The sentiments here are thoroughly semper fi, but the result occasionally works at cross-purposes.

It's an intriguing movie, and Thornton's performance is both fascinating and maddening.

Of course, The Rock looks the part, though with a headband and buckskin, he'd also look like Tonto on steroids.

At least Necessary Roughness strays from the usual game plan, but it ends up strictly Bush league. [27 Sept 1991, p.2D]

Long, lumbering, pretentious and for some a possible laff riot. [23 Dec 1994]

What might have been an entertaining, silly comedy opts for pseudo-earnestness over movie magic.

While it features three strong performance and the debut of a promising filmmaker, the story line is obvious and rather melodramatic.

Is this a comedy, action pic or sensitive Belushi-Harris romance? Director Rod Daniel never establishes a definitive tone, though he comes close in the scene where James Brown's I Feel Good hits the sound track after some canine fornication. You don't need a dog to smell this. [28 Apr 1989, p.4D]

An insightful, sharply written and unsettlingly amusing exploration of the darker elements of masculinity.

School for Scoundrels will only leave you scratching your head in bewilderment and might possibly shave off IQ points.

Lacking in originality.

A sluggish, tedious film about lost souls living dead-end lives in a dead-end town. Their actions often defy rationality.

The last half hour is filled with cheeseball visual effects, B-movie monsters and Banks — by far the most enjoyable aspect — hamming it up the best she can.

Joyful Noise seems tailor-made for an audience of churchgoers and "Glee" devotees.

Feels as desperate and static as being trapped in a traffic jam.

Like "Blazing Saddles", A Million Ways to Die in the West has a slew of comic set-ups and one-liners that kill. And, as with Mel Brooks' classic 1974 film, it steps unabashedly into vulgar terrain.

The Love Punch is a romantic comedy as painfully unfunny as a sock in the jaw.

This is a noisy, sadistic and just plain dull rendering of a too-often-told tale about a mysterious drifter who rides into a lawless outpost and pits rival gangs against each other. The plot, based on Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic Yojimbo, isn't so much dusted off by writer/director Walter Hill (Wild Bill) as propped up. [20 Sep 1996]

The script is so bereft of real surprises that it's best to keep the lid on what few there are.

It is tough to fight off the ennui created by this comedy.

Flimsy little comedy unworthy of its portentous title.

It's an extravaganza worth seeing once -- and maybe later on DVD.

The Jacket is a confused attempt at headiness that feels like a poor man's "Memento."

Boorman's troubles usually come from going over the top (atop Exorcist II, there's always Zardoz). But this is one of his few misfires that almost anyone would call tepid.

The werewolves have it all over the blood-suckers in The Twilight Saga: New Moon. When these oversize, hirsute creatures burst onto the screen, they inject life into a rather inert story.

While it looks great with its gorgeous computer-generated foliage and realistic animals, the story focuses too much on its stiff hero and a one-note villain rather than the big-picture ideas it raises in passing.

Given its predictable story, the only reason to see Stomp is for the rhythmic step dancing.

The satire is surprisingly tepid.