I seriously doubt that it happened this way, with such convenient strife and truncated solutions. The movie is about baseball but plays like T-ball, with each situation teed up for easy swings.

If you prefer hipster romantic comedies that are unromantic and not too funny, Lee Toland Krieger's movie may be your grande half-caf caramel mocha frappe.

The three young stars biding time in Tom Gormican's listless rom-com are too gifted for one mediocre movie to bury.

A comedy as lazy as Sandler's previous boondoggles.

I honestly thought Eclipse would be different, after "New Moon" showed stirrings of cinematic life.

One of Street Fighter's chief problems is that it is based on a game that is 100 percent hand-to-hand combat, yet that element is almost completely ignored until the film's final third - which, admittedly, is a huge improvement of what preceded. [24 Dec 1994, p.10C]

A terrible title for a not-much-better movie, missing a grammatically correct question mark and most of the point with romantic comedies.

The Host doesn't strive for social allegory, as previous body snatcher flicks have done with the Red Scare, civil rights and Watergate. If anything it's merely a teenage girl's fantasy checklist for prom.

Everything plays out brutally, and the acting's not bad. But it's unsettling for external reasons beyond its control.

Jobs the movie isn't as fascinating as Jobs the man, much less the myth of entrepreneurial superiority he left behind.

Sure, the plot is paper thin like most reboots, but CHiPs is less about the story and more about the special effects and stunt riding, which are jaw-dropping.

The movie's best performance — and worst defamation — belongs to Tony Shalhoub, playing the first victim as a conniving, egotistical jerk who deserves to be kidnapped, maimed and ruined financially.

Man on a Ledge makes bigger leaps of logic than Nick will if he fails a gravity test. If the transparent sting springing him from Sing Sing doesn't roll your eyes, then wait for the climax when Nick becomes a kind of plainclothes Spider-Man.

Veronica Mars, the movie, plays like a two-parter without commercials. Its uninspired framing and static action suits a TV screen better than a multiplex's.

As far as Sabrina goes...may she rest in peace for at least another 41 years. [15 Dec 1995, p.7]

With Herbert Ross' campy direction highlighting the most juvenile aspects of Ian Abrams' script, Blues seems to be targeting an audience that considers the Ernest movies highbrow; a PG-13 movie that treats viewers like 12-year-olds. [15 Sept 1993, p.6B]

Watching Spectre unfold, lumbering and slumbering, on the heels of a franchise high is a shock, so much talent coasting this time.

It's enough to make Kim Jong ill.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner makes a troublesome filmmaking debut, wasting a dream cast for a comedy in a fitful story of family tension, mental illness and corrosive self-absorption.

Rough Night wouldn't be fresh or funny no matter what gender it's written about or for.

With its flat acting and titillating format, The Lover is soft-core and mostly a bore. [14 May 1993, p.9]

George Clooney’s latest directing effort, Suburbicon, is a movie tipping off why it’s going wrong before it actually happens.

Director Stephen Herek (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and screenwriter Steve Brill dreamed up these fantasies for their so-called comedy about youth hockey. They could have devoted more attention to writing decent jokes. This childish mix of slap shots and slapstick lumbers along as awkwardly as a skater on a melting ice rink. [02 Oct 1992, p.12]

The movie's glaring problem is the design and execution of Chappie, whose look is unremarkable except for a pair of polymer rabbit ears ready for meme posterity.

That epilogue suspiciously looks tacked-on by Warner Bros., who did the same thing with Roberts in The Pelican Brief when the climax was too downbeat. Just one more anti-climactic chance to see Roberts flash that halogen-bulb smile, even though it thoroughly contradicts what preceded it. It leaves a bad taste, and one realizes that it's the same old tainted salmon Hollywood has been serving for years. Somewhere, Thelma and Louise are gagging. [4 Aug 1995, p.8]

One can forgive the threadbare script and Edwards' pedestrian direction for those scenes when Benigni shakes, stutters and stumbles through the lovely French scenery. [30 Aug 1993, p.6B]

Turns out we were right to wonder. The first film based on The Hobbit was charming fun, the second pretty good, too. But The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a film too far, tedious and overlong and short on most of the elements that made the first two work.

Jackie Chan, master of martial arts comedy, wishes to be taken seriously as an actor. Seriously. The Foreigner is no place to start and a smart place to finish.