Sometimes funny but mostly stupid film directed by Adam Shankman might have worked had it been made on TV by Norman Lear in the 1970s.

Credit to Aaron Paul for fully committing to this ridiculousness. There isn’t a scene he doesn’t play with the utmost seriousness.

The writing is lazy, the movie focuses on all the wrong things and the tone lurches unpleasantly between gum-soft comedy and lukewarm thriller.

The film simply plods through an endless list of horror movie cliches and accumulating contrivances. For long-suffering viewers, Dr. Giggles evolves into Audience Yawns. [27 Oct 1992, p.D05]

Miller, who's still trying to find her way as an actress, isn't bad, and the Iranian-born Farahani is convincing, but their characters are blandly angelic, in stark contrast to the vast majority of men they encounter.

It's fun junk. And it doesn't satisfy. Dot the I is a weird, pretty film with a dumb script, a skilled cast and a good twist, plus one hot sex scene and one brilliant scene-chew by D'Arcy.

There's also something tired and way too familiar to the story of a white guy who acts as the savior of Africa while the only major black character in the movie stands ineptly on the sidelines.

Limps shallowly along.

The only thing missing from this steaming casserole, in fact, is the one crucial ingredient: A sense of humor.

Though no classic, the concept is a clever one.

Grating attempt at comedy, the latest failed attempt to capitalize on McCarthy's considerable charm.

On a week when many people just want a good reason to put down their packages and smile for a couple of hours, P.S. I Love You arrives -- signed, sealed and delivered just on time.

Why did they think anyone would want to watch a Fat Albert adaptation that can't answer a simple question: "Who is this movie for?"

Like a dog walking on its hind legs across a freshly waxed floor -- awkward, slow, deliberate, seeking approval -- the action thriller Reign of Fire gets from start to finish, somehow, without tumbling into complete disaster.

The film strives to be poetic, but it exposes nothing especially moving or relevant. Rather, the engaging leads wander around like actors lost in an ill-fated exercise in subtext.

When it sticks to its central flirtation, the latest movie based on a Nicholas Sparks romance, The Lucky One, is blandly pleasant enough.

Simultaneously boring and cringe-inducing; you can't decide whether to flee the theater or lightly nap.

For those who've seen the original, no surprises will be unearthed other than an altered story (not for the better) and more gore.

Pretty much the worst recent example of a genre.

Amazing-looking sequel to cult fave "Pitch Black"; unfortunately, the film's wrecked by a surprisingly weak, goofy script.

It's like watching a high-school football star trying to squeeze into his old uniform after a decade: funny at times, but kind of embarrassing.

Terminator: Genisys isn't so much a sequel or a reboot but a piece of fan fiction come to ludicrous, big-budget life. Even for an unnecessary entry in a series of movies about indestructible time-traveling robots and genocidal computer networks, it's pretty silly.

Director Stefen Fangmeier, a well-regarded special-effects man and second-unit director ("Master and Commander," "Galaxy Quest") does a superb job visualizing the CGI dragon. But Fangmeier is working with a script without a single memorable line and far too many characters and creatures with silly names.

It's deeply ordinary, depressingly shabby stuff.

Though the picture has a generic quality, it also has an ingenious amount of anything-goes that's amusing and frequently exciting. You'll laugh out loud, you'll hide your eyes -- but you'll roll them. too. Nevertheless, it's a fun, if blood- and sun-soaked, ride.

The script is just all kinds of terrible. The characters are hollow mannequins telling a thin, depressing story that's less of a noir and more of a simple-minded bummer full of barely connected scenes and stunningly empty dialogue.

The shtick grows a bit repetitive, so by the end of the story you may be checking the time rather than rooting for Randy.

That the film rises above that level to the merely mediocre is an accomplishment of almost heroic proportions.

In the hands of a more nuanced actor, David could have been a riveting character; but DMX's limited range means it's never clear why such a remorseless thug was seeking "redemption" in the first place.

Confused, morally queasy, self-important mess.

No Escape is xenophobic claptrap of the highest order.

Makes good, unobtrusive use of its European locations, and has a couple of well-orchestrated urban chase scenes. But, even in these days of renewed U.S.-Russian tensions, its Cold War demeanor feels anachronistic, and its simple cynicism comes off as recycled and cheap.

An annoying, unclever, unlikable movie.

The larger question is not whether these two will wind up together, but rather, if the filmmakers wanted to make a teen movie, why didn't they use real teenagers?

This goopy dramedy is unfunny, mentally bankrupt and makes parenthood look like a terrifying death sentence.

It's trying to fill some perceived market void created by the end of "Harry Potter."

This is the sort of film that only makes sense as a rental, with, perhaps, a couple of friends and a very generously mixed pitcher of margaritas.

The dialogue is dippy. And there's no real suspense: The filmmakers are so deadly earnest about the power of music and love and all that stuff, you just twiddle your thumbs waiting for the inevitable.

Bening and Dillon both play roles they could act in their sleep, though it's still moderately fun to watch them do so.

The best thing about 2 Fast 2 Furious is Tyrese (terrific in Singleton's "Baby Boy"), whose charisma, looks and charm supply the picture with much-needed spark. It's too bad he's stuck in this spotty video game.

Its director, Rob Reiner, is 67 himself. So his film takes a less ageist tone, seeing its characters – played by Michael Douglas, 69, and Diane Keaton, 68 – not as old people but simply as people, living vital but complicated lives. If only the movie itself were as vital and complicated.

Not that Chan isn't lovable; he is. But he's making it harder to feel warm and fuzzy about him with films like The Medallion. It's OK to age, but Chan needs to broaden his horizons. He is a trained singer. Where's that musical he's always dreamed of making?

Maybe if the story weren't so ludicrous we'd care. Or maybe if the film just went overboard with its ludicrousness, we'd be entertained, but Don't Say a Word is merely boring.

It's pathetic.

I came away impressed at how Haggis made something original and real.

Spaced Invaders is a cute comedy-- cuter and funnier than you might expect. [02 May 1990, p.E07]

Some will win and some will lose their encounters with unbending American bureaucracy, but all deserve better, which should leave viewers eager for an even-handed take on this issue crossing over into disappointment.

Has a surprising number of problems: dire scripting, sloppy plotting and coffee-jittery editing, for starters. But its biggest problem is that Blade himself takes a back seat to a host of new and mostly uninteresting characters.

If you believe that, as one interviewee says, "Science is just another story," then these ideas may ring true. If you're looking for actual solutions to global problems, rather than ways to feel better about them, I Am will be a frustrating experience.

Though it's debatable whether Sandler is squandered or just supremely annoying here, the film's flaws aren't entirely his fault.

Dissects the dicey question of fidelity with all the finesse of a Veg-O-Matic and leaves us with something closer to chopped liver than broken hearts.

Kassovitz can't control the ridiculous script and messy tone. And though it's not exactly hard to watch Berry run around in a hospital robe (Cruz and Berry: That's one good-looking mental ward), it's not particularly profound.

A story that would be charming if recited at the dinner table tries to carry a feature film, and it's not even close to the task. The result is screamingly bad.

A nitwit story about a nitwit author who has written a nitwit novel about a nitwit author who has published a nitwit novel which, in fact, he has stolen wholecloth from another writer whose personal behavior, as fictionalized in the novel-within-the-novel-within-the-film, can charitably be described as...nitwit.

While you may like comedies and you make like thrillers, this film does neither of the above with any pizazz.

Better luck trying to find out what truly happened to the real Earhart than trying to diagnose all that's wrong with this hapless film.

In Be Cool, a wonderful cast essays a lively script and manages to make a decent film out of it.

It's the sort of movie that would have starred Valerie Bertinelli or Kristy McNichol back in the 1980s, tricked out with PG-13 grittiness and religious wholesomeness. It's the sort of story that ignores unpleasant social implications in favor of programmed sentiment.

A film with almost zero redeeming value.

In small doses, this looks kind of cool. For two hours, it's excruciating.

Hilariously, gut-bustingly, mind-blowingly, jaw-droppingly stupid.

The ferociously misguided new rendition of The Lone Ranger has no legitimate reason to exist.

Purists may still quail at the little bit of anthropomorphism going on, but it seems a small price to pay to broaden the audience for a family film that seeks to do more than just entertain.

Lee is not an action director, and the movie often feels like it was made in the 1940s rather than set then.

Watching Rocks shows, we know he's sharper than the average actor. But watching him flail and play funny in movies that aren't as smart as him is simply depressing. Someone give this man a good role. And please, let him do a few more takes -- these scenes can't be his best efforts.

Drowns in flat, clumsy and obvious direction.

The troubling thing about "Chuck & Larry" is the hypocrisy. It's a comedy that ridicules the people it's supposed to be championing.

The result is a frustrating and disturbing mishmash of vague philosophical noodling, which even the best-chosen cast can't imbue with zip.

The problem is that so little in this version of All the King's Men speaks to the here and now or even speaks clearly. It feels like a repertory exercise -- and not a very successful one at that.

Comes up with some decent jokes, including a talking car-based GPS system which doubles as a therapist, and a suggestive Yonica number titled "I Want to Blow You Up," but fails to surround them with a compelling story or characters who rise above the level of cliche.

A sequel that never rises to the giddy pitches of skewed humor that the original managed to toss off with such unexpected glee.

The effect is to turn a brain-optional shoot-'em-up into a military recruiting commercial, which may not be an accident.

Cobbled together from other sources without much thought to originality.

Among the lamest serial-killer movies ever made.

Refn's trying to make too little stretch too far.

Conveys an almost pulseless Nora Ephron style of homespun wisdom.

Filled with energy and visual pizzazz and at least strives for something more than dumb entertainment.

The nearest thing to W. E. is Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette," which tried to make a sympathetic victim of another of history's most notorious royal wives.

The movie gets just enough right that the things it doesn't get right (beyond its overdependence on a not-so-surprising story puzzle) smack you cold in the face.

The liveliest thing here is the keen sense of regret you feel at seeing two TV icons reduced to supporting characters in a lame movie that trades on their good names.

Still, given the fact that it's August, you could do worse than hide out from the heat with the cute-as-a-bug Murphy, who manages to be funny and entertaining despite the material.

It's just another bland, junior-high-basketball riff on "The Bad News Bears" formula, one that takes every single dramatic cue from the underdog sports-movie playbook.

That cast is precisely what makes the new Arthur so frustrating.

It's a weird anti-woman message masquerading in a movie about empowerment. And there's nothing inspired about that.

Has a few pleasing stylistic flourishes and a potentially Hitchcockian plot, but the writing and rhythm are so off that when the final "shocker" arrives, we have seen it coming or have abandoned caring.

Hardcore genre fans may find some appeal in this warmed-over tale, but most viewers will be squirming in their seats even before the prolonged finale.

The Canyons comes across as a desperate gambit for relevance by a group of artists who want to reinvent themselves but don't know how. Fittingly, that's the theme of the film itself.

The trouble is, the kids seem to be in one earnest "After School Special"-type of movie, while the adults occupy a retro-futuristic world more like the original TV show.

The best and creepiest sequence involves a sort of beta test, during which a patchwork chimplike creature is brought to life and rampages about.

The bad news? The movie is monumentally stupid. The good news? It's a fun kind of stupid.

Goodbye World will remind you more of "Gilligan's Island" than "Lost."

By the film's end, you feel like you've spent two hours rapidly changing channels between a WB sitcom, the gospel-choir segments of the "Ladykillers" remake, an episode of "Law & Order" and a Mexican soap opera.

In the end, Sex Tape doesn't seduce, doesn't surprise and certainly doesn't satisfy. It only leaves you feeling a little taken advantaged of, as you take your walk of shame back to your car – and hoping you never hear from it again.

It's not that Pan isn't entertaining. There's plenty of color and action and some inventive 3-D effects. Jackman's unhinged performance is either gloriously great or gloriously terrible, but captivating either way. There's no magic, though.

Never dull visually, but it's certainly monomaniacal and heartless thematically.

In I'm Reed Fish, Jay Baruchel is cast as a leading man with two attractive girlfriends, and, sorry, I'm frankly more prepared to accept Stephen Hawking as an action hero.

It gets by on its concept for a little while but too often mistakes stupid-stupid for clever-stupid.

The man has gifts -- but acting and, it's increasingly clear, storytelling aren't among them.