It's fitting. Valentin and Jane may be awakening from life's slumber, but mostly they're just putting us to sleep.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is lightweight, small-screen stuff. It has some genuinely funny moments, especially in the comic repartee between Johnson and Rourke. These guys have a likable chemistry, and they might be worth teaming up again. Next time, let's hope they have a script. [26 Aug 1991, p.C3]

Disney's half-baked recipe for box-office success. Hocus Pocus is a pretty lackluster affair, owing to excess characters and a choppy, wandering script. [16 July 1993, p.G7]

The Cotton Club never seems to go anywhere, so that we are caught up short when it seems to have gotten somewhere. Then it's over, finished in Hines' blaze of glory, and a few minutes later one wonders what one has seen. It's big and colorful and terribly thin. [14 Dec 1984, p.E18]

Mostly due to luminous writing, Baxter's novel evoked a sense of magic, but this Feast, though never completely uninteresting, leaves you hungry for enchantment.

Race never delves under the skins of its characters, because they’re intended to be used only as symbols — reminders of an important chapter in history rendered quaint by this noble but patronizing movie.

A surprisingly straightforward romp in slasher-flick cliches, Friday the 13th is replete with gee-whiz gore, gratuitous sex and nudity and party-loving teens with a penchant for ending up on the wrong end of a pick ax.

Once in a while, A Good Man in Africa hits that elusive sweet spot between serious drama and lighthearted comedy, serving at once as a satire of political corruption, a drama about personal integrity and a comedy about carnal lust and culture clash. Most of the film, though, is a mishmash of conflicting tones, veering from one emotional extreme to another so clumsily, it's impossible to keep up. [09 Sep 1994, p.G5]

Getting Even With Dad halfheartedly aims to be another Home Alone, pitting inventive Timmy against bumbling Bobby and Carl. But the hijinks aren't nearly cartoonish or ingenious enough; instead, the movie is tinged with desperate, mean-spirited humor. [17 Jun 1994, p.G4]

House of Fools is not in the category of the director's acclaimed "Runaway Train." It may be based on a true story, but another filmmaker told it before -- and better.

Moments of life intrude, particularly with the periodic appearance of Eli Wallach as a superannuated hitman, a truly bizarre performance (he's got a sawed-off shotgun but his eyes are so bad it doesn't matter). And there are times when the sheer vitality of the two stars -- particularly Lancaster, who has not lost a thing -- promises to lift the movie. But it's too flimsy, and we're left with two stars in search of a story. For a while, it's fun watching them hunt. Then it's just a chore. [3 Oct 1986, p.D2]

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.

Medicine Man is an adventure story with a message: We must save the Amazon rain forest. It's certainly a noble cause, filmmakers forgot to make their movie any fun. [08 Feb 1992, p.E6]

It's crisp, efficient, well-made and strangely, vaguely dull.

The real Guerin deserves a more complete cinematic tribute.

This movie couldn’t be more fantastical if dragons swooped down and incinerated London, Paris and the south of France.

Yes, it creaks. It creaks mightily. But The Net cheerfully plugs along, asking you to swallow one whopper after the next without burping. [28 July 1995, p.6G]

Prostitution is hardly a new topic for film, of course, but Working Girls was directed by a woman, working with a largely female crew, and that is unusual. So is Borden's technique, which is almost anti-technique. It's the film's strength, and its weakness. [27 Mar 1987, p.D5]

Fletch Lives passes over you like most Chevy Chase movies. You chuckle, maybe laugh, and afterward forget the whole thing. [17 March 1989, p.10]

It's a disappointing chapter in what until now has been a highly entertaining, even thought-provoking series.

Shakur and Belushi are badly mismatched. Shakur -- he of the expressive, soulful eyes and vulnerable heart -- was evolving toward greatness on film. Belushi, though, is completely one-dimensional. [8 Oct 1997, p.1C]

Depp isn’t doing anything different here than he did in "Dark Shadows" or "Alice in Wonderland" or the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Once again, he’s unrecognizable under elaborate makeup and prosthetics, and he speaks with a peculiar voice (this time a thick South Boston accent).

In post-"Wedding Crashers" Hollywood, the entire exercise feels dated (just as the comedy's PG-13 rating -- this in spite of a recurring rape joke -- makes it feel neutered).

It is not in most respects more than an ordinary thriller, however; were it not an Eastwood picture, it would be instantly forgettable. [17 Aug 1984, p.D1]

The actor who used his Aikido moves to snap bad guys' forearms in Above the Law and Hard to Kill devises gorier ways to dispose of scum. But he does it all with such an obnoxious sense of higher purpose that we get the feeling he's not in on the fun. [09 Oct 1990, p.C5]

For all its pretension, Powaqqatsi is a confused work -- both a compeling analysis of underdeveloped nations and a self-indulgent exercise in cinematic drudgery. [24 Jun 1988, p.C5]

While there are some genuinely creepy moments, it never truly ends up as more than an average "X-Files" episode.

Sweet but colossally dull relationship movie.