The time might be right for the Scary movies to quit on top, even though, alas, there are no term limits for sequels.

Graphically gruesome when it means to be a provocative look at vengeance.

While the rapping stars of House Party I and II bring a few fresh (as in cool) ideas to the premise, little about this cartoony comedy seems all that fresh (as in not stale). [05 Jun 1992, p.4D]

For those who like a little Grinch with their yuletide cheer, this movie isn't totally ho-ho-hopeless. In fact, you can even say it glows occasionally - especially with 2,500 imported Christmas bulbs a-twinkling on the Griswold abode. [1 Dec 1989, p.4D]

It's a shame that by its conclusion the movie feels like just another special-effects-driven story.

Nothing really fun, scary or exceptionally gross occurs.

This follow-up seems so similar to the 1953 Disney classic that it makes one long for a geriatric Peter.

Aniston's portrayal feels honest, but the film doesn't rise to the level of her performance.

Its strongest asset is the stunningly poetic cinematography by Thierry Arbogast.

Amiable, consistently amusing and surprisingly affecting, it has the flavor of a Nick Hornby novel, with its focus on an overgrown boy struggling to grow up and be a man.

Johansson is not Allen's new Diane Keaton. She's closer to Mariel Hemingway -- though even Allen couldn't attempt to pull off a romance between his septuagenarian self and a girl in college.

More moronic than demonic. [20 Aug 1990]

After a string of iffy Transformers movies, Bay reminds that he can do a much better action movie with humans than alien robots: 13 Hours is his best work in the genre since his 1990s hits Bad Boys and The Rock.

A classic example of a second-rate courtroom drama.

Rain pours, snow flies, the sky is cloudy all day. Every corridor is steeped in shadow. But the artful atmosphere goes to waste as Robinson (best known for the quirky Withnail & I) skimps on character, drags out the action and stacks up overly convenient clues like dirty dishes. [6 Nov 1992, p.8D]

The chuckles here come from the leads' interplay, crying on each other's shoulders and cheering each other up.

Pro orchestrator that he is, Altman at least gives the illusion of a three-ring circus, but he's working third-rate material without a net. [23 Dec 1994, p.10D]

Visually impressive but woefully dumbed-down.

Because Sarandon is such a good actress, she makes the movie watchable, and there are a couple of laughs to be had.

Displays so much promise with its beautiful cinematography and superb portrayal by Cate Blanchett that you scarcely notice (or even care) that the story is a bit thin.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, in an atypically high-minded and low-budget frame of mind, manages to breeze through most of the gridiron genre's obstacles with his admirable, crowd-pleasing Titans.

It's reduced to glorified refereeing of family squabbles discomfortingly magnified by his frequent use of close-ups.

There are only so many times you can see a slow-motion kickboxing scene or a figure sail off a skyscraper before you want to spend a nice, cozy evening with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A B-movie at its heart with big-budget ambitions. Full of rampant goofiness, extreme gore, a jumbled narrative and hyperactive pacing, The Predator is also funnier and more clever than you would expect, though at the same time it’s an '80s film that doesn’t realize it’s 2018 in terms of political correctness.

Hollywood must still have some wheezy hacks capable of gleaning a few chuckles out of the hoary Convicts-Disguised-as-Priests movie premise. But to paraphrase Groucho Marx, Someone, please, get us a hack; David Mamet's We're No Angels script can't find them. [15 Dec 1989, p.6D]

Has a near-impossible mission: its title.

Simultaneously brash and dull - hardly a combustible combination.

Ellen Barkin is an itchy-twitchy stitch in Switch. As a murdered Casanova who comes back to life as a blond bombshell, she's a physical-comedy sensation on par with Steve Martin in All of Me. But that's only 15 minutes of laugh-worthy material. The rest of Switch is a big turnoff. [10 May 1991, p.2D]

Timecop's conversation piece is the scene in which Van Damme springs into the air amid hand-to-hand combat, finessing a perfect split atop his kitchen counter. Though definitely ooo-and-aaah stuff, it falls short of landing Timecop the 3-star review earned here by Van Damme's Hard Target. [16 Sep 1994, p.5D]

Beat-thumping techno songs and score by Nine Inch Nails help it all go down easier, as does OG “Tron” guy Jeff Bridges dude-ing up a few scenes, but traveling to that nifty high-tech landscape in this third "Tron" outing has become a chore rather than a pleasure.

The harder this film tries to be quirky and edgy, the more it feels like a run-of-the mill TV movie.

A sweet celebration of brotherhood in its many forms. It gently encourages human communion with animals, nature and our fellow man.

Glee the TV show has become a cult phenom with three essential ingredients: whip-smart kids, adult-sized issues, all blended to sugary pop tunes. About a third of those components made it into Glee: The 3D Concert Movie.

Ted 2 locks into a nice groove whenever it's just Ted and John being buds (and smoking bud), and Seyfried actually adds to the chemistry. If only the nonstop parade of craziness and lack of story coherence around them wasn't so hard to bear.

Pretentious and show-offy, the noirish drama fairly reeks of film-student overkill.

Despite two strong lead performances and a welcome dose of female empowerment, this somber tale feels too familiar and formulaic.

The soundtrack for the P.T Barnum biopic musical The Greatest Showman is chock full of amazing and catchy tunes you’ll be humming after the credits roll...The actual movie? Send in the clowns.

Alas, this all-star ensemble comedy that trumpets (too loudly) that it's a "Hangover" on hemorrhoid cream musters enough laughs to be passable, if not memorable. And that's thanks to Morgan Freeman's showmanship.

The one movie families search for every Christmas for an outing, the way "Something's Gotta Give" was last year and "Jerry Maguire" was in 1996.

Unfortunately, it's not one-tenth as interesting as what you can see at home during a nightly cable surf as U.S. war policy is debated.

Good but not legendary.

50 First Dates is working awfully hard to be romantic and not hard enough to be a comedy.

The overwritten script and the ridiculous plot combine to make The Counselor a frustrating experience.

Gruesome, garish and smutty in a very juvenile way, Knight - the first of a promised trilogy - nonetheless is often frightfully engaging, thanks to a game group of performers and visually electric direction from Ernest Dickerson (Juice). [13 Jan 1995, p.4D]

Ragged but with an appealing comic edge, the movie is certainly funnier than most of the other comedies that studios have tried to keep from critics until opening day.

Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate the startling sight of a phallus jammed into someone's ear.

Except for its muddier than necessary photography, there aren't any surprises, which probably won't matter to the target audience.

There are seven 13-year-old sitters in all, and Melanie Mayron (directing her first theatrical feature) doesn't always flub it when any two interact. But the film's nature and even its title peg it as an ensemble work, and Mayron's group footage looks like crude camcording of a ninth-grade picnic. [18 Aug 1995, p.11D]

With the lackluster quality of its characters — aircraft, a smattering of trucks, RVs and motorcycles — the movie makes Pixar's Cars and its sequel look like masterpieces.

Some of the film's most illuminating scenes involve Aya's uncle, General Kajima (Toshiyuki Nishida), who schools Fellers on the sense of duty that is ingrained in Japanese culture.

Alicia Vikander worked herself into hardbody shape for Tomb Raider, which by contrast is a flabby, lazy mess.

With one of the year's busiest scripts, Little launches 76 zippy minutes.

While not exactly a zero, 21 lags and fails to measure up dramatically.

Exhale and enjoy Keenen Ivory Wayans' culturally disreputable I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, a sendup of black street comedy that's equally crude, funny - and sentimental. [26 Jan 1989, p.2D]

The action scenes in Vertical Limit take cliffhanging to the highest peaks of excitement. It's a shame the story keeps dragging us down to sea level.

If you value your time and money, find an escape clause and avoid seeing this trite, predictable rehash. The 90 minutes could be better spent doing holiday shopping.

In dashing Indiana Jones style, Eckhart gets to be a hero.

Every performer puts vigor into an otherwise limp exercise, as if word were out that this would be the last comedy ever made about late-adolescent concerns.

Stunningly shot and stupidly written.

A putrid film that comes dead-weighted with hammy one-liners and a plot so silly it borders on comedy?

Director John Carpenter (Halloween) draws the best out of a Topper-esque script that's surprisingly sophisticated. [28 Feb 1992, p.8D]

On paper, this sounded like a winner. In reality? We have met the Enemy at the multiplex, and he's silly. [08 Feb 1991, p.4D]

Alas, shell casings, switchblades and severed limbs are all that's offered in this vile film, whose sole redeeming quality is that it ends. Eventually.

The movie just gets by on heart and a conversation-stopping finale. [28 Jul 1995, p.5D]

It's really not much fun - in fact it's painful - to watch an actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It almost doesn't matter if the psyche in question is imploding artificially - as in staged - or organically.

The major whodunit here is who made a best-selling thriller so darn boring.

It's no crime the movie has one or two endings too many, given that many thrillers of the past quarter-century have had the same. But Judd's latest is too harmless to be anything but a misdemeanor.

The movie is shrewd by giving the bulk of its piggish dialogue to Alexander, an actor incapable of projecting genuine cruelty on screen.

Angels doesn't know when to quit: Just when you think it's over, it continues.

The new version has the zip of a 96-yard punt return and all the ingredients to inspire the celebratory crushing of empty beer cans.

Alien Trespass is good-natured, but it's a wan send-up. When it comes to paying homage to classic "B" horror movies, "Monsters vs. Aliens" is the more clever alternative.

One Day is an aching lovely romance, but it's also an insightful look at human potential and the search for a purposeful existence.

Writer/director Zach Helm, who wrote "Stranger Than Fiction," achieves bursts of charm and whimsy, but not quite enough magic to elicit a consistent sense of wonderment.

For a movie about dancing, Step Up is pretty clumsy on its feet.

Though the film has a strong cast, humor and a satirical take on celebrity culture, the story is spotty.

Largely because of its engaging cast, Admission is an amiable, but only slightly-above-average, comic romp.

It settles for the recycled emotions of the past despite the fact "Schindler's List" has forever made such treatment shamefully passe. [18Apr1997 Pg.03.D]

The only character we get to know fully as she evolves from child to older woman is Vivi. Too bad the movie didn't also trace the lives of her "sisters." That might have been divine.

Returning director Peyton Reed pumps in enough family bonding and signature whimsy to complement the massive world building and a new time-traveling big bad played by a terrific Jonathan Majors. Laying important groundwork for Marvel’s film future unfortunately means losing some of the franchise’s essential scrappy charm.

At least Harrison Ford does his grizzled best to ground a hybrid film awash in computer-generated animals and visual pizzazz.

While there’s a definite “The Stepford Wives” sort of vibe, the narrative themes (which do lean timely) lack subtlety and nuance. Thankfully, Pugh keeps it watchable as a young married woman trying to keep her sanity amidst a ton of gaslighting and constant doo-wop songs.

An occasionally schmaltzy but likable story of healing and redemption.

For the cinematic dregs of late August, the earnest and quirky Leap! is charmingly en pointe.

I Feel Pretty offers aspirational touches that match the "Get it, girl" shirt sported by Schumer's character, but the mostly feel-good cinematic parable often has trouble finding the right balance between goofball humor and earnest message.

The foot-stomping, hand-clapping, ear-electrifying soundtrack, courtesy of such pros as B.B. King and Eric Clapton plus newcomers like Erykah Badu, in Blues Brothers 2000 (# # 1/2 out of four) rectifies many a movie-making sin in this near-Xerox sequel to the 1980 Saturday Night Live-spun hit starring Dan Aykroyd and the late John Belushi. [06 Feb 1998]

Just about any golden age Hollywood hack could have made a zestier drama about one of the greatest rescue missions in U.S. military history.

Anchored by a topnotch ensemble cast, it's toe-tapping holiday fare that's also a potent reminder that family resentments and hardened hearts serve no one.

Though the premise is clever -- everything comes to life at night in New York City's Natural History Museum -- this movie doesn't make the best comic use of the concept.

For a swoon-fest aimed at tweens, 17 Again has a lot going for it.

The cheesy production values won't grab anyone. When Bryan-Brian aren't schmoozing, there's not much to look at. It's anyone's guess whether this sequel will be as big a hit on tape. But it'll end up on the shelf soon enough. [10 May 1991, p.2D]

Sinbad steers First Kid past mediocrity. [30 Aug 1996]

A serviceable and intermittently funny romance.

Self-indulgent, heavy-handed and lumbering, Jayne Mansfield's Car is not a wreck, but it's certainly a vehicle for boredom.

This sequel is what you would expect: If you liked the original, you'll probably enjoy this retread. But be warned: It bogs down in a drawn-out scene near the end. There's certainly nothing to treasure about this movie, but if a popcorn movie with moderate intrigue and occasional humor is what you're after, this is just the ticket.

Just earnest enough to blend its religious theme with a beer-chugging hero for a surprisingly contemporary look at faith.

All you get here for paid admission is a long and terrific avalanche scene -- state of the art, no question. Then it's over and ready to melt away, much like memories of this movie.

There's much mumbo-jumbo about past lives and symbolic tattoos, but who cares when you can gaze at a sight as lovely as a dirigible floating in the night sky?

Those who were upset by the tragic ending of last year's "Pay It Forward" should be warned away.