With such a strong cast, the film has the right ingredients but it doesn’t quite make a perfect meal.

Taking Care of Business gives little but doesn't take much away, either. It's not a film where you fret about whether everything is going to work out, and you know all the dangling strings are going to be tied in fancy bows by the end. [22 Aug 1990, p.5E]

If you’re looking for a film that’s just about guaranteed to make you feel good, you’d be well advised to drop by Daddy’s Home.

Austenland is as frustrating as a blind date with Almost Mr. Right. It’s impossible not to fixate on how close this was to being a lot of fun.

THIS may be movie-watching at its least painful. The characters are likable but flat, the script is snappy but shallow, the story is cute, the scenery pretty and the stars fetching. No brain food here. [1 Oct 1993, p.8EV]

One small step for action movies, one giant leap into the abyss of mindlessness.

CRAZY PEOPLE is a one-joke movie. It's a pretty good joke: Slightly unbalanced people write ads that tell the absolute truth about products, and the products sell like crazy. But it isn't good enough to make us care for long about a mental-institution romance between Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah that has the feel of ''David and Lisa: The Sit-Com.'' [13 Apr 1990, p.3F]

An airy comedy that will stimulate the boomers' nostalgic feelings and deliver a few good laughs for the kids who can't reminisce. [22 Aug 1997, p.06E]

Sure, the movie causes a few jumps. But they are the cinematic equivalent of having someone jump out from behind a door and yell boo. [23 July 1999, p.E1]

A blast, the best action movie of the summer.

During a summer with the usual transforming robots and young wizards, this chilly flick is a bit of a break, and there are worse options than letting this Orphan in the door.

I liked the first film. I found it imaginative, and I thought Paul Verhoeven's direction was fascinating. Robocop 2 is just another sequel. [22 June 1990, p.3F]

Hits most of the markers of a flashback film but not enough of the beats.

This movie comes from Disney and director Steven Brill, who brought you The Mighty Ducks. But Heavyweights has neither the action nor the emotional wallop of Ducks, though Ben Stiller tries so hard he's scary. [22 Feb 1995, p.5F]

Blank Check, which was written by Blake Snyder and Colby Carr, directed by Rupert Wainwright and filmed with grace and style by cinematographer Bill Pope, is definitely a guilty pleasure, but more the latter than the former.

Suburbicon is a flawed attempt at dark comedy, but it’s hardly the disaster that critical buzz would have you believe.

Anyone old enough to have read Jules Verne or seen the way his work was successfully adapted in the past will suffer worse than the kids in the audience who just came to laugh.

It's simply an opportunity to spend time with characters who may lack depth but are fun to watch.

War of the Buttons is handsomely crafted and it's touting tolerance, but as long as we open the gates to the Trojan horse of historical simplification, there's a danger that Hollywood could attack us with "The Goonies Go to the Gulag." Be vigilant!

While the film does feel cobbled together out of spare parts of other superhero movies, and it’s almost instantly forgettable, Collet-Serra manages to hold it all together out of sheer force of will and an inherent sense of style. If there’s any superhero to write about with Black Adam, it’s him, and it’s a good thing to see he still has some lightning coming out of his fingers.

As long as Hollywood keeps hitting us over the head with empty spectacles like G.I. Joe: Retaliation, regular Joes will be too numb to fight back.

When a celebrity chef like Rodriguez is just going through the motions, we can smell that the grindhouse fad is way past its expiration date. It's time to put a fork in it.

Proficient director Peter Berg ("Hancock") keeps the noise so deafening we can't think about how preposterous it all is.

Eastwood also directed, in a plodding, heavy-handed style that leaves little to the imagination and less to the sense of humor. Every scene is as predictable as the chase that precedes or follows it. [07 Dec 1990, p.3F]

Good but not-good-enough schlocker.

Dare we say it? Even the acting is atrocious, with pop-eyed Pacino chewing the scenery like a geezer gumming his oatmeal.

Kevin Hart hits the vicinity of humor with a few of his drive-by wisecracks, but the movie itself has nothing under the hood.

The excellent animation makes up for a so-so plot, but it really doesn't matter. "The Squeakquel" is for kids.

To stand out in a crowded marketplace, a sequel can’t just kick ass — it has to blow minds.

Whaley has some ingenuous charm, and Connelly may have some skills, too. The script gives neither much opportunity. [2 Apr 1991, p.4D]

By the time the movie's ugly conclusion is reached, we are so numbed by the mindless degradation of it all that we couldn't care less who wins. We know we didn't. [01 Aug 1997, p.03E]

The film eventually runs out of rocket fuel, piling on the special effects but arriving at a disappointing conclusion.

The comedy waffles between nonsensically heightened and realistically grounded, often alternating between the two modes at random, never landing on a tone.

This is an extremely gory flick, with autopsy scenes to complement Schwarzenegger’s usual shoot-first sensibilities. After 30 years, it’s pointless to complain about the collateral damage in his movies, but here Schwarzenegger is taking vigilante justice to dark new levels that can only be reached via plot holes big enough for a Hummer.

Despite a solid cast and a few interesting visual moments, Surviving the Game is just a routine action picture. [21 Apr 1994, p.5G]

Despite its intriguing premise, the film amounts to little more than tedious, clichéd melodramatics.

This film fails, and for several reasons - not the least being that movies about bickering police partners who fight crime with snappy wisecracks and serious weaponry just might be the most overused plot of the last 15 years. [12 April 1995, p.3E]

In a small role as a self-absorbed film producer, Mark Wahlberg is touchingly effective.

It's supposed to be sweet, but Hop is a headache waiting to happen.

Shakespeare’s play evokes the poetry of undying love, but this Romeo and Juliet is prosaic.

If being seated at Table 19 is a drag, watching the film of the same name is worse.

IF SINCERITY were the basis on which movies were judged, The Power of One would be a great one. But real movies, like real life, have to provide satisfaction over a wider range, and this long, dry, coming-of-age tale about South Africa falls short. [29 March 1992, p.12C]

FLETCH LIVES is significantly funnier than the original ''Fletch,'' probably because it takes itself just a a little bit more seriously...While there are one-liners aplenty, there also is at least the hint of a real mystery. And this time, Chevy Chase seems to have broken loose from the Burt Reynolds syndrome, which involves trying to get laughs with a bad line by making a funny face. [22 March 1989, p.4F]

Act of Valor is a competently directed action movie, but forcing the audience to wear such narrow goggles is a dereliction of duty.

Further proof that likable actors have to take an occasional sick day.

Strick and Joanou have made this one so convoluted that interest falters, and the lack of a truly sympathetic character doesn't help. [7 Feb 1992, p.3F]

Loud, incoherent and unfunny, Here Comes the Boom is the sound of American culture imploding.

Director Graeme Clifford keeps the action going lickity-split and created a film worth a quick look. [17 Jan 1989, p.5D]

Suicide Squad had the potential to be as hilariously irreverent as “Deadpool,” a surprise box-office hit about a similarly sociopathic hero. Instead, it’s just another film that relies on special effects to distract the audience from a story that’s overblown and underwhelming.

It’s an odd viewing experience, to have the second half of a movie not necessarily redeem the bland first half but rather find its sea legs, leaning into the slippery silliness of a summer shark flick. With a blue drink in hand and movie theater air conditioning blasting like salty sea air, there are worse ways to spend an August afternoon.

If The Virginity Hit had been filmed as a straightforward sex comedy, it could've been a riot.

a horrific misstep in the branding of Robert Pattinson. The erstwhile teen vampire, who daringly portrayed gay surrealist Salvador Dalí in last year's "Little Ashes," lurches backward into a pile of romantic rubbish.

Working from a lackluster screenplay by a squad of writers, director Taylor Hackford (“Ray”) delivers a film so low in energy that it’s almost as if it was made to assist airline passengers in falling asleep.

This documentary reconstructing the life of the ultimate cult author is like a three-act thriller, and the character at the center of the story is a mute man of mystery. Salinger would have recognized the irony, even as he hated the film for invading his privacy.

Obviously this movie is too dense for most kids under the age of about 8 to follow. Even if you're over 8, way over, the plot still seems overly complicated. [23 Mar 1993, p.3D]

A so-so comedy that slows down considerably after the first half-hour and tries to hide its dull stretches by giving us lingering shots of the cute kid. [30 Jan 1989, p.6D]

Young children will be entertained, but for the rest of the audience, pretty colors just aren’t enough.

The setting and offbeat tone may remind some viewers of another recent comedy, but whereas “The Descendants” was a substantive meal, Aloha is a pu pu platter.

Toys may be beautiful to look at, but it's hard to love. [18 Dec 1992, p.1G]

Channing Tatum is a lot of things, but he’s not a stoic Superman like the role he plays here, which is made more laughable by prosthetic pointy ears.

As in the mindless Man on a Ledge, the hero is never really in danger, we're the ones who are trapped.

An odd mix of special effects, cartoonish adventure and father-son bonding isn't very funny or poignant. [20 Dec 1998, p.C9]

The suspense trickles out of A Kiss Before Dying in the first 10 or 15 minutes, and the movie just lies there until the final 10 or 15 minutes. Writer-director James Dearden tries to inject life into the long, slow middle with blood, breasts and buttocks, but we never sense that any of these attributes belongs to actual breathing human beings. [26 Apr 1991, p.5F]

The clichéd script doesn't develop the secondary characters or the critical theme of the mutants' alienation.

This toothless attempt is just dead on arrival.

Viewers who don’t want to visit Ponyville should just skip to the next town.

The spectacular collapse of Green Lantern is bound to be blamed on Reynolds, but the villainy has its origins in an injustice league of TV-trained screenwriters and tin-hearted studio suits.

I still think it's a funny movie, but given its genes, it's a bit of a slacker.

Offers about as much flava as a Dr. Pepper commercial and about as much drama as a “Sesame Street” rerun.

An Innocent Man is a fairly effective melodramatic thriller, and the prison scenes are powerful. [06 Oct 1989, p.3E]

WE ALL know we have to suspend disbelief when we go to the movies, but never has an audience been asked to suspend as much as it has been by director Alan J. Pakula in Consenting Adults, a dumb, unconvincing tale that features some of the poorest performances in history. [20 Oct 1992, p.9D]

In the new Clash of the Titans, the effects are computerized, the hero is questionable and, instead of an owl, we get a turkey.

Seth Rogen is the Green Hornet. What else do you need to know?

THE BODYGUARDS for the people who made The Bodyguard should be fired - because they should have thrown their clients to the ground and held them there until their desire to make this movie went away. [30 Nov 1992, p.3D]

The best excuse for watching The Gunman is Penn. His first mainstream leading role in a decade is worthy of comparisons to Matt Damon in the “Bourne” movies; yet it’s also disappointingly shorn of the humor and humanity of which this great actor is capable.

It's almost offensive that Danny Glover is relegated to playing the mysterious old confidante who haunts the same fishing hole as Cal. By the time Glover's character delivers the homily, Legendary is pinned to the mat.

Even though this is essentially a one-joke movie, director David Ward has turned it into more. When Dodge's rustbucket is pitted against a sleek nuclear-powered sub under Graham's command, it brings out the best in Dodge's motley crew and in the commanding officer himself. The story doesn't dive as deep as the sub but under Ward's direction, we like the Stingray's odd assortment of inhabitants and wind up rooting for them. [01 Mar 1996, p.5E]

McCarthy and first-time director Falcone must have assumed that tossing a drunk and a dunce into a Cadillac would negate the need for a motive or even a script.

The franchise has sadly devolved into a cynical cash grab.

Despite the oddly literate title, Vincent Wants to Sea never deviates from the predictable bonding-through-misadventure script, and it has little to teach us about the nature and treatment of the traveler's respective maladies.

The best indicator of whether you’ll like the film version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul is whether you think flying vomit is funny.

This movie, which was made by an animation studio in Spain, isn't trying to make a social statement; it speaks in the international language of lightweight comedy.

Director Rick Famuyiwa did much better when focusing just on African-American culture in films such as "Brown Sugar" and "The Wood." Here, in bringing together two cultures, he does neither any favors.

On that vicarious-pleasure level, the movie version delivers. Yet for anyone with a sense of irony or social justice, it’s also frustratingly soft around the edges, with no real sense of the drugs-and-violence underside of show business or the spiritual cost of failure.

This mash-up movie is like a greatest-hits collection for obsessive collectors. On its own terms, Terminator Genisys makes virtually no sense.

Directed by Stiles White, whose credits lean more heavily in the special-effect arenas, Ouija is bland, safe horror for those who like their scares nonexistent.

Although The November Man shows us some attractive people in motion, the cumulative effect leaves us neither shaken nor stirred.

That's right - this is an exorcism movie that those who actually saw "The Exorcist" in theaters can get into.

In this year's stupid sexy screamer, Sliver, [Stone] tries to reveal some of her character's mind. But there's nothing in there but cotton candy and foggy images from old soap operas. [23 May 1993, p.12C]

Every character from the original is here, navigating the dating jungle, but this time there’s no pushing of Steve Harvey’s book.

Like its main character, I Don't Know How She Does It tries to do everything, but it doesn't quite succeed.

If cranking out this kind of mediocre, head-scratching blarney is the only option available to Hollywood veterans like Reiner, we have some friendly advice: Open a haberdashery.

To me, an ordinary - but often exciting - adventure tale became a sordid look at American society and the American military, with a sickening defense of the-end-justifies-the-means philosophy. [20 July 1990, p.3F]

I can't imagine a true ''Rocky & Bullwinkle'' devotee who won't enjoy ''Boris and Natasha.'' [17 Apr 1992, p.9F]

Third Person doesn’t lack for ambition, and it’s nice to see Neeson in the kind of role that he excelled at before he morphed into an action star.

There’s a good movie to be made about the alienating effects of modern technology. In 2013, a little-seen indie called “Disconnect,” starring Jason Bateman, came closer than this well-intentioned failure, which has virtually no heart, humor, sense of place or central point of view. In trying to be a big, important movie, Men, Women & Children is about none of the above.

The dialogue is ridiculous, the plot is silly, and the acting is cartoonish. But I'll hand this to Italian horror director Lucio Fulci: He knows how to put on a show for those dead set on seeing a violent, gory, bloody, zombie-infested midnight-flick type of a movie. [03 Jul 1998, p.E3]

Don't let anyone off the hook. That's a basic rule of good satire, and on the whole Amos & Andrew follows it. The result is a generally amusing, occasionally hilarious send-up of racial posturing in America. [05 Mar 1993, p.3G]