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.