It's hard to believe there could be so much slack in a film only 96 minutes long. Director Needham blows off the last 25 or so with a race sequence. We're treated to one uninteresting crowd shot after another while a Dixieland band plays Dixie -- all of Dixie -- on the soundtrack. [02 July 1983, p.C5]

The guys are more amusing than not, and they display the easy chemistry of real-life pals.

This is a slight and unessential picture, but its quirky, compassionate tone seems destined to attract a cult following, and members of high-school drama clubs everywhere will be riveted.

He's (Sandler) trying to clone himself by supporting his buddies in making low-budget, high-grossing -- in all senses of the word -- formula films just like his own.

Better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways.

There's terrific, spontaneous chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Denis Leary. Watching them bounce lines off each other is one of the biggest pleasures of Two If By Sea, a helter-skelter concoction that's part romantic comedy, part heist film and part New England travelogue...But Two If By Sea (which Leary also co-wrote) is a mess in the story department, with so many different elements competing for screen time, its stars' considerable charm ends up too diluted. [15 Jan 1996, p.5C]

Implicit in the artlessness of this scene is the filmmakers' sense of the formulaic nature of their work, which requires no higher art than bartering with the butcher for spare parts; when the teen van moves out, like a fisheries truck loaded with trout for the spring re-stocking, it's a nod to the genre and a wink for the grown-ups in the crowd. The rest is in your face. [16 Aug 1982, p.B4]

Not as bad a movie as it sounds, just mediocre.

The germ of a better film lies in that joke, but Schaeffer doesn't quite dig it out. Instead, we get painfully unfunny scenes that make us think that when it comes to writing comedy, Schaeffer should stick to his own rule: never again.

By the end, we can guess what Newman was up to, and how warm a story he meant to make. But nothing comes together until one of the characters is written out, and by that time, it is almost always too late. [02 Mar 1984, p.D1]

Truly, a modern fable in period dress...But boring. No other word for it. Director Franc Roddam (The Lords of Discipline, Quadrophenia) is a plodder. He can make dense films, ornate films, but he brings no special life to his projects. Here, he cannot escape the sumptuous confines his art directors have created or the too-rich images of cinematographer Stephen Burum. When the movie needs to race, it lurches instead, like the monster staggering castleward at the head of a torchlight parade.

Operative marketing concept: There are thousands, not just one, born every minute. [5 Aug 1986, p.B5]

It's supposed to be funny, and first-time writer-director Tom Ropelewski wastes no time in making this known, by banging the audience over the head with gags that range from brainless to crude. [16 Feb 1990, p.G5]

So lazy and rote, it feels like a rerun the first time you watch it.

Who writes this stuff, anyway? Does this not sound like utter gibberish? Surely, this film did not actually get made, did it? Yes, it did. I have seen it. But you, oh, fortunate one, don't have to. Consider yourself lucky.

Everything that cynical moviegoers despise and the tender-minded adore.

Lee remains a superb entertainer -- like Oliver Stone, he's incapable of ever being boring -- but in She Hate Me, he comes dangerously close to seeming trivial, a crank-for-crank's-sake.

It's about time Hollywood lightened up. Introducing National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon I, a spoof that takes aim, with hilarious results, at blockbusters from Lethal Weapon to Basic Instinct to Wayne's World. But viewer beware: This is Naked Gun humor at its corniest. [11 Feb 1993, p.F6]

The set design of Thirteen Ghosts may have been expensive, but its thrills are cheap.

Richard Mulligan attempts to provide comic relief for the comedy, in the role of a grizzled archangel, but it's a thankless task. The most interesting element of the film is its premise. [26 July 1985, p.D8]

Chained Heat is your basic visit to the snakepit, with a few twists. One is the presence of Linda Blair, as the innocent (she's in for vehicular homicide, "an accident," which makes her cell-hardened fellow inmates snicker with anticipation). Another is that rarely in the history of either movies or the penal system have prison officials and guards been seen to be quite this despicable. [30 May 1983, p.D5]

Annie DeSalvo, a first-time director and screenwriter, can't escape the made-for-TV feel but does manage to give her cast, mostly once-big names fallen from grace and popularity, flashes of humanity between lessons about various saints and sermons disguised as dialogue.

Shameless in its desperate grab at the heartstrings.

Premonition is actually more daring than you might expect. Not bold enough to be memorable, maybe, but just enough to keep you from falling asleep in front of the TV.

The movie is pure product, and proud of it: There isn't a single surprising moment in all of its 88 minutes, because Domestic Disturbance is designed to stick to tried-and-true formulas, instead of shaking them up a little.

When the film isn't borrowing, it's collapsing of its own weight, slight though it may be. [28 Jul 1996, p.B4]

The ghastly first half of this romantic comedy -- is as close to unwatchable as any moment in "Bride Wars." The fact that it stars Renée Zellweger just makes it harder to bear.

The performances -- even those by Rosanna Arquette and Jeff Bridges, as Sarah and Scudder -- are simply trashy; they're throwaway stuff. [30 Apr 1986, p.C7]