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]