[A] visually stunning, technically impressive and crushingly dumb and overlong picture.

Even within the context of the superhero universe, the Silver Surfer initially makes for -- let's face it -- a somewhat silly-looking creation.

None of the actors is able to do much with their characters, because they are all playing game pieces on a schematic board. Rendition has passion to spare, but it is saddled with a story designed exclusively to drive home the filmmakers' message.

But this serious film feels strangely unfinished, as if it hadn't been fully thought out. [18 Feb 1994, p.G5]

All this has nothing to do with the movie's dragged-out and contrived plot, which unfolds predictably and much too slowly. Still, the performances are quite good, except for Jeanne Tripplehorn (Basic Instinct ) as Sam's girlfriend, an eccentric performance artist; she grates on your nerves the minute she's onscreen and grows more aggravating from there. [4 May 1993, p.E5]

You end up feeling sorry for all the actors forced to humiliate themselves, except for McConaughey, whose portrayal of sadistic, manipulative evil is mesmerizing, in part because it was so unexpected. He continues to surprise. Friedkin, sadly, continues to coast.

An earnest and well-meaning but disappointing failure.

Casino Jack fails at its most critical mission: Laying out in clear detail exactly how and when Abramoff broke the law.

What the movie is all about is Twin Peaks with the sex, violence and "colorful" language left in...Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is not David Lynch at his most challenged and hence most inventive. The rigid restraints of television, with its prudish codes and goofy winks at prurient-life-as-we-know-it, may now be seen as Lynch's real muse. The movie, lurid as it is, reads like a perverse set of CliffNotes to the series, the details recapitulated explicitly but without a dram of passion. [2 Sept 1992, p.E1]

A drama about dysfunction, spelling bees, mental illness, Hare Krishnas and kaballah. The movie is just as unwieldy as it sounds, except that it also stars Richard Gere.

The Vanishing hooks you and doesn't let go for a good while, but it settles into formulaic, stalk-and-slash antics in its last 15 minutes. Which makes its failure hurt even more. [05 Feb 1993, p.G5]

After an hour of being stranded among these restless soldiers and their increasingly aggressive locker-room antics, you, too, will be longing for combat -- for anything -- to happen.

There are so many romantic-comedy cliches crammed into Valentine's Day that watching it feels like surfing through the channels of an all-chick-flick cable service.

The movie still feels strangely inert; it's an adventure in which nothing ever really seems to happen.

Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a failure that should have at least been a magnificent mistake, a risky endeavor that showed a daring intent even if its brash vision didn’t quite succeed. Instead, the movie leaves you cold and weary and vaguely disgusted.

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.

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]

Brain Candy is a good example of why not everything -- even a cult hit -- ought to be turned into a movie. [12 Apr 1996, p.6G]

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

By suggesting that the man's life was as riotously funny as his plays, writer-director Laurent Tirard leaves us wishing he'd opted to do a straightforward adaptation instead.

Right now, this goofy film is the best candidate for mindless, enjoyable laughs.

By the time the film's climactic 15 minutes rolled around, viewers at a preview were laughing as if they were watching "Knocked Up." For a horror picture, such a reaction is the equivalent of a stake through the heart.

There is no greater significance to these skits than the ones you can see in reruns on Comedy Central. Still, for diehard MiSTies, these shortcomings won't matter. The lure of trashy cinema will prevail along with the strangely gratifying thrill of hearing the traditionally G-rated 'bots indulge in racier, foul-mouthed comments. [10 May 1996, p.6G]

Bordello of Blood isn't quite awful, but there's nothing in it better than its catchy title. [19 Aug 1996, p.2C]

Offers a few strange twists on well-used material. [12 Sep 1983, p.C5]

No ears for dialogue around here, either: Several characters observe that the invention "blew my socks off," an expression so odd that we expect it to lead to a comic payoff. But there is none, and there's not much to the movie, either. [30 Sept 1983, p.D1]

Mr. Holland's Opus is compulsively watchable: Eager to please and never very challenging, it's the kind of movie you might stumble across while channel surfing and watch to the end. Almost despite itself, the movie also manages to celebrate the heroism of the teaching profession with surprisingly moving power. If only it had done it with more grace and less schmaltz. [19 Jan 1996, p.4G]

Falling in Love isn't consistently dull; it's funny in spots, particularly during an opening montage of scenes in which the principals are doing their Christmas Eve shopping, and almost meet a bunch of times. But the shift from not meeting to meeting does not generate much drama. [21 Nov 1984, p.C1]