Here, the scattershot spoofery never rings true.

After watching Post Grad, you may wonder whether Hollywood will ever stop making generic comedies with zero tolerance for originality.

Suffering through this felonious farce could only inspire a prison riot.

The screenplay, by Jim Harrison and Jeffrey Fiskin, from Harrison's novella, might have made a good B movie, but Scott refused to let that happen. He was out to make another A movie, and made an F movie that also is excessively and unnecessarily violent. [19 Feb 1990, p.5D]

Once Upon a Crime could have been a boisterous slapstick comedy, but writing and direction reduce it to the status of the very ordinary. [12 March 1992, p.3E]

It does induce a few giggles like cheap champagne.

Ultimately it's sunk by the hole in the middle: Paul Campbell (presidential aide Billy on "Battlestar Galactica") who substitutes smarm for charm as the archetypal player who gets played.

Here, Dan Aykroyd mimics the original voice, but the three-dimensional CGI isn't loose and lively enough to compensate for the unimaginative story.

The baby sitter isn't the only thing dead in this movie - the plot also suffered a massive coronary while being scripted. In fact, the only life breathed into Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead is the light comedic performance of Christina Applegate (Married . . . With Children), with an assist from Keith Coogan. [13 June 1991, p.6E]

The matte work is awful, the lighting terrible. Many of the vehicles look like bumper cars, borrowed from the nearest amusement park and covered with plastic tops; the rest look like Disneyland rejects. Chase sequences are boring. [24 Jan 1992, p.3F]

With movies like this, Lopez might want to start leaving low-end romantic comedies alone and look at her movie career's backup plan.

Keeping Up With the Joneses is hardly worth the effort.

The Forest is flawed on so many levels. It’s a tiresome bore, and the story is filtered through white characters when an Asian lead could have carried the movie just fine.

This time, the results are only fair. [13 Jan 1989, p.5G]

This mess is guilty of being both racist and homophobic. And it’s as shamelessly lazy and crude as its title suggests.

A vigilante/torture-porn potpourri, is particularly toxic because it's scented with phony importance.

This film might have been more accurately titled Bungle All the Way because everything that can be wrong, is. Not only is the product miscast from top to bottom, it's also tedious and painfully not funny. [22 Nov 1996, p.3E]

Estevez couldn't decide what he wanted: a doofus comedy, a serious political statement, a mystery, a Bowery Boys' knock-off. The result is sophomoric. [27 Aug 1990, p.5D]

Technically proficient enough to keep us intrigued; but we shouldn't have to Google a movie to know if we were scared.

This gravely serious drama is as insular as a tomb with Muzak. It takes a particularly heavy hand to make us numb to the abduction of two children, but that's the effect of the wall-to-wall music and earnestly dour performances.

This amateurish action flick is so lacking in personality or punch, it ought to be titled "V for Video Store Discount Bin."

What might have seemed like a lively idea -- an all-star roundelay about love in Los Angeles -- is as fossilized as the wooly mammoths in the La Brea Tar Pits.

Hallstrom (“Chocolat”) makes the mishmash palatable, and romance mainstay Duhamel provides some sweet-and-salty charm, but there’s not much they can do with Sparks’ canned dialogue and Hough’s undercooked acting.

Is there really a need to make a 14-year-old the sexual object of adults' attention? A coming-of-age movie that tries to sympathize with a teen-ager can be enlightening. A movie that tries to tantalize us with a child is shameful. Second, the stereotype of the treacherous Lolita taking advantage of a man twice her age is not only sexist, it's misogynistic. Take The Crush and can it. [9 Apr 1993, p.3F]

The Glimmer Man starts out like Seven, but pretty soon it dwindles into nothing. [09 Oct 1996, p.5D]

Webb delivers a film that’s somewhat derivative, but succeeds as a welcome alternative to superhero extravaganzas.

'IF Lucy Fell" off the Brooklyn Bridge, as she threatens to do early in this movie, the rest of us would be spared 93 minutes of annoying drivel, save a few - very few - funny moments. [8 March 1996, p.3E]

The Son of the Pink Panther is little more than a mess. Roberto Benigni, a funny-looking Italian actor, has his moments. [31 Aug 1993, p.3D]