Tedious time-killer of a kiddie comedy.

The irony is that this movie - which fails to emulate such storybook-based virtues as coherent plotting and characterization - is pretty darn empty itself.[15 Feb 1991, p.6]

These guys set out to make a movie where they could crack each other up. At this late date, they can't even manage that.

The slapstick is very small-kid friendly and even the most adult-friendly jokes are pretty mild stuff.

James takes his comic lumps like a man. His Griffin suffers injuries and indignities and lets us laugh at him as he does. No matter where the script wanders and where the direction founders, at some point, James' comic instincts take over. And this time, they don't let him down.

Far more grim than "Grimm," and not nearly as much fun as it should have been.

Disney's effort to turn Kristen Bell into America's Sweetheart reaches its tipping point with You Again, a flat romantic comedy that packages her in a funny setup and surrounds her with funny people.

A dull-witted variation on the themes of the original Blue Lagoon, in which two young people (played by Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins) were stranded on a tropical island.

Lawyer-turned-screenwriter Dylan Schaffer's script is an unhappy combination of genres, tones, too many dead stretches of people in cars and inept dialogue. Rapaport's tiresome patter doesn't allow for the weak laughs to land.

In Howard the Duck, the special effects -- and the Muppety duck jokes -- command so much attention that it's easy to overlook the movie makers' clever narrative touches. It's rather fitting, for example, that Howard is shown to be almost as much of a misfit on the duck world as he is on Earth. And there's a sometimes-touching, sometimes-hilarious Fay Wray-King Kong relationship established between Howard and a sexy, baby-faced rock singer named Beverly (Lea Thompson). The main reason the relationship is so intriguing is that Thompson always keeps you guessing about her character's true feelings for the cantankerous bird. It's hard to fault the tongue-in-bill high spirits of a movie like Howard the Duck.

Crude, adolescent and not very funny.

Stephen King's Graveyard Shift is the 19th Big Steve story to be made into a movie, and it's one of the more decent ones even though the gigantic mutant-slime octopus monster that lives in the basement doesn't really ever appear on screen where you can get a good look at him. [23 Nov 1990, p.15]

Sadly, Immigration Tango is like a slow-dance with your sister - perfunctory, awkward and without a hint of heat.

"Steel" isn't offensively exploitative, just awkward, goofy and terminally sluggish. But then, how fast-paced could a movie be whose central character clumps around in 75 pounds of body armor? [15 Aug 1997]

It's not a bad looking movie, with Deco design touches that remind me of the earlier Rand film adaptation, "The Fountainhead." But the acting's flat and the script is absurdly cluttered with characters whose purpose may only truly become clear if they ever are allowed to make the other two films they have planned.

The best you can say about this hooey is that at least he had the King of the Bs, Ron Perlman, along for a few sidekick laughs.

As an evening out: Its many faults notwithstanding, Bonfire does have at least one thing going for it. The movie is a mess, but, like Wise Guys, it's a lively mess.

If “the gals” have to bow out, at least they try to do it in a sprint -- in their Manolo Blahniks. It’s a pity nobody told them you can’t run in heels -- in sand dunes.

Limp and lifeless, this Next Door neighbor should be evicted to DVD.

Paul Weitz ("Cirque du Freak," "American Dreamz") takes over as director, and the film shows all the signs of re-shoots and re-edits designed to bring in more characters and perhaps find a few more laughs.

The action is wan, the laughs hard to come by.

Skyline plays like an effects guru's resume reel, not a movie.

It's only a movie, and not a remotely effective one. And for Zellweger, whose "Miss Potter" and "Appaloosa" were barely seen, with "Leatherheads" and "New in Town" further deflating her A-list clout, that's the real shame here.

I had fun watching Drop Dead Fred, but I want to take special care not to raise expectations unrealistically by overpraising it. The movie is no comic masterpiece, but it is consistently amusing in a way that sometimes reminded me of a kiddie picture and at other times of a more sophisticated comedy.

Bell, a petite, pretty blonde, may or may not have the Meg Ryan-Julia Roberts-Sandra Bullock goods. When in Rome, a leaden variation on that rom-com recipe, fails utterly to make her case.

This waking nightmare from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" creator is a puzzle with no solutions, a tale with a twist that isn't a twist at all.

Abduction puts Lautner in motion and never goes very far wrong as long as he remains in motion.

Whatever merits the production values have, the cheap frights don't deliver, the performers bring no pathos and the gimmick behind Apollo 18 flat out does not work.