Surprisingly sweet and, dare we say it, old-fashioned, with an engaging sense of humor that's a definite improvement on lame, lowbrow efforts such as "Little Nicky."

An insipid comedy in which the women are shallow, acquisitive, backstabbing, selfish harridans.

A sad and rote exercise in milking a played-out idea -- a straight guy has to dress up in drag -- that shockingly manages to be even worse than its title would imply.

Richard Jordan, who can be uniquely menacing (see: The Mean Season, Flash of Green) is here reduced to lampooning himself in leatherette storm-trooper garb. Charles Durning, looking wonderfully rumpled as the warden of the orphanage, does as little as possible in the heat. The skating stunts are routine. [2 Dec 1986, p.B4]

PG? Please. Might as well take a kid to Hannibal. At least that one was funnier and didn't implicate any noble breeds in its violence -- just humans.

The Great Outdoors isn't great. The Dopey Outdoors would be more like it. It's wildly uneven, yet consistently dumb. [17 June 1988, p.C5]

Mulcahy has style to burn, but he may well have used the script to light it, for Highlander almost never makes any sense. [11 Mar 1986, p.B4]

Turns resoundingly dumb in its last 40 minutes.

An unsatisfying, overly restrained bore, capped off by an ending so strange and inconclusive, it feels like something you'd find on the ''deleted scenes'' portion of a DVD.

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]

Insulting to anyone with a healthy sense of humor and the simple desire to laugh.

Despite some forced lines and an overlong competition sequence, Holland holds The Wizard together well, supplementing the obvious stand-up-and-cheer climax with a moving conclusion. [15 Dec 1989, p.12]

The way I see it, anyone who's made up his mind to see Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo deserves everything they've got coming to them, and with any luck, they might even enjoy the movie's willfully offensive gutter humor.

Jack and Jill contains long stretches of squirm-inducing tedium in which Sandler riffs and ad-libs far longer than he should.

It is absolutely, inexcusably terrible.

Dumb cliches run amok.

The better children's movies offer a subtle level of humor to keep the adults entertained while the kiddies enjoy the basic story. [03 Jul 1986, p.D8]

An exploitation film if ever one was made. [15 Feb 1985, p.D10]

Feels like it's been pasted together from 51 other movies -- none of them good.

The trouble starts with the script, and it doesn't end there.

A cheesy horror film can offer a vicarious cheap thrill or two. Darkness Falls offers only a test of the patience, not even providing much chance to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of its villain.

Do not, under any circumstances, consider taking a child younger than middle school age to this wallow in crude humor.

A sporadically hilarious, acid-tongued romp through the darker sides of romance that refuses to back down.

Hot to Trot is such a poorly executed comedy it boggles the mind. Even a horse's mind. [31 Aug 1988, p.D3]

Yes, it's every bit as brainless as the trailers suggest.

Unsurprisingly, relentlessly awful.

The timing is off, the gags lame, the twists predictable, the crudity rampant and unamusing.

New Year's Eve is not unbearable. It's not bad, but it's not good, either. It delivers exactly what you expect: pretty faces, shallow romance and a mythical fanaticism about an event in a friendly Manhattan unblemished by hyper-vigilant security measures, obnoxious drunks or New York Jets fans.

Getaway makes the Transformers movies seem like they were shot in slow motion. You see all these vehicles smashing into each other, but the movie is never thrilling.

For the most part Blame It on Rio is witless, predictable and bland, despite Donen's fascination with the topless-beach scene (his camera combs the shore for breasts with the unsubtle fervor of a pig rooting for truffles). [18 Feb 1984, p.D7]

They pull it off, but even if you believe in Santa, you'll never believe that this is any sort of holiday classic.

A shockingly, unbelievably bad movie.

In Chopping Mall the conflict is merely an excuse for a repeat of the kids vs. slasher formula. Nothing heavy here, just the predictable deaths of the couples who went "all the way," the survival of the virgins, and the best exploding head sequence since Deadly Friend. [05 Nov 1986, p.D6]

The brothers (Farrelly) produced Say It Isn't So, which bears their stamp in every frame and features all of the elements their movies are known for, except one: laughter.

May not be a work of fiction but, despite its many minutes of real footage, it is far from being a documentary. Lack of truth in advertising notwithstanding, the story of this Colombian cowboy deserved to be told.

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

Part II is even dumber than Meatballs, which was plenty dumb enough. [01 Aug 1984, p.C4]

In the end, Bratz celebrates something even more important than good grades or good friends: the vital acquisition of totally awesome shoes. Fitting for a movie that exists only to separate you from your paycheck.

Oddly entertaining ride.

Bad enough to earn a rare spot on my hallowed list of ''The Worst Movies I've Ever Seen,'' An American Carol is testament that the country's culture wars are raging just as strongly within Hollywood as anywhere else.

Here's what is bad: this movie.

In actuality, it's silly fun custom-tailored for reluctant young fathers and that entire clan of 20-something man-children who still read comic books and play video games, guys who do everything possible to resist the notion of adult responsibility.

Shyamalan takes the beloved Nickelodeon anime series -- the full title was Avatar: The Last Airbender -- and turns it into 103 minutes of overproduced, stilted nonsense.

If you can summon up the resolve to search, there is not a single honest moment in all of Whatever It Takes.

She's Out of Control is too insipid to take. [15 Apr 1989, p.E5]

The movie is a lowbrow showcase for an equally lowbrow comedian, and how much of it you can endure depends entirely on how you feel about Kattan.

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

Charmless and grating and immediately forgettable.

Skip the movie and pick up the videos at Toys R Us.

Nostalgia is part of the modest charm of this disposable but inoffensive picture. Old Dogs makes old dogs out of all of us.

The few bright spots in Oxford Blues, including the handsome cinematography, are like the raisins in the tapioca: They just don't help. [24 Aug 1984, p.C10]

It’s bad enough to make you look askance at Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph, all of whom deserve a chance to do something funny other than pose as wives exuding various degrees of sexiness.

Gummo isn't so much a movie as it is an experiment, and, taken on those terms, it is a fascinating piece of work. Repellent, disgusting and ugly, yes -- but still fascinating. [23 Jan. 1998, p.5G]

It's still quite sexy, but hardly erotic. The director, Zalman King, not only has seen entirely too many in the goofy Emmanuelle series, he appears not to know just how stupid those movies are and so has made little more than a knock-off of them. [4 May 1990, p.13]

Somebody at 20th Century-Fox should have had the decency to deep-six The Pirate Movie. It stinks, but it's first. The Pirate Movie's sole accomplishment is making it to the screen before Universal's The Pirates of Penzance, thus poisoning the well for the real thing. [7 Aug 1982, p.C4]

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

Bad enough to make even James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara seem dull.

B-movie king Charles Bronson, whose long association with Cannon Films has set all-time lows in the idiotic, hits rock bottom in Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. [03 Feb 1989, p.C5]

Gigli's awfulness is of a rarer, more precious variety. It's the sort of bizarre, ill-conceived picture you can't believe exists, but are secretly glad it does.

The jokes? Passing gas, large breasts, schoolyard double entendre -- the usual run of recess humor. On the faces of most of the cast, one can clearly read despair, occasionally even irritation. They know: If you're much over 10, Police Academy 5 isn't going to keep you awake. [23 March 1988, p.C7]

The fact that Swept Away got made at all implies there simply is no dissuading Madonna from her movie-star aspirations. Her tenacity is admirable, but it's also block-headed.

Downright terrible: impossible to enjoy, impossible to believe.

Hogan could actually hold his own in a supporting role in an action-oriented flick, but his casting here has all the subtlety of a WWF Wrestling match. Mr. Nanny, which runs a scant 85 minutes but feels far longer, has no business on the big screen and should prove encouraging to aspiring filmmakers: If somebody paid money to make this thing, they'll pay to make anything. [12 Oct 1993, p.E7]

Not that the film is so horrendously offensive -- it's almost, and I hesitate to say this, too stupid to provoke insult -- but it's juvenile enough to suck a few IQ points out of any audience member with a brain cell.

One national group for the blind protested Mr. Magoo as insensitive. Magoo's nearsightedness does play a part in the humor, but it seems mainly a manifestation of his kindly but naturally oblivious nature. There's not a cruel joke in this movie.[25 Dec 1997, p.5F]

The combination of slack script and coasting star is invariably lethal, and since Blue City doesn't aim very high to begin with, the disaster is complete. Even the gunfights are staged ineptly, and the picture's one big action sequence is so telegraphed that during a preview showing, when Nelson's character finally tumbled to what was going on and muttered, "It's a setup," the audience hooted happily in derision. [3 May 1986, p.D1]

This misguided gangster rap movie had every strike against it from the start.

At heart, it is a Saturday- morning cartoon; the film might in fact have looked better as an animated feature. [30 Jun 1982, p.C6]

This is easily one of the silliest, most preposterous thrillers ever made, and the only reason it didn't go straight to video has to be that it stars Pacino.

An object lesson in wasting a talented comedian. The film is so far off base that Candy winds up an action hero, and his co- star, Eugene Levy (who was even weaselier on SCTV) gets the girl. [15 Aug 1986, p.D2]

Though My Tutor contains many scenes meant to provide comic relief, there is only one that works: Hired to deflower Bobby in the early going, the local drive-in slattern is caught flagrante delicto in a well-used backseat by her fiancee, the leader of a motorcycle gang. "He hates it when I do this," she says to Bobby, and one wants to love this movie...Otherwise, alas, My Tutor is witless. It seems to take forever for Bobby to learn to conjugate, and he's pretty slow at French, too. As for the double standard, note that simple role reversal -- older man deflowering teenage girl -- produces not a softcore sex comedy, but a crime drama. And that's a different genre altogether. [23 May 1983, p.6]

The whole thing's grotesque as a gargoyle and ugly as sin.

Implausibly, irretrievably boring -- an affront to its undemanding genre. [28 March 1983, p.C6]

It's as stupid, unimaginative and cheesy as the rest of them. [16 Aug 1993, p.C2]

Insulting, witless comedy.

Two energetic and wonderfully physical comedians, each among the best of his generation. But in their movie, The Toy, they do not amount to much. Pryor seems unhappy about some of his lines and situations, and well he might. It's hard to know just what Gleason thinks, as he is able to deliver even atrocious dialogue with a misanthropic zest that is always appealing, but he has a right to be embarrassed, too. [20 Dec 1982, p.B7]

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

As pathetic and unfunny as comedies get. In fine bait-and-switch fashion, you find out -- too late, of course -- that the movie revealed all its best gags in the TV ads and trailers. [12 July 1993, p.C5]

Sophomoric.

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

The setting is no longer a summer camp, but a woodsy "confinement center" for the young and deranged; it's the kind of place in which, when a slow-witted inmate begins to taunt the guy chopping wood, one is impelled, with justification, to cover one's eyes. [3 Apr 1985, p.D7]

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]

Highbrow entertainment this isn't.

If you're going to direct a piece of crass, nonsensical junk, at least have the decency to release it straight to video, where it belongs.

Sound and image are consistently bad, and Piranha II is the first film in my experience to give screen credit (in opening and closing titles) to a man in charge of "special effects and prosthetics." It can't be an easy way to make a living.

Among the mysteries of Hollywood life is the terribleness of Jaws sequels; they are the very worst of a bad lot. Now comes No. 4 -- Jaws the Revenge -- and it is as wretched as it is ungrammatical. [17 July 1987, p.1D]

Hamburger, like Police Academy and a dozen others before it, is essentially a basic-training sitcom with some softcore on the side. And like the films it imitates, Hamburger is an example of a perfectly good comic premise -- there's weirdness in modern food technology, bet your syntho-chicken nuggets there is -- botched by a script aimed at just that segment of the audience that is theoretically banned from attending R-rated films. [20 March 1986, p.B6]

Plentiful helpings of dreadful acting, confusing action cinematography, choppy editing and embarrassing dialogue, with the added bonus of a plot almost as dumb as that of the original film.

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

Putting this hackneyed villain in The Big Apple is a tantalizing concept, but Hedden rarely takes advantage of it. He deserves credit for a few shocks and some laughs from a gloom- and-doom deck swabber, but this is highly derivative stuff. And like many slash directors, he replaces suspense with short chases and violence. If audience response is a meter, Jason VIII is a dud. Save a few shrieks, the crowd fell victim to boredom. [31 July 1989, p.C5]

A feather-light musical rushed into production to capitalize on American Idol-frenzy, is nothing more than an excuse to give the two leads several musical numbers, a la those Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicello "Beach Blanket Bingo" movies, and with just about the same amount of substance, too.

Glitter, the kind of movie only 11-year-old girls who dot their i's with hearts would find bearable.

A splashy, silly movie that inexplicably stars Jeremy Irons but will delight 10-year-old boys across the realm. Regrettably, the hordes of pre-adolescent boys it would have delighted most were that age 20 years ago.

John Derek, who wrote and directed and filmed Bolero, failed to make Bo look sexy; managed, in fact, to make her look dull and foolish. [01 Sep 1984, p.B5]

A tired and unnecessary sequel.

Formidably stupid.

This would all be a lot more fun if Jason were ever in jeopardy, but since we know he can't be killed -- the best one can hope to do is bottle him up and store him, like toxic waste -- the charm of the film depends on action in the margins. Part VI, for instance, had a sense of humor; II and III had a splendid variety of weaponry. No jokes this time, however, and Jason contents himself for the most part with the ax blow, the tent-pole stab and the simple head-twist. He's old, and he has lost a step. [17 May 1988, p.B4]

Oh, yes. Reynolds is in it -- but whatever quiet comic timing he once had with DeLuise in movies like The End has been shot to hell by the confusion in the script and the havoc in the pace. They get it back again during the credits, which are accompanied by some outtakes of DeLuise and Reynolds doing their improvisational bit as DeLuise assumes the role of a human bomb. Even bad bloopers are better than this movie. [29 June 1984, p.7]