite the clumsiness of their telling. The rest aren't funny at all. [1 Aug 1990, p.D7]

Who's That Girl's writers botched the creation of their confection. A successful screwball comedy is like a souffle. This is a souffle made of concrete. [07 Aug 1987, p.D1]

Fantastic Four is so bereft of all the things we expect from a superhero movie — humor, excitement, adventure, awe — that it plays like a drawn-out pilot episode for an upcoming TV series no one would ever watch again.

Twisted is a movie so derivative it's hard to pinpoint exactly how many other thrillers it poaches from.

The search for true love is the backbone of romantic comedy as well as the lifeblood of match.com, but this film's clumsy, completely inauthentic portrayal of it is handled in a shockingly tedious fashion.

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]

This is the kind of colossally misguided vanity project.

Every character is quirky, and each has a schtick.

In its favor, the film's production values raise the standard of usual Christian entertainment. Sadly, though, it preaches to the choir.

The movie continually threatens to become shlock, but the story and serviceable performances hold it together. Still, the three big-name actors don't realize Millennium is a cut above the usual sci-fi flick, and never surprise us with their performances. [29 Aug 1989, p.C5]

This utter waste of time has next-to-nothing to do with the infinitely wittier golden-age National Lampoon movies.

Astoundingly, considering the fall of this film series from low aim to no aim at all, the original cast remains aboard. [8 Apr 1987, p.D8]

Mac and his gangly parents are crude special-effects jobs, with dorky ears and dippy walks. But the kids love them anyway, thanks to director Stewart Raffill (The Philadelphia Experiment), who knows how to get young moviegoers cheering. His pace is quick, and the numerous chase scenes make for good fun. For sheer thrills, Mac beats Pippi and Pee-wee, claws down. [12 Aug 1988, p.C8]

Few expected Basic Instinct 2 to be very good, but no one expected it to be this boring.

For a B-movie, Split Second contains a surprising amount of talk -- dull talk. The film could use more action sequences; even those it does have are badly handled and unexciting. [7 May 1992, p.F8]

Amusing at times but never more than a modest diversion, lacking the cleverness and imagination required to turn it into more than a one-joke movie.

For anyone who digs hardcore motorcycle racing, Supercross delivers enough engine-revving, dirt-spewing motorcross action to satisfy even the most intense adrenaline craving.

To be fair, it must be acknowledged that there is a spectacular decapitation in the film's very first scene, and a couple of head-bashings later on, and these are enough to jolt one awake. But most of the film is so flatfooted that one longs for the batterings of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or at least the campy excesses of Fright Night. [14 Oct 1985, p.C6]

Filmmaker Christopher Cain has turned a national tragedy into a teen romance, and not in a grand, entertaining, "Titanic" way.

The formulae of gal-next-door and big game are followed so slavishly that it's hard to laugh at Teen Wolf even on the rare moments when it is original. The script and the direction are simply too lazy, too contemptuous even of adolescent audiences. [24 Aug 1985, p.C5]

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

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

Georgia Rule is so artificial, it feels like more of a flow chart than a slice of life.

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.

Has a made-for-TV smallness (it will probably be a big hit on cable), and it never quite vanquishes the nagging suspicion that you could be spending your time better elsewhere.

The dumbest, most risible retelling ever made of the exploits of legendary bank robber Jesse James.

Cobra looks and sounds as bad as it does because Stallone hired George P. Cosmatos (Rambo), a hack with no ideas, to direct, and because Stallone wrote the screenplay himself. No excuses: This movie is just the way the highest paid and hence most powerful man in Hollywood wanted it. You take a long look at the thing, you keep that in mind: This is the film he meant to make. [24 May 1986, p.D1]

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

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

No matter how well-choreographed, Kosugi's karate scenes are impossible to look at as abstract movement divorced from their casually murderous purpose. What is more, they are distorted by special effects and physical feats made possible only by trick photography. [21 Sep 1984, p.D14]

Strange as it sounds, the failure of this tawdry little odyssey into mammalia is that it doesn't make any sense. The smallest effort by writer, director or producer could have meant a movie with laughs as well as the capacity to anesthetize adults. [02 Aug 1983, p.C5]

I found it to be extremely annoying, childish and simple-minded. [24 May 1991, p.G11]

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

The sort of entertainment that makes you happy to be grown up and able to avoid the current onslaught of trite, lazy, unimaginative films aimed at tween-agers.

Tale is anything but spellbinding.

The entire story -- has been done before, and should have been limited to a 30-minute Saturday morning cartoon episode.

Could there be a more inappropriate time to release a cheesy horror movie about evildoing in Louisiana.

No atmosphere, no tension -- nothing but Costner, flailing away. It's a buggy drag.

The worst thing about Encino Man is that it lacks the blockhead convictions of its predecessors, movies that at least hewed to the (il)logic of their heroes' know-nothingness -- reveled in that condition, in fact. In Encino Man, Link winds up teaching everyone Valuable Life Lessons, which has the unsettling effect of making the movie seem even dumber than it is. If such a thing is possible. Dude. [23 May 1992, p.E4]

Eye For an Eye is a Charles Bronson revenge flick with Sally Field in the Bronson role: It's Death Wish Gidget , and it's ridiculous. [12 Jan 1996, p.6G]

The problem with Revolver is that it is Ritchie's first attempt at a ''serious'' look at the underworld, but the result is so pretentious and muddled it's almost a little embarrassing.

Frenetic, maddening, exhilarating, ridiculous, fascinating farce of an action-comedy-thriller-mystery-whatever.

Abduction is a crass and lowbrow attempt to cash in on a young actor's heat - an exploitation picture where the person being taken advantage of is too young to notice.

It's a cannibalization of "Sleeping With the Enemy," a not-so-good Julia Roberts film, with a ridiculous female-empowerment subtext and a relentlessly stupid script that goes nowhere you can't predict before the opening credits roll.

Despite some clever stunts and Varney's energetic persona-recycling, Ernest Goes to Camp, which was directed by the same man who makes the Ernest commercials, requires heroic patience for those much over 12. [25 May 1987, p.C8]

Anyone who wants to enjoy himself at a good movie about a high school geek who undergoes a transformation should go see "'Spider-Man" again instead.

Superman IV works rather well as a children's movie. It even has a line or two for adults -- though not, one hastens to qualify, enough to actually warrant adult attendance. [25 July 1987, p.B1]

Maximum Overdrive is the classic botch. Good idea, nice effects, bad pacing, porous script, no punch...Too bad. As usual, the premise has promise. [26 July 1986, p.C1]

Laughs are widely spaced, and hardly seem worth the trouble. [22 Apr 1985, p.D4]

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]