This dead-on-arrival ’toon is some of the worst p.r. for rodents since bubonic plague hit medieval Europe.

The so-so film isn't nearly as good as any of the movies that may have inspired it, or even its own knockout trailer.

When Child's Play 2 isn't dwelling on some atrocity being performed on a character nobody cares about anyway, it commits the ultimate horror genre transgression: It's really, really boring. [12 Nov 1990, p.3D]

It flows, but it never gets tense, and the climax just sort of passes unnoticed. The movie reaches too hard to push messages about human nature that are really right on the surface. Complicating things is the casting of Brando and Kilmer, who as usual, are not in the same movie as the rest of the cast. [23 Aug 1996, p.3E]

Like its predecessor, this film is noisy, fast and unrelenting — not one you watch so much as allow to lightly steamroll your senses. At least that’s a fairly swift and amusing enough process.

Cutthroat Island ranks up there with other ill-advised movies such as The Scarlet Letter and Waterworld. At least the Harlin-Davis opus is meant to be fun. [22 Dec 1995, p.12D]

It's hard to hate a movie that escorts us to such lovely locales, but instead of marking the territory as her own, Madonna has directed a potentially provocative story like a virgin.

FIVE WRITERS. Count 'em, five. Five men (I mourn for my gender) employed as writers of a screenplay. Five human minds. Five human imaginations. And the result is Turner and Hooch. Never have so many worked together to create so little. [1 Aug 1989, p.3D]

This summer's first really bad major movie has finally arrived, and it's time to celebrate. There's been a lot of mediocrity, but until Color of Night there'd been nothing deeply rotten on the grand scale of "Last Action Hero" or "Hudson Hawk." [19 Aug 1994, p.9F]

The comedy is so lame that the whole enterprise comes across as depressing.

With such a thin excuse for a leading man, Arthur is a dud.

EVERY TIME Loverboy veers toward the predictable or the situationally comedic, it rights itself. The film merits much more than a passing sigh as yet another flick for the teen audience. [2 May 1989, p.4D]

Moves along quite entertainingly for a while and then begins to get swallowed up by its own high (and high-tech) concepts. By the end, what had been a rather amusing, zany chase comedy starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn has turned into a bizarre and totally ridiculous free-for-all in a zoo, with crocodiles slithering and tigers roaring and piranhas chewing up people. [18 May 1990, p.3F]

Prince is a puzzle. Unfortunately, in Graffiti Bridge, he isn't a very interesting one. The main problem may be that most of the music in this sequel to Prince's 1984 musical Purple Rain is mediocre, mainly derived from rap and funk but without the energy those forms generate when they are presented raw. [06 Nov 1990, p.4D]

Yet notwithstanding its derivative dolefulness and PG-13 timidity, The Art of Getting By is smart and sweet enough to become the favorite film of some Midwestern adolescent who wrongly believes he's already seen the dark side.

Oyelowo and Mara achieve terrific chemistry. Perhaps they’ll work together again — in a better film.

Working from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs, director Joe Wright seems overwhelmed by the material, and he fails to make us care about any of the characters.

It is one thing to hit an audience over the head with a message, but Belly puts it in a big steel drum and drops it on you from a fourth-floor window. [04 Nov 1998, p.E3]

John Avildsen directs from Robert Mark Kamen's elementary script with the simple understanding of the ancient battle between good and evil where the victor is never doubted - for long. [03 July 1989, p.3D]

Based on an acclaimed novel by Ron Rash, Serena is like a towering tale that’s been fed into a woodchipper.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a terrible movie. For the first 20 minutes or so, it is so far over the top in its pseudo-mythic urban cowboy way that it is at least entertainingly terrible. [23 Aug 1991, p.3F]

TAKEN AS a Hollywood remake of Japanese movies based on Westerns, Road House assumes a certain style that makes the film not half bad. Of course, that leaves it still not half good. Without provenance, the film becomes just a way to provide work for the man who produces the sound of fist hitting flesh. Given its lineage, however, Road House makes sense. Everything is here but the dog at the end of "Yojimbo" walking out of town with a bloody arm gripped in its canines. [19 May 1989, p.3E]

If this movie wanders into your neighborhood, the only watch that will hold your attention is the timepiece on your wrist.

It's a pleasure to watch Ryan resurrect her trademark persona, a mix of perkiness and pique, as she flounces around the room. But it's shaded with a middle-age desperation that's half real and half chick-flick shtick.

The cheap, indifferent, teen-alien thriller I Am Number Four delivers none of the spectacle of a competent sci-fi film, none of the emotion of an effective teen romance and none of the giggles of a kitsch fiasco.

Doesn't break any new ground, but it is a decent way to spend a girls' night out.

Disney serves up a warmed-over tale that was never one of its best to begin with and mistakenly tries to substitute teen-angst-ridden Christina Ricci for the totally adorable Hayley Mills. It's a serious mistake. [14 Feb 1997, p.03E]

All in all, it's better than your average boy-meets-girl techno-thriller - but only just. [30 May 1995, p.5D]