The occult thriller boasts snazzy photography, passionate acting and considerable suspense. But like Marathon Man, it is empty. This pulp never rises above being pulp. [10 Jun 1987, p.D7]

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.

The movie takes an excessively long time to cover short narrative ground, and the plot is muddled enough to confuse the target audience. [24 Mar 1993, p.E5]

What Alexander lacks in narrative clarity, it makes up for with pomp and pageantry.

Next to Club Paradise, Caddyshack looks like comic art. [11 July 1986, p.D1]

It's a tomb-raiding adventure movie several notches below Indiana Jones status.

The more Shrink tries to get you invested in the emotional turmoil of its characters, the more you want to reach into the screen and shake them and tell them to get over themselves.

Ultimately Three Fugitives is too sweet for its own good. It has moments of real hilarity, and moments of oh-please. Veber, we know, can do better. [27 Jan 1989, p.C5]

Yes, Aloha is a mess. But messes can be fascinating, and there’s a lot of tenderness and beauty and heartbreak here, too.

Winds up making a very good case for never going out of your way to help anybody.

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.

The film is never arresting, though it's arrestable -- throw it in the clink and throw away the key. [13 Apr 1990, p.G11]

A View to a Kill, also like recent Bonds, is long. And though it is crammed with action -- car chase, boat chase, blimp chase, you lose track -- it begins, by the second hour, to seem quite long indeed. [24 May 1985, p.D5]

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

It's not nearly as good as you figure it will be, but it is a full-bore, flat-out fantasy, and outside of the Disney animated jungle, we don't find many of those anymore. [18 Dec 1992, p.G5]

Sadly, Jupiter Ascending turns out to be the exact opposite: the worst movie the Wachowskis have ever made.

Homefront is done in by uninspired action scenes in which Statham’s athletic prowess is rendered unwatchable by hyper-editing, a shameful reliance on child-in-peril cliches to move the story forward, and so many loose ends that you wonder if 20 minutes were accidentally cut out from the movie.

The explanation for all this mayhem eludes me, and even a lame last-minute twist isn't enough to cover the fact that Jigsaw ain't as clever as the movie thinks he is.

SpaceCamp is perfectly harmless and perfectly dull, but it comes at a time when NASA could use an esteem booster. For all those who get just a touch queasy at the Top Gun lesson, in which shooting down planes in peacetime is presented as role-model behavior, SpaceCamp offers a nonviolent corrective. [6 June 1986, p.D6]

Director Fred Dekker does a serviceable job with what looks like a tight budget, and the movie will satisfy undemanding Robofans, but as a whole, Robocop 3 has the feel of a movie made to squeeze an extra few bucks out of a tired franchise. [08 Nov 1993, p.F2]

A failure on every conceivable level -- from its trite, pedestrian dialogue to its static, torturous pacing.

This movie didn't have to be good, but that it's so boring in its badness is tough to swallow.

Incredibly inane and boring special effects fiasco. [15 June 1988, p.D7]

Man on a Ledge just made me think of an old Van Halen song: Jump.

A Kiss Before Dying is nothing if not devious. But it's also a textbook example of incompetent direction. [29 Apr 1991, p.C5]

Double Dragon is not a great accomplishment, but it never stands still long enough to get dull, its sense of humor grows on you, and its lack of pretentiousness is refreshing. [07 Nov 1994, p.C2]

Just because the new The Day the Earth Stood Still is green, though, doesn't mean it's dull. If anything, there's a lot more mayhem and destruction this time around.

A high-tech freak show, a gallery of grotesqueries that are fascinating and repellent.