Worst of all, Marlon Wayans' performance as a cowardly thief would have seemed in bad taste a half-century ago.

A little soon for any movie this millennium to reunite overacting Matthew Lillard, underacting Freddie Prinze Jr., feigning mousy Linda Cardellini and the more obviously lip-glossy Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Even our bony host the Crypt Keeper, who never met a pun he didn't like, might declare Bordello just plain whore-ible. [16 Aug 1996, p.4D]

There are a lot of negative things to be said about Fifty Shades Darker. But it does impress in one sense: The erotica lite sequel somehow manages to be worse than the stupefyingly bad "Fifty Shades of Grey."

A car-chase clunker that can't escape its own noxious emissions.

Trapped in Paradise is the kind of dreadful holiday mush that often is declared Capra-esque. But if It's a Wonderful Life's George Bailey were forced to watch it, he might reconsider suicide. [02 Dec 1994, p.4D]

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

Only a truly dreadful story could make 81 minutes seem like an eternity. And Space Chimps is just that leaden experience.

Icky and incompetent (special effects aside) in equal parts, this groaner makes 1994's "The Mask" look like something you'd study in a film graduate course at NYU.

The Canyons is billed as an erotic thriller, but the sexcapades of these empty-headed twentysomethings are far more likely to elicit yawns than titillation.

This is probably the year's worst romantic comedy -- and that's saying something in a year that includes "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and "Whatever Works."

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]

Someone should have treated See Spot Run like a bone and buried it.

The premise is misbegotten, the chemistry non-existent and the dialogue leaden. Did we mention how tediously the plot unfolds?

Unfunny, sappy and massively predictable.

To say that New in Town is the worst movie of this fledgling year is to damn it with faint praise. It may be one of the worst movies of any year. Not content to be merely inane and predictable, it is downright insulting, humorlessly deriding those who choose to live in rural America, labor in factories or have a strong Christian faith.

Why would a distributor suddenly yank an animated family film from its intended wide December opening until mid-January? Could it be that the advance word of mouth wasn't very good-winked?

Hot Pursuit is this week's "Paul Blart." Which is to say, it's ill-conceived, not funny, overbearing and not in any way worth watching.

Desperate Hours is a monumentally awful take on The Desperate Hours, a '50s best-seller/stage hit, later Humphrey Bogart's movie-gangster swan song. [05 Oct 1990, p.4D]

Sitting through the turgid and tedious S&M melodrama that is Fifty Shades of Grey may feel like its own form of torture.

The only good thing about Impostor is the appropriateness of its title for a film posing as the first 2002 release.

The trouble with indulging Taking Lives is that it's taking your time.

There's nothing sleazier than sleaze that fails to titillate, and this drab blight on a hot cast is as sleazy as a preordained hit ever gets. [07 Apr 1993 Pg. 08.D]

It's so derivative, unfunny and thuddingly bad that it's one of the more cringe-inducing movies of a genre chock-full of clunkers.

This would be a lot more amusing if at least one street in town ran uphill; maybe it's generational, but does even Corey Feldman know what the title means? [11 Aug 1989, p.3D]

The Glimmer Man is strictly a bummer, man. [07 Oct 1996, p.3D]

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 Paramount release doubles the insult because it rips off the title of one of the studio's best-remembered Jerry Lewis comedies.

In "There's Something About Mary," the gross gags were hilarious. Here, they're just vile.

Except there are all these dumb pranks even a third-grade schoolboy would be too embarrassed to commit - putting glue on chairs, making silly faces and stupid noises, setting off fireworks at the precinct house. [13 March 1989, p.5D]

This genre stew throws in so many ingredients - including sundry body parts that are cut off and go flying, and heads that explode - that the result is a tasteless mash-up that's hard to stomach.

A good script is the most essential ingredient for a good movie. Hiring a comedian isn't enough.

None of this is erotic, but it is pretty silly. Silly enough to make this the low point of the movie year so far. [30 Apr 1990, p.1D]

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

Structured loosely enough to work in all the excrement and incest jokes necessary to seem hip these days.

The biggest mystery about Repo! The Genetic Opera is why the grisly Goth-horror musical is opening the week after Halloween. The second-biggest mystery is why this unfunny, unscary, preposterous bloodbath about organ transplants is opening at all.

Face it. Parody comedies are no longer a laughing matter. [25 October 1996, p.5D]

Near Cocktail's numbing end, viewers who are still awake will hear love interest Elisabeth Shue warn Cruise: "Your sexy little smile isn't going to work this time.'' Drink to that - a Bloody Mary to a bloody shame. [29 Jul 1988, p.4D]

Pet Sematary Two is the cinematic equivalent of roadkill. Disgusting to look at and a bloody awful mess. [31 Aug 1992, p.4D]

You do get conscientious Hanks' miscast floundering (it's not pretty); Bruce Willis' lazy performance (it's beyond miscasting) as a hack journalist; showoff camera pyrotechnics; the thudding of dialogue that was hysterically funny in the book; an appallingly wrongheaded ending (even to non-readers); and the most numbingly needless and stupid off-screen narration yet. [21 Dec 1990, p.1D]

Director Christian Duguay's gimmicky "thriller" demonstrates that he has not begun to master the art of suspense.

Geared to 16-year-olds who can't name the governor of their state, this movie ought to be closed down by the health department.

It may be the only movie ever to feature a bad performance by Johnny Depp, one of the best actors working in films.

This unfunny, über-misogynistic adaptation of Tucker Max's audacious best-seller of the same name is unlikely to please anyone.

Remarkably, the plot has much in common with "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," yet that bundle of fun has enough vision to make even its Barry Manilow interlude seem appropriate.

Ultimately the title is most revealing. It's hollow, man.

If there was any doubt that most things in society have been dumbed down in the last couple of decades, Dumb and Dumber To could be exhibit A.

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

The movie's biggest drawback is a failure to deliver what's promised.

The Expendables 3 is as boneheaded and disposable as it sounds.

The tagline for College Road Trip is "You Can't Get There Fast Enough." But for those who sit through this humorless and massively predictable movie, a more apt phrase would be: "You Can't Get Out of There Fast Enough."

Kid's tone is off 100% of the time. The young actors are irredeemably bland, and two of the adults (Michael Des Barres' bank president, James LeGros' Storm Trooper-like security guard) are hammy enough to make James Brown seem controlled.

Mothers deserve a much better break than the hectic, shrill and dismally unpleasant Moms' Night Out.

Washed away by drippy plot. [16 January 1998, p. 4D]

What Aykroyd concocts here is about as appetizing as that fish shake he made on Saturday Night Live. Meet Hollywood's first Bass-o-matic filmmaker. [18 Feb 1991, p.2D]

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]

DeepStar Six is a dead-in-the-water knockoff of Alien, an adventure that goes down and never comes up. You may need a breathing apparatus yourself to sit through it. [19 Jan 1989, p.4D]

Now and again, the bizarre occurs, such as when Fred and Barney don showgirl outfits and seem to be doing their version of "The Birdcage." But mundane is more the norm.

Scrooged is so monumental a mess that even rabid Bill Murray fans - the ones who'll stand in line to see it despite critics' inevitable bashings - will wonder how it went so wrong. [23 Nov 1988, p. 9D]

After gagging on this second helping, all we can say is, Bernie, rest in peace already. [12 July 1993, p.4D]

An air of self-congratulation hangs over the empty tank of gas called Jawbreaker, as if writer-director Darren Stein just can't wait to dazzle us with the gaudy visuals he's soldered onto a standard-issue black-comedy script.

A comedy that has one good joke, four strange cameos and a spirit so juvenile kids may wonder what Sandler's deal is.

The thrills, chills, frights, starts and occasional screams that a good horror film elicits from an audience are not there. Jeepers, the Creeper has little to recommend it.

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]

With its long takes and a talky script involving an influx of revolving-door eccentrics, Nuts has the feel of a badly filmed play - akin to, say, any 12 of the worst Neil Simon screen adaptations. [21 Dec 1994, p.6D]

It's an unholy mess.