An overblown hodgepodge of volcano-baked desertscapes, Egyptoid-gone-baroque architecture, and gladiator-geared storm troopers with goofy headpieces, The Chronicles of Riddick bears no resemblance to the movie that spawned its namesake.

What distinguishes The Dilemma in this genre is its resounding unfunnyness, its emotional dishonesty, and the general unlikability of its cast of characters.

Hobbled by a laughably bad script and a uniformly uncharismatic cast.

Never again let it be said that an action movie is just like a video game. Hardcore Henry, a frenetic, dizzying, and ultraviolent actioner from Russian rocker-turned-director Ilya Naishuller is one - a first-person shooter writ large for the big screen.

The overwhelming sci-fi action spectacle is a merciless sensorial assault that leaves you with something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Hiring this sensitive fantasist (Gondry) to make the superhero saga The Green Hornet is like hiring satirist John Waters to make "Rambo." Hard to think of a more mystifying mismatch of filmmaker and material.

On the evidence of Palindromes, the most misanthropic, depressing, hopeless film in memory, I'd hazard that for Solondz, childhood is a problem without a solution.

Scary Movie 2 has something for potheads and the potty-mouthed alike. Anyone looking for a true sequel, however, will be disappointed.

Where does Ed, which is about a baseball-playing chimp and his human sidekick, fit in the pantheon of simian cinema? Way, way down there - on a level with toe lint. [15 Mar 1996, p.5]

The Wolfman feels like a film reedited and reworked so many times it has lost all narrative rhythm and suspense.

The sheer brutality of Oldboy is stunning, especially a deeply disturbing scene in which Brolin tortures Samuel L. Jackson. But this is an unrelievedly grim and hermetic experience throughout, the cinematic equivalent of blunt trauma.

This unabashedly stupid comedy is, well, unabashedly stupid.

This Romeo and Juliet is hard to take seriously - and simply hard to take.

As full of terrible acting as it is devoid of suspense.

Tedious, ludicrous and harmless glimpse of the dawn of civilization.

A dull, formulaic theme-park ride whose only purpose is to make more pots of money.

How to count the ways that Be Cool isn't? For one thing, it looks terrible: grainy, ill-lit, edited with blunt, rusty shears.

The animation in Planes: Fire & Rescue is considerably better, the landscapes grander, and the 3-D flight and firefighting scenes more exciting.

If Sweet November were a puppy, it would have rabies.

The more movie magic Howard piles on, the less we care. And, boy, does he pull out all the stops, stocking the pic with a tub of red herrings, half a dozen plot twists, and more complex set pieces than a comic-book flick. I felt relieved when it was finally over.

Serena is one long eye-roll of calamities and corn.

The contrast to Ramis' last picture, the inspired Groundhog Day, is marked. [12 Apr 1995, p.F03]

This tale of a white mother's kid gone missing in a black New Jersey neighborhood - and the tensions and news media attention that ensue - is pretty much pure jive.

What has Campbell wrought? An intermittently amusing, interminable affair that for sheer ugliness and a scenery-chewing performance by Peter Sarsgaard has a certain Camp appeal.

With the raunch quotient cranked up several notches, the sequel is calculated, cynical and, worse, not funny.

In Glimmer Man, Steven Seagal shows not a glimmer of acting range. [07 Oct 1996, p.E07]

Unbroken is a grueling endurance test - for the audience just as much as for its cutout champion.

Has to be the sorriest excuse for a reprise since "Highlander — The Final Dimension."