Freedom Writers is prone to throwing in unnecessary plot developments, so it never quite succeeds as anything more than "Dangerous Minds" Redux.

18 Again is one for the VCR. On the big screen, there's not enough Burns for your money. [08 Apr 1988, p.C1]

Unstoppable is the slowest, talkiest movie you'll ever see about a runaway freight train loaded with toxic chemicals.

While patience is a virtue in a marriage, we shouldn't need quite this much to make it through a movie.

The sad thing about Rising Sun is that for all the controversy surrounding the book, it plays as just another cop drama set against an alien landscape. As so often happens in Hollywood these days, the alien locale is Los Angeles, an L.A. under assault from within and without. Rising Sun the movie doesn't have all that much to say about that condition. It sticks to the safe stuff. [30 July 1993, p.G4]

You come out with a sense you've seen it all before.

It's hard to knock The Cutting Edge without feeling like a grouch. It aims to be nothing more than an old-fashioned love story with plenty of banter between its two leads and a straightforward plot about Olympic ice skating. The actors work hard...But the script rings false from the get-go; the dialogue is straight from the school of clever quips and snappy comebacks, and the romantic plotline has been done so many times before, it's beyond cliched. It's too flimsy to carry a whole movie. [27 March 1992, p.G13]

Though the fight sequences deliver the necessary kicks, Double Impact's script is a study in missed opportunities. [09 Aug 1991, p.G5]

Once you get past the initial hurdles, Iron Eagle has the kind of sappy charm and a variety of overblown performance that shapes kids' movies. It is not plausible for a second, but neither, on the face of it, was Bambi. [22 Feb 1986, p.C7]

There’s nothing more to this movie than the set-up. Even though Cypher is slowly bleeding to death, and Kitai is running out of oxygen capsules that allow him to breathe in the toxic air, there’s no sense of urgency, either. At least Shyamalan, sensing the thinness of the material, doesn’t stretch things out.

As long as the movie's set in Mexico City, The Matador is a slick and entertaining black comedy, but the instant Danny heads back to Denver, it comes flying apart at the seams.

The principal appeal remains the series' principal weakness as well. These films are all about the blurring of the boundary between dream and reality, which strikes at the heart of what film is all about. But this also means that at regular intervals, someone wakes up to find that it was all a dream, one of the hoariest and least satisfying devices in the history of bad drama. [15 Aug 1989, p.C5]

If Andrews oozes regal poise and Hathaway radiates movie star allure -- and they do -- credit the actresses, not this flimsy fairy tale.

Sorry, folks, but he just looks too much like one of the Fruit-of-the-Loom guys. [7 June 1996, p.7G]

Director Matthew Robbins keeps the pace light, nonviolent, and more entertaining than a made-for-TV movie. The fashion show's the action. His film is really about a face, and a look, and a haircut. [19 July 1985, p.D4]

The payback in Law Abiding Citizen doesn't have a cathartic kick, because the revenge is so extreme it's horrifying.

Geronimo: An American Legend is noble but hopelessly bland. [10 Dec 1993, p.G4]

Even if you can get past the acting -- and in the case of the beautiful, blank Alba, that's asking a lot -- the film just sits there, not exactly torturous, but never very exciting, either.

Midlands finds some measure of success in its use of regular, real-looking people -- as opposed to the oddly glamorous characters who turn up in most romantic comedies -- but it's as though the writer used up all the personality traits before he got to Shirley.

A decent cast, led by Peter Weller (as the geologist/hero) and Rambo vet Richard Crenna (as Doc), grapples gamely with the script and hauls down the paychecks. [21 Mar 1989, p.C7]

De Palma does some borrowing, too. He always does. Pick your Vietnam War favorite -- Platoon, Apocalypse Now, et al. -- and you'll find an "homage" in Casualties of War. But you won't find the scale or depth that either the war or the genre deserve. It's a big disappointment. [18 Aug 1989, p.G5]

Often feels choppy, as if chunks of connecting narrative had been lopped off in the editing room.

Necessary Roughness, a football comedy of unnecessary blandness, has the same problem as the Miami Dolphins: It dies in the second half. [3 Oct 1991, p.F4]

The Muppet Christmas Carol never approaches the freewheeling atmosphere of earlier Muppet movies. While all the familiar Muppet characters appear, they often seem stilted; watching Kermit and Miss Piggy acting as Bob and Emily Cratchit is nowhere near as much fun as watching them play themselves. With too few exceptions, the movie doesn't allow the Muppets to inject their own personalities into their characters. [14 Dec 1992, p.C6]

Director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) re-creates 19th-Century Paris beautifully, and poetry scholars might find the movie worthwhile strictly for its subject matter, but Total Eclipse comes off as a big downer that confuses dreariness with substance. [03 Nov 1995, p.6G]

From a purely cinematic standpoint, The Underneath is Soderbergh's most daring work yet, full of elliptical flashbacks and fast-forwards; ominous camera angles and cinematic tricks. But Soderbergh's movies (sex, lies and videotape, Kafka, King of the Hill) have always been cunningly smart, and The Underneath is not. [28 April 1995, p.5G]

Micmacs is a wan fizzle of a fantasy, a spirited, imaginative spectacle that never quite takes flight.

There’s a rollicking Wild West adventure buried deep inside The Lone Ranger, a bloated, mega-budget revival of the story of the iconic gunslinger and his Native American sidekick Tonto.