At least the original never stooped to overly graphic violence. This time, the filmmakers drench the toy-factory finale with gore galore. [09 Nov 1990, p.4D]

Will leave audiences yawning rather than gasping from fear.

The movie's premise is as dopey as they come: A serial killer with a conscience is killing other serial killers.

God may forgive you for seeing this needlessly brutal film. But you won't forgive yourself.

The movie keeps switching focus without ever getting its bearings, and when Brando exits earlier than expected, there's little but mayhem to fall back on. Moreau and mayhem are synonymous, to be sure, but we already know this going in. [23 Aug 1996]

Another one of those high-gloss treatments of domestic strife that want to have it both ways. Sitcom-slick, melodrama-edgy.

After "Chocolat" and this, how about a moratorium on candy-centered comedies?

It's too bad more energy wasn't devoted to fleshing out the one-dimensional characters and crafting a decent script. The only reason to catch this harmless diversion is for the group dance sessions.

If the sight of half-naked, tattooed sailors firing cannons at each other shivers your timbers, climb aboard. Even passable pirate movies don't sail by every day. [22 Dec 1995, p.3D]

Yes, it's a candy-colored Day-Glo world, but there's a liveliness missing from this lead-footed Speed Racer.

While it doesn't break any new ground or provide any revelations, Seven Pounds is unabashedly emotional and cautiously hopeful. It's the feel-good movie for these feel-bad times.

Best to wait until the movie makes it to TV - where its missteps will loom less large.

A film dealing fully with Hoffman's final years might have had a lot more punch.

Pure nonsense is hard to sustain for an entire feature-length movie.

Hunter is far too talented to waste her time with such mediocre material, as is co-star Kathy Bates, who plays Kippie Kann, an overbearing talk-show host.

The players fall into recognizable stereotypes: the big and clumsy kid, the real talent who's also a showoff, the buffoon, the gross-out guy. But no one is more formulaic than the coach. He starts out smug with the kids and ends up smitten.

T&H isn't art, but it's surprisingly good ''arf'' - and I know what I like. [28 July 1989, p.5D]

A plot-twist whodunit that even Forrest Gump might crack, it's also a Hall of Fame howler from long-inactive Richard Rush, whose direction of 1967's Hell's Angels on Wheels now seems comparably placid. [19 Aug 1994, p.10D]

Tooth Fairy will make your teeth ache and your skin crawl.

Despite his cockney-accented verbosity, Brand does not convey the effortless conviviality that Dudley Moore did in the part.

Though the movie is more mediocre than abysmal, Ryan's recently banged-up filmography (remember In the Cut) could use what every fighter needs at ringside: a good cut man to stop the bleeding.

Except for some climactic gunplay in a zoo that looks suspiciously like a set, every plot thread is a retread - 500 layers deep. [18 May 1990, p.4D]

Holmes, of Dawson's Creek, will be up the creek if she can't avoid movies like this. And so will you if you see it.

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.

Though it's only 90 minutes, the film drags, making these not-so-easy riders pretty tough to watch.

It's all fast and furious up to its draggy finale, and yes, it could spark a sequel. Prepare yourself for coming dread in 18 months: "A Man Together."

You're bound to have more fun working overtime than watching Employee of the Month.

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.