It's scary how unfunny this flick is.

Shtick is what Twins is all about, but there's good shtick and bad shtick, and there's enough good shtick in Twins, the majority of it involving Arnold Schwarzenegger's exposure to modern U.S. mores, to keep the momentum going. [10 Dec 1988, p.C3]

As the careening cars go splat, splat, splat, the director's vision of the future looks like a cheerfully mindless combination of two extremes of carnival entertainment: demolition derby and whack-a-mole.

Entertaining, if highly predictable, escapist ensemble comedy.

The familiar and facile elements are drowned out – often, and loudly – by the impeccable comedic talents of Hill and Murphy, two performers whose very different styles clash and complement one another.

After watching the film twice in quick succession – a futile attempt at catching a glimpse of what usually makes a Falardeau film so immensely watchable (see the Quebecois filmmaker’s Monsieur Lazhar, The Good Lie, My Internship in Canada and Chuck) – My Salinger Year ultimately lands as a mere footnote.

Funnier than "Nacho Libre," more fashionable than "The Devil Wears Prada," able to deliver more revengeful thrills than "X-Men: The Last Stand" in a single scene, My Super Ex-Girlfriend may sound like a midsummer mash of "The Break-Up" and "Superman," but it's more clever and emotionally resonant than that.

So when it comes to rawness, realness or any other signifier of urban authenticity, Step Up 2 The Streets doesn't measure up, especially when compared with a grittier dance flick still in theatres, the Toronto-made "How She Move."

Lovely Molly is determined to remain ambiguous, but the title says it all. Good-Lookin' Joanie just wouldn't have the same ominous ring to it.

Runaway is a Dinky Toy of a film: tiny, shiny, and about half as well-made. [15 Dec 1984]

Whatever the narrative shortcomings, these characters have the warmth of antique painted storybooks, unlike the eerie plastic simulation of Pixar characters.

By stripping the genre down to its essentials, long on the serial disasters but thankfully light on the stupid dialogue, [Petersen] not only maintains an acceptable modicum of suspense but -- here's the major bonus -- also manages to set a blissful speed record in the process, bringing his pricey blockbuster home to port in under 100 minutes.

There’s a fine line sometimes, as "This is Spinal Tap" reminded us, between stupid and clever. Now You See Me wobbles along that tightrope for much of its running time.

Sitting through what is so far the worst movie of 1988 is enough to make any cuckoo's nest seem sane. [3 June 1988]

Midnight meets madness in a surrealist exercise in existentialism and deft satire that will unsettle the average viewer while exciting those with freakier tastes.

What doesn't work so persuasively is Elkoff's script, particularly the overuse of voice-over.

What might have been delicious trash lacks the courage of its trashy convictions, and the result is high-born melodrama with the juice boiled out, so much dry cabbage on fine-china plate.

Destined to disappear into the quicksand of time, too innocuous to be hated, too bland to be remembered, just awaiting some bright optimist in a distant future to press the do-over button.

The characters are reluctant to believe in the face of overwhelming evidence, mostly because writer-director Scott Stewart doesn’t want to play his hand too early. By the time the movie is over, it’s easy to see why he kept his cards close to his chest. He’s not really holding anything.

Writer-director Tommy Lee Wallace is not, as can be gathered, a born auteur, but he is crafty at timing the jumpies - despite a silliness that increases as the movie goes on, there are enough left-field shocks to please even the most discriminating fan of what American Film has dubbed the "genre non grata. [25 Oct 1982]

Wrong Is Right shows the comic subtlety of The Jeffersons on a slow night. Everything else may be topsy-turvy in the world, but unfunny still isn't funny even in the Oval Office. [15 May 1982]

On one side, Sugar Hill is an admirable picture with strong performances. On the other, it's a victim of narrative cliches. [25 Mar 1994]

Over on the aliens side, it's hard to make out faces, but there's no doubt about their place of origin: These slimy, growling, bug-eyed and distinctly non-scary things are straight from central casting.

Soulless and idiotic and abysmally scripted as it is, Anarchy, like its predecessor, feels mournfully relevant.

Blonde is a precisely engineered nightmare. From Monroe’s childhood to superstardom, Dominik presents her as a passive victim of never-ending tragedy: neglect, abuse, heartbreak, addiction. And in doing so, Dominik creates a cinematic experience so repellent that it is destined to be loathed and misunderstood, written off as crass and opportunistic just like those who profited off Monroe’s body during her own life.

What a featherweight epic this is, the kind of uniformed period piece where the watchword is pretty. Pretty costumes, pretty soldiers, pretty battles; pretty silly.

[Law] talks straight to the camera like the young Michael Caine, but this time our hunk has got zilch to say. That's because a bastard's candour is off-limits in today's politically correct market — it just wouldn't be polite.

Petersen seems to be holding back, telling us about the liberating power of the imagination but never really showing us. Of course, to show us would be to spoon feed the audience, thereby blunting the message and defeating the point. [20 Jul 1984, p.E9]