Opportunities for comedy are missed by miles. Davidson gets gonzo gags, Palmer is 007 with a heart, Murphy and Longoria try to exist in reality. That halfhearted miasma of genres results in tonal confusion. Murphy throws in what seem like ad libs to spice up a moribund script, but it’s not enough to add flavor to a bland stew.

The film is mildly diverting, occasionally engaging, certifiably workmanlike and altogether too flat an experience to inspire any strong feelings, positive or negative. It’s just there. Some people watch movies for the same reason others climb mountains, because they are there. Well, this is a movie for that audience.

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers represents the first time the author has ever written a story directly for the screen. The result is a nicely paced picture that unfolds gradually, with shocks and surprises throughout. [11 Apr 1992, p. C3]

The real trouble is that it's supposed to be an outrageous comedy, but in fact it's fairly tame and not all that funny.

Emotionally sophisticated, humane and worth talking about for hours.

Amusing enough.

Radio is almost as bad as it gets. That it isn't is thanks to Ed Harris, who brings depth and focus to his performance.

That the film finds its own groove is due largely to the eye of director Ernest Dickerson. Not surprisingly, he began his career as a cinematographer, working on Spike Lee’s early films.

Ouija has something wrong with it from the first five minutes.

Strict plausibility isn’t necessary in these movies, and while No Escape doesn’t completely throw it out the window, it still inspires the occasional unintended giggle.

Inert, incompetent and emotionally fraudulent.

It's a shame that "Confessions" doesn't aim higher because there is a great film to be made about the consumer bait-and-switch that has led so many Americans to live beyond their means.

Often frustrating and at times incomprehensible, the Bourne/Bond clone keeps the pulse racing but ultimately fails to satisfy.

It’s just not very fun or engaging.

A small and not particularly ambitious movie, but it's pleasing and exceptionally well made. It was directed by Stephen Frears, and while it's not up there with his best - "Dangerous Liaisons," "The Queen," "High Fidelity," "Cheri" - Lay the Favorite lavishes the same attention on the personal, on relationships, and, like most Frears films, it puts a woman at the center of the story.

For all the hellfire histrionics and well-timed jump scares, there is actual, admirable intellect behind The Rite.

Frequently hilarious.

Brosnan and Moore display a knack for fast delivery of smart dialogue both in court and in bed. Their verbal sparring is the main attraction of Laws of Attraction and helped me overlook plot holes of massive proportions.

Handsome and sincere but slightly awkward in its combination of entertainment and evangelical boosterism.

Far from the worst cookie-cutter film to come off the Hollywood assembly line, merely the latest.

A mostly entertaining movie with built-in appeal to young audiences. The good news for parents is that it won't put them to sleep.

Aside from being annoying, depressing and repulsive, Chaos Walking has a lot going for it. It’s directed by Doug Liman (“Go”) and takes place in a fully imagined other world. Plus, it stars Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, who are smart and watchable, and the movie does get better as it goes along.

A fall-off in writing is part of the problem, but I think a more important issue is the replacement of Terry Zwigoff (“Crumb”) as director. Zwigoff’s humor is razor-sharp and incisive, qualities missing from Bad Santa 2.

The Collection is bloody, disgusting and ridiculous, but the one thing it's not is horror, not real horror, not in the sense of tense or scary. It's not cinema, either. It's not even fun.

The biggest puzzlement about "What'' is what it's doing in major movie theaters around the country when it so clearly belongs on one of those small cable channels given to peculiar programming.

A strong thriller, slick and sleazy in a summer-movie sort of way, but intelligent too.[22 May 1993, p.C3]

Not half-bad. It's about three- quarters bad, actually, but what's left offers some goof-off fun.

This kind of psychological mystery, with its suggestion of fugue states, needs to work by hints and whispers, but Pali Road has pretty low expectations of its audience. It ought to be light on its feet, but it lumbers.

An inane musical melodrama.

The key to any Amy Schumer comedy is how often she gets to play self-delusion, embarrassment, fear and rage. As long as the emotions, terrors and humiliations are big, she’s funny, and her latest, “Kinda Pregnant,” gives her lots of opportunities to be funny.

In execution, the film is all sidekicks and sight gags, with little story cohesion or purpose.

A strange movie, in that it has the atmosphere of a comedy and some extreme characters set up to be comical, but there are really no funny scenes.

The appeal of A Rainy Day in New York, to the extent it has any, is nostalgia.

Way too serious for its own good. The best vampire movies are some combination of sexy, scary or campy. This one is 100 percent earnest, and the hazy mysteries taken from Rachel Klein's book aren't strong enough to keep the audience engaged.

It's scary. It's well-acted. It's filmed with a degree of flash and elegance.

The result? Well, as expected, director John Singleton ("Boyz N the Hood") did not make a movie as good as "FF1." This is way better.

Spiffy-looking, well-intentioned but ultimately witless film.

It's a perfect fit for Williams -- a hunk of slapstick, a dose of schmaltz -- and yet he can't save the film, which is overproduced, mechanical and resoundingly unfunny.

About the only time the film emerges from its stupor is when Lewis bares his fangs and shows us that Max has a bilious, acerbic side.

A little too corny to endorse fully, but no one should be discouraged from seeing it.

A lamebrained guts-and-glory fiction. [20 July 1990, p.E1]

A sour romantic comedy that arrives in theaters just in time to spoil Valentine's Day. Its plot is a catalog of unpleasantness. Its characters are repellent.

Scrooged doesn't pack the wallop of "A Christmas Carol" - you won't cry or walk out resolving to become a better person - but it's a funny and imaginative high-class effort. Best of all, it stars Bill Murray, who has only to raise an eyebrow to get laughs. [23 Nov 1988, p.E1]

America: The Motion Picture isn’t really a failure, because it doesn’t even try.

The best of Jackie Chan's American movies, a pleasant little action comedy that makes one wonder how other filmmakers could ever get it wrong.

The exception is Willis as Spike. He's got more energy than the rest of the cast combined.

There are times when watching this film is like a near-death experience.

The spectacle is nothing short of refreshing.

Don't even try to make any sense of this --none of it elicits a moment of genuine concern.

A graceless, embarrassing effort.

A turkey.

The film’s broad performances, undemanding humor and not-too-frightening horror are all designed to appeal to kids (and older fans of the “Haunted House” series). Adults are advised to enjoy the living Spirit Halloween aesthetic of it all, and remember that you love your children while enduring the rest of this hollow experience.

Third Person is Paul Haggis' best movie, and the one he has been building toward for years.

The thriller is populated by the usual dimwits who stumble into horrific situations and don't have the good sense to leave, and it tries to pass off some of the sorriest excuses for zombies ever seen.

A mess.

The problem comes down to this: If you take the spirituality out of Ben-Hur, you take the Ben-Hur out of Ben-Hur.

Once the believability drops, the seams start to show, whether it’s some extras who seem aware of the camera, bad edits, comic-timing misfires or songs written for Thorne that aren’t quite as good as everyone onscreen says they are.

The ultimate failure of Jurassic World: Dominion is not only that it relies too much on action, but that the action is lousy.

Adams, a six-time Oscar nominee, is likely headed to a seventh for an admittedly showy but nuanced turn that manages to bring Bev’s humanity bubbling to the surface even as her ugly side dominates — as Thoreau might say, a life of not-so-quiet desperation. Close is terrific as usual.

But there's just enough comforting familiarity mixed with refreshing new characters to hold the casserole of a plot together.

For some, this sort of thinking is a much-needed revolution in human consciousness. For others, it's little more than New Age platitudes and questionable science.

At the heart of The Return is a murder that even the most bumbling homicide investigator could have solved in about 12 seconds.

As entertaining an action movie as you're going to find. [13 Apr 1991, p.C3]

Hollywood hit-making at its efficient, formulaic worst.

Adam Sandler finally has a good excuse: The devil made him do it.

Funnier than the original.

Tolerable for undiscriminating horror fans but should be shunned by everybody else.

Sharkboy relies almost entirely on 3-D for its kicks. The novelty, however, quickly wears thin with the thinnest of stories to project.

Trying to be provocative with a capital "P," Anne Fontaine's Adore undermines itself by provoking unintended laughs.

In the end - and every story needs one - The Words is a decent, ambitious, unoriginal film about a decent, ambitious, unoriginal writer. Both aim for greatness. Both fall short.

This is a story that should have been, at the absolute most, 20 minutes long.

The “Paranormal Activity” films, to their credit, build slowly, backloading the chills in the second half. That means, to get through that first hour, the characters have to be interesting, but these self-absorbed Gen Z wannabe filmmakers are anything but.

One of the smartest action thrillers to come along in the past few years. It's also one of the freshest.

The film's basic material, that is the history, is not without interest. And it must be admitted that every so often - for about 10 seconds every 10 minutes - we get a hint of the movie they wanted to make and hoped they were making: One about the thrill of early aviation and the promise of a young century.

The only surprise is that there are no surprises.

What we have in this film is a whole lot of nothing, and the little that's there is irritating.

While Showgirls was funny the whole way through, Striptease has long, dreary stretches, where you're forced to watch Demi Moore undressing.

Trespass never advances beyond being a grand manipulation.

A remarkable treat. It contains information about the writer heretofore unknown, and though it’s a dramatic feature and not a documentary, it claims to tell the truth, without embellishment. Even better, it was written by someone who saw the events depicted firsthand.

The ridiculous complications might have worked if there had been an awareness of how absurd they are.

A formulaic, predictable and yet reasonably likable picture.

Standard-issue slasher pic.

Baywatch should have been a lot more fun.

An over-the-top, rollicking, candy-colored raunchfest.

So desperate and silly that here and there, it's a lot of fun.

Chan, though, is very good in an all-dramatic role as a rebel general. There's lots of battle scenes, well-filmed, but only one martial arts scene. It seems out of place, but is most welcome nonetheless.

Nia Vardalos has such a warm, alert energy that’s impossible to hate My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, even as it’s impossible to like it, even a little.

Considering what the filmmakers had to work with, and the fact that it has all been done before, Freddy Vs. Jason isn't bad. And sometimes not bad is almost good.

It's instantly forgettable, but smooth fun most of the way.

Gimme Shelter is an attempt at something grand, and though it doesn't get halfway there, it covers some ground.

It looks like an exploding art project - but fails to capture the books' childlike voice and charm.

The film does thoroughly succeed in one important regard: offering a coherent, viewer-friendly account of the life of Jesus Christ.

Serenity is not just awful. It’s amazingly awful, which means that very few people will want to see it, but some probably will. People who can enjoy laughing at something made in dead earnest, who can appreciate, in a perverse way, a phenomenal, jaw-dropping mess, may find an experience close to pleasure in this strange, misbegotten, three-headed freak of a movie.

There are all kinds of bad movies in the world, but it's really only stardom that can create the exact variety of cinematic abortion we find in The Tourist.

The no-sweat clunkiness of the detective plot becomes kind of charming.

This sometimes funny but ultimately convoluted movie would have benefited enormously from letting Lawrence loose.

Your heart will go out to Shlain, who clearly adored her father. But other parts of Connected may remind you of an Al Gore lecture.

The movie’s overall aura of cheapness, the cast of unknowns and the half-baked theology all call to mind the low-budget horror of the 1980s.