The script earns a few points for trying to deal with the puzzles inherent in time-travel stories, and it's not surprising that the author is John Varley, who has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for his science-fiction novels. But he needed a more inspired director than the plodding Michael Anderson. [15 Mar 1990, p.D5]

By the end, it’s made glaringly obvious that the people who made Madame Web intended it to be the prelude to sequels featuring the three proto Spider-Women. Spare us.

Sloppy writing, inconsistent tone and gaping plotholes make this film look more like instant video product. [1 May 1992, p.34]

It’s Honeyglue, a romantic drama, which fittingly, given that title, is sticky with sentimentality.

Whether or not you're a fan of De Jong's earlier work, Drop Dead Fred is clearly an extension of it. There's even a touch of Peter Pan and Wendy in the relationship between Mayall and Cates ("He's like my best friend, and yet I'm scared to death of him"), who has a ball with the role.

I was hoping to miss the preview of Encino Man by scheduling some other, more entertaining diversion like, say, a few hours of unnecessary oral surgery. No such luck...There is a special annex of hell for movies like this, where sinners and simpletons are sent to atone for watching too much MTV. [22 May 1992, p.22]

Unfortunately, the script by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa (a husband-and-wife team who previously collaborated on "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle") eventually throws out all ambiguities and endorses Field's actions, even suggesting that her husband and Mantegna's policeman just aren't committed enough to seek justice...It's a revolting development in a transparently manipulative movie, created by people who clearly know better. [12 Jan 1996]

Imagine the worst costume epic imaginable. Imagine no more. It exists.

The dialogue is so insipid, the jokes so sophomoric, one gets the feeling Saget called in a favor to the Olsen twins on a day the pair were feeling particularly naughty. [15 Jun 1998]

The script by David Stenn (21 Jump Street), which also includes a hoary subplot involving blackmail, a kidnapping and a guilty family secret, is essentially a way of tying together a collection of familiar-looking music videos that are so loosely connected to the story that they have about the same impact as commercials. [19 Oct 1991, p.C7]

Collateral Beauty is a pretty terrible movie, but it left me with one overarching thought: My life, and surely yours, too, would be vastly improved if only Helen Mirren were perpetually lurking nearby, offering advice.

Sometimes, all the pieces are there, but it just isn’t worth putting the puzzle together. Such is the case with Tomas Alfredson’s The Snowman.

The sparring couple at its center are played by Naomi Watts, a fearless actress who seems game for anything, and Matthew McConaughey, who just seems off his game here.

Cute and daffy enough to make your molars ache, Bakery in Brooklyn is the kind of romantic comedy that lacks all conviction.

Helms and Wilson are sometimes a stretch as brothers, especially in the more emotional scenes. But Close is majestic as the mother, a supporting role that feels bigger than it is.

Ripped works best as a middling series of gags about being far too many tokes over the line.

No child should be exposed to this.

The worst thing about Life Itself is not that it is emotionally sadistic. It's just how much it wants to be emotionally sadistic, while missing the mark by a mile.

The sexual sadism that ruled in the first Hellraiser has been largely replaced by tiresome confrontations between the toymakers and Pinhead, who responds to their sputtering oaths with the most sensible line in the movie: "Do I look like someone who would care what God thinks?" [9 March 1996, p.F3]

The year is still young, but it's not likely to yield a more profoundly vacuous movie than Wild Orchid. [28 Apr 1990, p.C5]

That this silly excuse for a movie knows it's silly isn't nearly enough to justify its waste of talent, time and money. Skip it and save yours. [26 Aug 1994, p.25]

Mr. Nanny is certainly harmless, even though Hogan acts as if he's stumbled onto the set of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. But only the most gullible 4-year-old will get a rise from the lifeless direction of co-writer Michael Gottlieb, whose earlier Mannequin provided a similar dose of moviegoing torture. [09 Oct 1993, p.C3]

The new "Magoo" ends with a statement that it doesn't mean to slight near-sighted people or prejudice anyone against them. But so few of the sight gags relate to Magoo's near-sightlessness that the apology is baffling. [25 Dec 1997, p.26]

It’s a lazy movie that fades from memory the instant the credits start to roll; a blandly pretty cog in a studio wheel. Moms deserve better. So do moviegoers.

At the risk of confessing a breech of duties, I "watched" much of the film with my eyes closed, isolating the soundtrack only because I could always accurately guess what was happening on the screen . . . which wasn't much, believe me. [20 Mar 1993, p.C6]

One might have hoped for some semblance of vitality and ingenuity in this, Jason's ninth and final solo killing spree, but it's a retread to its rotten core. [14 Aug 1993, p.C3]

As skiing comedies go, this one is no easier to endure than Hot Dog - The Movie or Snowball Express. Maslansky instructed his writers to come up with a script to go along with the title he'd dreamed up, and every character, comic twist and plot development seems tortuously manufactured and insincere. [10 Feb 1990, p.C7]

Nothing But Trouble is nothing but dismal. [16 Feb 1991, p.C5]

This installment is essentially the same mix as before, with only a better-than-average cast to recommend it. [30 Sept 1995, p.F7]

Car 54, Where are You? is an insult to the popular late-1950's TV show that inspired it.

D’Souza manipulates viewers’ passions while telling them who to blame for their bile. As for Hillary, D’Souza asserts she wants to nationalize all our industries and steal all our money. His lack of evidence undercuts his message.

Director Park Hyun-gene skillfully engineers the inevitable triumph of the heart over every kind of human foible, and — why not? — a viewer is temporarily hooked.

The Phoenix Incident is an indigestible mess.

The picture’s time shifts are smoothly handled by Kwak. But eventually confusion sets in.

Writer-director Jo Sung-hee subtly evokes American Westerns and “X-Files”-like weirdness while dreaming up such pulse-quickening set pieces as a shootout in a fog-filled room.

A traditional documentary with solemn voice-over, career timeline and critical assessments this is not. But while a few more facts along those lines would have been welcome...this visual love letter nevertheless conveys Kirk’s spirit and music well.

Should you decide to watch all of Blackway, a decision I cannot endorse, you’ll get to know Lillian (Julia Stiles), a determined if rather personality-free woman who’s moved back to the small Oregon logging town where she grew up.

Gaup deftly keeps track of the major betrayals without making them seem too obvious.

[A] warmly revealing documentary.

Filmed during three separate trips to the Auschwitz site starting in 2010, the result is a movie so intensely personal that it amounts to an extended selfie.

The Charnel House is watchable, even if you can tell very soon what’s really going on behind mysterious doings.

You feel hints of a strange energy in Emily that remind us we don’t always know why we do what we do in relationships. The hard part is holding on for the ride.

Entertaining but almost too ambitious for its own sake.

Cross occasionally lets their more promising moments go slack. The staging of a few scenes suggests home-movie limitations. But enthusiasm counts for a great deal in a project as ambitious and strange as Second Nature.

The result is a stylish, inventive film that kept me intrigued, even as its story twisted so mightily I feared it might snap.

There is advocacy. And then there is propaganda. The Trolley, with its overcooked rhetoric, falls into the latter category.

Brewmaster is a great thirst-quencher for fans of craft beer.

Two very strong performances anchor Potato Dreams of America, Seattle-based filmmaker Wes Hurley’s thought-provoking dramatization of his childhood in his native Russia and, later, as a teen in Seattle.

Despite its flaws, Flight/Risk is a comprehensive and stinging critique of a once-proud company that has lost its way and is struggling to make a comeback. And it’s a tribute to the people who died and the families who mourn them.

Megan Griffiths’ latest, I’ll Show You Mine, is impeccably filmed and thoughtfully written, but it doesn’t quite justify its running time.