Far too often, the film has to submit to the inevitable and stop so that Affleck can struggle like a yoga student to bend his face into a human emotion. He even cries. So might you.

With more discipline and a keener sense of family dysfunction, these ingredients could have gelled into something impressive. As it is, Awful Nice is closer to the former than the latter.

A thoroughly mundane experience.

You end up with a movie that takes that real problem and makes it feel like an exploitation contrivance.

The Boz is filling in the blank where the hero needs to be in a maelstrom of violent set pieces. [25 May 1991, p.C08]

Though this non-stop onslaught of nonsense and mayhem is not really worth watching, it is mildly impressive for Sutherland and Phillips. They act their hearts out, as if they thought they were in another movie that deserved a real effort. [05 Jun 1989, p.C05]

Terrible, unnamable enemies turn out to be uncompelling indeed.

Never maintains the spark necessary to sustain a feature film.

Suffers from poor comic timing and defective romantic pacing.

Maybe if you're younger than 10 you'll be scared or thrilled by this film. Otherwise, be prepared for one of the most unexciting pictures this summer.

The movie is neatly directed by Taylor Hackford, who keeps it moving quickly without descending into a blur of cut-cut-cut edits.

You're likelier to shrink in astonished horror from it than laugh.

So god-awful it falls into the category of needing to be seen to be believed. A purported satire of the 1975 camp horror classic, it succeeds in failing on almost every level, including knowing what it's actually satirizing.

An Italian import that isn't sure what it's supposed to be but knows it's not funny.

The Austen cosplay is too exaggerated, as are the other guests.

Freeman and Nicholson mostly stand in front of special-effects green screens and have the locales projected, like they're in a "Road" picture.

A slick disappointment -- though there's much unintentional humor to be enjoyed.

Not a great movie -- not even a great sci-fi action movie based on toys. But it is brisk and eye-catching, it builds to a truly impressive action set piece, and it's the most fully-realized 3D film since "Avatar."

Paul Reiser is fine as Emory's tense partner; so is Mercedes Ruehl as a good therapist. J.T. Walsh, always a mean guy, is good here as Emory's venal boss. [13 Apr 1990, p.R13]

Not content to make his point through sharp-tongued comedy, Hogan ends up beating a dead horse -- or shark, as the case may be.

Does have its charms. While the videography and most of the supporting performances are amateurish, Clark and Caland are winning actors.

The perfect thriller. Nothing too gross to creep you out.

Your 12-and-unders will dig it, and it might even serve as a sort of movie-Bookmobile and get them to read a little history, or at least a little Wikipedia. But otherwise it's utterly dispensable.

When Bekmambetov is in full stride and the gore, oaths and silver bullets are flying, it's a kick. The title may sound like a joke, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is serious fun.

The movie pads the good stuff out with a bunch of mediocre mainstream-thriller junk. It takes too long to get started, it pulls some key punches, its dialogue is deeply uninteresting, it relies way too heavily on endless jump-scares and its finale is pure slasher-flick formula.

I was annoyed by Levasseur and Aja's desertion of their tense, simple plot in favor of tedious "plot twists" that could, frankly, use a rest. It's a waste of a good first half. (Grade: A- for first hour, C- thereafter.)

A gloomy and overwrought fable, too heavy as family entertainment. [02 Jun 1995, p.26]

There's not much of a spell to The Loss of Sexual Innocence, which is a shame, because anything this moody and pretty ought to be spellbinding. [16 Jul 1999]