The movie has all the propulsion of a trolling motor, traversing long-charted dramatic waters.

Sinister is basically a collection of bogus snuff films linked by standard haunted house tricks - everything creaking and slamming, with the power conveniently shut off.

A distinct lack of merriment marks each frame of this film, with Scott determined to erase all fond memories of past Robin Hoods.

Richie Rich is a movie fashioned with dollars, not sense. [21 Dec 1994, p.8C]

If not for a few choice performance moments and a couple of peppy montages, Wanderlust would be cinematic compost, recycled and thoroughly smelly.

As hollow as it is hip. [5 Feb 1988, p.8]

After a lucrative career of bashing well-made scary, epic, disaster and date movies, Friedberg and Seltzer have a source begging to be mocked.

Murder on the Orient Express is prestige gone off the rails, a tony chunk of nothing that doesn’t beg the question whodunnit as much as why?

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a downgrade from the first, doing lots of thing wrong that 2012's sleeper hit did right.

Fallen begins in unremarkable fashion and trails off from there, idling its way through bland psycho-religious violence and spooky lighting. [16 Jan 1998, p.8]

Full of gratuitous sexual innuendoes and death-defying closeups of Playboy covergirl Anna Nicole Smith's anatomy, the film lacks most of the zest that made the original so tasty. [18 Mar 1994, p.6]

Jonah Hex isn't abrupt by design but by desperation.

Fails both as a film and even as fan service.

Disney's remake of Mighty Joe Young has little to recommend except more realistic special effects than the 1949 original and a handful of kid-sized thrills. The movie feels designed only to pass some time in a theater, without much attention to anything except building the perfect cuddly beast. [25 Dec 1998, p.8]

Filmmakers simply can't make Tarzan like they used to. If someone tries, like director David Yates did with The Legend of Tarzan, he's just another superhero, swinging on vines rather than spider webs. Natives can't be restless. Lions won't be wrestled...Tarzan fans leave feeling Cheetah'd.

Paul Haggis is positive that withholding information while John makes "A Beautiful Mind" flow charts and deals with bad dudes will keep it interesting. Haggis is wrong.

A sloppy, schizophrenic effort; a rollicking parody, a somber romantic tragedy, an orgy of violence and an incomplete work on all fronts. [24 Dec 1993, p.9]

It's genial entertainment, packed with the sort of nonsense kids love and a family-values message parents can respect, but it simply isn't focused or funny enough to convince anyone that Culkin - or co-star Ted Danson for that matter - has the chops for lasting stardom. [17 Jun 1994, p.8]

Brill's film isn't as offensive as it could be, nor as funny as it should be. Heavyweights is a case of no pain, and no gain, either. [19 Feb 1995, p.16C]

Blended is simply more of the stale Sandler formula that audiences wisely haven't sought as much.

As director and writer, MacFarlane appears to have forgotten everything about cinematic standards of pacing, characterization and meaningful smut, resulting in an encore that's slow, sketchy and dumb-dirty.

Harrelson and Dern's efforts aside, Wilson is indie ennui at its emptiest, a vessel of misshapen wit with a hole in the bottom. Its nihilism is exhausting. Oddness gets oppressive when a movie goes through more mood swings than its unbalanced heroes.

Nothing to skip school over but at least it's not in 3-D. No sense in paying an extra ticket charge for something belonging on TV, anyway.

Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is superb, casting gauzy glows and sensual silhouettes against impressively designed sets. Allen drops a few philo-cynical lines worthy of his reputation but not nearly enough.

Fey and Poehler remain game throughout, mustering a bit of besties magic here and there. Sisters flips a tested formula to become the New Coke of comedy, looking familiar and bubbly on the surface, disposable before it's finished.

Sloan and director Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year) are content to drift along on the star power of Goldberg and Danson, who are certainly appealing actors, but push every wisecrack and doubletake into bad dinner theater territory. [28 May 1993, p.6B]

DuVernay finds herself in the unenviable position of being both the right and wrong person for an important job. A Wrinkle in Time is gratifying for what it is, a step forward for creative women of color, and so disappointing for what it turns out to be.

Timecop has its fleeting moments of fun; mostly when Van Damme finally starts ribbing himself, years after Stallone and Schwarzenegger poked a hole in their own musclebound images. But director Peter Hyams and screenwriter Mark Verheiden (who co-created the Timecop comic book character) aren't nearly as clever as they think they are. [16 Sep 1994, p.6]