A quagmire that reportedly has undergone multiple edits to reach its current incomprehensible state.

Brian De Palma's Casualties of War, with a script by playwright David Rabe, is the most overwrought (and likely to be overrated) Vietnam movie since The Deer Hunter. Or maybe since Robert Altman's film of Rabe's Streamers. Or maybe (why split hairs?) ever. [18 Aug 1989, p.4D]

The movie is so impressionistic, it obfuscates any sense of history. We expect at least a hint at the causes of the Mayan Empire's demise, but instead we get Mesoamerican Rambo.

The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and told sparely, but comes across as mawkish, tedious and self-indulgent.

John Wick serves up a noxious, clashing blend of hyper-realistic and cartoonish violence. Too bad there's no cinema decontaminating service that can wash our memories clean of such useless gore.

The film disappoints terribly, too. The directorial debut of such an imaginative and clever screenwriter was a highly anticipated event. His "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" are two of the most innovative and intriguing movies of the past decade. Synecdoche is one of the most maddening.

May be a spectacularly awful movie, but it's also spectacularly drenched in color, décor and other visual oh-la-la.

All this movie has in common with its ancestor are speedboats, shotguns and drug-dealing Colombians.

A film of repetition, a bloody dance consisting of three steps: stab, scream, repeat.

Too slight and pointless.

Barrels around in manic fashion much like Carrey does in most of his movies. He's meant to be a fool for love, but mostly he's just bonkers.

Mortal Thoughts is a mystery that any halfway-OK hack might turn into a halfway-OK movie by bagging all pretense to art and simply telling a story. But that isn't the style of Alan Rudolph, whose last space shot was Love at Large; the result is a quirky boo-boo I suspect is already halfway out of theaters. [19 Apr 1991, p.2D]

The story's appeal is lost in all the fights between the monsters and robots.

Director Steve Buscemi is not to be faulted for his filmmaking or acting skills, but as co-writer he could have done better than the false-sounding dialogue.

It sounds like fun, but this quasi-continuation of the Nightmare on Elm Street series is a half-hour too long, running 112 minutes when less than 90 would suffice. [14 Oct 1994, p.4D]

Cradle settles for saying ''boo'' when it could have said a lot more about parental fears. [10 Jan 1992, p.4D]

Usually, I'm as slow as the pacing of a movie in figuring out who's done it. If you can't solve this mystery with an hour to go (as I did), better call for a transfusion so a better type of blood will start flowing to your brain.

Neither the actors nor their characters engender much affection.

Coy to a fault, the movie collapses under its own weight with 90 minutes to go, despite Robby Muller's impressive black-and-white photography, which puts the film on a higher artistic plane than other equally unbearable movies. [16 May 1996, Pg.06.D]

A movie that only a father could love -- father being the late John Cassavetes, credited with Lovely's script. [29 Aug 1997]

Fighting seriously lacks punch.

The movie is what it is, a deadeningly literal look at ozone spiritualists and s-&-m purveyors (possibly one and the same) who toss some very spirited pool parties. A better title than the current marquee anonymity might be Naked Brunch. [16 Sept 1994, p.5D]

Given its complete lack of suspense, eroticism, ensemble acting, and other mere tangibles, Paul Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers (with a Harold Pinter script) is destined to wind up lacking even a modest theatrical run. [29 Mar 1991, p.5D]

It tries hard to be sexy, mysterious and dangerous, but ends up laughably inscrutable.

Spanning the counterculture '70s to the more career-oriented '80s and doing justice to neither decade, this event-heavy adaptation of Scott Spencer's novel may give viewers whiplash.

The movie runs just 80 minutes, but it's enough time for doldrums to set in when nifty special effects and funny verbal exchanges are out grabbing a smoke. [19 Feb 1993, Life, p.5D]

Never was a film so visually stunning and so intolerable as To the Wonder.

The latest undead-soldier story carries on the franchise tradition of graphic violence and bad acting.

Thunderheart, which concerns tragic in-fighting between factions of the Oglala Sioux, lands with a sound that duplicates the name of the Indian chief who harassed Howdy Doody in less ethnically sensitive times. Thunderthud. The movie is so dramatically stillborn that it may be unfair to single out Val Kilmer, but that is Kilmer's name atop an acting lineup that includes Sam Shepard, Fred Ward and Graham Greene (Dances With Wolves). [3 Apr 1992, p.8D]

This would be profoundly offensive, if you could tell what was going on. [15 Jun 1992, p.6D]

It's tough to summon sufficiently negative language to describe the unfunny, desperate mess that is Bad Words.

It's problematic enough that the movie's lead characters are unlikable. But worse is the blackening of The Human Stain with a trite and forced plot, uninteresting digressions and clunky direction.

Mother Nature has always gotten the Cindy Crawford treatment from director Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf). And he does right by Wind's splashy backdrop of America's Cup boat racing, as the camera bobs and weaves about like a wave-whipped buoy. Too bad there has to be a story, for Wind becomes so much hot air whenever it stays on land. [11 Sep 1992, p.8D]

Hopped-up Falling Down is a technically proficient grabber that exploits white-male angst while adeptly juggling two stories filmed in contrasting styles. Slick, maybe facile, and with a nasty streak, it is nonetheless 1993's first consistently engrossing movie. [26 Feb 1993, p.1D]

The follow-up fails in every way, as a retread of the beloved ‘90s vehicle and as a youth-centered setup for future installments.

There's no substitute for bad taste. And this one has it double-barreled, both in the timing of its release and as a movie, one said to be loosely based on fact.

Trying to decipher all the convoluted pathways could drive you mad. Mostly, though, it is so ludicrous that it will unintentionally inspire laughter.

If you've been lobotomized or have the mental age of a kindergartener, Mr. Bean's Holiday is viable comic entertainment.

Jude Law put on 30 pounds to play this slimeball. But the weightier question is, why would he bother to take this worn-out role, at any size?

What it became was bad. A movie that hopes to blend "Lethal Weapon" with "Gladiator" winds up not being a fraction of either.

Wastes a moderately intriguing premise by filling it with laughably clichéd dialogue, one-dimensional characters and implausible turns of events.

The Gambler is a hollow, overwrought and glibly cynical remake of a '70s drama about a self-destructive academic.

A baseball nostalgia piece all weirded-out by flashes of supernatural horror, this early-'60s remembrance is like sitting through a double bill of Field of Dreams and The Goonies. [7 Apr 1993, p.8D]

Despite Paul Newman and Lee Marvin, a deserving flop about modern-day cattle hucksters; at times here (call the rest home), I think Newman sounds like Wally Cox. [01 Mar 1991, p.3D]

It's all mind-numbingly dull, and critics have exhausted every electrical pun known to man in saying that "Current War" "lacks spark."

In most cases, doggedly pursuing a dream is laudable. But if it does nothing else, The Astronaut Farmer demonstrates that not every dream is worth pursuing. At least not the belabored one of a narcissistic crackpot masquerading as an admirable dreamer.

Live dies around the time Carpenter allows 10 minutes of gratuitous Piper-David eye-gouging, an apparent bone to wrestling fans. Forget the amusing premise; a full crate of magic glasses couldn't make this a bearable movie. [7 Nov 1988]

The Package could be the most forgettable movie title since Michael Caine and Richard Gere did Beyond the Limit; with luck, audiences will even forget the film itself was made. And why was it? Possibly to prove that Gene Hackman, at 58, can still survive as many lousy movies as Caine. [25 Aug 1989, p.4D]

To be charitable, the film's point of view is consistent, and there's a clever bit (very late) involving construction equipment. There isn't however, even a fourth-cousin to a laugh in this very strange public suicide. [29 July 1991, p.4D]

However, anyone seeking a good time that involves wit and logic will consider the film a definite wrong number. [26Feb1997 Pg 03.D]

With its Rocky Horror meets Camelot aura, this little black movie reeks of self-satisfied smugness and pretentious perversity as only a Sundance Festival favorite can -- especially one that squanders the considerable quirky charms of indie-film darling Parker Posey. [10Oct1997 pg 04.D]

Blue Steel is unpleasant and wearily predictable, a near-unbearable 103 minutes even for fanciers of urban cop films. Its one distinction, lead Jamie Lee Curtis aside, is its backhanded bone-toss to feminists: Now we know that women, too, can direct serial-killer crumminess. [16 Mar 1990, p.4D]

When it's not aspiring, unsuccessfully, to satirize the world of metallica, Rock Star veers into even drearier territory and becomes a head-banging, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll version of "A Star Is Born."

It's so unfunny it almost stings.

Someone has seen "Trainspotting" too many times, and it's writer/director Justin Kerrigan.

If Gooding can't get another "Boyz N the Hood" or "Jerry Maguire" soon, his career will need its own cork.

We've known for years there is a hillbilly heaven because Tex Ritter used to sing of one. Now, thanks to Next of Kin, we know there's a hillbilly hell. [24 Oct 1989, p.4D]

This one's aimed at those airheads who, like George, have been swinging on a grapevine and slamming into too many trees. [16 July 1997, p. 3D]

Feels like an especially grisly Twilight Zone stretched to five times its length, features Das Boot's Jurgen Prochnow as missing author Sutter Cane and such screen-schlock reliables as David Warner, John Glover and Bernie Casey. None remotely remedies Mouth's bad breath. [03 Feb 1995, p.4D]

Begins sinking in the shallow end almost at once.

Its use of trite "Win one for the Gipper" dialogue, overbearing soaring music and conventional plot devices makes it far too formulaic to truly move us.

So unwatchably creaky that it's hard to believe director Mitchell Leisen filmed Murder at the Vanities (with its wildly demented Sweet Marijuana production number) the same year. [04 Dec 1998]

If you're a Rainn Wilson fan, catch a rerun of "The Office."

Talented actors are wasted in a film that induces more cringes than chuckles as women old enough to know better act like horny sailors on leave, absorb mass quantities of alcohol and drugs, and generally behave horribly.

The film aims to be a Gen Z/millennial “This Is Spinal Tap” but with much less clever wit and way more vocal fry.

A didactic and humorless Western, Eli is too laborious for an action film and too brutal to be an inspirational tale.

George A. Romero, less Living Dead here than dying artistically, adapts Stephen King in a movie without a good half. [23 Apr 1993, p.4D]

In Point of No Return, a pointless remake of the slickly violent 1990 import La Femme Nikita, Fonda unconvincingly attempts to fill French actress Anne Parillaud's skyscraper pumps as a punkish cop killer turned government assassin. Draped in the proverbial little black dress, Fonda blows away her targets in a chi-chi Washington restaurant and makes her getaway through the kitchen's laundry chute with a volley of explosives at her heels. But as she daintily steps around the spilt blood and lettuce, the fair-of-face Fonda is more debutante of death than lethal weapon. [19 March 1993, p.8D]

A disappointing effort from a master filmmaker, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk trips in all the wrong places.

Blackhat is a tedious, preposterous and incoherent cyberthriller that is anything but thrilling.

One of the more befuddling movies of recent years. The premise makes no sense, no matter how you turn it around in your head.

At a certain point, Bean goes beyond awful to surreally awful, like the rug Burt Reynolds sports in a cameo. The last-ditch plunge into pathos does nothing to redeem the feeling. Let's hope no sequel is in the offing. The only thing worse than Bean would be a hill of Beans. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]

Nothing is right about this ridiculous horror schlockfest.

Despite the beautiful eye-popping world it creates, the sci-fi film Ghost in the Shell is a defective mess with lifeless characters, missed chances for thematic exploration and a minefield of political incorrectness.

One of the most violent opening scenes in screen history…Yet given such a visually adept exercise, the rest seems transparently off-the-cuff. There are obese trailer-camp porn stars, heavenly visions, a climactic rendition of Love Me Tender and no-point references to The Wizard of Oz - all of which top this two-hour farrago like a soggy tarp. [17 Aug 1990, Life, 4D]

Yet another Alan Alda unoriginal original. [22 Jun 1990, p.2D]

It's a mess with sporadic flashes of creativity. Someone should have gone back to the drawing board. [19 July 1996, p.13D]

Labor Day feels like a belabored, sappy slog.

It’s a bizarrely off-kilter affair that’s forcibly heartfelt and sentimental in one scene and overly mean-spirited in the next, and not even a few choice moments and some enjoyable surrounding weirdos can help two A-listers in way over their heads.

RZA's directorial debut is heavy on bloody kung fu action...and light on just about everything else.

Overflows with pretensions and absurdity.

A kernel of cleverness lurks in Popcorn. But it's the kind that sticks in your throat. [01 Feb 1991, p.5D]

Most Ender's fans, of course, won't care about comparisons and consider the film adaptation a long-awaited victory in itself. Those fresh to the tale — or at least expecting something fresh from it — may wonder what the fuss was about.

Kimberly Elise gives the best performance as a beleaguered woman with an abusive boyfriend (Michael Ealy).

Wow, dudes. Pu-trid. (1989 February 20, p.4D)

Couldn't be murkier or less emotionally involving if it were "The Matrix 8," a natural observation because Keanu Reeves stars in both.

Director George Cosmatos brings nothing new to this Wyatt Earp saga except leftover bullets from previous films Cobra and Rambo: First Blood Part II. [23 Dec 1993, p.5D]

Here's a by-the-playbook movie if ever there was one.

Audiences deserve a resounding "mea culpa" for the embarrassing dreck, masquerading as comedy, in The Guilt Trip.

The pirate ship has hit foul waters, and even the sharp wit and charm of everyone's favorite buccaneer can't save it.

Poseidon is a sodden saga, with a script that is awash in clichés. It nearly drowns under the weight of its own soggy tedium.

Farrell is quite good, though it's hard to buy the Scottish McGregor and the Irish Farrell as brothers. But mostly, the film feels rudderless, almost as if it's been directed on autopilot.

A succession of tired race jokes made worse by the bad comedic timing of the bland, under-talented Ashton Kutcher.

What once was spontaneous and clever now has the stench (in Conehead-speak) of rotten chicken embryos. [23 July 1993, p.5D]

The director is Rowdy Herrington , whose penchant for the silly in Patrick Swayze's Road House will serve as able cross-reference. Among the capable actors wasted are Dennehy, Robert Loggia, Ossie Davis and Cuba Gooding Jr. from Boyz N the Hood. Soft-spoken Heard is supposedly an ace traveling salesman, but won't be doing Music Man revivals soon. [6 March 1992, p.4D]

Antichrist is probably the most disturbing, bleak and self-indulgent film ever made.

Inventing the Abbotts would be a lot more fun were it a trashy Troy Donahue-Diane McBain vehicle ground out by Warner Bros. in 1960, the year this hormonally motivated high school-college romance mercifully concludes. [4 April 1997, p. 4D]

Instead of Hitchcockian flair, there's Silver-ian excess: Women treated like meat, maimings in close-up, plot craters. [07 Oct 1991, p.4D]