Cult-favorite director Victor Salva ("Jeepers Creepers" I & II) is a competent visual storyteller and the film believes in itself so strongly (and with such a straight face) that it's hard not to halfway enjoy it.

Has all the telltale signs of desperate re-editing: mismatched shots, clumsy transitions and a devastating car wreck that occurred either on a dry sunlit day or in the midst of a nighttime downpour, depending on the flashback.

Even as the prosaic script gets lost in the intoxicating fantasy of the bloodless revolution, the hot heartbeat of the music drives the film with pure energy.

But the movie is mostly just bad, and probably the nadir of Pakula's otherwise distinguished career. As played by Kline and Mastrantonio, victim and wife here are just too dumb to be even remotely sympathetic; and the script is so predictable and yet so utterly preposterous every step of the way that it insults the intelligence of even the most undiscerning moviegoer. [16 Oct 1992]

First-time director Fisher Stevens has a flair for dialogue comedy, the film operates nicely off the element of surprise, and the large cast is solid -- especially Marisa Tomei, who in an extended cameo as a merry dominatrix rarely has been more convincing.

A perfectly competent, if undistinguished, action film that smoothes over all the most interesting bumps in the drama.

The supporting cast, peppered with seasoned pros like Levy, Smart, Betty White and a hilarious Joan Plowright, milk underwritten roles with gusto.

A slow-moving, unashamedly weepy, middle-age love story of the kind big-studio Hollywood doesn't often make anymore.

The movie offers several moments in which Williams comes alive, but they're few and far between.

Failing to make a lick of rational sense, Silk grasps at poetic straws.

While too bland and stupid to be offensive, Never Back Down spouts a hollow message of nonviolence while celebrating the brutal satisfaction of beating the crap out of someone.

It is a foul-mouthed British underworld comedy so they may be hoping it will attract the hip audience of films like "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

The only real difference between this and the handful of other Happy Madison flicks is that James (executive producer, co-writer, star) has made this Sandleresque movie family-friendly, with very little swearing, no nudity and all the edginess of a "King of Queens" rerun.

It's a by-the-numbers action affair, and one that is considerably more mean-spirited and humorless than the norm. [4 Aug 1995, p.29]

It's a formula job all the way, filled with pratfalls, flying food, much male incompetence in the face of child-rearing realities, and a cast of violence-prone children on sugar highs who somehow turn into angels by the film's last sappy moments.

The whole enterprise is a colossal waste of everyone's time.

So grim and humorless that the first half almost sinks into silliness.

But the movie's vital signs improve remarkably in the second half, and especially in the last act. The proceedings suddenly pick up some screwball charm, the writing improves (with several truly inspired one-liners tossed in here and there) and the secondary characters begin to click.

Disarmingly funny in its own naive way.

There are cute flourishes, but much of the cleverness is smothered by tired dialogue and doughy animation, which gives the animated characters the personality of mannequins and the look of cheap merchandising knockoffs come to life.

It's an expensive star vehicle that also happens to be a teary, unabashedly sappy, romantic comedy with every element as purely calculated to appeal to a heterosexual woman's romantic fantasies as an episode of "All My Children."

Fat Albert's originality is lost on the big screen.

A collision of medieval fantasy and commando action movie, where you can almost believe in the high-concept mix-and-matching.

The movie is a misfire.

It is shockingly devoid of any shred of originality and imagination. [10 Dec 1993]

Mostly unfabulous.

Efforts to expand the envelope of grotesquery make the film repulsive and suspenseless, and it sorely misses original director Tobe Hooper's grisly, wily sense of humor.

By the time we get to the unsurprising surprise ending, what seemed innovative and challenging in Taking Lives has lost its juice and reverted to formula form, and we leave the theater with that same old let-down feeling of having endured a ritual one more time.

Like too many films of faith, it mixes its message, proclaiming that a life given over to God is a reward unto itself, and then handing over victories to its faithful like some overtime bonus.

The holiday movie season's only epic fantasy adventure, certainly gets no points for originality. It's such a clone of "The Lord of the Rings," it probably could lose a plagiarism suit. There's also a heavy dash of "Harry Potter." All bases are covered.

Universal Pictures has a lot of gall to pick up a movie as thoroughly awful as Empire and -- with a straight face and a $20 million or so ad campaign -- thrust it on the holiday movie market as if it were a significant piece of filmmaking.

Unremarkable sequel to the 1967 hit.

Watching a Bruckheimer with natural comics like Smith and Lawrence makes it all go down easily. If you like this type of movie, that is.

Pretentious mess of a movie.

The reason Balls of Fury works as well as it does, aside from its low aspirations, is because of the charm of Fogler in the lead. Like Jack Black, but not as sarcastic, he brings a winning enthusiasm to the role.

Not as funny as the original, not nearly as funny.

It's really Harris' movie, and he brings to it just the right blend of engaging affability, gruff strength of character and transcendent nobility of spirit to make it a genuinely enriching experience.

The script is tight and well-constructed, director Ernest Dickerson has a feel for film-noir aesthetics, DMX exudes a certain brutish charisma and the movie is as morbidly compelling as a good train wreck.

The Life Before Her Eyes is like one of those puzzles. There is something wrong in each scene, and the viewer zeroes in on the elements that don't fit, wondering if there is a purpose behind them.

If cheesy, feel-good riches-to-reason romantic comedies are yours, this is your fix. It's a harmless indulgence that, like shopping, may make you feel good for the short term, but later you'll need more.

Murphy is remarkably convincing -- even endearing -- as each of the characters.

Within the limitations of the script, both stars shine. Moore displays a wonderful flair for self-deprecating farce, and Brosnan is cumulatively endearing as her unflappable nemesis.

A slick and entertaining package.

The books' magic was rooted in its ties to Arthurian legend and British folklore, grandiose elements which Cunningham and Hodge have stripped.

Tells a light-hearted fictional story and creates a maze of imaginative animation and special effects to illustrate how the heavier thoughts of the science apply to the everyday world.

In the end, this could be the year's most sharply defined love-it-or-hate-it movie.

Unlike original director Rob Cohen, Singleton has no gift for giddy action and his movie is a crashing bore.

Somehow the elements do not add up to by anything especially memorable.

So full of limp slapstick silliness and stock characters that it's hard to stay awake through it.

The movie is just grindingly by-the-numbers: an uninspired brew of all the clichés of the kidnap-thriller genre, liberally seasoned with brutality, stirred at adrenaline-rush speed by a director with a heavy hand and very little imagination.

DeVito definitely has a gift for absurd black humor that kicks in here and there, but Adam Resnick's script is slavishly mean-spirited.

This collision of popular Emmy-winning TV shows is strangely uninspired and, well, a bit dull.

Martin, who hasn't really clicked in a movie in years, hits the target this time with an Inspector Clouseau who is even more relentlessly annoying (and strangely endearing) than Sellers managed to be in his last several outings.

Quaid and Russo outshine the script with their presence and chemistry alone.

The humor is very broad, the occasional attempts at suspense are uniformly unsuccessful, and the script is a by-the-numbers collection of sci-fi movie cliches, right down to the - groan - lonely child who adopts a lovable and misunderstood alien. [27 Apr 1990]

For all the bludgeoning insistence of Kramer's contrived plots and blunt direction, there's not much conviction to the outrage.

Cage is more endearing than usual in his usual philosophical slob routine and Jackson is likeably long-suffering as the Spike Lee of the Theater. They click as a cinematic odd couple. [05 Mar 1993]

Dracula, who, as played by Dominic Purcell, has all the dark charisma and burning threat of a baked potato.

Little Nicky will please Sandler's fans and likely won't win any converts.

A sloppily scripted film that contains a silly and superfluous subplot about a crooked cop.

A series of Grand Guignol skits played for mean-spirited laughs.

Kassovitz directs with an unrelenting intensity that helps you to suspend disbelief almost all the way to the credits.

There is such a joy of play in the film that it's easy to overlook the overdone performances and the lazy script shortcuts.

Dempsey also needs some fashion advice. As always, he sports his trademark five o'clock shadow in every scene (which in itself is excessive). But with Dempsey at age 42, it's beginning to make his face look more sinister than sexy, less Dr. McDreamy, more Richard Nixon.

He's (Affleck) vaguely likable, but he's outshone by his co-stars and never particularly believable in his role.

The underdog story doesn't miss a cliche, even though it never figures out whether it's a boxing picture or a military drama.

The minor pleasures of P2 lie in the simple effectiveness of the sleekly unshowy direction and the clean, unadorned script, which pares away extraneous distractions like motivation and complicated back stories to get on with the mechanics of tension and the obligatory jumps and startles (which stand in for genuine scares).

The film, despite the occasional gross-out joke, can't disguise the fact that it's a sweet old sappy -- even dated -- love story. Only Molly Ringwald is missing.

Doesn't have any of the creepy suspense that graced the first "Friday" movies, and very little of the Daliesque dream imagery of the early "Nightmares." It's just a slam-bang succession of gross-out mutilations, played for giggles.

John Travolta is nothing if not cool as Chili Palmer.

It simply isn't that funny or clever. For a comedy, that's about the worst that could happen

Refreshingly old-fashioned.

Staggeringly awful.

Has to be one of the most absurd of all big-budget action movies, and that's saying something. It's just a blink away from over-the-top self-parody, and I'm pretty sure it's not trying to be.

You'd hope God would think bigger for His divine intervention in American politics.

By most of the ways movies are usually judged, pretty much of a mess. The camerawork is jerky and distracting, the dialogue is cliched and the story makes so little sense that the script seems to have been improvised by the actors as they went along.

It's all too much and too little: a history lesson in institutional racism that falls into character cliches, a human drama that gets lost in melodramatic detours, a war movie put together by a fan rather than a filmmaker.

The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Joel Schumacher, and reflects the worst of their shallow styles: wildly overproduced, inadequately motivated every step of the way and demographically targeted to please every one (and no one).

A good-natured movie.

Director Troy Beyer, who adapted the original screenplay, can't seem to decide if this is a morality play or a music-video fantasy.

It's kind of like "Tootsie," only without the drag. Or the class. Or the laughs.

The finished film, while competently acted and staged, has missed the high mark Spacey set for it. It's self-important, tedious and ultimately pointless, with absolutely none of the sardonic wit that remains the most memorable feature of "American Beauty."

The new production is handsome and offers a few riveting moments, but it's basically a botched job that misses all the impact of both the original movie and the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren that inspired it.

Welcome to the tawdry end of paradise, where no melodrama is too obvious and no conflict too contrived.

Its comedy too often blunders into meaningless slapstick, with bombs and bloodshed replacing pratfalls and pies in the face.

Feels forced every step of the way. Ultimately it's the kind of under-inspired, overblown enterprise that gives Hollywood sequels a bad name.

First-time director Billie Woodruff, a music video veteran, busts his moves in the dance scenes while the movie throbs to the beat of the wall-to-wall soundtrack.

The Last Sin Eater has a specific audience in its sights, one that doesn't mind the film's characters having their problems solved by the healing power of truth and faith.

Most of the publicity for Cold Creek Manor seems to imply that it's an occult thriller, specifically a Stephen King-ish haunted house movie. But no. This is a severe case of mistaken identity: In fact, there's not a supernatural bone in the movie's body.

When, in its eventful final act, Merhige finally reveals what this thing is REALLY all about, it comes not with any blissful storytelling satisfaction but a grinding sense that this strange movie is a structural mess.

This "Moreau" is also a pretty creepy affair - at least through its first two acts. Director John Frankenheimer, who is responsible for some of the most chilling thrillers in American film history ("The Manchurian Candidate," "Seconds") certainly knows a thing or two about building a menacing, suspenseful situation. [23 Aug 1996]

I scratched my head in wonder as to why this pair of one-dimensional characters couldn't find happiness in such a shallow story.

It's the chemistry between the women and the droll scene-stealing wit and wolfish pessimism of Anna Chancellor that makes this "Two Weddings and a Funeral" fun.

Just pretend the acting scenes are commercial breaks, and you'll be fine.

This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.

A movie that plays better if you know nothing about it going in.

The vapid plot line follows the same narrative arc as "Tootsie" but hasn't the heart or purpose of that film.

Unashamedly positive look at the rise of the '60s counterculture.