This is a terrible movie. It has no business being as terrible as it is, because it boasts a perfectly acceptable horror premise and a perfectly acceptable cast.

Funny, heart-tugging, intermittently awesome and a loving if ambivalent homage to the heyday of martial arts cinema, writer-director Larry Yang’s film may not blend tones as seamlessly as Chan’s best work from the 1980s and ’90s did. But “Ride On” is moving and thrilling enough to be a worthy capper to the Chan canon.

The truth is, Studio 666 really is just one joke, and so McDonnell had only one play that he could make here — to take that joke, to hit it hard and keep hitting it, and then get out fast, while the audience is still laughing. He doesn’t quite do that. At 106 minutes, Studio 666 overstays its welcome.

Life With Mikey is friendly and funny and ought to renew a lot of lost affection at the movies in coming weeks -- it's solid entertainment with heart and an ever- so-gentle contemporary edge. [4 June 1993, p.C1]

Wolf Man does not fully compel until it becomes ridiculous, employing a wolf-cam perspective that shows what a werewolf sees when he encounters people: glowing-eyed figures who look like AI-hallucinuted Teletubbies.

What makes this film special and memorable is the character of Danny Green, who is not the usual neighborhood hoodlum you see in movies.

A flick so terrifying and brilliant that it makes the two other Chainsaw sequels seem like After-School Specials. [20 May 1995, p.E6]

It's so bleak that it would play like a contrived neo-noir if it weren't so consistent, committed and obviously sincere.

We are aware going in that Varsity Blues' cannot be a landmark of world cinema. Yet working within the tired formula, the picture turns out to be not so bad.

As exciting to watch as any Warren Miller ski film, Billabong Odyssey also has the sensibility of a good PBS documentary.

Hoodlum is an overlong gangster movie, a bloated and often laughable attempt at an epic.

A canny buyer will beware the blandishments of car salesmen, but it's a mystery why Robin Williams bought the inane script for Cadillac Man. [18 May 1990, p.E3]

The real problem with True Story is contained in its title. The story isn’t too good to be true, but rather too true to be good.

A smart farce that would make Hugh Grant and his fans proud.

This is the world of Maze Runner: The Death Cure, the third installment in the “Maze Runner” trilogy, a kind of destitute man’s impoverished cousin’s answer to the “Divergent” series.

Though Carolla and co-filmmaker Kevin Hench devise some funny situations — particularly, the one in which a newly divorced woman insists on coming back to his room — the overall feeling that comes across is one of sadness, and that seems intentional.

The movie's bereftness of invention can be measured by how no story element builds on another. Instead, Happy Feet Two is plotted so that a bunch of disparate things happen, until it's time to end the movie.

Most of Last Christmas consists of watching this young woman stumble and fumble through life, and thanks to Clarke’s effortless ability to engage a viewer’s sympathy, that’s almost enough.

The Shadow is more than just the product of the trend to make high- tech features out of '30s superheroes. It's adventurous film-making, genuinely enthusiastic and genuinely inspired. [01 Jul 1994, p.C1]

Crowe is not messing around here, not trying to dream up opportunities to throw himself another close-up. He’s a genuine director.

Final Destination 5 is irresistible, and the reason it's irresistible is that it speaks to us in the language we all understand, which is fear.

Stylish, playful and buoyed by the chemistry of its returning ensemble, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” sharpens the franchise’s act with a surer hand to present a dazzling heist film that doesn’t treat its audience like a mark, but rewards them for paying attention.

Thankfully, the movie clocks in at a mere 105 minutes. The Marvels doesn’t have much to say, but at least it says it quickly.

The movie is just good enough to make us want more and to understand what's missing.

Suffers most from being overlong.

Young Guns is really a modern action movie in the revenge mode, disguised as a western. But with all its faults, it more or less works. Palance is a great heavy, Estevez makes an off-the-wall hero, and there's usually enough happening on screen to keep you interested. [12 Aug 1988, p.E3]

Because Benavides is a south Texas town, the screenplay touches inevitably on the flow of immigrants at the border - and resentment at their presence. But All She Can puts a new face on this resentment, highlighting the frustration of legal Mexican Americans.

In addition to Bana and Hall, Jim Broadbent is outstanding in a couple of scenes, as a government official, watching from the sidelines and offering warnings and advice. Broadbent is somehow menacing, pathetic and persuasive all at the same time.