This is the kind of movie that has always polarized serious film folk, while the public usually elects to stay home and prune shrubs.

At its worst, Toy Soldiers is just an action variation on the old Rooney- Garland musicals - you know, let's-get-a-buncha-kids-together-and-put-on-a-counterinsurgency. At its best, it's surprisingly bearable for a movie so easily typed. [26 Apr 1991, p.4D]

A mishmash of horror and history genres that's not as bad as its trailers but ultimately is dragged down by, of all things, its star.

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]

The latest entry in the cottage industry launched by 1980's Airplane! oozes diminishing returns. [5 Feb 1993, p.5D]

While Basinger admirably invests her role with deep passion and looks splendid in her Kenya khakis, the true story she stars in is disappointingly tame and dramatically inert.

Director Richard Attenborough's Chaplin is catastrophic only partly because it tries to squeeze in topics, subtopics and more. [24 Dec 1992, p.3D]

It’s cute and heartfelt at times, though the adventure by director Thea Sharrock (“Me Before You”) can’t decide between being a fun-filled romp or an animal-rights drama.

[Jolie] does what she can with the throwback role, though it’s the least of the film’s problems, with an unfocused plot, painfully dull villains and far-fetched sequences. That said, for those who dig really cool fire sequences, you’ll definitely feel the burn.

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

Offers up the absolute bare necessities of a sequel.

The distractions are more satisfying than the romantic main course. [23 April 1999, Life, p.8E]

And though young Miko Hughes does a fine job as the traumatized Simon, this ain't no "Rainboy". [3 Apr 1998, p.SE]

The cringeworthy dialogue and unmoving earnestness are the biggest disasters in this mostly forgettable action flick.

Terry Gilliam's “12 Monkeys” can teach The Thirteenth Floor a little something about how to have fun with time travel. And with one number less. [28 May 1999, Life, p.7E]

Though John Travolta and Christian Slater don boxing gloves to open the dippy but zippy Broken Arrow, the real slugfest in director John Woo's elaborately mounted action pic is between content and style. Call it a draw, and call the movie's content a Speed derivative. [9 Feb 1996, p.1D]

Just as its characters need a reason to live, Go needs a reason for audiences to watch. Neither find much satisfaction.

The computer-generated wolves have more personality than any of the dull characters in The Grey.

This isn't the worst movie Warner Bros. has brought out this summer (Scooby-Doo, boo on you), but for it to work, you have to accept the irredeemable stupidity of almost every character. Time better spent: a Shaquille O'Neal film festival on video.

It’s the kind of thing you’d bet would be emotionally manipulative – if only, because that'd be welcome compared to this emotionally disconnecting, sporadically nuanced narrative.

Irredeemably dull. [13 Aug 2004]

Warm, squishy and manipulative, like being slobbered on by a mongrel pup that's begging for more Snausages.[03 Jun 1994]

This isn't a movie to be taken too literally, given that a camera crew keeps on rolling in situations that would make even combat photographers bolt; as a result, the movie plays like one of those self-referential stunts that sometimes wow film festival audiences (as this one did). [24 Sept 1993, p.3D]

At times it feels like a good thing but way too often reminds you that you’re trapped for an hour and a half.

Williams is hampered by her character's limitations. What results is a mannered tale of an immature, empty vessel.

Unwed John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell are living on what amounts to room-service charity in a posh London hotel, waiting for his cocoa crop investment to bankroll their spiralling bill. Neither lead plays a very bearable character, and the pathetic maid (destitute and hearing-impaired) is too obviously conceived as their counterpoint. It's good to see MacDowell loosening up (a little) after her alarmingly stilted dialogue delivery in deadly, dreadful Green Card. But that's all. Sleeping Beauty never awakens from its monotonal slumber. [12 Apr 1991, p.2D]

Great slabs of blarney are washed down with tears and Guinness in this yarn about a struggling Irish clan, and the resulting sentiment is blatant enough to wake Ned Devine.

Has added virtually nothing to two cinema genres with their own prodigious histories: ensemble and black.