Offering only an atmosphere of deepening gloom and a premise of utter hopelessness, Man Down is like movie antimatter: It repels interest.

If you loved Wolfe's book, you may very well hate the movie. If you simply liked the novel, you may be simultaneously entertained and disappointed by what De Palma and Cristofer have done to it. If you don't know the book, you may find the movie mildly enjoyable, while wondering what all the fuss is about. [21 Dec 1990, p.3]

A joyless experience.

When words fail in The Last Knight, the crunching and crashing and KLANKing of the special-effects scenes take up the slack. Punishingly overwrought in every aspect, Last Knight is a KLANK! KLANK! KLUNKER.

There's only so much a director can do to dress up a sequel as ill-conceived and impoverished as this one. [30 Aug 1991, p.24]

For a fun time to dispel the gloom of January, Dolittle is just what the doctor ordered.

The sad fact is, this 90-minutecharade - like almost every movie ever made that features "Silent Night" on the soundtrack - will be showing up on late-night television every Christmas Eve into the next century. Talk about your nightmares before Christmas. [5 Nov 1993, p.D32]

Consider your multiplex choices carefully as Valentine’s Day approaches; you might find yourself weeping tears of relief when the credits finally roll.

I’ll admit to a weakness for this sort of thing (which Merchant-Ivory, a couple of decades back, made into elegant art), but even I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for this one, a tepid love triangle set in the Ottoman Empire in the early days of World War I.

Stuffed with touristy images but not enough dramatic substance to make any of them count.

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.