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]

Sugar Hill is a movie that manages to be as self-destructive as its two central characters, Harlem drug-runners Roemello and Raynathan Skuggs. Like those two desperate (and disparate) brothers, Leon Ichaso's film ultimately wastes its potential and our time. [26 Feb 1994, p.7B]

This is certainly the talkiest of the seven films in the series and Craven never comes close to convincing us this could all be true. [14 Oct 1994, p.10]

For all its professional sheen, Species is a film that mistakenly believes it is smarter than the audience, scarier than any movie before it, and completely original. It's enough to make you laugh, if the filmmakers ever gave any impression that we're supposed to do that. Instead, we sit through 111 minutes of box office staples - sex, violence, more sex, more violence - and keep track of the better movies that Donaldson rips off. [07 July 1995, p.9]

Date Night is really just another example of what happens when funny sitcom stars are lumped together in a movie, believing that laughter exponentially increases with screen size.

The best moments in Wayne's World 2 have been done before and better - a kung fu movie spoof and a running gag based on Oliver Stone's The Doors (which was unintentionally funnier). Surjik trots out a slew of star cameos and cinema salutes, but without the verve of Hot Shots!, Fatal Instinct or Wayne's World itself. [10 Dec 1993, p.6]

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a tarnished sequel demolishing the original's balderdash charm in tumble-dry camera moves, CGI slosh and Elton John f-bombs.

Director Joe Wright's movie barely gets off the ground, and gets old quickly.

Fortress is a 91-minute sentence of bland deja vu for sci-fi watchers.

To enjoy 18 Again, I would have to be 8 again. That was about the age of the young man sitting next to me, and he had a great time. I didn't. [08 Apr 1988, p.6]

The Night Before isn't anything Harold, Kumar or Billy Bob Thornton didn't desecrate before and better.

The fifth edition of the franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard, is the brawniest and most brainless of the bunch.

Jade is another thriller where convenient shocks substitute for clues and motives come from the groin, not the mind. [13 Oct 1995, p.6]

The concept is rich with potential to offend yet after a promising opener Cody doesn't seem interested.

Hark's visual style occasionally strays from standard operating procedure with an arty camera effect or an odd angle. Those flashes of inspiration only serve to make the cliches - such as a coliseum showdown complete with land mines, snipers and a tiger - clunk a little louder. In the big game of entertainment, Double Team barely gets off the bench. [5 Apr 1997, p.2B]

A movie that wouldn't get much attention if the creator of "Titanic" and "Avatar" (as the ads overhype) weren't tangentially involved.

The Program trudges along like a fat freshman walk-on in a muddy practice field, piling up one collegiate scandal after another without a moral in sight. [24 Sept 1993, p.6B]

What is most surprising about The Indian in the Cupboard is its listless pacing, without emotional goosebumps. Director Frank Oz's films (Little Shop of Horrors, Housesitter), usually possess an energy to carry audiences along. [14 July 1995, p.8]

Rocker John Mellencamp's attempt at making an honest little movie about the tribulations of a country star who tries to go home again doesn't just fall from grace. It falls flat on its, er, face. [17 Apr 1992, p.15]

Clash of the Titans redefines 3-D but in the wrong way; the movie is dull, dingy and, well, let's just say dull again.

Step Up Revolution is a bad movie with a few good moments, usually when the cast sets aside delusions of acting prowess and does what comes naturally to them.

Things are kept fast, loose and very violent. Renegades makes a grand effort not to be boring, but at the expense of believability and logic. [03 Jun 1989, p.1D]

Envisioned as a surrealistic painting come to life, it is a delight to behold, yet it fails miserably as a compelling piece of storytelling. It is a listless, largely vapid tale, even though it has been revised over a dozen years by writer-director Barry Levinson. [18 Dec 1992, p.21]

Rather than embellish the original movie, the filmmakers have merely strived to re-create it. [22 Mar 1991, p.6]

Take away the quality look of this movie and the sensitive performance of Ford (he makes Phil Donahue look brutish), and there's a plot shamelessly tugging at heartstrings. It comes complete with a beagle puppy and a freckle-faced child, raising the saccharine level. [10 July 1991, p.1D]

Kids will probably enjoy all the nonsense, and even attending adults have one consolation: There are worse things to sit through. Just rent Howard the Duck if you don't believe it. [31 Mar 1990, p.1D]

This tender tale of two sisters coping with their free-spirited mother in innocent 1963 is just too cute. It needs some chinks in its gossamer-glazed armor. [14 Dec 1990, p.12]

Writer-director Luis Valdez's movie is an example of just how tedious a bio-pic can be. [24 July 1987, p.3D]

The only highlights in this farce are Wallace Shawn's brief comic turn as the killer's attorney, and Mark Margolis' portrayal of a man who'd rather fight than let Terry into his phone booth. I applaud his integrity. [16 Jan 1987, p.3D]

Overboard is predictable, yet charming. Russell exudes a natural earthiness that lends itself to this type of material. Hawn plays gamely along. While Overboard recalls director Marshall's (Nothing in Common) sitcom days, the movie is shot with the sort of graininess that can never be mistaken for television. It could look a lot better. [18 Dec 1987, p.7]

The Believers is the type of movie that generates shocks more successfully than it tells a story. [10 Jun 1987, p.1D]

Unfortunately, Can't Buy Me Love is not particularly funny. Rash is so concerned with exploring the abhorrent high school caste system - making a teen comedy with a conscience - that the story ultimately becomes leaden and pedantic. Add to this the movie's predictability at every turn, including an ever-so-tidy conclusion, and you end up with something that's little more than a nice try. [14 Aug 1987, p.3D]

Although The Bear is as handsome as Quest for Fire - the story of an Ice Age tribe moving up the evolutionary ladder - it is also as turgid. [27 Oct 1989, p.12]

Eastwood is absolutely the wrong actor to play Huston, called John Wilson in White Hunter, Black Heart. Eastwood is tense and tightly coiled, while Huston was gleefully bombastic. [12 Oct 1990, p.7]

Evidently, Schrader didn't believe strongly in his own screenplay, and that lack of faith proves fatal. [06 Feb 1987, p.1D]

For all its shortcomings and long speeches, The Presidio is to be credited for trying to reach beyond formula. Hyams and screenwriter Ferguson (Highlander, Beverly Hills Cop II) have aspired to make more than a mismatched buddy movie. But the task has proved too intricate for them to achieve. [10 June 1988, p.6]

Whatever raffish charm Reeves and Swayze exhibit is lost in the superficial gloss of Iliff's screenplay and Bigelow's direction. [12 July 1991, p.7]

John Hughes didn't have an idea for a summer film this year, but he went ahead and made one anyway. The Great Outdoors, Hughes' latest extrusion from his script factory, has almost nothing to recommend it, save a lovely performance by John Candy, one of the most likable actors anywhere. Candy is untouchable; when the film is good, you want to see more of him, because he's mostly the reason. When the film is not so good (which is often), you don't blame him. [17 June 1988, p.7]

What undercuts Deep Cover is its convoluted, talky and ultimately predictable screenplay written by Henry Bean and Michael Tolkin. [15 Apr 1992, p.1D]

You're safe this Christmas. There are no more obnoxious, senile or terminally stupid relatives to go around. Clark Griswold has invited them all to his house. Know what? They're no more fun to watch at his place than they are at yours...This sort of predictable, lowest-common-denominator humor is entertaining to a degree. It fulfills expectations. [1 Dec 1989, p.7]

The Rookie is the most brain dead action-thriller Eastwood has ever directed or starred in. It plays well as a comedy, but that isn't its intent. [07 Dec 1990, p.6]

As the story lumbers on, the noose around Farrell's neck tightens and No Way Out gets funnier. Not by design, however. [14 Aug 1987, p.1D]

If the movie has nothing important to say, so what? Neither do most surfers. [14 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Like most of Hill's movies, Johnny Handsome plays like an outline: a good idea in need of development. [29 Sep 1989, p.7]

While The Hidden never manages to meld Aliens with Blue Velvet - that appears to be Hunt's intention. It has a kinky charm that fuels it full throttle throughout. [30 Oct 1987, p.5D]

Pink Cadillac is the most amiable and mindless Eastwood comedy in years. That it's even marginally entertaining is a substantial feat, given John Eskow's predictable script, which has more pings than the Caddy's engine. [30 May 1989, p.1D]

While there is an undeniable beauty in the film's images and a measure of energy from the exotic perfume of the people and places, Black Rain is in the end a cop movie, with a particularly pedestrian story to boot. [22 Sep 1989, p.6]

Memphis Belle is the most superficial, jingoistic, stereotyped World War II movie in years. [12 Oct 1990, p.6]

Leave your taste in the car and check your mind at the door. If nothing else, Predator 2 delivers one thing: buckets of blood, which is probably why a lot of people will see it. [23 Nov 1990, p.6]

An offbeat romance as dysfunctional as its lovers. [17 Feb 1993, p.5B]

The Principal almost has something to say about inner-city high schools, public education in the '80s, and race relations. It never deals with these issues, and a good cast is abandoned in the parking lot. [21 Sep 1987, p.1D]

Always is meant to be a fantasy. But it is far too sappy to ignite the imagination. [22 Dec. 1989, p.6]

It's not that the man who brought us Rocky Balboa doesn't fit into a funny movie, it's just that as the lead of rollicking Oscar, he's cast beyond his capabilities. [26 Apr 1991, p.6]

Toy Soldiers is a lame-brained action-adventure casting a quintet of Tiger Beat heartthrobs as prep school pranksters battling Colombian narco-terrorists who overrun their alma mater. [26 Apr 1991, p.12]

Action director John Badham has made the ultimate smash-and-crash chase movie. It's practically brain dead. It uses a hackneyed premise to string together as many stunts as possible, all the while borrowing from Badham's, Gibson's and Hawn's movies. [18 May 1990, p.7]

This sequel has neither the tingling anticipation of Spielberg's '75 original, nor the excellent 3-D effects of the third film. [22 July 1987, p.2D]

Switch is a movie in search of an ending, much like Edwards' other lesser comedies. It covers an incredible amount of ground without getting anywhere. [10 May 1991, p.6]

Foley's screenplay and direction constantly require viewers to re-evaluate the trio and their relationship with one another. This works as long as the dialogue is tolerable, which isn't long enough. [07 Sep 1990, p.6]

Any movie that features a dramatic actor like Kurt Russell playing straight man to a goofball like Martin Short already is sailing on choppy waters. Toss in a script that leaves no cliche unturned and the result is Captain Ron, a seafaring comedy that keeps its creativity in dry dock. [18 Sep 1992, p.8]

Chaplin is a screen biography of a comedy legend that takes itself much too seriously. [08 Jan 1993, p.8]

Beverly Hills Cop II is practically a carbon copy of the original movie, which, at the very least, exhibited a glimmer of invention. The sequel is superior only in terms of technique. It looks slicker and sounds better; more like a music video. Its tone is fractionally more reserved. And there isn't the unsettling clash between humor and violence. [22 May 1987, p.1D]

It is a fairly conventional cartoonish farce, like his 1986 horse racing comedy A Fine Mess. And despite Blind Date's emphasis on excess, its final cut seems uncommonly restrained. [27 Mar 1987, p.4D]

Ironweed doesn't work despite the stellar performances of Nicholson as former baseball pro Francis Phelan and Meryl Streep as his pal, Helen Archer, the former musician whose booze-ravaged voice still bears the air of cultivation. [12 Feb 1988, p.5]

It never digs very deep. But it's palatable and well-meaning. It's a Disneyland version of a big-issue movie. Nothing great. But we could do worse. [07 Feb 1992, p.7]

Wind only hits full stride during the racing sequences, filmed with stunning authenticity by cinematographer John Toll. This movie should be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for Toll's work. But there hasn't been such a threadbare film so dependent upon its camera work since Days of Heaven. [11 Sep 1992, p.10]

Deceptions drive A Kiss Before Dying. Too bad they're too implausible to impart any sense of believability in this bloody fantasy. [26 Apr 1991, p.10]

Movies like Miss Daisy purport to be humanistic or aimed at a higher consciousness, but they're as self-righteous and silly as the one-dimensional characters they depict. [12 Jan. 1990, p.7]

Chevy Chase only knows how to play Chevy Chase. Unless he jettisons his smug routine and learns to act, he will always be his and his movies' biggest liability. [17 March 1989, p.6]

More than a little has been lost in the translation. Screenwriters Richard Maxwell and A.R. Simoun have created a horrific Indiana Jones adventure with Davis being portrayed by Bill Pullman, an actor who does a poor imitation of Michael Douglas doing a poor imitation of Harrison Ford.[6 Feb 1988, p.2D]

Even Pee-wee seems subdued. The man-child whose suit cuffs are intimate with his ankles and elbows is growing up. Kids may still adore him. But adults will find his persona worn at the edges. [23 Jul 1988, p.1D]

Despite sharp humor and bravura performances - including a cameo by Regis Philbin as the epitome of Harry's dream of success - Night and the City is not a pleasant experience. While anything less would betray its bracing dose of true grit, Night and the City is so downbeat that it ultimately seems like an exercise in self-flagellatio.

Belushi is the Clydesdale of formulaic comedies. He performs as expected with little artistic invention. He carries Mr. Destiny amiably, although a more resourceful actor might have provided the additional gloss this formulaic comedy so sorely needs. [12 Oct 1990, p.12]

The wise viewer will avoid any serious consideration of subtext here. Internal Affairs isn't that deep. Working from a screenplay by Henry Bean, Figgis takes these early scenes and does nothing with them. After a while, the film simply loses its direction and stalls in a morass of formulaic cliches. [13 Jan 1990, p.1D]

With its clunky, overworked script (credited to a non-existent Joseph Howard) and Emile Ardolino's predictable direction, Sister Act is a spry but witless comedy aimed at mainstream audiences. [29 May 1992, p.6]

Goldberg has honorable intentions. But like Tammy Faye's make-up, it's impossible to see beneath his movie's overwrought facade. [27 Oct 1989, p.7]

Let's face it: Caine could do a lambada movie and it'd be worth seeing. His work in the new suspense thriller A Shock to the System carries us past the movie's bad direction and muddled script. [24 Mar 1990, p.2D]

Cadillac Man's beginning and ending are superb. (The hearse sequence is classic.) But the movie, like most of the salesmen's waists, sags heavily at its midpoint. [18 May 1990, p.6]

Director Bridges coaxes nothing from his smooth-faced star, which is surprising in view of his previous films - Urban Cowboy, The China Syndrome, The Paper Chase - all of which had strong leads (John Travolta, Jane Fonda, Timothy Bottoms). Bright Lights, Big City is certainly an improvement over Bridges' last film, Perfect, but this material requires more intensity than Fox can muster. [5 Apr 1988, p.1D]

Romances such as Frankie's and Johnny's work better in the artificial environment of the stage than the "real" world of movies. The couple's bond seems phony from the start. [11 Oct 1991, p.7]

Schepisi & Co. appear to have forgotten a tenet of film making: A moving picture needs to move to succeed. [21 Dec 1990, p.6]

Death Becomes Her is a comedy so dark and disjointed that not even some terrific makeup effects can cover its blemishes. [31 July 1992, p.5]

This movie misses its mark, never becoming the suburban satire promised on the poster. It doesn't offend, it bores. Most people, even diehard John Candy fans, will want to wait for the video release. It shouldn't be a very long wait at all. [18 Aug 1989, p.12]

Borrowing liberally from Arthur and A Fish Called Wanda, the Little Lady ekes out a few good chuckles at its climax by combining slapstick with broad satire of British manners. [21 Nov 1990, p.1D]

A relatively inane movie about good will and unfounded distrust. [06 Nov 1987, p.3D]

That's Home Alone 2's biggest shortcoming. Hughes merely moved his movie to a new locale and wrote a retread. [20 Nov 1992, p.5]

A suggestion: Mr. Pyle should stop writing screenplays Pacific Heights is more tedious than a lease's fine print and tour the country lecturing on the dangers of landlording. [28 Sept 1990, p.6]

Like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Rafelson's Black Widow is seriously flawed despite several compelling scenes. It plods to a contrived resolution, piling implausibility upon implausibility, rarely pausing to account for the incredulous events that transpire. It is the type of movie that squanders potential at every juncture. [7 Feb 1987, p.5B]

Vice Versa shouldn't be happening to Judge Reinhold. He's too wonderful to be squandered on a movie plot that could have been shaped by a roomful of third graders with magic markers and lined paper. [11 Mar 1988, p.6]

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is an uneven mix of shopworn comedy and talky space adventure...If it's moderately engaging, it's because the material is familiar and never taxing. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier goes where no man has gone before. Barely. [9 June 1989, p.12]

Hook is largely failed by his earnest, workmanlike cast of boys who seem painfully aware that Lord of the Flies is an Important Movie. [16 Mar 1990, p.12]

Director Ted Demme (Jonathan's nephew, Who's the Man?) guides this predictable action with a leaden hand. It's as if he, like everyone else in The Ref, is holding back, awaiting Leary's next inspired, caustic riff. That's a lot of pressure for a cult-level comic in his first lead role. He doesn't always measure up. [11 Mar 1994, p.8]

Basically it's Ghostbusters meets Wreck-It Ralph, without the sustained charm or wit of either.

John Hillcoat's Triple 9 is doubly disappointing, wasting talent and our time with underworld cliches previously covered in other movies that ultimately didn't matter. This cynical slice of lowlife will join them soon enough.

If this is the best filmmakers can do with the video game market, we'll sit the rest out until the planned film version of Doom. [04 Nov 1994, p.7]

Fans of either Smith will be sorely disappointed. The elder never before appeared this listless on screen, and the younger misplaced his unforced rapport with the camera that made the Karate Kid reboot so impressive. Only Shyamalan delivers what moviegoers expect from him, and that's a shame.

Beaches, adapted from novelist Iris Rainer Dart's hankie-wringer, is truly horrid. Its only redeeming qualities are heartfelt performances by Midler and Barbara Hershey, as pen-pal buddies since pre-adolescence. [13 Jan 1989, p.6]

Moving away from the gag-based comedy of his films with Chong, Marin has discovered a richer humor of character and circumstance, and although old habits surface long enough to permit unfortunate lapses in continuity and consistency, he proves surprisingly adept at his new mode. [24 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Chainsaw III is competent enough when establishing its premise, but thereafter violates almost every shock-movie convention. The film's visual effects are often ghastly, although there is probably less gratuitous gore here than in any Friday the 13th movie. [17 Jan 1990, p.4D]

The SEALs remain as elusive in the movie as they are in real life. They don't offer much information about the secret force, nor do they show us what it's like to be in it. The script sounds as if it has been declassified with all the juicy stuff taken out for security reasons...What it's left with is a series of explosive action scenes, music videos and scant dialogue tied loosely together around a weak plot. [20 July 1990, p.6]

This tale of prehistoric cuteness (sort of a Clan Of The Care Bears) is mostly dreadfully slow when it is not being overbearingly cloying. Bluth has done much better work in the past and certainly will again. This isn't it. [18 Nov 1988, p.7]

Three Fugitives, which for all purposes is one extended chase, has a few chuckles, though nothing to justify its existence.[27 Jan 1989, p.11]

If imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, then 3 Ninjas is a lovers' rhapsody. If duplication is theft, then Disney is guilty of grand larceny. [07 Aug 1992, p.8]

If the saccharine quality of movies could be translated into seismic activity, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael would level Los Angeles. [12 Oct 1990, p.13]

The saddest part of the film is that Hogan, after creating an entertaining character, chose to plug the character into a cheap formula whose hoped-for solution is, I suspect, a big chunk of the $300-million the first film was able to milk worldwide. I can see at least a few interesting movies using the Dundee character and Australia: Crocodile Dundee II is not one of them. [27 May 1988, p.6]

There is some glint of acting potential in Farley's puffy face, but this movie doesn't mine it. Director Penelope Spheeris was well prepared for the maturity level here, after she directed The Little Rascals last year, yet seems content to place Farley and Spade in the same situations she crafted in Wayne's World. Farley would be wise to be more selective in his career, or else he'll wind up as a comic prop in insurance commercials. [4 Feb 1996, p.2B]

If anyone could harness McCarthy's dynamo presence while protecting her from looking bad, it should be Falcone. Instead, Tammy suggests no one had the heart to tell this hot Hollywood couple that it wasn't working.

Underwood's film doesn't have a fraction of the insight or genuine comedy of City Slickers and it's a few years too late to be fresh material. Overall, Heart and Souls is an odd title for a movie that has a distinct, depressing lack of both qualities. [13 Aug 1993]

Get Hard becomes an increasingly unpleasant comedy, wasting two very funny stars in a barrage of prison rape gags, lazy stereotypes, toilet stall indignities and insincere acceptance of people already marginalized in movies.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 confirms suspicions that all four books could've made a heck of a single movie.

The Space Between Us is romantic science fiction with zero gravity and less to recommend.

On the plus side, Scott's plagues are cool. But it's a long slog to crocodile rocking, pestilence and Proactiv-proof sores.

This Thing is purely for the gorehounds, and they aren't likely to leave impressed.

Through it all, Marshall sticks to his rose-colored principles: You gotta have hope, listen to your heart and take leaps of faith. Plus a new one: Parker should never make it through a movie without at least one pair of fabulous shoes.

Aggressively inane. [14 Apr 1989]

The movie takes something primally appealing and attempts to explain it, fetishize it, turn it into something deeper and more dramatic than it is.

Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight is vile art, bludgeoning viewers for three hours with indefensibly gratuitous race baiting and blood.

A smarter-than-average bear becomes a dumber-than-usual kiddie flick with Yogi Bear, the lone Christmas release specifically aimed at children, so it automatically qualifies as their lump of coal.

Country Strong is a country music melodrama, but I'm not sure which country.

Mike Myers' first film excursion beyond Wayne's World feels like one of those boring, aimless Saturday Night Live sketches that typically ruin the final 10 minutes of each show. So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mess, from its cliched mistaken-identity premise to one-liners that sound "borrowed" from other comedians or school-yard jive sessions. Above all, this tedious comedy proves that, as a movie star, Myers should never be let out of that basement in Aurora, Ill., that he shares with Dana Carvey. [30 July 1993, p.11]

This is a soulless endeavor that would alarm if Ford devised it on his own. Instead, he shares blame with Austen Wright's novel Tony and Susan, adapted into parallel narratives; one empty, the other leaking blood.

The Fly II has virtually no surprises, unless you think of the revolting transformations and gruesome deaths as somehow revelatory. [17 Feb 1989, p.10]

As far as unnecessary movies go, Predators is a pip.

Swayze exhibits virtually no charisma, although the terpsichorean skills he demonstrated in Dirty Dancing appear to have translated well to martial arts. He can kick box like a champ. He sweats handsomely in the sunset. He is able to flex his buns, which are shown naked more than once. [19 May 1989, p.6]

Last Man Standing can't live up to its Japanese and Italian predecessors or even its title. [20 Sep 1996, p.5]

The Angry Birds Movie is simply a pointless swirl of color and motion to babysit small children on home video in a few months. Sadly, such movies aren't an endangered species.

Ghost in the Machine doesn't possess the funky, laugh-at-me mentality of good trash, or the good sense to know when its half-baked storyline is getting old. [30 Dec 1993, p.10B]

Can we please get over the notion that every superhero in a skintight suit deserves a movie? Green Lantern is the latest wallet drainer emptying the comic book bench, more thudding than "Thor" and sorely incoherent.

What really offends about Hot Pursuit is its lazy approach to comedy, and so many short cuts making bad jokes possible.

If only one character in Stone reacted as someone in his position would to the preposterous situation at hand, the movie would be 15 minutes long.

An amoral mosaic of carnage and carnality.

Keeping Up With the Joneses is the sort of strenuous comedy giving zany a bad name.

Monkey Shines is just humdrum theater fodder that exploits the problems of quadriplegics for a cheap buzz of fear that it can't even deliver. This movie could make the apes sorry that we're related. [29 July 1988, p.9]

Billed as an action comedy, The Green Hornet isn't funny, and the action is often too frenetic to make any impression.

None of these complaints would matter if The Bounty Hunter possessed even a smidgen of inspired comedy. It doesn't.

A timid new take on the old fairy tale, and it's pretty grim.

Ben Affleck is Agent Double-OCD in The Accountant, an effortlessly dumb thriller barely more entertaining than an audit.

Pitch Perfect 3 totally eclipses the heart of a charming franchise, turning the scrappy Bellas a capella posse into needy Charlie’s Angels wannabes. It’s a movie taking popularity for granted, a finale saying goodbye with a "you’re welcome."

Major Payne is tasteless throughout and rarely funny. Mostly it's embarrassing. And the profanities littered copiously through the film are an upsetting clash with the level of humor, which seems directed to young teens. [24 March 1995, p.2B]

Carnahan didn't make a movie unfit for mankind but it certainly isn't worth mankind's money.

Two flesh-and-blood performers stand out among the machinery. One is pop singer Rhianna, looking lovely as usual despite the military gear and quite comfortable with high-powered artillery. The other is Gregory D. Gadson, an Army veteran who lost his legs to a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Cloud Atlas, surely the most incoherent waste of time and money on screen this year.

What truly makes The Neon Demon frustrating is Refn's undeniable talent for arresting images. His color schemes and framing make each second fascinating to observe, even when the dialogue is stultifying.

Jack the Giant Slayer is merely cable TV fodder waiting to happen and not worth a hill of beans, magic or otherwise.

The biggest target, however, is O'Neal, whose monotone and slurred lines deaden each scene in which he speaks. He's trying so clumsily to do this acting gig right and keeps tripping over his size-22 feet by absurdly wiggling his eyebrows or forcing a joke. You get the impression that he doesn't know what his lines mean. Finally, we realize that acting is just one more thing that O'Neal can't do as well as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. [15 Aug 1997, p.6]

Other than its campy title, not much about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is fun.

Valerian displays reckless imagination and zero personality.

The Art of Getting By is enough to drive a movie critic to drink. The next round's on the kid in the overcoat.

The word "sappy" comes to mind, constantly. So often that I wanted to make like a tree and leaf. Frankly I'm stumped, wondering exactly who the audience is for such a drab slab of saccharine uplift.

Another paper-thin premise comes back to haunt moviegoers. [5 Nov 1993, p.5]

Like many sudden heroes, these lifelong friends led unremarkable lives until fate stepped in. Eastwood is committed to depicting every single unremarkable step along the way.

What truly becomes aggravating about Zoolander 2 is its dependence upon a parade of famous people doing supremely unfunny things.

Williams uses some interesting lighting effects and settings (including a subplot about the burgeoning heroin trade in Omaha, of all places). Yet, he has no idea of how to motivate actors or tie several scenes together with dramatic purpose to keep the movie from going belly-up. [06 Nov 1998, p.10]

In 2002, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was at least a unique cultural take on movie cliches typically reserved for Italian and Jewish squabbles and makeups. Now it's all stale baklava, made with love but past its prime. Opa? Nope-a.

The Comedian is a phony movie about funny people, starring a great actor understanding next to nothing about stand-up comedy.

By the time Melancholia finally crawls to its conclusion, his (von Trier) round orb in the sky isn't as depressing as the rectangular screen.

Airheads is a rock 'n' roll radio comedy in which laughs come at a very low frequency. [5 Aug 1994, p.8]

The film, which follows homecoming queen Laura Palmer's last seven days before her murder, is dark, pointless and tortuously boring to watch. [1 Sept 1992, p.1D]

Something Borrowed is a romantic comedy in which absolutely no one deserves to end up happy.

I wouldn't even DVR What's Your Number? if under house arrest and starved for entertainment. I've got this movie's number, and it's zero.

Nearly everything about Just Wright is just wrong.

For their next act, the illusionist con artists from Now You See Me will make every ounce of goodwill that movie earned disappear.

The sequel is merely crude for crudeness' sake, lazy as they come.

Alex Cross is slipshod cinema hoping to capitalize on a star out of his orbit here.

A Cure for Wellness is a repellent curiosity, rich in atmosphere yet starved for dramatic morsels a sound plot might nourish.

For all their bantering about being losers on the verge of falling in love, there's very little chemistry between Ringwald and Downey. [21 Sept 1987, p.1D]

Perhaps if I hadn't laughed so hard at a recent revival of Blazing Saddles, then Mel Brooks' new film, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, wouldn't be such a dismal disappointment. [28 July 1993, p.6B]

Move along, guys. Nothing to see in The Lucky One, unless you're in the doghouse at home and need to make nice.

30 Minutes or Less merely puts together actors with only one funny talent each, making them do it over and over again.

A sitcom pilot idea stretched to feature length boredom.

All Crowe's movie has going for it is casting, a lineup of favored actors wasted in a screenplay unsure of what it wants to be. Aloha is by turns a love quadrangle that never materializes, an ode to Hawaiian sovereignty, an opposites-attract cliche and an outer-space weapons caper, all of which is clumsily executed.

Your Highness is drive-by directing at its laziest, linking late-night sketch ideas in a quest for comedy as difficult to locate as the Holy Grail.

The only memorable aspect of She's Out of My League is Eve's performance. Not that it's good, but it does possess the hypnotic quality of a flicker ring.

If the first 90 minutes of Girl Most Likely grate and disappoint, wait until the final 10 or so, when directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini try covering their maniacally depressive tracks like cats in a litter box.

It's an out-of-control movie from an out-of-touch director/screenwriter; too frenzied to make sense, and too awful to tear your eyes away. [01 Dec 1995, p.12]

Victor Frankenstein is misshapen as the bad doctor's creature itself, straining without wit or viscera to be a devilish horror romp.

The pleasures of Allegiant are unintended, those little bits of business taken so seriously that serious viewers must laugh.

Stargate is a time-warped implosion of baffling space mysticism, a costume budget gone mad, and too much sand for any movie short of Lawrence of Arabia. It's pretty, vacant and pointless; an interactive computer game with which we just don't feel like getting involved. [28 Oct 1994, p.10C]

Wonder Wheel is one of Allen’s worst movies.

The only thing Black or White adds to the discussion of race relations is another one-sided argument.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is the sort of movie that would give sequels a bad name, if they didn't already have one. [16 July 1995, p.2B]

Fantastic Four is so mediocre that its title seems like a violation of truth in advertising laws.

Hop is harmless, which is the worst best thing to be said for any movie. It never decides whether to be a kiddie flick or a grownup lark and winds up as neither. As Roger might say: "Puh-puh-puh-puhleeze, don't waste your time."

The central mystery has been drastically altered to fit Julia Roberts, its most telling clue diluted, and a signature sequence that made soccer exciting now makes baseball duller.

Machine Gun Preacher comes alive only when Sam is pulling a trigger, which is most of the second hour. You can find the same thrill from watching a grindhouse descendant like "The Expendables" on cable TV.

Our Family Wedding should embarrass Whitaker and each of his co-stars, perhaps except Carlos Mencia, whose chief attribute as an actor is that he's a so-so standup comedian.

Yes, there is a hell, and this movie is showing at its local multiplex.

The Boxtrolls is a visually repellent pile of stop-motion animation, populated by grotesques and filmed in the palette of an exhumed casket's interior. It can frighten small children and bore anyone, with its cracked, cackled British wit.

This movie never realizes how ridiculous anything it does truly is, right up to the last-second promise of another sequel.

There came a time, during a screening of Eric Schaeffer's romantic comedy, when I knew exactly what would happen for the rest of the movie, and knew it wasn't going to get any better along the way. The depression was compounded when I realized If Lucy Fell had another hour to go. [8 March 1996, p.10]

Metro is the kind of movie an actor makes when he's either coasting on a reputation or scrambling to recover one. The kind of movie that Murphy doesn't need to make after hitting big again with The Nutty Professor, and the kind we don't need to pay theater prices to see. [17 Jan 1997, p.9]

There are cheesy pleasures found in Left Behind's ineptness.

Moviegoers know exactly how these children feel awaiting the conclusion of The Baby Sitters Club, a dull, superficial adaptation of Ann Martin's popular book series that gives new meaning to the term "growing pains." [18 Aug 1995, p.8]

Return To The Blue Lagoon is as pretty as a travel brochure and just as thin on substance and entertainment value. [02 Aug 1991, p.13]

Back To The Beach, starring the early '60s most popular teen-agers, Frankie and Annette, combines the campiness of a college reunion, the corniness of a high school musical, and the values of Mister Rogers. The film's only redeeming quality is that it knows it … and manages to laugh at itself occasionally. [10 Aug 1987, p.1D]

Dante's movie is so helter-skelter, that he can't generate the uncomfortable mood the moment requires. It's the balloon principle. The 'Burbs is so full of hot air it simply blows up in its own face. [17 Feb 1989, p.6]

The Wizard does have a half-baked germ of a story at its center, but it's never developed because director Todd Holland turns his movie into one long commercial whose climax is the unveiling of a new Nintendo game - just in time for Christmas, boys and girls. [15 Dec 1989, p.7]

Neophyte Joanou's camera is airborne so often it gives the impression Three O'Clock High was filmed between traffic reports by Chopper 8. It's an example of virtuoso film making solely for the sake of virtuosity. [9 Oct 1987, p.3D]

Director Roth, working from a screenplay by Dan Guntzelman and Steve Marshall, makes this material about as interesting as a dirty joke told v-e-r-y slowly, in pidgin French. [13 July 1987, p.1D]

Aside from a few nifty computer-generated "trip" sequences and a foul-mouthed nun (Amanda Plummer) who advises her torturer to turn the other cheek before flattening him, Freejack has little to recommend it. [18 Jan 1982, p.1D]

Funny Farm is one of the dullest, most predictable movies in Chevy Chase's and director George Roy Hill's spotty careers. It's on par with Chase's Modern Problems and Hill's A Little Romance. This picture is not destined to be fondly remembered in their memoirs. [3 June 1988, p.8]

Hardware runs more precisely, it crawls aimlessly as the robot, pieced together from household appliances, attempts to slice, dice, drill and saw Jill to death. There's no tension, no suspense, no climax. [14 Sep 1990, p.7]

Extreme Prejudice is an exceptionally bad movie, despite a powerful introduction in the tradition of Hill's bloodiest ventures, Southern Comfort, The Long Riders and 48 HRS. [24 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Project X is a predictable, sappy Save The Monkeys movie. [17 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Fire Birds is Top Gun without wings. Without personality. Without sex appeal. Nicholas Cage is no Tom Cruise. Sean Young is no Kelly McGillis.

Darkman is a spectacularly ill-conceived combination of Batman and The Phantom of the Opera. [24 Aug. 1990, p.6]

She-Devil is insipid. It is a hustle-bustle comic fantasy that insists on shoveling forced humor down viewers' throats. The movie is devoid of charm. [8 Dec 1989, p.6]

Ricochet isn't worthy of Lithgow's or Washington's talents. But having committed to the movie, these actors have gotten what they deserved. [05 Oct 1991, p.3D]

Even an ear-splitting sound track of gunfire, explosions, rock 'n' roll and revving engines can't drown out one noise that should deeply disturb film fans the sound of Butch and Sundance spinning in their Bolivian graves. [27 Aug 1991, p.3D]

Raising Cain is monumentally bad. It is De Palma's Howard the Duck. [07 Aug 1992, p.10]

It's appropriate that Men at Work's writer, director and co-star, Emilio Estevez, has cast himself as a garbage collector. His new movie is trash. [25 Aug 1990, p.1D]

Mannequin may be loosely described as a variation on Ron Howard's Splash, but with none of that film's charm or wit. [14 Feb 1987, p.5B]

This is summer entertainment at its mindless, violent worst featuring plenty of squishy, crunchy sounds and sickening makeup X effects to satisfy undiscerning blood-and-guts audiences. Moviegoers looking for pacing, character development or delightful thrills must seek shelter elsewhere. [11 July 1992, p.3D]

Revenge, adapted from Harrison's novella, is the sickest of male bonding movies. It is about friendship and betrayal, and how men must uphold their dignity at the expense of all else. Particularly women. [17 Feb 1990, p.1D]

Rarely has a children's picture been so stagnant, so bereft of passion. [18 Dec 1987, p.8]

A disastrous follow-up to Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, one of the seminal movies of a generation. [28 Sep 1990, p.7]

Perhaps the NCAA should investigate how Necessary Roughness ever made it to the big screen. The movie-making team that fielded this fiasco would receive more sanctions than the universities of Florida, Oklahoma and Houston combined. [27 Sept 1991, p.13]

There's a lot of money in the sets, costumes, cinematography and soundtrack of The Big Town, but the movie has no soul. [29 Sep 1987, p.4D]

Most annoying is John Carter's scarcity of action. This much buck should buy more bang.

Niccol fashioned an uninspired and downright dull sci-fi gimmick and doesn't even explain how it happened.

It's sad to see mercurial talent unused, and even more disheartening to see it completely wasted. Color of Night, the first film in 14 years from director Richard Rush, is a dreadful miscalculation of a comeback; a sexual thriller equally lewd and ludicrous. Rush has already disavowed the reworked version opening nationwide today, promising his original vision will be available later on video. [19 Aug 1994, p.7B]

Everybody's cyber-pal Ashton Kutcher is perfect casting for Killers, since the screenplay is shallow as a Tweet and the movie appears to have been shot with a Nikon point-and-click camera he plugs on TV.

It's difficult to not be cynical and redundant to declare this sequel needless for anyone except accountants, considering the studio involved. But this ranks among Disney's most shameless shirkings of its responsibility to creatively entertain, in order to pursue profits.

The Next Karate Kid is equally pointless; a fourth installment of a series that stopped kicking and started creaking in round 2. [11 Sep 1994, p.18C]

For the love of movies, stay away.

Final Analysis is overwrought, overwritten, overscored pseudo-Hitchcockian drivel. With more twists than Lombard Street has curves, this San Francisco-set psychological thriller is the biggest disappointment of the new year. [8 Feb 1992, p.3D]

It's amazing how much slobber $ 20-million will buy. [28 July 1989, p.6]

There are some laws of nature we might as well accept: Gravity exists, the world is round, and movies with Pia Zadora, Robin Leach, Dr. Joyce Brothers and Annette Funicello are not funny. [24 March 1989, p.7]

The Last Airbender makes the cartoon version with its ratchet-jawed characters and clunky animation seem like a Pixar classic.

It's too easy to say that only fans of Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans should consider seeing Bulletproof, since it would be excruciating to anyone else. It's also unfair, because those fans would be better served to respectively watch "Happy Gilmore" or "The Last Boy Scout" another time than suffer through this latest - and possibly all-time worst - entry in the buddy-action-comedy genre. [7 Sept 1996, p.2B]

Shore's new "comedy" Son-In-Law proves without question that this MTV maniac is one of the most tedious one-note performers in any branch of show business today. Considering that his brain-addled manner serves as a role model for many teenagers is more offensive than his lack of talent. [2 July 1993, p.9]

This messy mix of sci-fi horror and post-Superbad raunchiness didn't make me laugh once. Not a single snicker, chortle or smile.

A comedy abomination, tasteless and useless to a stunning degree, with storied actors smugly collecting paychecks for sullying their careers.

A wheel-spinning homage gone terribly awry.

I'm Still Here is amateurishly shot and edited, as if ineptness equaled some higher level of veracity. Ironically, it's the only Joaquin Phoenix movie anyone has cared about in years.

Doremus captures each insipid moment with hand-held camera urgency and clumsy jump cuts.

Who's That Girl is a stern test of your MQ (Madonna Quotient). It is quite possible to hate this movie before the animated credits sequence is over. [10 Aug 1987, p.1D]

You don't need to watch National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon I to understand what a sloppy comedy concoction it is; just listen. What you won't hear is laughter, even in a crowded movie theater. I haven't experienced such a silent audience for an alleged comedy since last year's horrid Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot.

End of Watch is a repellent movie, first for its shaky-cam conceit rendering much of the action incomprehensible, and finally for seeking to entertain viewers through the thuggish execution of a police officer.

The Change-Up is the "Human Centipede" of gag-me comedies.

Save the money you might spend for a ticket to see For a Good Time, Call... and just read a dive bar's restroom wall for free. That's the sub-level of comedy here, with a litany of crude sexual euphemisms and phallic images passed off as jokes.

It's all megalomaniacal junk from Snyder, but that isn't his most offensive move.