Even horror neophytes won't be spooked by a film that looks as if it were shot with a smartphone and an Itty Bitty Booklight.

Insightful gems are unearthed throughout the flawed but engrossing Salinger,a much-anticipated documentary about the author of The Catcher in the Rye.

Portentous and dull, the film features one of the worst over-the-top performances by Dennis Hopper, who plays an abusive father.

A movie that has neither dramatic focus nor a single memorable performance, aside from one or two that are memorable for the wrong reasons?

Action star Chow Yun-Fat's latest is as thin as the buzz cut he sports in Bulletproof Monk.

Tries and winds up with a pleasant, if forgettable, romp of a film.

Ten minutes into the picture, you're searching the screen for life-support machines.

Grief and suicide seem unlikely subjects for a comedy. But Shrink tries gamely to mine edgy humor from the darkest places. Sometimes it works. Other times, its Hollywood-centric focus feels like a re-heated cinemash of "The Wackness," "Crash" and "The Player."

Whatever knockabout Gallic charm the original might have had - and, starring Gerard Depardieu, it must have had some - has been sucked out of Three Fugitives. What's left is a vacuum-packed factory product with a few arresting touches, including some surprisingly violent slapstick and a sullen young heroine who looks like a preschool Isabelle Adjani.

Insidious: Chapter 2 appears to be the sum of the unusable parts from James Wan's recent haunted house feature "The Conjuring."

The original Pitch Perfect worked so well because it was about the friendship of the Bellas amid the wonderfully weird world of singing dorks who didn't get the memo that they weren’t cool. That's now long gone, and what’s left is just way off-key.

Vile, violent and less hip than it thinks it is.

Either you will weep uncontrollably during the final 10 minutes or so of this bittersweet fable...or the urge to gag will be overwhelming.

Ernest Goes to Jail is no yuk-a-minute - it's more a yuk-a-half-hour. [06 Apr 1990, p.4D]

Double the Van Damme equals double the dopiness in the August dog-days exploitation pic Double Impact. And though it falls somewhat short of being double the pleasure/double the fun, the film is made for one of those round-the-clock theaters with Doublemint gum stuck to the floor. [09 Aug 1991, p.5D]

Broken Toys is beyond repair [18 Dec 1992, p.6D]

The sci-fi film's reported $175 million budget must have gone largely into loopy production design, wild costumes, outlandish hairstyles and colorful make-up. It certainly didn't go into developing a coherent script or coaching believable performances.

Homefront is what "Breaking Bad" may have resembled had Sylvester Stallone written the TV show.

Whether we're talking this go-round, the original or the second sequel the finale seems to promise, I'd rather try standing drunk on a see-saw (though maybe not over dirty syringes) than see Saw.

A curious but intriguing movie that leaves you bemused and more than a little confused.

At least director Dwight Little (Free Willy 2) gives us enough B-movie speed to keep Orchid from becoming a fountain of aging.

More often the film succumbs to clichés, grows convoluted and outlandish, and winds up dead on arrival.

The movie's opening half-hour is merely dull, but the final hour is brain-damaging. [11 Dec 1998]

There's no buildup (hence, no suspense) and no combustion between the leads. Dillon and Young are both better than their reps, and Dearden orchestrated the sizzle between Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Something must have gone terribly awry here. [26 Apr 1991, p.4D]

The story, an updated version of the 1951 classic about a portentous extraterrestrial visit, feels musty and derivative, and not only because it's a remake.

There's so little action or suspense that this Cell isn't too likely to multiply itself into a sequel.

The ensemble cast, struggling with wanly written characters, hits more clunkers than high notes.

The story is corny and predictable, but Carlyle's subtle, nuanced performance saves the movie from drowning in sentimentality.