For all its derring-do, Cutthroat Island is sluggish, flat, tiresome. Watching it is like being stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for an endless two hours. [22 Dec 1995, p.4G]

Here's what is bad: this movie.

Does anyone openly admit to enjoying these things? Small kids may find Ernest's slapstick antics mildly amusing, but even the most fervent Ernest fan (if there is such a thing) will grow tired and annoyed very quickly here. [12 Nov 1993, p.E4]

The vilest film of the season.

Parts of The Bodyguard are inadvertently hilarious, as in a romantic encounter involving Houston, Costner and a samurai sword (she unsheathes it so very, very carefully). Others just seem to go on, and on, and on -- at two hours and five minutes, this one is easily a half-hour too long. [25 Nov 1992, p.E4]

Sometimes it seems as though Hollywood can't make a decent action movie anymore. Now that's a thought to make you go ballistic.

Estevez is a self-important performer and his cockiness mutes most of the movie's laughs. If not for Sheen, a much more appealing comic actor than his brother, Men at Work would hardly be palatable. [29 Aug 1990, p.D5]

It is a grim and monotonous affair despite the overkill of bad guys -- a trio of evil spirits plus a bonus serial killer -- mixed with a few cheap shocks futilely intended to make the audience jump.

Chasing Papi leaves you wishing Hollywood would just forget about Latinos altogether. If this is how they really see us, I'd rather not know.

Please. Quick. Somebody stop Jim Carabatsos before he writes another movie. Carabatsos, author of the vile new Clint Eastwood movie Heartbreak Ridge, has created another trashy screenplay in No Mercy, thus affording stars Richard Gere and Kim Basinger the chance to sully their careers. [19 Dec 1986, p.7]

The comedy is slapstick, the colors Day Glo, the outcome inevitable.

Humdrum hybrid of stale sitcom characters and creaky sports cliches.

The Last Boy Scout is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hollywood. The problem is the script, which is awful. [13 Dec 1991, p.G5]

Does King's tale play a part in the film at all? Kind of; half of it is there, but they've left out the really scary images from the story. The only thing The Lawnmower Man accomplishes is to remind you how boring it is to watch someone else play a video game. If they ever start marketing this virtual reality stuff, however, someone's going to get very rich. [9 Mar 1992, p.C4]

A fluffy, feel-bad drama, with some serious things to say about the viability of homosexual men as fathers and role models.

Airplane II opens promisingly with a spate of hit-and-run gags, but the picture sags in the middle and lies flat for the last half-hour. Bringing on the rigor mortis is the appearance of William Shatner, playing the lunar-base commander who must guide Hays' troubled space shuttle to a safe landing. [14 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Illegal Tender is the sort of crime movie in which nothing, not one detail, has been observed from real life; it's composed entirely of fantasies and falsehoods lifted from bad movies and hip-hop videos.

Camp classic? You bet.

No, it's the movie itself -- an unimaginative, generic affair memorable only for its incessant and flagrant plugging of Apple computers and iPods -- that should put a stake through the franchise for good.

The movie is heavy on shock and gimmickry, thanks to Renny Harlin's frenetic and flamboyant direction. The wafer-thin plot is little more than an excuse to showcase the astonishing achievements of special-effects makeup artists. [19 Aug 1988, p.D9]

Despite the movie's bouncy ebullience (courtesy of a terrific period soundtrack) and dashes of fantasy, the film quickly becomes an endurance test.

The story is thick with implausibilities and, like the source, almost unbelievably turgid in the telling. [20 Nov 1987, p.B5]

There is also a last-minute "Sixth Sense" twist, although it definitely won't make you sit through the movie again to see if the filmmakers cheated.

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

The plot gimmick not only makes the sequel unworthy of Highlander, it nearly destroys the charm of the original, which was its worldliness, the idea that these guys were chosen humans. [05 Nov 1991, p.C7]

This is one of those what-were-they-thinking flicks, a movie so inane you can't imagine how anyone thought they'd created something watchable. [02 Nov 1996, p.5G]

Director Deran Sarafian and cinematographer Russell Carpenter give Death Warrant a great gloomy feel and know how how to use extreme close-ups as effective eye candy. But candy is about all we get. [18 Sep 1990, p.C3]

Played by Adrian Sparks in a style better suited for dinner theater or a Key West tourist attraction, Hemingway comes across as a complete cypher. Everyone in the film keeps talking about his genius, but other than a scene in which he writes a short story on the back of a napkin, the movie doesn’t try to humanize or explore his talent.