You can't fool me. I know it's actually a parlor game.

It's no great shakes as a film, but its combination of mild comedy, slapstick, pathos, many photogenic canines and a positive message will make it irresistible to families.

It's one thing for a romantic comedy to be predictable - they all end at the same destination, after all. But it's quite another thing to be predictable at every twist and turn of the story.

Has a made-for-television style.

With convincing in-your-face footage, The Program is certain to be a crowd pleaser for fans who like their football action raw. Some of the roughest action is off the field. [25 Sept 1993, p.E1]

At heart, ridiculous -- ludicrous in its conception and silly in its spectacle.

A pedestrian film that provides little more than a superficial treat.

That the movie becomes silly isn't necessarily a problem, but it also becomes tiresome, degenerating into a series of martial arts interludes -- everyone unaccountably leaves his guns at home.

Cloying mix of screwball comedy and drama.

Yet another 'Stallion'? Talk about beating a dead horse.

Grading on the Tyler Perry curve, though, “The Six Triple Eight” respects its noteworthy topic — and its audience — as much as it possibly could.

A lovely though stubbornly shallow romp in nostalgia mixed with contemporary adult angst. [23 Apr 1993, p.C7]

An intriguing portrait of an insular community, but its recounting of the seduction of a bright young man by the surrounding culture is heavy-handed.

Why is Breakfast With Scot in theaters instead of set for broadcast on the Lifetime, Hallmark or ABC Family channels?

Sister Act is lifted above its formula by a strong ensemble cast. It's not just a matter of Goldberg and Smith, who are excellent. Kathy Najimy all but steals the picture as the bubbly, cheerful Sister Mary Patrick, and veteran Mary Wickes does a nice turn as Sister Mary Lazarus, a tough nun from an earlier era. [29 May 1991, p.D1]

Killers is the most gorgeous-looking torture porn film I have ever seen — and has a couple of tremendous action sequences. But it is also thoroughly disgusting.

Of course, the real problem here isn’t that Ritchie isn’t Noel Coward, but that he’s not clever or funny in his own right. The Gentleman isn’t offensive, and it’s not even good enough to qualify as coarse. If it weren’t mildly annoying, it would be as close to nothing as an experience can be.

Visually, the film is a stunner, dotted with psychedelic colors and many shades of red -- one battle is fought with red laser-gun sights -- some looking realistically like blood. When gangsters open fire, their falls are choreographed like a ballet. The problem comes when the cast opens its mouth and Elizabethan dialogue tumbles out.

Fails to engage.

Begins like a penetrating exploration of love, grief and suffering and ends looking like a highbrow version of "Bride of Chucky."

Targeted as Valentine’s Day comfort cinema, the new Paramount+ movie At Midnight is as sappy and predictable as it sounds, with walks along the beach, romantic getaways, candy-colored scenery and, of course, the inevitable mix-ups, misunderstandings and silly arguments that are requirements of the rom-com genre.

A road trip into the heart of that bumpiest of territories, the adolescent id.

The film Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away highlights both the strains of the franchise and the willingness to promote the brand at any cost - including a coherent narrative. It's a big promo reel, and not a carefully disguised one.

The Call might not be a classic for the ages, but for a Friday night? For a movie to take people out of themselves? And to make them marvel at the viewing experience that just happened to them? This one is hard to beat.

The film captures the harshness and the sweetness of our time.

If “The Jungle Book” is like taking a trip to Disneyland, then “Mowgli” is a hike straight into unknown woods with nothing but some duct tape and a Bowie knife.

Comedy is getting more and more nasty and more and more funny. But it’s hard to imagine any movie more nasty-funny than Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

Mexican filmmaker Antonio Serrano applies the fantasy device so haphazardly as to render it irritating instead of surprising.