The word on Rollerball is "troubled," though troubled is what you call a high school junior with 50 snakes under his bed. Catastrophe is more like it.

To crystallize its fundamental flaw, here's a movie about Manhattan that takes 75 minutes just to get to Manhattan - followed by another 15 that could just as easily have been shot (and possibly were) in some East Topeka alley. [31 July 1989, p.4D]

Even the soundtrack doesn't rescue the movie from its tedious banality.

Worst of all, Marlon Wayans' performance as a cowardly thief would have seemed in bad taste a half-century ago.

The unfunny jokes center on outhouses, vomit and flatulence. Gooding mugs, screeches, even hops up and down to no avail. Nothing can wring an ounce of comedy out of this sorry spectacle.

Not since Andy Kaufman's reign of terror has a supposed funnyman been so self-indulgently persistent in testing a fan's patience.

What Aykroyd concocts here is about as appetizing as that fish shake he made on Saturday Night Live. Meet Hollywood's first Bass-o-matic filmmaker. [18 Feb 1991, p.2D]

Near Cocktail's numbing end, viewers who are still awake will hear love interest Elisabeth Shue warn Cruise: "Your sexy little smile isn't going to work this time.'' Drink to that - a Bloody Mary to a bloody shame. [29 Jul 1988, p.4D]

The performances don't help matters any, with acting ranging from tolerably earnest to laughable. Cage keeps Left Behind from being a completely unholy mess.

There are laughs here, but easily as many groans.

Lacking even a hint of humor or a watchable story, Disguise has distinguished itself as the summer's worst movie.

Interspersed between the misogyny and flatulence jokes apparently left over from Pooh's co-written script for "Friday," there's a story about an ex-con.

A cynical sex comedy that manages to be infantile and jaded at the same time.

The script, based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is deeply dumb, depressingly derivative (ripping off "Planet of the Apes" the most) and just plain nonsense.

Here's a late-August dog-days atrocity from the "aren't farts funny?" school of filmmaking.

Clumsy on every level.