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.