A picture in the running for the dubious distinction of being perhaps the worst Marvel-derived origin story ever.

Ultimately, Argylle is mostly bad CGI, action sequences that go by so fast you wonder what Vaughn is trying to hide, and a lot of strange tangents.

The Perfect Weapon is functional, but as formula-bound as they come. [16 Mar 1991, p.C5]

Hathaway and Wilson, instead of exuding odd-couple comic chemistry, seem to barely be in the same movie; they don’t click, with each other or with a bland Alex Sharp as their tech-bro mark.

Lambert relies so much on gore and mean-spiritedness that the actors can't help looking glum; they're clearly being ignored by a director who seems to have lost touch with all the human elements in the story. The movie is ultimately as lifeless as most of its characters end up being. [28 Aug 1992, p.28]

Unfortunately, the highlights are sporadic. British co-directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel created the similarly ambitious "Max Headroom" TV series, but they lack the visionary gifts of Terry Gilliam, and so Super Mario Bros. remains more of a game than the awesome movie it's trying to be. Can anyone say that's surprising?

Smith, on the other hand, throws himself avidly into his work, communicating a, uh, biting malevolence and sick glee in his portrayal. The picture only truly comes alive when he’s masticating his scenes. Otherwise, “Morbius” is dead at its center.

Hardly anyone comes off looking good in this glitzy and faintly ludicrous melodrama. [16 Feb 1990, p.34]

Kraven may be the world’s greatest hunter, but next time, he needs to track down a better movie.

It quickly becomes apparent that the narrative content of “Kingsglaive” is a barely coherent muddle.

No matter what its virtues are, this Satanic gobbledy-gook still tastes like gobbledy-gook. [09 Apr 1990, p.E3]

Stephen Herek, who directed Critters and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, nevertheless keeps the story spinning along as if he believed it, and he works well with the actors, especially Cassidy, who plays her dotty career woman with a mixture of brassiness and resilience that's quite engaging; Coogan, a natural young comic who is becoming indispensable in movies like this; and Applegate, who looks very much like a movie star in her major-studio, big-screen debut. [07 June 1991, p.29]

Time-travel movies don't come much dopier than Freejack. [18 Jan 1982, p.C5]

Weaver’s Kay is a fanatic.

There’s no problem keeping up with these Joneses. The audience is way ahead of them every step of the way.

The ever-game Dormer and that lovely green forest — which is, according to the press notes, played by a photogenic woodland in Serbia — deserve better.

Despite the stakes, Mendeluk can’t scare up any particular urgency, largely because everything is so contrived and inauthentic.

In the vast canon of King-derived movies, “Tower” belongs in the upper ranks.

It's so much a Wayans vehicle that at times it seems like one long close-up of his gold-tooth grin. [24 March 1995, p.H24]

A chaotic, juvenile slag-heap of semi-futuristic action that should make at least a few Hollywood idiots think twice about adapting another video game.

The real criminals here are writers William Davies and William Osborne (obviously pseudonyms for Beavis and Butt-head), who have concocted a derivative, imbecilic anything-goes premise serving only to provide random opportunities for the CGI wizards to strut their stuff. [31 Dec 1993, p.C14]

Production values could not be cheaper for a major-studio film. An extended woodsy scene with a collapsing cabin, supposedly set in the Wenatchee National Forest, so obviously makes use of tiny models that you expect the artifice to become part of the joke. It never does. Like so much of Black Sheep, it's a missed opportunity.

They're obviously smart people, but they end up painting themselves into a corner with this cast. Stern, the hammiest of the lead actors, is allowed to dominate the early scenes, and he rarely lets go. His bug-eyed act is getting stale, as is Aykroyd's tendency to walk through roles like this. The freshest element here is Wayans, who gets top billing in the ads but somehow winds up seeming like a supporting player. [19 Apr 1996]

Shouting and struggling, poor Pratt vainly tries to give his character dimension and some sense of sympathy. So genial and engaging in the Guardians of the Galaxy series, Pratt flails grouchily and ineffectively in Mercy.

Alice Through the Looking Glass isn’t without pleasures, but this empowerment-meets-fantasy mixture could have used a few more sprinklings of quirk.

Toy Story approached toy frenzy from the toys' point of view while craftily exploring the media-driven delusions of that Turbo Man-like doll, Buzz Lightyear. Jingle All the Way had that kind of potential, but somewhere along the way the filmmakers lost all perspective. [22 Nov 1996, p.F7]

It has some great laughs and real screwball energy. It also has its heart in the right place, with Emilio Estevez's environmental concerns figuring prominently in the plot. [24 Aug 1990, p.28]

Death Warrant has two colors: dark red, dark blue. It has two moods: brooding and brutal. It makes prison look more attractive by adding fog machines and then filming everything in slow motion. [15 Sep 1990, p.C7]

The script’s first half is vigorous enough.... But the movie needs the audacity of a “Trainspotting” to lift it above the norm.

A mostly agreeable but empty-headed mess. It’s sort of the movie equivalent of Derek Zoolander himself.

A confused mishmash of plot elements featuring overwrought extraneous characters. Kids likely will love it. Their parents will just have to grin and bear it.

The fact that Bracey is the equivalent of a charisma black hole (at the movie’s center, there is no there there) and the further fact that the movie runs out of plot long before it runs out of stunts to showcase, make Point Break a remake that ought not to have been made.

Unfortunately, Shapiro borrows from too many movies (his climax vaguely recalls "Stranger on a Train") to let his story's potential shine through, and so "The Crush" remains an exercise in diminishing returns. [3 Apr 1993, p.C5]

A slickly contrived studio product, as insincere as it is ineffectual. [12 Oct 1990, p.28]

The Mummy starts off light and very quickly goes dark — fading rapidly, along with our hopes that this latest monster mash might possibly be any good.

It doesn’t hold a candle to the game, but there’s enough here to warrant another visit to this tragic little town.

Saddled with a script full of lifeless, mock-clever ideas (such as having the local blacksmith make a pair of Rollerblades), Gottlieb can only do his best to mollify his audience with a few fleeting hints of the movie's untapped potential.

Exposure to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip may result in the dislocation of eyeballs in viewers over the age of 7 due to uncontrollable rolling of the eyes at the sight of the idiotic antics committed on screen. To avoid eye strain, which is to say, eye sprain, avoid this movie at all costs.

The Glimmer Man is just as foolish and formulaic as it sounds. [05 Oct 1996, p.C3]

All of it feels warmed over, reprocessed … and, yes, confused.

There are some fleeting moments of inspiration — the music by Rob Simonsen is a master class in sudsy melodrama, and Nixon turns in a great performance — but The Only Living Boy in New York is rotten to its Big Apple core.

How many dead spots does it take to kill the genuinely funny moments in a romantic comedy? This question gets a severe workout in writer-actor-director Eric Schaeffer's second film: an alternately charming, predictable, hilarious and tedious exercise that holds your interest for about an hour. [8 March 1996]

Essentially a mugging contest masquerading as a science-fiction farce, My Favorite Martian suggests that nothing really changes in the universe of bad Disney comedies. [12 Feb 1999, p.G7]

The game, propelled by twitchy point-of-view camera work and abundant jump scares, is fast-paced. The movie is anything but.

After a sprightly credits sequence in which the animated Pink Panther takes over conducting duties for Henry Mancini, while helping Bobby McFerrin doodle with the Panther theme Mancini composed 30 years ago, it's mostly downhill. It's been 10 years since the last Panther installment, yet Edwards seems exhausted.

This fuzzily illustrated sermon is mostly an attempt to prove that the internal combustion engine is obsolete, and that oil companies everywhere are conspiring to wipe out alternative methods.

The nonstop silliness of this picture leaves one choking on stifled laughter.

Rob Reiner's "North" is a modest, uneven satire about parents and children. It stars the ingratiating Elijah Wood and generates its share of laughs, but the film never moves beyond its obvious point: Kids deserve parents who aren't self-serving imbeciles. [22 Jul 1994, p.D25]

It's perhaps the only film that could make you wish they'd made a sequel to "Encino Man" instead. [2 July 1993, p.D24]

It’s not a terribly good idea to base a movie on a book in which almost nothing happens for 500 pages, but that’s what we have here.

Jade is sharp enough to keep you focused, but as usual Eszterhas is more interested in cynical titillation than in making much sense or (heaven forbid) exploring a substantial theme. [13 Oct 1995, p.F3]

There's no emotional pay-off when the characters change under pressure. The audience never knows enough about them to care when they demonstrate bravery or resourcefulness, and there's no chemistry between the people who are supposed to be deeply attached to each other. [06 Oct 1990, p.C7]

This picture stands as the best argument yet that the YA dystopia cycle has passed its sell-by date.

If Like a Boss had a decent screenplay, and was competently directed, it might have been pretty good.

Even if you're judging by quantity, not quality, Fatal Instinct is merely comatose on arrival. [29 Oct 1993, p.D31]

Stuck in this largely infantilized role, Cowen imbues Angel with as much verve and spunk as she can; she’s often funnier and darker than necessary, offering a refreshing dash of acid to temper the sickly sweetness.

Paula Patton, playing a half-orc, half-human female warrior, is the most sympathetic character and actually gives something approaching a fully fledged performance, but for the rest of it … ugliness as far as the eye can see.

“Cats” the movie is deeply, deeply weird, and not in a good way.

The whole purpose of this teen horror movie is to show creatively gruesome deaths. If you prefer your horror flicks with a dash of wit or suspense, look elsewhere.

A male-bonding tearjeker that sometimes resembles "Top Gun" on the Colorado ski slopes, Aspen Extreme" is a more watchable movie than you might expect from a former ski instructor who's making his feature-film debut as a writer-director.

The plot proceeds at a punishing clip but there’s a tediousness to the proceedings, even at a rather tight 97 minutes, because no dramatic weight is given to anything that unfolds.

Johnson and Dornan’s performances are wooden and their chemistry nonexistent (particularly in the movie’s more-of-the-same sex scenes), but think of it all as ultra-deadpan entertainment and it kind of works.

Unfortunately, the recycled plot is still the driving force here, and the movie becomes increasingly frantic trying to accommodate it. In the end, Raffill can't bring this dummy to life, but he does try.

Very, very late in ECCO’s two-plus hour running time, answers come. It’s a long wait for clarity. From the viewer, much patience is required.

Eventually, the film muddles its way into a self-indulgent, overlong mess, complete with a flowerlike beating heart, a miraculous new life and a lot of soccer. Long before anyone in Ma Ma expires, the movie does.

Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen deserve better than the scattershot script for Repossessed, a desperate spoof of The Exorcist that generates perhaps two belly laughs, three well-earned smiles and about 287 groaners. [29 Sep 1990, p.B7]

The picture is part slapstick comedy, part tearjerker, but the mixture rarely works, and sometimes it's actively irritating.

Blind Fury is cheerfully stupid, deliberately cartoonish and always self-mocking. [17 Mar 1990, p.C5]

Fire Birds reduces it all to kiss-kiss-bang-bang, and the implication that a few theater-rattling explosions will turn the enemy to toast forever. The only blessing is that it runs less than 90 minutes.

As welcome as a race riot on Christmas Eve, this excruciating comedy is destined not to become a year-end television perennial. [02 Dec 1994, p.I32]

The Book of Henry launches itself into cloud cuckooland and never returns to Earth.

In the matter of searching for work in a difficult economy, Get a Job traffics in fairy tales that come complete with happily-ever-after endings.

Sadly, Friend Request is not even the first movie to travel that harrowing Dead Girl Who Still Maintains an Active Facebook Presence road.

The Museum of Modern Art has committed Tobe Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) to its permanent collection. This spin-off, which has none of that film's brutal energy, won't be joining it. The state of Texas ought to sue the makers of Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III for defamation of character. [13 Jan 1990, p.C5]

The gunplay is primary though there are some obligatory scenes of martial arts fights.

Story II does feature some of the creatures from the first film (the luckdragon, the rockbiter), and Miller almost pulls off the finale, which suggests the emotional impact of the original film. But there's a lot of dawdling on the way.[09 Feb 1991, p.C10]

The odd couple here is just as charmless, and their adventures are equally unfunny. When the filmmakers try to get sentimental about the relationship, you'll either be rolling your eyes or thinking about heading for the exit.

Rampant silliness has its place. [5 Feb 1993, p.22]

A colossal waste of time and the moviegoer’s dollars. That’s the bottom line of Daddy’s Home 2.

It is routine but watchable fare (set in Portland, partially filmed in Olympia), steeped in movie tradition and executed with admirable craftsmanship . . . and enough naked Madonna to make everything else a trivial distraction. [15 Jan 1993, p.3]

Because so few movies focus on stories about women, it’s incredibly frustrating to see this strong cast drifting away on a tide of soap bubbles — there’s no movie here, just scene after scene of melodramatic cliché.

Screeching, screaming, bouncing around the galaxy. Insufferable. And seemingly interminable.

The travelogue-style photography is soothing, the bodies are pretty and the music isn't offensive, but feature-length movies can't survive on the ingredients for a standard airline commercial.

The action is pumped up. The destruction is extreme. The whole thing is absurd.

It's neither scary nor original. In fact, it's something of a chore to sit through. [27 Oct 1990, p.C3]

It's a good thing this third and presumably final Highlander film will appeal only to those who've bothered to see the first two, because an uninitiated viewer wouldn't be able to make even the slightest sense out of it. [28 Jan 1995, p.C5]

As these things go, this is a painless and breezily amusing variation on the theme.

The Aspern Papers, brief as it is, needed more of a lightness of touch; if you weigh down melodrama too much, it dies.

Well-intentioned but hulky and lumbering, "Steel" falls somewhere between the cacophony of "Batman & Robin" and the tepid Robert Townsend vehicle "Meteor Man." With a size-22 shoe, it just keeps stepping on its own feet.

It's not enough to say that the Ernest movies are aimed at very young children. They are aimed at very young, very stupid children, and their unfortunate parents should steer them toward more edifying entertainment. [12 Nov 1993, p.D24]

Offering only an atmosphere of deepening gloom and a premise of utter hopelessness, Man Down is like movie antimatter: It repels interest.

If you loved Wolfe's book, you may very well hate the movie. If you simply liked the novel, you may be simultaneously entertained and disappointed by what De Palma and Cristofer have done to it. If you don't know the book, you may find the movie mildly enjoyable, while wondering what all the fuss is about. [21 Dec 1990, p.3]

A joyless experience.

When words fail in The Last Knight, the crunching and crashing and KLANKing of the special-effects scenes take up the slack. Punishingly overwrought in every aspect, Last Knight is a KLANK! KLANK! KLUNKER.

There's only so much a director can do to dress up a sequel as ill-conceived and impoverished as this one. [30 Aug 1991, p.24]

For a fun time to dispel the gloom of January, Dolittle is just what the doctor ordered.

The sad fact is, this 90-minutecharade - like almost every movie ever made that features "Silent Night" on the soundtrack - will be showing up on late-night television every Christmas Eve into the next century. Talk about your nightmares before Christmas. [5 Nov 1993, p.D32]

Consider your multiplex choices carefully as Valentine’s Day approaches; you might find yourself weeping tears of relief when the credits finally roll.