Ordinarily, one decries the violence in the streets, in life or art - or rationalizes that violence on the screen is a healthy outlet for man's inhumanity to man. But there's no such highfalutin psychology in The Killer. The film is just plain outlandish - and anyone who doesn't get the hyberbole should have a 99-year lease on The Farm for the Bewildered. [16 Aug 1991, p.3F]

With the overlong, limp and lazy Spy, Feig has lost his mojo.

This is the feel-bad film of the year. Recommend it to someone you hate.

It’s preposterous schlock masquerading as art.

The overt sexuality of Madonna's stage show, particularly the lengthy exercise in self-stimulation called Like a Virgin, as well as the sometimes startling bluntness of her talk, keeps the movie from being totally boring. But this kind of trash can only sustain itself for so long - for most of us, about as long as it takes to get through the line at a supermarket. [17 May 1991, p.3F]

This movie is so tone-deaf it would only make sense in Vincent van Gogh’s missing ear.

Tamra Davis, directing her first feature, is so caught up in the sex-and-violence aspects, and bolstering the body count, that she forgets to keep her story at all credible, and lets gunshots take the place of conversation. [19 Feb 1993, p.3G]

Sorry, Keanu, but you stole my time and you murdered my brain cells. By the sacred oath of WHOA, there will be blood, and this time it’s personal.

Cinderella is so scrubbed of personality, it’s not even worth calling a mess.

THE MAN who would trade his fiancee - but just for the weekend! - for a $65,000 gambling debt may be rather sleazy, but it probably wouldn't raise many eyebrows in Las Vegas, where sleaze and the concept of woman-as-object have marched hand-in-hand for many years. ''Honeymoon in Vegas'' continues those precepts, and does so woefully, with dumb writing, ordinary direction and performances by Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker and James Caan that are so awful as to be mind-boggling. [28 Aug 1992, p.3F]

The film is a criminal waste of an ensemble cast that should have found something better to do than lend their names to such a pointless exercise. Free Fire is a misfire.

Ted does not only break before it ends. It snaps back so violently that it very well may knock out of your mind any recollection that the movie is fairly entertaining for about 30 minutes.

Kingsman is like a high-speed collision between a Jaguar and a jaywalking soccer hooligan. It’s ridiculously out of balance, and when you’re stuck in the middle, it doesn’t seem so funny.

Disney’s gimmick of naming movies for its theme-park attractions crashes and burns in Tomorrowland, a here-and-now caper that will confuse children, bore adults and offend anyone who’s ever taken a science class.

The things that made "Wayne's World" work at all - freshness, spontaneity - are missing from this losing sequel. [10 Dec 1993, p.3F]

Slater is monosyllabic and mostly expressionless. When Tomei and Perez speak, they have nothing to say, as contrasted with the rapid-fire lines they had in their earlier films, lines that kept them interested and enthusiastic, so that their performances just glowed. Here, they're as dull as the dishwater in the diner, and so is the entire movie, tragic ending and all. [12 Feb 1993, p.3F]

If you’re a fan of the “Taken” movies and tend to give action-hero Neeson the benefit of the doubt, our advice here is simple: Run away!

One has to wonder why the film was even made if it had to be so disastrously compromised. Chekhov would be appalled.

Reeves seems less blissed out than conked out, as if he had sustained a heavy blow from a loose surfboard. [27 May 1994, p.3H]

So stupid and hateful, it needs to have a stake driven through its heart before it can spawn a franchise.

Here most of the punishment is inflicted on the audience, which gets nailed to a cross of boredom.

A soulless, overblown bore.

The overall feel is less of a cohesive documentary and more of a slapdash scrapbook of facts, historical information and name-dropping.

While the cast includes Luis Guzman (as a buffoonish deputy) and Johnny Knoxville (as a local gun nut), there's no sense that these are real people in a real town, and Schwarzenegger's Sheriff Owens has the weakest backstory of all.

The worst thing about this multifaceted failure is the two-time Oscar winner behind the camera. Where there ought to be a director, there’s nothing but an empty chair.

If the story were only a little better, the characters and situations a little more believable, the very talented Hill could have turned this into a winner. As it is, the direction keeps things taut and rather tense, even as the dialogue sags into nonsense. [25 Dec 1992, p.3H]

A disgrace and a waste of the talents of Oscar winners Keaton, Fonda and Steenburgen and Emmy recipient Bergen. Obviously, the film is intended for an older audience. But is this anemic, feature-length sitcom really the best that Hollywood can do?

Rookie of year strikes out in the laughs department. [09 Jul 1993, p.3D]