This mean-spirited invisible man movie tries to hide its poverty of fresh ideas behind a load of state-of-the-art special effects.

A fairly tame, fairly lame blaxploitation footnote, starring drop-dead gorgeous Tamara Dobson and her improbable wardrobe.

Boring, contrived, and manipulative.

Director and enfant terrible-wannabe Gregg Araki winds up his Teen Apocalypse trilogy with this loud, ridiculous mess, and not a moment too soon.

The cloying odor of therapy hangs over this preachy holiday fable about a boy whose neglectful dad dies and comes back as a snowman.

As the Fat Boys demonstrated in DISORDERLIES, the social stridency of rap music does not mix well with crude, antediluvian slapstick. And now Kid 'N' Play, the popular rap duo that scored high-energy hilarity in HOUSE PARTY, offer further proof with the intensely juvenile CLASS ACT.

Hippolyte subsequently reinvented himself first as a director of baroque erotic thrillers and then as music-video maestro to pop tarts like Britney Spears, but stalk-and-slash horror -- for all its porn-movie rhythms -- appears to have defeated him.

The movie looks as though it was shot on a budget somewhat smaller than the local six o'clock newscast.

A morose, slow-moving action picture.

Conner's screen debut is inauspicious--to put it kindly--in the quality of both his acting and the material chosen, and someone else is obviously doing his riding.

The action scenes are poorly staged, the frights predictable, and the generally competent cast appears at a loss to make anything of the substandard material. Gabe Bartalos' makeup for the leprechaun is actually quite good, but his efforts go for naught.

We never get a real sense of what made these recordings so different or revolutionary. Part of the problem is that re-recorded versions of songs by the actors were used in the film, with vastly mixed results that never match the ferocity and excitement of the original tracks.

Blame It On Rio turns into a most uncomfortable film, leeringly depicting an affair with decidely icky undertones of incest and pedophilia. Between gratuitous (if titillating) nude scenes and a succession of lame soundtrack songs, there are plenty of travelogue shots to pad out the thin narrative line. Caine looks embarrassed through the entire film, as well he might.

A dumb end to a dumb series of movies that, in retrospect, play like the paranoid ramblings of a religious fundamentalist who sees unholy anti-Christian conspiracies behind every world event.

Generally regarded as Bronson's worst picture to date.

If you want to stoke children's imaginations you've got to offer them something more inspiring and graceful than this film, which could give video games a good reputation.

The cinematic adaptation of the novel, however, is so laughably awful that Auel later sued the producers for creating such an inaccurate work.

A real bore, with the director seemingly incapable of creating suspense.

For some reason, producer Wisberg decided to revive the long dead Hercules craze, and luckily it didn't take.

CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? adds nothing to the police comedy genre that another POLICE ACADEMY couldn't provide.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely a must-see for fans of the band.

Although Brown (Endless Summer) captured the beauty and fun of his favorite sport in his "surfumentaries," Milius, whose work always seems underlain with weighty symbolic intent, infuses Big Wednesday with heavy-handed philosophy and all-around stupidity.

Indifferently directed and almost aggressively tedious, we'd call it cliched if they'd even bothered getting the cliches right.

Despite eye-catching sets and smart casting, this first feature-length film to be adapted from a video game is a bloated muddle.

The runaways' actions provide anything but responsible models for the children who make up the film's target audience, and the likable cast flails against the rampant idiocy and gross commercialism.

A painfully self-conscious comedy that mistakes relentless self-referentiality for cleverness, this half-witted misfire is filled with accelerated motion, repeated and overlapping scenes, direct address to the camera and other cliches of defamiliarization.

Buono is truly charming, and the film delivers a handful of genuine laughs -- low laughs, but laughs nonetheless; if only they weren't so few and far between.

Ritchie wraps this folderol in cinematic razzle-dazzle, including animated sequences, reverse motion, trompe l'oeil production design and tricky lighting. But it's still claptrap.

The whole thing is soggy cardboard.

The humor is forced.

Played for Maverick-like comedy, the film might have coasted on Harris and Mortensen's dialogue. But played straight it's both dull and preposterous.

The film is carelessly directed, paced, acted, and scripted, offering today's teenagers, at best, a confused message. Foremost among its endless problems is Avildsen's pathetic direction. Under his uninspired guidance, the actors appear to be performing in filmed rehearsals, guilty of glaring character inconsistencies from one scene to the next. The cliche-ridden story throws in every possible obstacle to the young couple's happiness.

QUICKSILVER isn't a movie. It's actually a series of rock videos occasionally interrupted by a slight dalliance with story progression. The premise is wholly fabricated, the style is pure MTV, and the characters are all pressed from Hollywood cliche cutters.

Waters fans and those with a taste for '60s indulgence will want to have a look, but keep that fast-forward button handy!

Indistinguishable from any of the He-Man TV episodes or videocassettes in any aspect other than length, which is probably a moot point at best. This is a ground-out effort designed to please the calculated expectations of He-Man's loyal audiences.

The first few films in this series are both amusing and produced with high technical values, but this fourth in the string is a poorly scripted, anemic production.

The plot soon disintegrates into dumbness, despite Scott's believable portrayal of an aquatic Dr. Dolittle. The screenplay chooses some poor times to relieve tension, and the jokes fall flat.

The special effects are awful (the piranhas are obviously hand puppets) and the script worse.

Overlong, talky, predictable, and dull, dull, dull.

It's a one-joke film that's stretched well beyond its welcome.

Whereas Tod Browning showed the warm humanity of such people in FREAKS (1932), Winner cruelly exploits their handicaps for the purpose of repulsing his audience. This alone makes the film detestable.

By Romero's own admission the film was a disaster and shouldn't have been made at all. It is quite obvious the director's heart just wasn't in it.

Feeble attempts at black humor can't save this stillborn teen terror-tale. The humor misses the mark, and the "suspenseful" moments slow the proceedings down even further.

While the King source material forcefully taps into some deep-seated fears, PET SEMATARY (which was to have been directed by George Romero) squanders its potential through the ham-handed direction of Mary Lambert (SIESTA), who continually goes for visceral shocks at the expense of the more deeply disturbing psychological themes inherent in the material.

The performances, surprisingly, are not bad at all. Kristen Minter does well with what she has, as does Vanilla himself. However, it's impossible to take anything seriously--the film's dramatic premise is utterly insupportable and David Kellogg's direction renders the choices flat.

Stereotypes abound in this foolish, witless western--a production misusing the fine talent in its cast.

So consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start.

A little stingy in the action and thrills department, but Moore, in his limited way, seems to be having a good time.

Grown-ups will come away feeling violated by the film's clumsy comedy, ancient plot, and unimaginative action sequences.

None of the episodes is especially exciting, and they are all so brief that very little depth can be found in any of them.

The difference between this movie and the original is Bill Murray, whose charm gave the first film its best moments and raised the mediocre plot into something mindless but sweet. Here the characters are stereotypes. Perhaps the only reason to see the picture is for Paul Reubens, who has a relatively minor part.

Ridiculous detective Randall stops a sadistic killer from working his way through an alphabetical victim list. Agatha Christie and her legendary detective, Poirot, get a not-at-all serious treatment in this unbelievably unfunny comic mystery.

Lazy, superficially au courant and utterly forgettable.

Perhaps a die-hard Freudian desperate for a laugh could find humor in this wretched attempt at a holiday heart-warmer. Unfortunately, that leaves the rest of us twisting in the wind.

Despite the intriguing premise, Pierce is a stupifyingly unimaginative director, and the film is incredibly dull.

Tuff Turf is so relentlessly derivative that its good points--chiefly an attractive, relatively talented cast--are buried in cliche.

As slasher films go, this is about average. The sets are cheap, with most of the budget seemingly going to the gore effects.

Cutting Class does a nice job of concealing the killer's true identity, even as it leaves a trail of clues pointing to him. However, this sloppily directed, indifferently written black comedy fails to create sympathetic characters or even deliciously nasty ones.

A few scary moments, but that's about it. Technical credits are good, actors are fair, direction is mediocre, but the public squashed Bug.

Though the material in Madhouse is intentionally sophomoric, though slapstick comedies can be funny, and though there's nothing wrong with a bit of good silliness, assured, deftly paced direction and adroit, lively performances are necessary to pull such broad comic romps off. Madhouse fails to deliver on both these crucial counts.

The best you can say is that it's all pretty harmless and pretty stupid.

There is practically no plot, and even less character development, but the script is based on a novel, most likely a thin one.

The only thing that redeems the film from total worthlessness is Connery's Green Knight, a frightening vision in armor.

Overall the movie is too stupid to offend any but the most sensitive viewer.

Trying to appeal to both old and young audiences, the movie ends up shooting itself in the foot.

At well over two hours it's merely exhausting, and the constant evocation of the fearsome power of "The Lodge," which proves Pat's salvation (Nwamu is himself a Freemason), is as silly-spooky as the White and Black Lodge hokum of "Twin Peaks."

It's fun for awhile, but soon the sheer lunacy of it all wears thin as Corman keeps trying to top himself.

Rob Reiner's feel-good tear-jerker, in which dying well is the best revenge, wants to be heartwarming. But first-timer Justin Zackham's screenplay is so stridently formulaic and disingenuous that the film falls flat at every inspirational turn.

A thoroughly uninvolving picture, THE PRESIDIO is chiefly the victim of a horrendous screenplay by Larry Ferguson (BEVERLY HILLS COP II; HIGHLANDER). When it isn't providing mundane dialog, Ferguson's script assaults the viewer with senseless exposition continuously dredged up from the characters' pasts.

The special effects are sub-Bert I. Gordon, but in color, turning THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT into the movie that people will forget.

The special effects, supervised by director John Buechler, who was the effects man on GHOULIES, are pretty poor, essentially slimy rubber creatures with a limited amount of movement and the seams from their molds clearly visible.

This sequel to David Cronenberg's masterful 1986 remake is uninspired, uninvolving, and wholly unnecessary.

Kristofferson acts like someone who has just awakened and would like to go back to sleep--something many in the audience found themselves doing.

The sadists responsible for the painfully unfunny "Date Movie" (2006) are back, and this time they've outdone themselves: This theater-clearer is even less amusing than its terrible predecessor, a spoof so devoid of laughs it can longer be categorized as a comedy.

Cool World's numerous plot holes and illogicalities might be forgiven if it had interesting characters or impressive visual effects.

The film attempts to pay tribute to vintage rock music--most of the songs are covers of golden oldies. But the renditions are so uninspired, the tribute falls flat.

The film's Montana vistas are breathtakingly beautiful, and the crisis-in-the-hot-zone sequences are as spooky as those in Outbreak, but Seagal's monologues about the environment, biological warfare, Native American spirituality and natural medicine are excruciating.

In KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE a potentially interesting genre-warping concept is turned into a merely dull and repetitive one by the Chiodo brothers, who created CRITTERS.

Although it aspires to subversive social satire, FUNNY FARM seems little more than a dumb comedy more determined to make people guffaw than to think.

James plays it safe. And, short of unfunny, safe is the worst thing a comedian can be.

Competently made but highly contrived so as to evoke as many "aw's" as possible in an hour and a half, this movie is only for the extremely naive.

Inoffensive of this kind (except for the usual array of stock Mexicans), but wholly unoriginal.

There are a couple of mildly amusing moments, but overall Howard the Duck is a monumental waste of time.

It would have been better off if the casting were more believable, the acting more honest, the emphasis off the obvious sexuality, and the script destroyed before production began.

The movie is flat, often pushy, and has none of the bubbling joy of the SCTV sketches that Candy and Levy illuminated with their presence. Set pieces are tossed in every few minutes in a vain reach for laughter; but under director Lester's sloppy hand, there is very little to laugh at.

All the tongue-in-cheek humor, film-buff jokes, and special effects in the world can't save this mess.

This direct rip-off of The Hills Have Eyes has nothing going for it.

The script's vague, silly "explanation" for Linda's experiences -- nature abhors a spiritual vacuum, so weird stuff happens to the faithless -- is the icing on the irritation cake.

Despite several bad or indifferent performances, though, the film does succeed in its primary goal, to provide 90 minutes of fast-moving and fairly exciting action.

An action thriller from the Joel Silver school of Big Bang filmmaking, Passenger 57 smashes on the runway, an inflated cartoon of excess without a modicum of charm, wit or sense.

Another broad-brush, unfunny feature from one-time stunt director Needham.

The film is preposterous on so many counts that it's hard to enumerate them.

Only the performance of Elam remains lively, but it is the type of characterization he has done dozens of times. A sad finale to Hawks's magnificent career.

Despite its lack of imagination, this dull martial arts entry spawned two sequels: Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III--The Domination.

It's difficult to figure just what is going on here, and most certainly not worth the effort.

The first film featured George Wendt from TV's "Cheers"; this time around, they tapped the same TV show for John Ratzenberger.

The acting is laughable, the story as believable as honesty in government.

Boring, cliche-ridden teen drama looks nice and features Quinn, who is fairly impressive in his debut. Hannah looks good but seems completely without depth, as do all the other characters in this routine bad-boy-loves-good-girl drama.