If Schaefer's intent was to provide some sort of insight into Chapman's character, some hint of explanation for this senseless tragedy, he fails, probably because there's none to be found beyond one lonely guy's addled brain chemistry.

The film is nothing much to look at and has trouble swallowing its own clichs and implausibilities.

This one is shot, recorded and edited without so much as a pinch of craft -- it's one of the ugliest big studio films in a long while.

I was stunned to learn that "Beth Cooper" was adapted by former "Simpsons" writer Larry Doyle from his young-adult novel and directed by "Harry Potter" helmer Chris Columbus. Rarely have two seasoned Hollywood professionals produced something so painfully, amateurishly, relentlessly unfunny.

This one's painful.

If you have a low opinion of the first "Cody Banks," and your kids drag you to this one, you may be tempted to do some food-flinging of your own.

Such a staggering, start-to-finish disaster that you don't know how to begin detailing its outrages and failings.

I'm pleased to report the new Land of the Lost movie keenly understands that what was once scary is now ridiculous.

It's moderately pleasant most of the time, mildly amusing now and then. Young Schlatter does a reasonable impersonation of Burns. But it's such a formula script that it would be just as predictable even without the first two films. [13 Apr 1988, p.C08]

Jinxed itself into being nothing but an inane popcorn flick pretending to be edgy.

Price of Glory won't make anyone forget "Raging Bull" or "Rocky."

You can't help but think how much better this film would be had Woody Allen directed it...How much more acerbic fun would it be to see Judy Davis playing stenographer to a neurotic, writer's-blocked Woody?

This moronic yuletide time-waster might work as a way to grab a few winks at the mall during last-minute shopping, but it's not going to end up as a highlight on the resume of anyone involved.

Surprisingly bland even within its dubious genre of "chick flick."

fFat, dull drag.

Yet another mediocre-to-lame thriller shot in Portland.

It's fitting that Black Knight, the new time-travel movie with Martin Lawrence, should arrive at the start of the Christmas season, because the season gives us the perfect word to describe it: humbug.

Its breeziness keeps it from ever being completely bland or flat.

What could have been a biting, darkly comic action flick about capitalistic health care run amok is instead a familiar, gory, post-apocalyptic slog.

Short on both life and laughs.

Tends to beat some plain unfunny material to death.

Joins the growing list of blandly made erotic thrillers that contain no eroticism, few thrills and fewer likable characters.

Nothing shakes this pathetic attempt at humor from its self-satisfied torpor.

It's hooey, but it's hooey that picks up in the second half, not exactly redeeming itself but fitfully engaging.

Flat and uninteresting, both visually and dramatically, this is a waste of two appealing actors.

More a collection of character vignettes than a full-blown story, Garden Party nonetheless shows as much promise for its makers as it gives to its characters.

Ted Danson gets in a little practice for serious dramatic roles with a solid performance in this otherwise forgettable piece of fluff. [17 Jun 1994, p.15]

Clearly based on the Japanese film series about Zatoichi, the blind samurai, Blind Fury is also openly tongue-in-cheek. It is little but violence and gags, but the violence often is so cleverly and improbably staged that it's funny too. [19 Mar 1990, p.B08]

Isn't a particularly good movie if what interests you is the art of film -- cinematography, editing, screenwriting, staging, little things like that. But if you're chiefly interested in turning off the upstairs lights and relaxing with a few laughs, you could do a lot worse.

The movie never pauses -- at least, not to waste time on anything like developing the female characters. But there's no edge to anything, either dramatically or politically.

The air stuff, aided by 10 Army and National Guard units, is super-duper and excitingly filmed. The ground stuff is choppy and perfunctory. Jones is good, Young is OK, and Cage looks distracted for most of the film. [02 Jun 1990, p.C08]

He plays it so low-key there's nothing much for him to do, apart from the clueless-dad shtick and some awkward comedy with an ostrich. The big laughs never come.

You'll forget it tomorrow, but it's fun while it lasts.

It's the kind of movie where the bloopers that run with the end credits are much funnier than anything that came before. That's a good rule for a comedy: if the blooper reel is funnier than the movie, you're in trouble.

Cop Out wouldn't be as disappointing if it hadn't been made by Smith, but for those who dig the vulgar wit of his early, funny films, it's not just stupid, it's sad. At least the worst film of the year also bears its most forgettable title.

Shrill, unfunny third installment.

In the end, the intelligence of the dialogue and crack acting are wrestled to the ground by the zealous politics, the formulaic narrative and a wan and flaccid air unusual from the reliably nifty Parker.

The process of Farrell figuring out his divine purpose finally gets so convoluted and schmaltzy, it feels less like "destiny" and more like "cruel cosmic joke."

The movie is stunningly perfunctory, soul-crushingly oblivious to its own lack of originality, and, to be blunt, just plain dumb.

The movie is a septic tank of vapid noir posturing, bad narration, bizarre pacing, cartoonishly hot femme fatales and ineptly staged slapstick.

To be fair, Rudd and Bell are cute and funny in their scenes together, and Rudd salvages a few laughs with his deadpan line readings.

Galifianakis tries hard, and he has a few nice moments with guest star Melissa McCarthy, but this is a movie to make teetotalers of us all.

The film wears out its welcome by the halfway mark, becoming a silly spectacle.

It's a thriller, if the term can be applied to an inept, perfunctory movie with more laughs than thrills — and it only has a couple laughs. Let's call it an attempted thriller and an inadvertent comedy.

Nothing near a modern vampire classic. Still, "Queen" is a great dose of vamp camp

For every gag that flies there are at least one-and-a-half that don't.

Boring and fundamentally silly.

Washington can't save a picture that spends so much time worrying about a heart that it loses its head.

It's also a real shame that such a fascinating reminder of how far civil rights have come in the last five decades has been reduced to such a turkey of a film.

It's as sullying and disheartening an experience as the movies can offer .

If you've recently watched that great skateboarding documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys," Grind will play like a soft-pedaled Afterschool Special.

Isn't a complete waste of time. If Kutcher seeks to transition from national joke to lightweight actor, he's made a decent stab at it.

It all makes you realize the importance of the guy who should have played Malkovich's role -- Christopher Walken. He makes films like this bearable.

This is supposed to be a movie about obsession. Instead it's just cupcake meets beefcake, with a big glass of milk on the side. And that's one Valentine's Day dinner you can easily pass up.

It's depressing to see attractive performers like Alley and Larroquette work so hard to such little effect on their vacations from TV. [16 Feb 1990, p.G14]

A movie so lame that Keanu Reeves lends it gravity with his mere presence.

In The Tuxedo, ridiculously, Chan's just a suit. A suit walking Jennifer Love Hewitt's breasts around. Chan deserves better.

Had Williams chopped away more pointedly at the rambling script, he might've had something memorable.

Given the abundance of tedious sex in She Hate Me it's no wonder the whole thing's such a turn-off.

Loaded is draggy and repetitious in spots. But consider its task -- poking fun at a genre that is more than half comedy to begin with. And the remainder is so silly that restaging it is lampoon enough. [6 Feb 1993, p.C07]

May be the most boring film about forbidden love ever made. Unspectacularly shot on video, terribly scripted, with zombie-like acting that borders on the absurd.

The film is so-so, but producer/writer Bob Kaufman, flush with the success of Love at First Bite said High Cost was the forerunner of a new way of life. [04 Aug 1991, p.34]

Starring Linda Blair and the late Tamara Dobson, it's the ultimate women-in-prison movie and a landmark of exploitation cinema. [02 Oct 2009]

Extremely dumb, sporadically funny.

Few movies feel quite so perfunctory or needless or pointless as this one.

Reprehensible.

Compare it with the book, and it stinks. Look at the film on its own, and it still stinks.

Director Stephen Elliott has acquitted himself admirably in creating this serious thriller.

In a way, it's perfect: You can't imagine anyone seeing this mess and not feeling lesser for the experience.

You still marvel at the visuals -- cinematographer M. David Mullen has done miracles with what must have been a microscopic budget -- but you're less invested in the tale. Which is a pity, because it might have been a perfect little potboiler. As it stands, it's merely pretty darned good of its type.

Stinky, boring, aggressively unfunny picture.

Langella is solid as always, but his haunted, bitter character is pretty two-dimensional, and having to share all his scenes with Bentley doesn’t allow for much interplay.

Ugly, dull, bloodless, dumb, and phony to its core.

Murray blusters and hams his way through the first two acts before turning all mushy in the third.

This isn't an ordinary film built on a remarkable performance; it's a poor one with a gem at its core. Penn can elevate it to mediocrity, but he cannot make it fly.

Less and less a skillfully creepy B-movie and more and more a plea for ecumenical reform.

At this point, "Die Hard" no longer describes the franchise. It describes the fans who are still willing to turn out for the noise and nonsense.

The novel's exuberance, happy sensuality, goes AWOL in Van Sant's sadder, darker vision. [20 May 1994]

So tedious that the experience results in nearly two hours of squirming and cringing.

As the struggle toward something new and different overwhelms the film, it becomes less and less human, less and less funny and less and less worth the effort to meet it on its own terms.

There are legitimate excuses for going to see Pixels. Losing a bet, perhaps. Having a loved one held for ransom. Maybe a serious blow to the head. But none of those (except maybe the last) would allow you watch and actually enjoy the latest cinematic leavings of Adam Sandler.

Freddie Prinze Jr. gives cute a bad name.

In Duff's movies, the question is whether the movie will find enough interesting stuff to compensate for the blandness at the center. The Perfect Man does.

It's classic movie manipulation gone amok.

Cute and funny, with plenty of slapstick and cuddly creatures for the kids and enough adult wit to keep parents reasonably amused.

In short, it's an almost flawlessly innocuous entertainment for kids.

The movie's a fish-out-of-water romantic-comedy thriller that forgets to be romantic, comedic or thrilling.

Chris Koch exhibits little flair for comedic direction and, though this isn't saying much, you'd be better served watching his previous film, "Snow Day." Ouch.

Berry has no character to play, but Sharon Stone's an over-the-top hoot.

Is there anything more depressing than when middlebrow filmmakers decide to remake bona fide classics that did not, under any circumstances, need to be remade?

As a technical accomplishment it is extrely impressive. But as a work of entertainment, almost any 10 minutes of it are enough. [14 Jul 1992]

Appallingly flat.

Norbit might have worked if it had fully committed to being over the top or made Rasputia the lead character and found the human inside the cartoon. Instead, the movie doesn't give us anyone to care about.

If the new I-wanna-be-a-stewardess picture View From the Top were an airplane, it would blow up on takeoff. If it were an airline meal, it would infect you with E. coli. If it were a parachute, it would be riddled with holes.

The comic moments are fewer, flatter and far, far less welcome.

Problem Child has moments, or perhaps instants, of misanthropic satire. There also are stroboscopically brief flashes of psychological irony or cleverness. [30 July 1990, p.D8]

This is the Fantastic Four. Maybe someday they'll get to act like it.

A snore.