The film, "suggested by" John Irving's novel "A Prayer for Owen Meany," is so unabashedly manipulative -- and implausible -- that even while crying, many viewers may also feel abused.

The film is often funny and even more frequently vulgar, exploiting every last chance for raunch in the full-chassis exchange of two grown men. The only thing missing: male nudity.

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.