Medieval is a film with an identity crisis, caught between its lowbrow sword-and-splatter charms and grander ambitions. As a quick and dirty 90-minute corker, it could have been a nice and nasty slice of genre filmmaking, but Jakl aims for something more epic in scope, and the film drags, easily 30 minutes too long.

Under Petrie's competent direction, the action-genre nuts and bolts are firmly in place. Machine guns are fired and bombs blow up. But the subject of real interest here - how a kid might come to terms with authority even if his boarding school weren't taken over by Colombian terrorists - gets lost in the showdown. [26 Apr 1991, p.24]

Someday, someone will pair up Johansson and Tatum in a better movie. In the meantime, watch this one with low expectations, and dream.

This jokey fantasy-comedy is so formulaic that even its wittier lines and casting choices aren't enough to overcome a numbing sense of deja vu. [21 Dec 1994, p.E4]

As recent horror movies go, The Guardian isn't terrible - it's more suspenseful and coherent than Nightbreed or Leatherface, and Friedkin's flair for the genre does surface here and there. But it's hard to care about the outcome when the people are such sticks. [27 Apr 1990, p.20]

There are several ways you can watch Elle, only one of which is mildly enjoyable.

Ultimately there's more guilt than pleasure to be found in The Craft. [03 May 1996]

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

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.

This is disposable cinema for those who have an excess of time on their hands. Save it for video. Then you can do household chores while you wait for its occasional laughs. [26 Apr 1991, p.20]

The Greatest Showman isn’t interested in tiny stories or character or nuance; it’s about being the biggest. In doing so, it becomes strangely small; like a magician’s rabbit, it quickly disappears.

Part of the problem with "Fallen" is the relentless dumbing down of Nicholas Kazan's script. [16 Jan 1998]

There's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the material and the approach that the filmmakers take, and much that doesn't get covered in this short, 80-minute primer.

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

The characters are so thinly sketched that the audience feels little emotional investment in them, and the handheld (or rather head-mounted) cameras produce the same jittery visuals that many viewers found so off-putting in the original.

Like Bernadette, the movie’s lost; you’ll need to read the book to truly find her.

The original ending - which Baldwin refers to early in the film - was completely cut and replaced with an 11th-hour brainstorm by Eszterhas, amounting to little more than a punchline for the shaggiest shaggy-dog story in recent memory.

The movie jerks tears shamelessly, it smugly mocks the political and fashion trends of the early 1970s, its characters make no sense at all, and it even makes fun of senility. [27 Nov 1991, p.C1]

As a creature feature, Cocaine Bear isn’t bad. Not great, mind you. But not bad.

Its central characters never find much chemistry — Clarke’s Kate is a one-note character, which is one note more than Golding’s character gets — and I left Last Christmas with many, many questions, none of which I can share here without giving away too much. The elf costume, though? Just right.

Skyscraper, which lacks the lunkheaded charm of “Rampage,” isn’t the ideal vehicle — its special effects are murky (I saw it in 2D; it’s probably even muddier in 3D), and a bit of wit wouldn’t have been unwelcome. Nobody in this film has a personality; they’re just evil, stoic, mildly badass (particularly Neve Campbell, as Will’s resourceful wife) or The Rock.

There are moments now and then that register, particularly early in the movie when we meet the regulars on the musical-impersonator circuit.

With tonal inconsistencies and poorly written characters, any awe inspired by Alita: Battle Angel is replaced with a profound sense of confusion.

Except for its songs, Bohemian Rhapsody too quickly becomes forgettable; something the real-life man at its center, who died of AIDS-related illness in 1991 at the age of 45, never was. Watch the real footage; you’ll see.

The movie relies rather too heavily on McAdams’ charm, sort of like a limp cheeseburger that’s saved by some really good bacon. But hey, sometimes a fast-food cheeseburger satisfies, more or less.

The plot tries too hard to incorporate elements that drift toward melodrama.

It's hard to enjoy the same joke told a hundred times over. After so many gags about the burial of live cats or putting baby Pubert on a guillotine, it's clear that the movie has little else on its mind. It's enough to make Charles Addams turn in his . . . well, you get the idea. [19 Nov 1993, p.D3]

The Wedding Guest is a thriller without thrills.