Clumsily designed as a showcase for special effects, this lamebrain kiddie comedy is a shoddily directed and performed attempt to retool Ghostbusters as a latter-day Hardy Boys' mystery.

Gorehounds will likely be pleased by the graphic bloodletting, but there's little else of interest here.

All the characters are cardboard, and the actors fail to bring anything extra to their roles. Simply put, this is just a bad film.

Not even a bravura performance from Woods, some steamy love scenes between Bridges and Ward, and a thrilling daylight car chase down Sunset Boulevard can pull this confusing remake out of the doldrums.

Loaded with ridiculous scenes, silly dialog, and gratuitous violence and nudity, REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS tries very hard to exploit the genre while poking fun at it at the same time. The only problem here is that little is funny.

Only Michael Winslow, repeating his uncanny ability as a sort of human sound-effects machine, is able to give any life to this, but his efforts are like reviving a beached carp. They don't come any worse than this.

Though obviously designed for the teenage market, Billie Jean should insult the intelligence of all but the most irredeemable mall rats.

Yet another totally absurd bout of macho wish fulfillment for those frustrated by the American government and military's inability to deal effectively with terrorism, Iron Eagle is actually more outlandish than most.

Adam Sandler can breathe a sigh of relief: Thanks to this crude, bafflingly unfunny comedy from fellow SNL alum Mike Myers, Sandler can rest assured that his "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" won't go down as the worst movie of 2008.

For all its many flaws, the original PET SEMATARY at least maintained a fidelity to its source novel; this one not only ignores the rules set up by the first movie but manages to contradict its own internal and dramatic logic as well.

Neil Diamond (who even reverts to Al Jolson's blackface for one sequence) is wholly unbelievable as the cantor's son who forsakes the synagogue for the bright lights of pop music.

The film leaves the viewer feeling violated and ashamed. Avoid.

Directed by Charles Band, the son of Italian trash-master Albert Band and the head of Empire Pictures, Trancers is on the same subgutter, grade-school-mentality level as the rest of Empire's output.

Although Christopher Lambert repeats his film role as the immortal action hero, he is less dynamic than he was in Highlander or even Highlander 2, The Quickening. He is also far less charismatic and interesting to watch than Adrian Paul of the European television serial. Moreover, in this film, Lambert inexplicably whispers his lines, while the special effects are deafening.

This is a one-idea concept enlivened ever so slightly by fleeting moments of Cohen's patented sociopolitical subtext and goofy black humor.

A dismal affair that reeks of pretentious self-importance.

The mind marvels at the bravery of the person who walked into the producer's office to pitch this idea.

While not as ponderous and overblown as STREET FIGHTER, another video game-based 1994 movie, DOUBLE DRAGON is depressingly lightweight, making constant and unnecessary concessions to youthful audiences at the expense of any real bite or impact.

Raunchy.

The real reason for the existence of this unexceptional film is to show off the artistry of special-effects man Savini.

A textbook illustration of the American movie industry's ability to take an offbeat foreign film and systematically alter or soften every provocative and original thing about it.

Full of cheap disability jokes, stupid car chases, and boring shootouts, and none of it is very entertaining. Wilder and Pryor struggle mightily to pull it off, but the comic duo are capable of much more than this gimmick-filled rubbish allows.

A lovely-to-look-at photo album treatment of Golding's heart of darkness pessimism, this movie misses the point and mood of Lord of the Flies completely.

Dante gleefully trashes cliches and sentimental Capra-esque notions, but one should not forget this movie was given a "PG" rating and cynically aimed to draw an audience of small children who would no doubt be terrorized by this myth-shattering film.

This movie is a reedited version of the television series, with the addition of Sensurround. Just as bad as the failed series. Lorne Greene should never have sold the Ponderosa.

Though the action is competently staged, there's little else in this film to hold one's attention.

The juvenile gags seem aimed at moviegoers who hate the whole idea of independent/art/foreign-language films and the stuck-up eggheads who like them -- so what's the point?

In fact, with no fewer than 17 of Donaldson's favorite rock songs and a complete lack of dramatic impetus, Cocktail would fare better as an extended-play music video.

A weird picture based on a slim novel by Carson McCullers, this movie fails to engender any sympathy or interest due to several miscalculations.

Filled with implausibilities and unintentionally funny moments, this early Norris feature was little more than an excuse for the actor to use his karate skills. Exploitative in nature, but popular with its audiences.

Not only is this truly sick stuff, but the production is so low-budget, and the photography so muddy, that a sense of ultrasleaze prevails.

Why do moviegoers and gamers keep going to see video-game-based movies when neither group is ever happy with the results?

Jade's seamy excesses would be conventional in a direct-to-video erotic thriller; in a major studio production, they're embarrassing.

A cliched throwback to the early 1980s slasher genre, DR. GIGGLES transplants the heart of a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequel--wisecracking killer--into the body of HALLOWEEN--psycho killer returns to his hometown to slash anew--but lacks the wit of the former or the tension of the latter.

A truly amateur production.

Lawrence runs through his usual repertory of mugging, seething and generally acting like a fool, only to be regularly upstaged by Arnold, Trey's pet piglet.

Without a doubt, De Laurentiis' remake of Cooper and Schoedsack's classic is the biggest con job ever pulled on the unsuspecting American public.

Unfortunately, SINS OF DESIRE features a disproportionate amount of sex and not nearly enough thrills...If only the film's makers had realized the crime solving techniques and sexual exploration needn't be mutually exclusive. In SINS OF DESIRE, deducing always takes a back seat to seducing.

Shot in Berlin and set in the far-off future of 1994, The Apple was clearly designed to duplicate the success of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and failed dismally, in large part because the music is so stupendously banal.

One keeps waiting for something interesting to happen in Teen Witch, but it never does. Notwithstanding its supernatural elements, the film is basically a standard teenage love story (a squeaky clean one at that) with several unmemorable musical numbers thrown in.

Davidson elicits warm performances from inexperienced actors, but his efforts are in vain because the script provides a hackneyed treatment of its delicate subject.

Low production values, an artless script, and an unconvincing view of history don't add up to much in the way of entertainment.

This cross between theatrical farce and teen sex comedy is a moronic package that liberally insults the intelligence of both its viewing audience and the hapless adult actors locked into career low points.

This is a sort of remake of A Yank At Oxford (1938) without any of that film's charm or humor. Lowe passes off arrogance as a cute personality quirk, and the whole movie plays like just another teen-oriented exploitation effort, replete with sex and booze.

Strictly for small children, this animated feature will bore anyone over the age of puberty. It might also enrage anyone with a knowledge of movies as it poaches many other pictures.

It's not fun and it gets tiring real fast.

Besides the humor and the technical savvy, the biggest difference between this film and the five before it is that the characters are actually allowed to live long enough for the audience to develop some sort of empathy with them. Some of these teenagers are downright likable, and we don't want to see them get killed. That element, more than any other, was the real breakthrough in the series.

As in the Friday the 13th movies the only real interest here is observing the outrageous lengths filmmakers go to in devising "Can-you-top-this?" murders.

In all fairness, there is a lot of camp value here. Fans of truly bad cinema couldn't ask for a sillier big-budget production--envisioned with the utmost seriousness.

Jeannot Szwarc's direction is flat and uninspired, emphasizing the jokey elements without any sense at all for the material.

A poorly made and utterly laughable film that has gained a minor cult status with "bad film" fans.

The Big Picture is a failed attempt to spoof the wheelers and dealers behind the scenes in Hollywood. Christopher Guest, who directed and cowrote this diatribe against the inanities of the studio system, has created what amounts to no more than a series of sketches that would probably work better on television than in this prolonged, belabored movie. 

A schmaltzy variety-show routine inflated into a rudderless mess of a fantasy.

One would think that director Saul Bass, whose credit sequences for such films as Hitchcock's PSYCHO are nearly as interesting as the films themselves, could pump some energy into this potentially interesting premise, but all he comes up with is an overly intellectual bore.

Director Jim Drake keeps things moving so quickly, one barely has time to notice just how stale the jokes here are.

The second sequel to the hit 1982 haunted-house extravaganza is an erratic affair, containing some promising ideas and clever effects that, unfortunately, are haphazardly presented in a narrative so perfunctory as to be almost nonexistent.

A high-profile cast can't save this multi-narrative drama about gambling addiction from its wildly uneven tone, which veers from high melodrama to hard-boiled pastiche so overwrought that it's unintentionally funny.

Jam-packed with car smash-ups, predictable situations, and a few stock characters, Moving Violations is nothing more than the cinematic equivalent of a connect-the-dots puzzle.

Good score, OK crash sequences, and lots of unintentional laughs are the only reasons to sit through this movie.

The drug-addled duo of Cheech and Chong dropped all their chemical-inspired jokes for this film, but there are enough scatalogical, homophobic, and perverse sexual gags to fill in that gap...The film is a poorly structured mess with a few sophomoric laughs.

A crass, tedious sequel.

The premise of TROOP BEVERLY HILLS might have worked as a comedy skit, but could hardly sustain a feature, and unfortunately the premise is virtually all the film's screenplay supplies. The lack of character development is particularly damaging for Long--since her character never becomes more than a cartoon, her reformation is never credible.

It's all as campy as can be and a great time waster.

This stage-bound farce could easily be an American sitcom: It's all slamming doors, eavesdropping and stupid miscommunications, garnished with a heavy-handed helping of comedy of humiliation.

The hyperactive Hong Kong action stuff is getting old.

MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE doesn't work on any level. As a comedy it's obvious and asinine, as a horror film it's simply not scary, and as an action film it's a bore.

So ludicrous it's quite funny.

Director-writer Mike Marvin is obviously working out of his element, which consists of ski films and features with titles of things you eat or drink (Six Pack; Hot Dog--The Movie; and Hamburger). The best thing here are the cars, which have no dialog and just stand around looking fast. Sheen's is a specially built Dodge pace car that cost over $1.5 million.

This attempt to combine elements of vampire lore with the limited format of the teen sex comedy is a monstrous movie all right, a frighteningly awful horror comedy.

Another infantile right-wing fantasy from writer-director John Milius, this cinematic embodiment of the paranoid delusions of militarists, survivalists, and television evangelists is definitely a film for the Reagan era. Red Dawn is simply too simplistic and inept to be taken seriously.

Painfully unfunny and misguided to boot.

Bloated and incoherent.

Had it actually been told from the perspective of the scientist's daughter, as the title suggests, it might have been more appealing, but instead a predictable, amateurish script shifts the focus elsewhere.

Prodded by Landis' slam-bang direction, the effect isn't so much a comedy as it is an exercise in excess. Somewhere in the planning stage one all-important factor was left out: humor. The concept is a funny one, yet no one seems to have the faintest idea of what to do with it. Between Landis' direction and the initially lame screenplay, Three Amigos never really stands a chance.

Derivative, indifferently acted, artlessly photographed and awash in nudity and rudimentary gore effects, this direct-to-DVD feature mars the producing debut of longtime horror and exploitation distributor Media Blasters.

Obvious and, frankly, 25 years too late.

If you can't spell "bogeyman," you shouldn't make movies about him.

The profoundly unconvincing CGI work only makes the sorry screenplay and lackluster performances look worse.

An unintentionally surreal kid's picture.

Most of the jokes are either ethnic slurs, homosexual japes, or unfunny gags with not a shred of wit. Babes and brewskis are just not enough to carry an entire picture.

The final irony is that it's tailored for a PG-13 audience: The violence is bloodless, the sex is all come-on and the surreally reckless stunts cater to viewers too young to drive.

Alas, even the lowest expectations go unmet by FREEJACK, which turns out to be an inexplicably lame, penny-pinched futuristic actioner.

Filled with holes big enough to drive a train through and moments of suspense that prove false alarms, the story concerns two young people (Shields and Chris Atkins) who are shipwrecked on an island, develop a sexual relationship as they mature, and so forth. At a little over 100 minutes, the film feels as if huge chunks of it were edited out for pace; however, the wrong chunks have been cut.

Russell is likable considering the inane nature of the film, but Dinome, a former model making his feature debut, is all teeth and moussed hair.

A silly period production, built around the sorry spectacle of two smug American stars lording it over the natives... Based on true events, the film is nevertheless absolutely preposterous, and informed by stereotypes that don't play well in the 1990s.

It took a village of screenwriters and story creators - including costar Queen Latifah and first-time director Lance Rivera - to cram just about every imaginable stereotype about African-Americans and white people ever conceived into this short, unappetizing comedy.

While the homeless, the mentally ill and the generally downtrodden are scattered about like so much shabby furniture, Rifkin has no qualms about wallowing in their filth, but he misses the tragedy of their lives -- just as he misses everything else.

Garish, animated junk.

Despite the success of the movie, we turn thumbs way down on this melange of cheap thrills and flat jokes, saved only by the performance of Hanks and some good work by pal Zmed. Hanks is the only oasis in this Sahara of smut.

Douglas grins and grimaces through his role as the ultimate defender of beautiful Fawcett, and it's all pretty dreadful.

The dialog is dumb, the acting is dull, the attempts at physical humor are for the most part predictable.

It takes perverse genius to make an action film this stupid.

Puerile, gross and pandering to the lowest impulses of teenage boys.

Is there anything so painful as a comedy whose every gag falls flat and then lies there, flopping like a dying flounder?

Scott Spencer's intelligent, rather lurid novel of youthful angst is here watered down to stock teen romance. Most notably, the graphic sex scenes at the core of the book are reduced to picture-perfect set pieces, and the film is soporifically slow-moving.

This somewhat haphazard affair combines witchcraft, feminism, and suburban angst into a creepy whole that is fascinating but not quite successful.

But this $3.5-million rehash -- about the brothers Fitzpatrick and their troubles with girls -- is a real turnoff: smug, smarmy and utterly unconvincing.

The script gives Hall and the other cast members so many foolish things to say and do that the viewer is left wishing that they would all kill each other early on and save us the pain of having to watch the rest of the film.