This film is a dud all on its own, a watered down Woody Allen facsimile that is long on F-bombs and short on wit, with an internal logic that falls apart with barely a half-cocked glance.

As interesting as reading the computer code that was used to create the original Mortal Kombat video game, and about as fun as getting your spine torn out.

It’s all too silly to arouse, but too garish and annoying to be thoughtful. It feels as if Fennell is torn between having her cake and eating it out, too.

More often than not, Heads of State feels as if it is missing its own leader, as if the director was simply a package lost in the Prime delivery mail.

A House of Dynamite doesn’t so much self-destruct as fail to even ignite a spark.

Imaginary is as dour a slog as M3GAN was a bloody bit of self-aware camp.

In a more controlled and less punishing film, Lawrence’s deeply committed performance would be the discussion of the year. Yet she has tossed herself to the wolves here, the star provided no care or cover by her director. What is the point in going so raw, so feral, if the result is so scattered, so interminable, so irredeemably silly?

When you combine the megawattage of Gyllenhaal and Adams with Ford’s directorial … well, “prowess” would be too strong a word, so let’s go with “vision.” So, when you combine those two actors with Ford’s vision, what you get is a ridiculous, high-camp mess that could easily be mistaken for substance, if it weren’t so irredeemably silly.

The boorish, juvenile Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is the proverbial turd in the Jacuzzi – you can’t pin down who’s responsible, but it’s a floater that ruins the party.

Like the nasty comic books of many a misspent youth, Creepshow 2 is, deliberately, a sometimes lurid and overdrawn anthology. It consists of three unconnected tales of modern American death, a Creepshow comic book come to life. It is as if Romero and director Michael Gornick are determined to spare grownups the embarrassment of taking horror seriously. [01 June 1987]

If you have missed Janis Joplin, and if you have looked forward to Bette Midler's debut in a role she seemed born to play, you should leave the theatre at that precise moment. Almost everything else in and about The Rose, except a few concert sequences and the occasional occasions when Miss Midler falls out of character and into her stage persona of The Divine Miss M, is infuriatingly tedious, depressing, pretentious, obvious and downright pushy. [10 Nov 1979]

The movie, which banks on the popularity of the rest of the series rather than concern itself with details such as motive, doesn’t add up to much. Annabelle: Creation is a series of slowly opened doors and close-ups of a truly ugly doll whose makeup must have been done in the dark by a deranged artist similarly possessed.

A lazy, hasty effort that offers little beyond a few jack-in-the-box startles and a high body count, including Hewitt's bouncing about in a shirt half-unbuttoned over a bikini top.

Though Lillard's excitable tone keeps promising wild comic adventures, the sequences are uniformly flat and humour-free.

Other than a few gratuitous montage sequences, plus a patently clumsy echo of the shopping scene in "Pretty Woman," Marshall refuses to pull his share of the load, forcing his beleaguered cast to fend for themselves.

Distinctly humdrum, The Last Legion, a boy's adventure story that seems to have been dragged out of the vaults of some early-sixties TV series.

The Boondock Saints II does, from time to time, display a vulgar charm. Or maybe it just wears you out.

Stylistically, Baird seems keen to position Filth as a spiritual sequel to "Trainspotting."

Nothing - not great actors, brilliant direction, splendid costumes or beautiful people - could boost Troop Beverly Hills over the obstacle presented by its screenplay. [22 March 1989]

It's not really serious, not especially funny, and not noticeably scary. Strikeout.

At times, the film is more fun than it deserves to be, and it's probably a lot more fun if you're a 13-year-old with an addiction to "Bully: Scholarship Edition."

The film doesn't work, it ain't charming.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is not faring well as a horror-movie scream queen. Gone are the attitude, wit and verve she used to routinely display in the title role of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

As directed by Bob Giraldi, well-known for his work in rock videos, Hiding Out manages to offer a brief catalogue of the cliches from both genres, before allowing the teen flick to take over. The film is essentially a series of comedy bits in the service of an MTV soundtrack. That soundtrack, which includes the first revelation of K.D. Lang and Roy Orbison's duet on Crying, may be the film's only creditable achievement. [10 Nov 1987]

Now, forcibly deported to Chicago and peopled with American stars, the same story is huffed and puffed and squeezed into an entirely different cultural context. Guess what? Sayonara sushi, hello turkey.

The Wraith reveals itself as little more than formula teen-audience lure. Of some merit to the whole enterprise are two things: the lovingly photographed desert scenery and the hip and lively music score that drowns out most of the turgid dialogue. As far as the acting goes, it's a pity there are no blinds on the screen. [25 Nov 1986, p.D7]

The biggest high comes from the images evoked by the title alone, or the title in tandem with the movie poster, doesn't it?

A British flick based on the first novel in a popular teenage spy-thriller series by Anthony Horowitz, looks promising but, unfortunately, doesn't measure up.