Just because it's a conscious commentary on other vile, useless, pointless cinematic exercises doesn't make it any less vile, useless and pointless.

Some of that emotion inevitably makes its way into our perception of the film, which elevates it somewhat, but only to the level of mediocrity.

The film is a reasonably entertaining trifle, though it’s overstuffed with battle sequences and peripheral characters that often consume the main story line.

It’s a train wreck, but certainly a watchable one that almost plays like fan fiction.

Pleasing and occasionally very funny movie that maintains a mild but consistent hold on its audience.

It's hard to imagine any movie ever topping this one's depiction of killer tornadoes laying waste to the Midwest.

Rodman can't act, but his outsized personality fits right in. Van Damme, as always, does his job and looks good doing it. As for Rourke, he's taken the first step. Now he just needs to rinse and repeat.

The story has its moments, and yet there is something about this tale of a serial killer's patterning his crimes on Poe's most gruesome works that doesn't completely satisfy.

Mel Brooks has made a movie that's completely free and spontaneous, which at the same time is not in any way lazy or sloppy. [28 July 1993, p.E1]

Girl 6 is glossy, technically proficient and a glib waste of time. Lee and his screenwriter goof around with phone-sex rhetoric ("I wanna service your juicy kielbasa''), but that gets tired quickly.

Get past the comedy and there's something almost weird at the movie's core - a deep cynicism about family and a longing for family, both at the same time.

Best of all is Winona Ryder, who gets to play a brilliant teenager, as she did in ''Heathers.'' It's almost automatically comical to hear such a clear, emphatic and intelligent voice coming out of a kid. But Ryder also works that oddness for dramatic advantage, creating with Dinky the sense of a great spirit temporarily stuck in a child's body. [12 Oct 1990, p.E3]

This dark and seedy follow-up to 2009's blockbuster comedy has a quite a retro message - suggesting that civilized men carry inside them a monster, a "demon" within, that requires constant taming.

The two best things about this logic-challenged, predictable and overlong (110 minutes!) film are The Rock's performance - surely he's one of the more likable people in the movies, and here he handles physical sight gags with aplomb; and the parallel disciplines of football and ballet, which provide a way for father and daughter to understand each other.

While the original was serious, Old Guard 2 is merely forlorn. Its story holds little interest and, to make matters worse, it doesn’t even end. Instead, it stops mid-story, promising a sequel that feels less like a promise than a threat.

Its story is paint-by- numbers...But it's funny, and funny covers a lot of sins.

Dialogue, quirky incidents and a general acceptance that this is the unfortunate way life is make this more than just a genre exercise, though hardly a breathtaking grabber of “Get Out” proportions.

The film is too mannered, too stuffy. Even Malkovich's interesting performance won't let it break free of a formal style and cloyingly creepy tone that becomes precious while trying to be merely claustrophobic.

Perfunctory, thrill- free sequel.

A wildly implausible thriller.

An appealing film with a hideous title.

Astonishing visualizations of the afterlife are coupled with a drawn-out allegory about communication between the living and the dead that becomes something of a trial to sit through.

The film is a fairly happy excuse to give the beloved dinosaur some room to do what he likes best -- sing kid-friendly songs and peddle a twinkly message that imagination and kindness are good things.

Despite a clever script and top-notch cast, whose commitment to doing service in the indie branch of the industry is commendable, Unknown falls apart just when it should be coming together.

To watch Rifkin’s Festival and Allen’s previous film, A Rainy Day in New York (2019), is to wonder whether this is a filmmaker who has ceased to understand the world.

“Batman v Superman” is an insanely long and convoluted action movie, made worse by an air of importance. It’s dispiriting and visually bland.

Bateman comes off well, humanizing his character with a strain of melancholy that’s one of the movie’s genuinely touching elements. Fey is all right, though she falls back on her patented shtick. Driver makes the most of his hipsterish role, nicely playing off the other siblings’ tension.

More important is to be in a silly mood yourself. Without that - without a complete suspension of disbelief - Chandni Chowk to China is a drag to sit through.