The thin premise is just an excuse for an ultra-violent film. Worse, with the final scene, the suggestion is made that all the mayhem was the woman’s fault. Unhinged falls down in the worst ways possible.

In its neediness to be liked, the new Shaft – the third of five films in the series to be titled, simply, Shaft – says everything and nothing.

One of those non-stop jabbering cartoons in which most of the lines sound like the spontaneous riffs from a couple of comics sitting around a diner.

A farther-fetched fantasy: In addition to asking we believe our loosely packed academic can play Rocky, Here Comes the Boom imagines a world in which butterball Everyman Scott and the fabulously lush Bella (Salma Hayek) might argue and bill and coo and eventually fall in love.

It’s overlong, overplotted and crowded with a cast of “hey-it’s-that-guy!” C-listers (Luis Guzman, Danny Trejo), but the closed-quarters combat crackles with bone-shattering believability. And that’s really all that matters.

A movie so hysterical it worked best as a black comedy.

With its glum litany of naked corpses and mutilations, and understated actors looking bluish under the morgue's fluorescent lights, Nightwatch drains the fun out of horror. [17 Apr 1998]

Regrettably, the film’s place-setting opening lays the scene for a different, more exciting film that never really unfolds.

Sad to say, poor old Nightbreed fails even as failure - it's bad, but it's not memorably bad. The odor it emits is less the stench of an eternal hell than the stink of a passing purgatory. If nothing is forgiven by the time you've done your time in the theatre, all is certainly forgotten. [20 Feb 1990]

While Lawrence doesn't come close to the fireworks wit and satire of Pryor in his postfreebase-accident film, "Live On The Sunset Strip," his riveting story saves Runteldat from becoming just a routine slapped on the big screen.

Phantom still an auditory lobotomy.

The film’s heart may be in the right place, but a melodramatic score, pastoral cinematography and deeply sentimental character arcs make for an altogether mediocre drama, not an urgent thriller.

An entertaining, moderately irreverent comedy that launches the silly movie season on a sure foot.

Crowley knows his way from adaptations thanks to 2015′s Brooklyn, but as this 149-minute mess proves, The Goldfinch should have never flown away from its literary perch.

The Virginity Hit is another slice of "American Pie," one more youth comedy that encourages its cast (and audience) to ridicule a fumbling, well-meaning teenager.

When it gets right down to the climactic business at hand and arm, even the imposing skills of a Golan are put to a rigorous test. For, despite its obvious delights, armwrestling just can't compare to 10 bloody rounds from a pair of vigorous maulers or a brace of chattering machine-guns. [17 Feb 1987]

French Girl’s crude and at times infantile slapstick humour is offset by livelier beats between the cast, whose cross-cultural banter is littered with flashes of genuine wit.

This hunk of celluloid flotsam will come back sooner rather than later, washed up on the remote shelves of your local video store. My advice: shred the message, recycle the bottle.

Completely miscast, egregiously plotted and ludicrous in absolutely every single other way, Bliss is a true cinematic disasterpiece.

Ross’s formulaic direction could have been delivered by a robot or algorithm and nobody would have noticed. Watching Father Stu feels like enduring a B-movie that would never see the inside of a cinema (the film is playing exclusively in theatres) and be instead relegated to the bottom of a streaming or VOD queue – only it holds the star power and charisma of Wahlberg.

3 Days to Kill is a comic variation on the "Taken" movies, which Besson also co-wrote and produced, starring Liam Neeson as a daughter-rescuing spy.

The movie is like a glass of Sprite that has been left on the counter too long: transparent, sweet and flat.

Entertainments like this are what Hollywood is said to be all about: larger than life personalities redeeming material smaller than a breadbox. [23 July 1982]

Welcome to Marwen is the ultimate Robert Zemeckis movie. This is not intended as a compliment. The film – not quite comedy, not quite drama, but definitely indigestible – finds Zemeckis embracing his worst late-career indulgences.

If plot were oats, Wicker Park would choke a horse.

I hope that in the name of her decades-spanning career and six Academy Award nominations (plus one win), we might do MacLaine the small courtesy of forgetting that this pedestrian and dull comedy ever happened.

Remember Me could have been a decent family drama, especially considering its setting, but that was not to be. Too bad, because the romance is highly forgettable.

In a summer of low movie expectations and worse results, Fantastic Four is a not-so-bad mindless bit of camp escapism that doesn't try to eclipse its dime-store comic book roots.

If this movie doesn’t leave you howling at the very idea of demonic possession, you’re in dire need of an exorcist.

With its jazzy score and drizzly nighttime moods, where The Comedian works best is as a salute to New York stand-up scene, with looks into the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village and the New York Friars Club.

The whole picture plays like a pop-up book in a welfare agency.

Call it "Alexander the Grate," because, over the marathon of its three-hour running time, this wonky epic really does get on your nerves.

The first hour of Club Paradise is enjoyable and more or less adult, thanks in large part to the comic contributions of Williams, O'Toole and the SCTV alumni. But he has not learned structure. Toward the end, the island having been tossed into a civil war invented solely to give the movie one of the helter skelter farcical endings Ramis and Reitman regularly affix to their films, Club Paradise falls apart like a piece of cheap luggage. [4 July 1986]

A plot so preposterous it could only have emerged from the underground comic world.

There's a scientific law to be discerned here that producers would be well to heed: Mediocre movies start to drag as soon as the action speeds up; when the explosions start, they fall to pieces.

Writing, casting and pacing are vital. Scary Movie 4 doesn't let any gag get stale. It's rapid-fire, hit-and-miss and hit-and-strike comedy.

An intermittently watchable movie. Not because the plot is any less silly, or the theme any more mature, but for the simple reason that, on the margins of this marginal picture, there are several wonderful faces -- sometimes belonging to actors who know how to use them, and sometimes attached to folks who merely inhabit them. In either case, however, the visual result is an incongruous slice of vintage Americana pared off the usual slab of Hollywood mediocrity. [9 Sept 1997]

Coming from writers responsible for such material as "Snow Dogs" and "The 6th Day," National Treasure is not so much a no-brainer as a brain-stunner, so audaciously ridiculous you are initially intrigued, then soon irritated by its incoherence.

No one knows why bad things happen to good people. But we do know why bad things happen to good film ideas. They get ruined by poor scripts and indifferent direction. The evidence desemaine– Shrink.

Just a guffaw here, a chuckle there, ho-hum, and that's all, folks. [27 Jan 1989]

It’s all in good fun, but it also wants to engage with children beyond hollow gags and pop songs, which are there, but kept to a tasteful minimum.

There is the overwhelming sense that Domino was not directed by any one person at all, but rather spliced and diced by committee into something barely watchable.

Aloha is a marshmallow of a film: soft on the inside, soft on the outside and wholly devoid of substance.

Continuing directly from where 2010’s "Insidious" left off, Insidious: Chapter 2 follows the further misfortunes of the Lambert family with diminishing insidious rewards.

They’re back for an entertaining enough 3-D sequel to their 2014 franchise revival, and so is the rest of the cast that includes foxy Megan Fox and her ability to wear a naughty schoolgirl outfit.

There’s a modern noir story struggling to get out of Wild Card, just as there was in "Heat," and you can feel it every time Statham – a fine actor even when he’s not rearranging people’s skeletal structure – has to sit down, stare into yet another tumbler of vodka rocks and contemplate the miserable life sentence of his habit.

Still, the thing is almost watchable until a ridiculous reveal spoils whatever chances this film had at succeeding.

What Death Hunt is a piece of is neither entertaining nor educational. [18 Apr 1981]

A View to a Kill is much too long (nearly 2 1/4 hours); it cheats (a subplot involving the KGB comes and goes at leisure); and it has yet another extended section full of dumb cops and smashed cars. [24 May 1985]

It is a film that skips the huge dance numbers but not the dewy closeups; a film that can countenance premarital sex and doesn’t end in a wedding, but dissolves into melodrama nonetheless.

As long as it remains within the carefully constructed, peaceful and innocent cosmos of its opening, it's nonpareil. When it goes to war, it goes to hell. [18 Dec 1992]

A beautiful muddle.

The new Jason Statham movie Homefront aims to be retro, greasy comfort food but despite its lowly ambitions, there’s barely enough spice here to merit a decent burp.

The 355 is enjoyable, go-lady nonsense that eventually exhausts itself with its ambitions to be more. It’s like watching a woman have a furious argument with herself about a man who doesn’t love her enough, only it’s about spy movies.

Don't look for logic here. But if gore is your game, a motherlode awaits.

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.

At almost two hours, the film is a solid 20 minutes too long. [6 June 1986]

The refined taste insists on risibly bad, on hysterically bad, on poke-your-seatmate-in-the-ribs bad, and this falls well short of that hallowed mark -- it's just routinely bad.

Director Gary Sherman, a special effects maven who also co-wrote the movie, soon gives in to heavy-handed cliche.

None of it rings true, except perhaps the presence of an ambitious local TV news reporter (Kyra Sedgwick) who begins recording every macabre moment with relish.

Parents should find the warm-and-fuzzy sentiments of the movie tolerable, mostly thanks to the reliable star, Michael Keaton. [11 Dec 1998, p.C3]

Even the neatness here is borrowed. A Kiss Before Dying isn't a remake; it's a rehash. [27 Apr 1991]

Deep Impact, a triple-strand ensemble disaster flick, has a few good opening minutes, the biggest tidal wave you've ever seen in the closing minutes, and a cluster of little meandering melodramas in between.

Porky's is crafty, offensive retro-fantasy for one gender. [20 Mar 1982]

As a message movie, it's preachy without being serious; for an action movie, there's a lot of racket but not much fun.

Spiral too often gets in its own way and reveals its internal machinations before they’re due.

The intriguing thing about The Peaceful Warrior is that nothing else in the movie feels haphazard.

There are moments of salty wit to its teen TV sensibility, and the story offers proof, once again, than there are few stories that can't be adapted to the theme of teenaged popularity politics.

Brick Mansions is a non-starter: It chokes on its déjà vu, the hyperactive Mixmaster editing is exhausting and the characters’ banter is so leaden it might violate federal emission standards.

Like the film's punishingly gory set pieces, the storytelling itself is meaty.

What gets sacrificed on the altar of this new franchise launch is any real sense of fun.

This is a film whose sunny and insipid storytelling style is at odds with its material.

While there's some decent fun to be had in this fantasy world, The Change-Up drags on so long you may need to "visit the fountain" before Dave and Mitch become themselves again.

It's Footloose Loose In The Third Reich and, even with your expectations kept knee-high to a kindergarten, you might have at least hoped for some finger-poppin' music and a few great dance scenes. Sorry. Here, too, things come up short. [05 Mar 1993]

This movie is exceptionally brutal, cruel, savage and without conscience -- and that's just the comic parts. In contrast, the violent action sequences are quite entertaining.

Dark Places lacks the gloomy meditative quality that Gone Girl rode to success on, with none of the grace or subtlety necessary in making a convoluted thriller a watchable enterprise.

Perhaps the young performers are in such a good mood because they're liberated from having to play straight-as-a-ruler teen melodrama.

Despite being set in 1958 Cuba, Havana Nights sticks to the formula. This would be perfectly acceptable if the dancing was "dirtier" and if there was a spark between the young couple.

It's a mini-masterwork of acting. Stahl is definitely one to watch closely -- he's the real deal. But the emerging plot isn't.

Lumpy title, lively movie. Dead Man Down proves to be a frisky gangster flick cum elaborate thriller cum off-beat romance. Yep, there’s a whole lot going on here, but this is one of those plot-heavy scripts that carries its weight with confidence – the intricate twists don’t cheat.

Despite the too-twisty story and drippy characters, Larney does extremely impressive work with a limited budget, creating an entire world (or two) as if he had the resources of a Marvel escapade, or at the very least a Terminator entry. It’s only a shame that his performers don’t quite match his aesthetic ingenuity, especially Smit-McPhee, who wails and garbles with grating abandon.

Plot ain't where it's at here. An Innocent Man is guilty as charged and innocent as hell. [06 Oct 1989]

ALAN J. Pakula's name may seldom be associated with movies of dazzling brilliance, but you can generally rely on him for entertaining, first-rate work, like All the President's Men, Sophie's Choice and Presumed Innocent. He's let us down badly with Consenting Adults. [20 Oct 1992]

There’s little here to improve upon the stilted quality of the original, and it’s even more cumbersomely plotted.

A raunchy, fast-paced comedy that, nevertheless, is as flat as the tires on the old Volvo gathering dust in my garage.

Franco’s outlandish Laird dude is fascinatingly unfiltered, either when it comes to his non-stop F-bombs or his love-seeking shenanigans. It’s all a bit rompy, with a touch of the-world-is-a-changin’ commentary.

The high point might be the opening scene, before the stars arrive on screen.

The result is a small independent film suffering from a severe case of Hollywood-itis. A cautionary tale minus the caution, Just a Kiss is just a cop-out.

Irresistibly funny in its brightest moments. At other times, this comedy about a black-white culture clash sags until it scrapes bottom.

Titular ball scene, fancy dress makeover and lost stiletto shoe notwithstanding, the chaste nominal romance is less interesting than the fun, family-friendly Shakespearean shenanigans are.

Every stage of the race and chase is announced on a webcast conducted by the secret impresario of the illegal De Leon race, a billionaire car enthusiast known as the Monarch, who “nobody knows.” Actually, the Monarch is clearly visible in a corner of the computer screen and he’s played, with jive-spouting brio by Michael Keaton. Hey, the movie isn’t called Need for Logic.

So the big question for the new Disney adaptation of The Nutcracker, sure to ride the wave of the ballet’s seasonal popularity: What’s to be done with the cumbersome story?

Although I haven't read Nights in Rodanthe, I have to assume there is material in the book that would have helped the movie make hearts thud instead of fingers tap.

The dialogue is an occasionally witty cut above the norm, partly because director Greg Berlanti goes easy on those cute baby reaction shots, but mainly because of something rather more valuable: screen chemistry.

Cranked up at double speed, the plot of Flashdance could almost be a satirical fantasy about dance students. Although Flashdance doesn't admit it's a fantasy, neither does it succeed in looking realistic. [16 Apr 1983, p.E5]

In a picture that begins with a torching scene and goes on to mine the burning question of the rights of abused women to strike back, Provoked never ignites the screen with clear argument or noble passion.

As for children's entertainment needs, well, having seen both "The Golden Compass" and Alvin and the Chipmunks with a full theatre of four- to 12-year-olds, this reviewer is honour-bound to report that Alvin wins the kids' vote, paws down.

As Dobbs's chain-smoking and hard-eyed enabler, a quietly spooky Christopher Walken manages to straddle the genres more effectively, gently toying with the stereotype of the rough-edged showbiz manager.