Not terribly funny. When it does strain for humour, it opts for Farrelly brothers-style gross-outs -- vomit and chewed food and blocked drains -- which makes the movie itself seem like some kind of undigested expulsion rather than a well thought-out idea.

Silly, moronically entertaining horror film. [25 June 1985]

Having no emotional stakes leaves me cold, and leaves three cheeky actors with nothing to play. These characters are staring down death. They should be raging against the dying of the light, not going gently into their early-bird supper.

Predictable and maudlin. [14 Oct 1985]

Fans will probably spend little time debating Star Trek's intellectual depths; there are none. But the human element triumphs over the technological in a resolution that is sentimental and highly satisfying. Star Trek is a visually boggling 23rd-Century fantasy. But peel away the budget and it's as comforting as an old-fashioned fable. [8 Dec. 1979]

More interestingly, it's also kind of sweet in a contrived and fumbling first-kiss sort of way.

Last Night is a New York morality play: A film in love with (lower) Manhattan that is suspicious of real romance. What it lacks is Allen's sense of horseplay; his appetite for lunatic adventure. When you take a bite of the Big Apple, you're not supposed to nibble.

At once cluttered and cavernous, hysterical and static, romantic and cynical, The Zero Theorem works most effectively moment by moment and in the details.

The premise (and the promise) here, of course, is that, as the miles pass, the two will be as chalk is to cheese, oil to vinegar, an apple to an orange. And indeed this is what happens. Unfortunately, it's about the only thing that happens.

This is not a spoiler alert; it’s a tip: If you go to see American Ultra, stay for the credits, right to the end. They are animated and provide a mini fourth act for the film, a little action movie starring a super simian and a beautiful (human) damsel; they are an amusing addendum, but mainly they tell you a lot about where American Ultra’s heart lies, deep in comic-book territory.

There is something very wrong with the attempt of Nine 1/2 Weeks to excite the sensualists and appease the moralists at the same time. Most of the sex is fairly mild, but there are hints of what Nine 1/2 Weeks must have been before Lyne was forced to recut it. [21 Feb 1986, p.C1]

Falls somewhere on that aesthetic scale between mediocre and flat-out bad.

Jungle Cruise taps into a type of thrill-ride nostalgia that feels algorithmically created. Everything about the film is just right, from its charismatic stars to its jungle hijinks to its heart-to-heart chemistry between Lily and Skipper – all of it only slightly updated for a 2021 crowd.

That the plot is totally stupid is Boss Baby’s saving grace. It’s the rare cartoon that actually feels like a cartoon, propelled by its goofiness and sheer energy and rarely bogged down by boring, polemical lesson-learning.

Most of the cast range from tolerable to appealing (especially Molina and Pena), with a conspicuous exception. Debra Messing, as the career-driven outsider, is consistently stilted.

This is the kind of film where the audience has to sort through the sequences, like visiting the green grocer's: liked that bit, can do without those.

By the head-scratching dénouement, the "perfect" in the title seems particularly misplaced. How about Dial M for Muddle.

The whole d--- thing can be summed up in three little words: yo ho hum.

Filled with lovable eccentrics, Boundaries tries too hard to avoid the commonplace as its jolts erratically down the well-travelled, heavily signposted route that is the big-hearted road-movie.

Statham is as enjoyably stern and semi-serious as ever, but his sturdy presence cannot enliven a weirdly buttoned-up exercise in mercenary mayhem.

Though The Stoning of Soraya M.'s heart is in the right place, its head is lost in storm clouds of anger.

What we’re instead left with are two diametrically opposed performances: Williams goes small and intimate as the distressed Isabel, while Moore opts for a more operatic, less successful tenor that results in what might be the actress’s most unhinged moment ever (and not in a good way).

I also appreciated the film’s quick glimpse of Hell itself, which Lucia is plunged into as a warning to whose who won’t accept salvation. With its cheap CGI demons and soundtrack of wailing souls, it was unintentional comedy of the highest order. If you need me, I’ll be laughing all the way to Hades.

Fur does what an Arbus photograph never would -- it leaves no room to imagine and removes any reason for doubt.

Harrelson never seems to have his head in the game, and not because he’s playing a character just waiting for his shot to coach the NBA. He and Farrelly appear to be slumming it in much the same way that Marcus is, as if their basic efforts working with a cast with special needs is feel-good and charitable enough.

With a plot that thickens like congealed stew, this movie about a harmless nutbar, an attorney and a cabal can leave you lost in banality.

A political parody that is almost as ridiculous as actual American politics.

There are enough secrets, lies and tepidly chaste sex scenes – both of the straight and same-sex variety – to fill a hundred kitchen sinks. But the resulting drama is all drips and drops, no deluge.