A bunch of scenes in need of a tighter narrative and, more importantly, a raison d'être.

In the final frames, and the final analysis, Alien gets the worst of both worlds - it's boring and it's messy. The title may be "cubed," but the movie looks awfully square. [22 May 1992]

Narratively, the film strikes all the sentimental chords that audiences typically find so reassuring, but the music grates here, sounding mechanical and flat, lacking the single ingredient indispensable to any uplifting fable - a charming belief in its own sweet nature. [19 Apr 1996, p. C1]

Inflated production numbers come lumbering ludicrously onto the screen like so many boozy pink elephants from a demented circus. [26 Nov 1980]

For a movie about an assassin charged with killing Santa Claus (!) on the orders of a Richie Rich-like brat (!!), and starring Mel Gibson (!!!) as Kris Kringle himself, Fatman is astoundingly boring.

It's the perfect sort of movie to have playing on a television in the corner of a rec room during a low-key beer and pizza party.

Kids certainly won’t learn anything here, but they’re not likely to mistake it for entertainment, either.

Films about haunted houses have come a long way since the days when things simply went bump in the night, but The Amityville Horror may make you wish things would get back to basics. Peppered with visual red herrings, fast editing and cheap shocks, this is a product that promises an apocalypse of horror, delivers a few vague samples, but trails to an ending without providing a meaty climax. [28 July 1979]

The disturbing thing in this preposterous piece of family fluff from writer-director Steve Oedekerk (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, the Oscar-nominated Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) is the sight of bulls with udders.

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]

Try not to be in the same room as Jesus Henry Christ. At the very least run when the first fire alarm sounds.

Like a little boy playing with his first chemistry set, Hughes has thrown together the labelled contents of just about every teen-film cliche. And the experiment is a failure of excess - like a furious potion that bubbles up, fizzes briefly, and then fizzles out before expectant, and then disappointed, eyes. [3 Aug 1985]

Although Wonder Wheel begins with a few of the witty ruptures of the fourth wall that have often enlivened Allen's work, it soon descends into a bleak melodrama that is little more than warmed-over Tennessee Williams.

There's no doubt the cast is driven and talented; some day, it might be interesting to watch a film about what such kids are really like.

Director Guillermin has got a film that's alternately cloying and crude, sometimes needlessly violent (Kong still kills in self- defence, but now he breaks human victims in half). It's even less suitable for kids than for adults. [24 Dec 1986, p.D5]

A perfunctory gore fest and quite possibly the year's worst date movie.

With Things Are Tough All Over their once well-oiled comedy has rusted firmly into place. Now, the erstwhile darlings of the counter-culture seem about as raucously rebellious as a senescent Lucy Ricardo. [2 Aug 1982]

General Boredom meets Major Tedium on the Civil War fields of Virginia.

True appreciation must be paid to Melissa McCarthy, who does a so-very-loud version of her usual shtick – foul-mouthed wrecking-ball – to keep audiences awake when director Brian Henson (yes, son of Muppet creator Jim) resorts to having his puppets drop F-bombs instead of delivering actual jokes.

Through it all, actress Posey strikes attitudes and preens across the glib surface of the film, and though her campy excesses are tolerable for a brief time, the performance becomes an exercise in overkill. [13 Oct 1995]

The problem with this spinoff is, like homework, you’d rather be doing something else with your time.

Bailey’s journey through space and time and life and death to reunite with Ethan only seems to reinforce the notion that a dog’s purpose is to be man’s best friend. And we knew that already.

Never before have such acting heavyweights been so misused on screen.

A rip-off of The Birds, but not as scary. [21 July 1990]

The problem here isn't how the figures look; rather, it's what they do and say -- the story is lame and the dialogue no better.

Instead of funnelling his inspirations into one singular vision that he could call his own, Boone has made a Frankenstein of a franchise movie, a giant elevator pitch that leads directly to the sub-basement of originality.

Unwilling to offend, the scribes have committed the greatest offence of all - they've neglected to tell a story, airbrushing out anything remotely dramatic.

The resulting film, while sporadically affecting, is ultimately a slog of gooey sentiment and needlessly long death rattles.