Soul Man isn't designed for realism, nor does it aim at any lofty moral. It was concocted strictly for laughs, and it delivers an adequate number. [24 Dec 1986]

Despite a respectable budget, a well-known cast, even a bona fide supermodel, "If Lucy Fell" is boring, depressing and unfunny. [7 March 1996]

The biggest problem of My Favorite Martian: It lacks an edge. Its promising approach - sort of a Three Stooges meets Close Encounters - never gets off the ground. It tries to bite occasionally, but is so concerned with remaining a kid-friendly movie that it keeps sinking into pablum. [11 Feb 1999]

Caught between PG and R, as well as lost at the crossroads of inadvertent comedy and horror, the PG-13 Five Nights at Freddy’s has to go down as one of the poorest films in any genre this year.

Clumsily derivative, completely predictable and leadenly directed by the star himself. [23 Feb 1994]

Old Guy feels very of this moment in the fact that it looks good and has a good cast and yet can’t seem to deliver something that’s either entertaining or meaningful. But unlike so many of its peers, this one amazingly was not made by a streamer.

There are some sweet kisses (otherwise, it’s very chaste) and some nice declarations of motherly devotion (credit to Williams for doing her best) but the cheese factor is regretfully high.

The movie is stupid and silly no matter how you look at it. It takes a stab at some sort of backward humor about feminism and male chauvinism. But it's merely pretentious and not very funny. [18 Apr 1989]

Does all this work? Well, it depends on how you feel about ... Cats. Did you love the show? You’ll find stuff to love here. Did you hate it? Ditto! Or maybe ... you’ll have both reactions? That’s possible too.

There wasn’t a great reason to take another shot at Firestarter. Besides, even if it’s lacking in originality, it’s also lacking something even more important: A personality.

If there was a stylish chic in the first film, it’s gone in the second, which sometimes seems cloying in its attempt to recreate the first.

January is often where bad films are stashed, but “The King’s Daughter” isn’t just bad, it’s a cloying, cliched mess that’s not worth even the slightest risk of contacting COVID-19 to see in theaters.

Rihanna voices Smurfette and supplies a new song, giving a half-hearted injection of star power to an otherwise uninspired, modestly scaled, kiddo-friendly cartoon feature.

Buzz Kulik has directed some slam-bang chases, but their effectiveness is blunted by a script that meanders between the bounty hunter's missions and a boring relationship with his housemate (Kathryn Harrold), who is heavy with child. [12 Aug 1980]

Hanks has proved in TV's "Bosom Buddies" and in "Splash" that he is one of the best of today's light comedians, but he has little chance to display his talents here. [12 Aug 1985]

A curious new animated attempt to monetize the comic icon again by giving him an origin story and then asking him to do things a galaxy away from what he does in the funny pages.

It’s really a series of violent vignettes strung together, getting more and more outlandish and introducing characters at such a blistering pace that you just want it to stop already.

A satisfactory, if fairly standard, action entertainment. [29 Apr 1985]

A sure sign that a movie is doomed from the start is when it opens with a printed quote from President Bush's September 1989 so-called "war" on Colombian drug lords, and the screening audience giggles. Fire Birds tumbles to the very depths of lousy filmmaking on that note. [21 May 1990]

For those who have spent the last few months hungering for a big-spectacle mess (they are, after all, a feature of summer moviegoering), now you can take in a big-budget flop from the comfort of your own home.

In his attempt to give new life to the cult hero of comics and film, [Sanders has] given us plenty of beauty at the expense of depth or coherence.

The dialogue is head-spinningly mundane. The flow of testosterone is, well, head-spinning.

Visually and storytelling-wise it’s not a cut above much of what kids can watch on TV these days. This is a franchise that looks like it’s slowly going the way of the dinos, while we drool.

If an algorithm designed a classic, big-screen spectacle for the small-screen age, “The Electric State” probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

Harry and Son is uneven, rambling into irrelevant subplots. But the strength of Newman's character holds the film together. [06 Mar 1984]

Peppermint is not some model of equality, it’s just violent escapism that happens to have a woman in the lead role. And, frankly, as long as this genre continues to entertain audiences, Garner is a compelling a lead as any, and more so than quite a few of the men who get so many parts like this. But maybe, just maybe, next time consider a woman or two behind the camera (and script) as well.

The Red Sea Diving Resort is terribly overcooked, turning the real-life drama into a light caper like “Ocean’s 11,” adding cartoonish dialogue from hack superhero films and slathering the whole mess in white savior complex.

Woven throughout is some conversation about absent fathers and fear of abandonment, with unearned delivery and first-draft acuity — something gesturing at depth without piercing the surface.