A contrived, unpleasant and very drawn-out affair.

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."

For added heehaws, the normally dependable Nick Swardson comes along to act the ass and delve into some of Sandler's more nuanced scatological humor.

This is about Meg. Only about Meg. Meg in the Middle.

The flick, based on Hoover’s best-selling novel, lays it on thick alongside a lacking narrative and cringey dialogue. On the plus side, the young acting talent and a welcome lightheartedness will keep the eye-rolling to a minimum.

It may sound like a Peter Pan spinoff, and Dear Wendy does involve lost boys in a stagey setting, but the film is closer to "A Clockwork Orange" than a tale of lasting youth.

Though it's meant to be pulse-pounding, After Earth is a lethargic slog.

The only possible reasons to do this concept again is sheer laziness (it's easier to borrow an idea) and pure greed (it's cheaper to borrow an idea). [2 April 1999, Life, p.6E]

Don't buy a ticket for this one, even if the theater is having a fire sale on Raisinets.

There's something about a plus-size floral housedress that brings out the best in many male comics, and Lawrence is no exception.

Although it's reasonably well-acted and offers a few certifiable jolts, feels awfully familiar.

No comedy this vile should be brazenly foolish enough to give itself this title. [25 November 1998, p. 3D]

Though it has flashes of promise, Bones traces the footsteps of its fantasy film predecessors too closely to blaze anything close to an original narrative.

In Roy Orbison terms, enduring this movie is like working for The Man.

It's for people who have always wanted to see Willie Nelson ("Uncle Jesse") lob Molotov cocktails on a freeway and smoke weed with Joe Don Baker, who plays Georgia's governor.

Jade recalls Sliver (even before its fizzled finale) by reuniting Eszterhas with producer Robert Evans, the faded genius and ill-pegged comeback producer who fared better with last year's lively autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture. Judging from his last two movies, the aging kid stays on the D-list, too.

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]

The 5th Wave finds a way to make the most of Moretz’s talents, with the emotionality she showed in If I Stay and the utter physical chutzpah of her Kick-Ass films.

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.

This junior chick flick merely reinforces superficial clichés one associates with female teens: petty fights, intense highs and lows, and self-absorption.

As far as acting goes, neither Olsen is ready for Euripides' Medea, yet each projects well enough in their shared big scene.

With its excessive sleaze and gross-out gags, Soul Plane overshoots effective spoofery. Mostly it's a foul, eye-rolling experience.

Sleepover might appeal to 11- and 12-year-old fans of slumber parties, but it likely will leave their parents stifling a few dozen yawns.

The tone is consistent, but consistently uneventful. [06 May 1994]

Slavishly follows the well-worn and soggy Sparks path.

Where it should be light and graceful, Leap Year trips and thuds.

Fatally dreadful. This umpteenth parody flick of the year moves sooooooo slowly, it may be the first movie candidate for a pacemaker. The Naked Guns and the Hot Shots may not be Noel Coward cocktail parties. But those films toss out so many joke grenades, a few are bound to set off laughs. Not director Carl Reiner's latest. He takes the same five gags and grinds them into the ground like old cigarettes. Or allows each bit to drag on and on like the toilet paper that keeps sticking to femme fatale Sean Young's killer pumps. [29 Oct 1993, p.4D]

Trashy and disturbingly violent yet fairly zippy and amusingly cast.