Whatever small pleasure there is to be found in this loud dud is due mostly to the residual good feelings from the first film.

Somewhere is a triumph of tedium, banality passing for depth, a vacuous embrace of nothing.

Noisy and (nearly) awful, Noises Off is the sort of movie that gives filmed theater a bad name. Based on Michael Frayn's popular, Tony-nominated play, the screen version is so lame that even without having seen a stage production of the material I can tell that the film doesn't do it justice.

"Evil" fails to triumph. Utterly.

This isn't satire, it isn't that funny and the only bits that work are the titillating ones.

The main difference between Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Hot Shots! is that almost half the jokes in Naked Gun 2 1/2 were at least slightly funny while in Hot Shots! less than a fifth are any good at all. [2 Aug 1991, p.C5]

The charm has aged right out of this silly stoner franchise.

The biggest fault of Jagged Edge is that whatever suspense it manages to generate in its climactic scenes is achieved artificially, through tricky editing and manipulative "danger" music. The mystery of the murder -- which should be generating the suspense -- is so transparent that I wasn't anywhere near the edge of my seat.

It's a fairly intriguing (and, surprisingly non-exploitative) premise, but director/co-writer Ernest R. Dickerson is lost when it comes to devising situations that would suggest what goes on inside his characters' heads. These people are all exactly what they appear to be on the surface, which isn't very involving. [17 Jan 1992, p.20]

Director Zack Snyder choreographs this like a video game, emphasizing the body count over character.

Daybreakers is a stylish but unavoidably silly sci-fi vampire thriller.

The actors are so impressed by the seriousness of their dialogue that they respectfully wait a minute or so after each line is spoken before speaking the next one. Remove the pauses and the movie would run about 20 minutes. [12 Nov 1993, p.20]

Those Jackasses from "Jackass" aren't getting better, they're getting older.

This Herefter, despite the odd engaging moment, is a terrible letdown, like investing in a belief system and discovering there's no "here" that you've been after all your life.

Far-fetched as the premise is, I was willing to give the film the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the impressive cast. But as Flatliners rolled along, its pretentiousness became increasingly toxic.

Hobo hits the screen as a grim, visually ugly, intermittently funny-occasionally preachy piece with only the estimable Mr. Hauer to recommend it.

For the most part, Life Stinks is about as far from art - or even simple entertainment - as you can get. And if I may be forgiven a small joke that's as true as it is obvious, most of the time Life Stinks stinks. [30 July 1991, p.E1]

It's not as scary as it needs to be or as clever as it thinks it is, but the new 3D version of "Piranha" is at least as gimmicky as those fabled 3D films of yore. With all the pointless 3D cartoons and joyless 3D ""Clash of the Titans" conversions, at last here's a picture that tosses its cookies, its coffee cups and its D-cups right in your lap.

It's a fitfully amusing, not remotely scary slasher picture.

A mirthless, joyless comedy with nary a hint of romance, mystery or justification for its existence.

The problem is that producer-turned-director Irwin Winkler (Night and the City, Guilty by Suspicion) simply has no idea what he's doing. I take that back. He knows what a producer ought to know: how to latch onto a hot topic and a hot star. Winkler also appears to have picked up enough from the directors he has worked with to give his film a certain second-hand slickness.

Children will undoubtedly enjoy the ninja flick a lot more than their parents will, and it probably won't even give most kids nightmares. But couldn't a steady diet of this sort of thing help to desensitize very young children to real violence? If so, that's awful - not awesome - dudes.

It's light in tone, feather-weight. But there aren't many laughs in it.

Goldberg's performance does have its moments, especially once she gets past the frenzy of the movie's first half. But like such accomplished fellow cast members as Maggie Smith and Harvey Keitel, Whoopi is wasted in this godawful nunsense. [29 May 1992, p.17]

This isn't the worst of the bunch, not by far. But my premonition is this won't be the finale this series has screamed out for these past few years. This decapitation train never seems to reach its destination.

The polished production sometimes touches and amuses despite its naïve “love conquers all” script.

There are theme park attractions with stronger plots and more compelling characters. [26 May 1995, p.17]

It's an infuriatingly static picture - actors walking around when they should be running, ruminating when they should be panicking, generally failing to convey fear and pick up the pace.

Where The Last Picture Show was emotionally involving and dramatically episodic, Texasville is sprawling, badly paced and remote. [29 Oct 1990, p.C1]

It's a modestly effective but jaw-droppingly violent picture.

The Exorcist III isn't crudely exploitative so much as it's just unendurably pretentious. [24 Aug 1990, p.4]

It's all tiresome, muddied and artlessly made.

Young Guns II shoots blanks. [02 Aug 1990, p.E1]

The film manages one grand "300″ moment, Cavill rallying troops for battle, doing his best Gerard Butler. But the lack of humor, the confusing, stumbling story and limited color palette blunt the film's 3D slo-mo shots of heads exploding and torsos torn asunder by the sword.

A generally joyless pastiche of sorcery history, imitation Potter "chosen one" Messianics and mirthless silliness, it's another in a string of recent black marks against Cage's Oscar-owning reputation.

"English Reborn" isn't terrible and is certainly seriously harmless.

Connery doesn't have many scenes, and he does manage to keep his dignity while he is on the screen. That's more than I can say for a lot of the actors in this movie. [09 Sep 1994]

The folks who made The 'burbs appear to be card-carrying members of the School of Non-Urban Humor. Basic to the philosophy of this school is the misapprehension that anything occurring outside city limits is intrinsically amusing.

An exploitation picture built on redneck cliches and big city liberal outrage, it's not all bad. But it is a pretty unpleasant wallow in the obvious.

As straight exploitation, it's amusing, in fits and starts. It's just that Colombiana lacks the kinetic energy of "The Transporter" and the pathos of "La Femme Nikita."

At long last, The Twilight Saga sinks utterly into camp with Breaking Dawn: Part 1.

It's the same movie as the earlier "gotta dance" over-choreographed crunk-and-breakdance epics. Exactly the same.

A rude and seriously crude riff on taking a vacation from marriage.

A little like modern country music - odd moments of sincerity, heart and authenticity peek through the plastic, the hype and the manufactured hokum.

A genre mash-up that never quite achieves "So very bad it's good" status.

The whole movie, in fact, is one big blooper.

The sex sequences are revealingly awkward - with their "Don't try this at home" message. But without characters we can invest in, this "Hangover Meets Zack & Miri Make a Porno" is just the "porno," and entirely too tame for that, too.

Whatever brownie points Tillman scored with "Notorious", Faster is that wake-up call that he's no John Woo.

Many years ago, Mel Brooks made up his mind about what was funny and he hasn't budged since. [30 July 1993, p.21]

City Slickers II is not merely one of the worst movies of the year. It's one of the worst movie sequels of all time - and, by the way, one of the least necessary. [10 June 1994, p.21]

Survival of the Dead lacks the wit of "Zombieland," the polish and punch of last winter's "The Crazies," a remake of a Romero zombie picture from the '70s.

Medicine Man is bad medicine - very bad. A parable about mankind's folly, it's also a a prime example of it. [08 Feb 1992, p.E1]

Hallstrom and his low-heat stars can’t find the pulse of this corpse.

But even with Dudley Moore, this movie would probably have fallen flat. At best, Skin Deep is a VCR movie. Rent it when it comes out on tape, fast forward to the best part, and replay the condom scene until you stop laughing.

This script, this leaden direction ensures that even as the teen wish-fulfillment fantasy, complete with young women playing dress-up, Monte Carlo fails.

The eggshells the screenwriter and director walk on distance the story from the reality it aims to imitate. And that robs this tale of loss, grief and redemption of its punch.

A crowded cast of some of the finest actors in the cinema act the hell out of a gimmicky, episodic, hit-or-miss script in Brooklyn’s Finest, Antoine Fuqua’s latest attempt to relive the glories of "Training Day."

Despite the locations and the informative narrative, almost every scene is missing that spark that would bring the characters to life and immediacy to the story.

The earlier film (and much of the television program) worked for adults by creating a youngster's fantasy world with an eerie fidelity. It got us to laugh by reminding us of the child within ourselves. Watching the new film, however, all we're reminded of is that we outgrew kiddie movies a long time ago.

With DiCaprio and Thewlis cast as 19th-century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine in Total Eclipse, you'd figure that the new film would almost have to be worth watching -if only for the acting. You would be mistaken. [01 Dec 1995, p.23]

How many times can Michael J. Fox ask his fans to sit through junk before they stop being his fans? [1 Oct 1993, p.22]

The characters in The Perfect Game speak old school “Hollywood Mexican.” In other words, they speak English with accents that we haven’t heard since the golden Age of Speedy Gonzalez.

Instead of displaying the grim wit of RoboCop, RoboCop 2 is crude and punishing. [23 June 1990, p.E1]

A ten-years-too-late comedy.

The message delivered isn't subtle, with Kendrick delivering toss-away lines that suggest he doesn't even tolerate "the option" of divorce. But the bigger message might be that the Kendricks haven't sold out, "gone Hollywood" or watered down their Baptist beliefs based on efforts to reach an audience beyond the faithful.

Represents a new low for the form. Watching this one, you may be tempted to throw the baby movie out with the bath water.

Not only does the new film generally fail to skewer TV's follies, it isn't even as entertaining as television. And I'm not talking about really good television, like Seinfeld and Murphy Brown. I'm talking about the usual stuff, like Three's Company and Mork & Mindy. [17 Aug 1992, p.D2]

The slapstick is mild-mannered, there's no romance, not a hint of emotion.

A mad mash-up of sci-fi, Western, sacrilegious silliness and vampire movie. What lifts it to "I've seen worse" status is the previous teaming of star and director Scott Stewart, who last gave us the archangel fighting off other angels fiasco "Legion."

The film’s tone is all wrong, the pacing is dead and the veering between sex, sadness and sado-masochistic violence is enough to give you motion sickness. It’s a bad movie.

Well, Green Lantern isn't "Jonah Hex" bad. But it's silly enough to be part of the same "silliest Warner Brothers comic book summer movies of all time" conversation.

A violent, clumsy, jokey, badly-plotted and miscast mess.

The script, by actor turned writer John Posey, has structural problems and motivational issues in between the cliches. And Cena, a few movies into his career, is still all presence and no acting.

A broad and formulaic culture-clash comedy built on fill-in-the-blank wedding comedy clichés.

It's a humorless movie of morphing zombies (they take on beastly attributes), phoned-in performances and trite dialogue.

Nobody has much that's funny to say or cool to do. Even the spy gadgets are lame.

The Double is barely half the movie it had the potential of becoming.

Cutthroat Island isn't so much a movie as it is a burial at sea. As a longtime Geena Davis fan, I hope she won't go down with the ship. [22 Dec 1995, p.M10]

That Disney touch (which even Disney has trouble replicating) is missing. Even the hockey is unconvincing.

This Arthur is on the rocks long before Last Call.

Nominally a romantic action-comedy, this Goldie Hawn-Mel Gibson picture is actually a mind-numbingly raucous exploitation flick with occasional bad jokes and mild sex scenes. [18 May 1990, p.21]

It's all very messy and entirely too obvious at the same time. Montiel makes the most of his settings, but the story keeps staggering into dead ends.

The most mortifying way for a rock star to mess up is for him to direct the dumb movies he stars in. This is the Prince Method. [09 Nov 1990]

A screen romance that echoes its title. It gets by. Barely.

This souped-up exploitation flick is a little like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had been set in the near future (1996) and produced by morons. [23 Aug 1991, p.6]

As with any movie, this kids' film is only as good as its writing - the jokes, the cute bits, the heart. And that's where Alpha and Omega comes up short.

This is ugly. [20 Sept 1993, p.D2]

Thank heavens Krasinski, at least, had the screenwriter's ear. He makes every one-liner land. "The Hamptons are like a zombie movie directed by Ralph Lauren."

So much is just so…obvious.

With Halloween II, Zombie shows conclusively that he's not interested in growing, getting better or ever becoming an original. He's just a hack with a made-up name, a cult following and a wife who can't act.

Revenge isn't sweet. It's crude, ugly, pretentious, repulsive, obnoxious and just about unwatchable.

Anna Faris and Chris Evans don't have enough scenes together, don't have enough funny lines and aren't surrounded by enough funny people to give this "Bridesmaids-lite" a shot.

The best you can say about this Yogi Bear is that he's harmless. No animal was harmed in the making of this picture except the one Hanna-Barbera made a bundle on almost 50 years ago.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime fiasco, an epic fail like none we have seen this year, a bad idea by a very bad director and a career-crippling credit for all concerned. You don't want to miss it.

Although the picture's biggest problems are the lame writing and limp direction, it doesn't help that the main role requires a comedian, which Arnold just is not. [22 Nov 1996, p.20]

Estevez set out to make a movie about garbage and ended up with a movie that actually is garbage. [27 Aug 1990, p.C1]

It’s an American "Love Actually" without the warmth that writer-director Richard Curtis stuffs into his all-star confections, without the wit, without much love, actually.

Even though the new film is an obvious rip-off of It's a Wonderful Life (by way of Back to the Future), and even though much of this material is familiar from Taking Care of Business, Mr. Destiny might have been watchable if director/co-writer James Orr (Tough Guys) had demonstrated any comic timing whatsoever. [12 Oct 1990, p.4]