The Crush is the latest in the growing ''from hell'' genre, about all the fun things that happen when a ferocious, precocious 14-year-old girl develops an intense crush on the nice-guy journalist who rents a guest house from the girl's parents. Things start innocent. Get worse. Get horrible. Get ridiculous. You know the formula. Working within that formula, The Crush isn't bad.

The movie's not bad enough to be world-ending, merely clumsy.

Another inert, soul-dead action drama that turns actors into zombies...It's garbage.

Sometimes indie pictures like this, with over-the-top acting and outrageous situations, are meant as a calling card for its creators - a chance to show their wares to others in the industry. So calling all producers, there is one tour-de-force performance in Scenic Route: the makeup team of Brian Kinney, Sara Robey and Maia Wagle. Admire their work, and bring earplugs.

As pleasantly earnest as Jim Belushi tries to be, and as pert as Linda Hamilton is as his plucky wife, their new movie Mr. Destiny is so contrived, pokey and predictable that it becomes a test of viewer patience. [12 Oct 1990, p.E5]

The Mummy is the rare Cruise film that doesn’t quite give audiences their money’s worth.

Vacation is consistently funny from beginning to end, a piling on of dumb but inventive jokes and excruciating, awkward situations.

Love Hurts is that rare action movie almost devoid of noticeable computer effects. It’s a hand-to-hand, bone-crunching martial arts movie with tongue firmly in cheek, resembling those Jackie Chan action comedies from the 1980s and ’90s.

In any case, Fatal Affair is one of those lucky efforts in which everything good about it is good and everything bad about it is fun. The cheesiness is part of the experience.

Think of The Bubble as part of a pattern we could have anticipated. Pandemic movies almost can’t be any good at this point. The pandemic won’t be funny, interesting or anything anybody wants to think about until we’re safely beyond it by a few years. So, filmmakers, set your watches for pandemic nostalgia to commence circa 2027, and between now and then, just put it out of your minds.

There's nothing particularly wrong with A Kid in King Arthur's Court and nothing right with it, either. Parents will take their kids to see it and suffer, but the pain is mild.

Visually, Jonah Hex is an orgy of overstatement: rapid edits, garish colors, harsh light.

Efficient action thriller.

Diamonds doesn't shine.

These are good moments, and there are a few others, that prevent Tomb Raider from being one of the worst films of the year. But they're not enough to make it worth seeing.

Raises the bar for movies geared to teens.

Super- violent, super-serious and super-stupid.

There's no satisfaction and no pleasure to be gained by sitting through it. The characters are ludicrous and, worse than that, boring. And this is despite all the lead actors doing the best they can.

Better than a lot of teen comedies.

Yes, the life expectancy of a chipmunk maxes out at 10 years in captivity. So biologically, we must be coming toward the end of this franchise. That’s not the type of thing a critic looks up when filmmakers make more of an effort.

The movie keeps a snappy pace and the suspense pot boiling. The snippy interplay between the two cops adds enjoyable twists of comic chemistry. Constant rain and slick streets, though a cliche, set a moody tone. [07 Oct 1996, p.D2]

There are fun distractions, but it's easy to focus on the flaws.

What this really is is a great deal of screaming and running from room to room, wacky chase scenes, the old bag switcheroo, dim-bulb crooks and zany antics. Everyone is working hard, but as with Sofia Vergara's costumes, there isn't enough material.

Combines the usual dumb ideas with one good one. And not just good, but impressive, in that it makes sense of much of what went before.

Not since "An American Werewolf in London" in 1981 reset the standard for man-to-wolf transformations has anyone tried to get away with special effects as pitiful as the ones in this movie.

The best thing about “Living Boy” is the performance of Cynthia Nixon, who plays Thomas’ emotionally unstable mother.

The jump gimmick sounds as if it might make a cute romantic movie. But If Lucy Fell has so little meat that it plays like a television sitcom that somehow grew into a feature-length movie. It's airy, fluffy and ultimately uninteresting.

While it's possible to have a great time with the movie without having any interest in Kiss, it should be noted that the band does make an appearance.