It's very slick and small children will enjoy it, but it has little of its model's special magic.

The film lacks the nerve for any genuinely nasty fun or comic bite.

The results are moderately entertaining, but the humor is broad and shallow; the film has none of the irony, bite or wit of its predecessor; and the script (by Glenn Gers) seems so calculated to appeal to every conceivable female demographic that it always feels contrived.

After its midway mark, just lumbers until it fizzles out.

Its one saving grace is Godzilla himself, the James Bond of giant monsters.

Producer Barker (who is only credited with the story idea for the original), director Bill Condon (filling in for the original's Bernard Rose) and his writers have crammed this movie so full of killings and razzle-dazzle MTV imagery that it has very little of what made the first Candyman so effective: genuine suspense. [17 Mar 1995]

The story -- something to do with an ancient evil returning after 3,000 years -- plays like a multi-episode story arc of the TV series.

It's mostly forced and predictable, too much of the physical comedy falls very flat.

More than painful to behold, it's simply insincere in a film determined to undermine gay stereotypes.

Purely an easy-to-digest testosterone flick anyway, with standard bikini babes, roaring engines and bikers who circle each other slowly in the dust before they rumble.

Splashy and sweetly romantic, if hopelessly unimaginative.

Certainly, it's mediocre, but no more so than half the comedies that are wildly promoted by their studios these days.

As a goofy little fantasy, however, this film has loads of charm.

As has been the case with most of Shepard's plays, transfer to the movies spells doom.

Everything in Agent Cody Banks, from tacky special effects, inscrutable action scenes and drab visuals (including substituting Vancouver for Seattle), panders to its audience.

Many regular moviegoers will be appalled by its gleeful crudity and saddened by the spectacle of three icon stars mugging through a farce that's not that many notches above "Jackass: The Movie."

This shambling mess -- offers nothing but a lesson in how not to make a movie.

Yet for a film so affectingly steeped in loss, resignation and the ghosts of memory, the revelation that pulls it all together, while satisfying and even touching, lacks emotional resonance.

This thing is a mess.

The soundtrack is a mess, with period music out of sync with the period, as when the 1967 song, "White Rabbit," underscores a 1965 acid trip.

The casting is so strong and the overall filmmaking flair of the movie is so captivating that it basically works.

The restless, selfish, unfriendly people created by Lachow as protagonists only make the movie hard to warm up to. It's more akin to fingernails scraping a blackboard than an updated morality play.

Falls disastrously flat.

The cumulative effect of the movie is repulsive and depressing.

Loaded down with credibility problems.

Writer/director Wayne Kramer's approach to storytelling is to withhold any information that might give away the plot.

The few genuine moments of connection -- are as refreshing as they are out of place. They only highlight how false and affected the rest of the film is.

Neither clever nor heartwarming, Four Christmases is the coal in the stocking of holiday movies.