There are plenty of bad films to get riled up about in the summer. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters isn't one of them. This is harmless tween-centric fun.

Yet for all its faults and limitations, Swing Kids is not necessarily easy to forget. [05 Mar 1993]

One could argue about which "Lethal Weapon'' is the best, but No. 4 is certainly the funniest, warmest and most idiosyncratic.

Dark Places isn’t a disaster of a film. Instead, it’s the definition of average, and we wish it could have taken us to some more interesting places.

Much of the movie has a structureless, documentary feeling to it, which is good and should have been pushed further.

Although the acting is uneven and the movie's dead spots make it feel far longer than its running time, the twist in Twist' is certainly clever.

Swayze's presence crosses the line from curious to bizarre and adds a heavy layer of cheese to Havana Nights.

It's going to be easy for some to dismiss the new Touchstone Pictures comedy, Captain Ron, as a leaky boatload of predictable gags. But it's what you can't predict that keeps this stupidly amusing seafaring tale afloat, making it surprisingly fun. [18 Sep 1992, p.C3]

There is not one line of dialogue or one sight gag in About My Father that can’t be found in other bad comedies, and Maniscalco . . . and director Laura Terruso seem to believe the path to humor is to go as far over the top as possible.

Consenting Adults is well-made, preposterous junk -- the kind of modestly effective thriller that delivers a modicum of thrills but insults its audience, over and over, to achieve that effect. [16 Oct 1992, p.C1]

No matter how you dissect it, Clash of the Titans will never, ever be a serious motion picture.

Much of the action onscreen doesn't ring true. Seasoned independent film director Henry Jaglom doesn't just explore the subject - he smothers the audience with it.

Feels forgettable, even though, in the moment, it's often very funny.

Why Him? takes a comic situation and then does everything it can to undermine it. It’s more than unfunny. It’s anti-funny. It doesn’t provoke laughter or even neutral silence, but an increasingly stunned disdain. It is the movie equivalent of putting on a plaster life mask and letting it dry and lock your face into an expression of blank misery.

Jexi feels hopelessly out of step with the moment. Despite its subject matter, it’s a flip phone movie in a smart phone world.

There's nothing here but a concept and a marketing and merchandising strategy, at the center of which somebody - oh, no - had to come up with an actual movie.

Gets everything wrong, starting with a title that indicates a somewhat innocent romantic transgression.

This is strictly formula stuff, made worse by an utterly careless depiction of the characters.

The action is difficult to follow.

Though overlong and formulaic, two things keep this street-racing movie of interest all the way to the finish line. The first is Aaron Paul ("Breaking Bad"), a sensitive actor in his first major movie showcase. The second: some extraordinary racing sequences.

If only the villains were more villainous, the plot more intriguing and the jokes funnier, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms would be one for the ages.

The film tastefully yet unenergetically chugs along.

The movie's name is Life as We Know It, but that seems incomplete. The predicate's missing. The full sentence should be "Life as we know it is over," i.e., nuked by the sudden and irreversible arrival of a human infant.

Well-intentioned but heavy-handed.

It’s a great story, but the movie has a flatness that can’t be denied. Who’d have expected a Herzog film to invoke thoughts of “Masterpiece Theater” and Merchant-Ivory productions at their most stiff and formal? I surely did not.

Holds a lot of promise in its first hour and never completely falls apart, but it's ultimately not the movie it might have been.

Efron makes what he can of an impossible role. He’s watchable, that helps.

A well-intentioned, but all-thumbs down drama.

A movie that features a cartoon rodent eating his brother's feces, and do you really need to know more about this update of Ross Bagdasarian's iconic musical creation?

Man of the Year remains an interesting proposition throughout, and a tale well told.

Beautiful but flimsy film.

There's no pretending this is a perfect movie. Yet I doubt I could have enjoyed it more if it were. [25 Nov 1992, p.E1]

If the film has any value at all it's as an example to illustrate the point that even a mediocre horror movie requires a certain amount of inspiration. At least a sense of fun, a little life and enthusiasm. Dr. Giggles is put together strictly by the numbers. It aims low -- at the floor -- and misses. [24 Oct 1992, p.C3]

A junior version of "Fight Club," only with no movie stars and different moves.

Badly made, badly acted and badly written. [07 May 1994, p.E3]

If one ignores reason, High Heels hums along well enough as a crime caper.

Daniels has the talent to make a genuinely complex horror film. What was “Precious,” if not a horror movie made all the more chilling by its lack of supernatural elements? But for “The Deliverance,” Daniels simply dusts off the same crab-walking, veins-a-popping demon moves we have seen a million times.

For all the movie’s modest but palpable virtues, The Exorcist: Believer has one problem it cannot solve: No one has come up with a new way to do an exorcism.

A clever, atmospheric romantic drama that lacks something.

The action sequences are just as ridiculous as the romance parts, but at least James seems comfortable with the pratfalls and gross-out scenarios.

The movie is 105 minutes long but seems about 45 minutes longer, with uneventful stretches and at least three sections where the action stops for musical interludes featuring goopy pop music.

UglyDolls is a mind-numbing, low-rent version of “Toy Story,” with saccharine songs and a plot with echoes of, no kidding, the Holocaust. If you’re under 10, you might like it.

The presence of Washington lends the picture a much-needed dose of authenticity. But in the end Virtuosity is disconnected and uninvolving, despite -- or maybe because of -- a climax that comes in three distinct waves. One section seems to be a half-hour sound-and-light show.

Basically, The Gunman is a movie that asks audiences to sympathize with the equivalent of Lee Harvey Oswald — that is, an Oswald who definitely did it. Oddly enough, it succeeds, partly because the moral climate it presents seems so confused, but mainly because of Penn’s particular aura of irascible integrity. He’s the most irritated action hero since Harrison Ford.

A harmless and amusing summer comedy.

Dreary movie.

Another art film that's more pretentious than it needs to be.

Playful and energized enough to keep an audience guessing.

Down Periscope makes a surprisingly successful launch, with plenty of brisk one-liners and a promising set-up. But after that auspicious opening, it sinks.

Just an odd mess of a movie. That you feel anything at all is a tribute to the acting talent of Dinklage and Goggins, who occasionally make us care.

Audiences looking for a nonstop laugh riot may be disappointed, but the big laughs are there, and they benefit from the movie's underlying sincerity.

This is a film that wears its anti-tech bent like an old James Bond wristwatch.

Wonderful characters keep the movie from gagging on sweetness.

This is one light comedy whose seriousness, hours later, lingers in the mind.

The Sitter is not (Funny). At all. By any definition, although an argument might be made for the alternate meanings "perplexing," "deceptive" and "slightly unwell."

As a first-time director, Falcone has trouble maintaining a specific tone - the movie wobbles back and forth between sentimentality and silliness, sometimes even within the same scene.

As Ella, Mackey shows that she can carry a movie and remain sympathetic, despite a script that sometimes works against her.

Besson is a pro when it comes to action movies, but this part live, part animation effort is a mess, highlighted by creepy animation, derivative plot points and a child star who speaks way too fast.

P.S.: It stinks.

So Freddy's Dead, in the hands of first-time director Rachel Talalay, pretty much tramples incoherently and unscarily across the same old cemeteries of the mind and through the same dark corridors of old, cobwebbed houses. [14 Sept 1991, p.C3]

“Dead Men” is a jumble of half-baked impulses.

Director Stephen Chbosky needed to bring this stage musical into greater balance with the film medium. He needed to make Dear Evan Hansen less grandiose. He needed to pick up the pace and chop 10 minutes from the running time. It’s still possible that wouldn’t have saved it, but it might have made it less awful.

A rollicking comedy for the gay niche that rarely rises above the level of a high school skit, Phillip J. Bartell's sequel to 2004's "Eating Out" is loaded with silliness and eye candy.

Confusing, mixing messages of self-empowerment with those of conformity.

Snoop has obviously made a real-life impact in his community. Too bad he couldn’t make one in reel life as well.

Like the King of Pop himself, “Michael” is unashamedly a crowd-pleaser.

Truly awful.

A B-movie with a few thrills and plenty of inane dialogue.

The filmmakers offer very few clues, just more aqua filters and low-contrast visuals. And with each new jarring edit, the viewer cares less and less, until the 100 minutes seem to stretch on forever.

The whole cast is likable and the scenery lovely, making this only the second-worst Shields beach movie, after “The Blue Lagoon.”

The “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series has been, at its core, “Alvin and the Chipmunks” without the rodents.

The movie as a whole isn't exactly ground-breaking, and some of the humor tanks. But it has enough action, laughs and candy-hued visuals to satisfy the target audience without plunging grown-ups into despair.

Airplane buffs are going to have a particularly good time; each of the planes seems to have an obscure real-life counterpart. And pop-culture junkies will appreciate a few sly nods as well.

Stays emotionally mired because of a static screenplay that fails to express its issues dramatically.

Supposedly he's suffered, supposedly there are demons lurking within, but guess what: This is a movie. If we can't see it, it's not there.

The wolf-homosexual analogy is well drawn, but Wolves ultimately feels slight, a tad unfinished -- as if it were conceived as a sketch and hadn't been fleshed out to feature length.

It's strung together, with cliches instead of puka shells.

The phrase "lesbian comedy" is not exactly an oxymoron, but April's Shower is still a rarity, an expansive, talky and often zany romantic farce, with lesbian characters at its center.

Like Disney’s tepid 2019 live-action remake of “The Lion King,” it’s virtually a beat-by-beat remake of the original, but without the original’s energy and movement.

Sister Act 2 doesn't challenge Goldberg, but it's a marvelous showcase, nonetheless, for one of the screen's most likable personalities. [10 Dec 1993, p.C1]

Earnest but unconvincing film.

The movies have been heading toward this for a while, and now with Mile 22 we get a film that is almost wall-to-wall violence. There is very little talk, and what little talk there is is entirely confrontational. People are either cursing at each other, threatening each other or killing each other.

With words streaming out of their mouths instead of into bubbles, Ethan and his gang of past, present and future lovers sound laughingly unbelievable. They're on the road to inanity.

It's made by a director who knows comedy, working from a script founded on a surefire slapstick premise.

The remaining twisted population that likes this kind of movie will enjoy a horror film that is surprisingly stylish.

The tense, stylish thriller turns into soft-core, slapdash psychodrama.

Just about everything in The Chronicles of Riddick is impenetrable, from the convoluted story to the dark and baroque art direction. It's an inane film rendered sometimes laughable by an atmosphere of dead-serious reverence.

Nora Ephron directed it and had a hand in the screenplay, but without Travolta this film would have no reason for being.

A revenge-fantasy Western that wants to luxuriate in its B-movie roots but suffers from dull direction and an even duller central performance.

The party scenes are entertaining fantasy, but the insider-business end of the picture is occasionally interesting in its own right.

Has a solid story, which keeps things interesting during the quiet moments when nobody is getting kicked in the head.

For all its weaknesses, Terminator Genisys is a "Terminator" movie that feels like a "Terminator" movie, more than did "Terminator 3," not to mention the ghastly "Terminator Salvation."

Incidentally, this is an Ang Lee film, though, beyond the first-rate production values, you wouldn’t know it. Lee seems happy that he has embraced technology, but what’s the point if the technology is in the service of an empty exercise? He has made one movie like this and doesn’t need to make another.

Eragon may not be a big Oscar contender, but in a movie season filled with blood diamonds, fascist soldiers and Idi Amin, it provides a much-needed afternoon of PG-rated family-friendly adventure.

A gangster movie with the capacity to surprise. People do unexpected things and for reasons we wouldn't anticipate.

At least a half monty.

The overall result of this remake is something as safe and dull as oatmeal.

Just too much of a mediocre thing. It didn't have to be that way.