Killer Elite is too formulaic to overcome a been-there, done-that feel.

Feels so slight and trivial, like a cute but small idea blown up to proportions it does not merit. A surprisingly unfunny, belabored and unimaginative comedy, Bee Movie is a huge disappointment considering the extent of Seinfeld's participation.

In Happy Tears, Posey lands a juicy starring role designed to showcase her eccentric energy, and she's so delighted by the opportunity that her happiness infuses the movie: She keeps the first half of Happy Tears aloft on a cloud of endearing tics and mannerisms.

The bigger problem with the film, which is genuinely unnerving at times, is what happens when the cavers are not in immediate peril, because they talk.

Something of an overlong, overblown, disorganized mess, despite being slightly better than its predecessor.

The main problem with Iron Man 2 lies in the script.

In the end Secret Window asks too much, demands allegiance when only incredulity can be mustered.

Anything but light on its feet. It lumbers instead of dazzles, drags where it should feint and jab.

Allegedly it's based on a true story, which is believable only because the outcome is so unsatisfying it carries the dull metallic tang of real-life ambiguity. And that's neither scary nor stimulating.

The original's mildly offbeat sense of humor is at work in 2, and the cheesy special effects return as well (the Krites look like nothing so much as deranged Muppets). Still, this is the kind of goofy B-movie that will look good on the small screen -- so watch for its release on tape. [07 May 1988, p.B5]

It's a clammy, depressing movie, but not a very illuminating one.

Final Analysis is a big, brooding film about desire, betrayal and psychosis that seems to have Alfred Hitchcock's fingerprints all over it. It has all the ingredients of a great thriller: a bizarre love triangle, murder, gunplay on a stormy cliff. But Hitchcock isn't in the director's chair. Phil Joanou (who made the arty State of Grace ) is, and his movie winds up as just another clumsy mystery. [13 Feb 1992, p.F1]

John Cassavetes has been making exquisitely personal films -- or agonizingly personal ones, depending on one's tastes -- for years now. Sometimes, they are intimate dramas (Faces, Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence). Sometimes, they are dark comedies in melodramatic dress (Gloria). And sometimes, as in the newly released Big Trouble, they are just a mess. [19 Apr 1986, p.D1]

The first film was tedious in the extreme; Monsters Unleashed, though it feels way too long and padded, it shows at least brief flashes of imagination.

There is more truth to the lives of people alone than Hiller and his writers have cared to admit, and, consequently, more humor. The Lonely Guy is short on both. [31 Jan 1984, p.B5]

The movie fails utterly at coming up with a story that merits all the eye candy.

Essentially a rip-off of "Apocalypto" for audience members too young or squeamish to endure graphic human sacrifice and jaguar face-eating.

Solondz's determinedly removed eye for the graphic and shocking is by now practically a cliche. If Solondz really wants to outrage anyone, he'll have to make a sweet and heartfelt drama.

The actors are talented enough to carry the movie, but they fade into the background once things grow dire, and the special effects take over. There's no sense of wonder or awe.

One has the sense before Dune is well under way that it is the kind of film that may reveal itself over several viewings -- and certainly, there seems to be $47 million worth of things to look at. But fidelity to the source can be a trap, and Lynch fell into it; his movie is big and splashy and nearly nonsensical. [14 Dec 1984, p.E1]

The director was Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), about whom people have been using the word "potential" for a decade or so. Trapped inside Real Genius, there's a real director trying to get out. [7 Aug 1985, p.D5]

It's a gentle and wholly implausible comedy with an appealing character carrying the load -- no more. [27 Sept 1986, p.D3]

Palo Alto is a pale imitation of the early novels of Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote about young ennui and misdirection from the inside out.

It plunges so deep, in fact, that the film winds up bordering on the unwatchable.

It does boast loads of cool gadgetry and some impressive special effects. It's not much, but at least the movie always gives you something to look at.

Ardor is never boring, but it’s never all that engaging, either. Here is a movie that ends with a can’t-miss scenario — a siege on a farmhouse in which the heroes are vastly outnumbered and outgunned — yet still fails to ever quicken your pulse.

You might not think it would be easy to make a dull film about love, war and a bisexual threesome, but Head in the Clouds manages this task efficiently.

Soapdish is a spoof of soap operas, and the problem should be apparent from the start: It is very, very difficult to parody that which dwells already in the land of self-parody. [31 May 1991, p.G5]