Brooks, whose storied career includes insightful gems such as “Terms of Endearment” and “Broadcast News,” turns in a halfhearted mess of a movie that spends its entire two-hour running time trying to figure out what it wants to be.

Makes the mistake of including too sweeping a scope in too small a movie and with too few resources.

None of the characters are compelling, despite the star-studded vocal cast behind them, including Madonna, Robert De Niro, Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Fallon. Our attitude toward them is casual interest, not anxious concern.

Along the way there’s a sprinkling of humanizing moments.

Well, cloddish as it is, Tank doesn't put any obstacles in the way of separating the good guys from the bad guys. And while you might justly call it stupefying, it's never boring. [28 Mar 1984, p.B17]

A nominal political thriller that has nothing to do with Flashdance, nor with much of anything else for that matter, begins in a ditch and ends in a sinkhole. Once or twice it gets up the energy and ambition to scale a hill of beans. [03 Sep 1984, p.D1]

If P.S. I Love You proves anything, it's that Hilary Swank may be a great actress, but she can't do cute.

You're going out with a touch of class: a slam-bang finale in 3-D -- make that Freddyvision; a gaggle of one-liners directed at the final crop of victims and a few in-jokes; some wonderfully bizarre dream sequences; and the possibility that while Freddy may be gone, some of his progeny may live on (we can say no more).

Loud, overstimulating and hard to take in all in one sitting, it feels like the vacation that you’ll need a vacation from.

By scaling back the script’s laughs and excising four songs (plus countless reprises), the film at times lands in an uncanny valley between the heightened musical at its core and the weightier young adult drama Chbosky seems to have envisioned.

Seems like a pretty cool movie -- at least, for a remake of a 1970s Saturday morning TV show.

Pelé: Birth of a Legend is too earnest and single-minded to be hagiographic, and the final moments are moving in spite of their predictable trajectories.

A disaster of a drama, saved only by its winged assailants. You know a picture's in trouble when you find yourself rooting for humankind to lose.

There is a faintly greenish fuzz of bread mold at the edges of every frame of this stale exercise in psychological horror (subgroup: homeowner hell).

Defiantly inscrutable, Woodshock can test a viewer’s patience, yet the filmmakers’ consistent self-confidence creates an alluring, oddly hypnotic effect.

Every single sight gag in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul telegraphs its punchline for what seems like an eternity.

Some films aspire to B status; some achieve it accidentally. Return of the Swamp Thing does neither. It isn't shocking or entertaining. At best, it is a catalogue of bad acting unredeemed by humor, and it will quickly settle back into the swamp of anonymity accorded most minor comic book heroes. [26 June 1989, p.B8]

Whether it’s being sexy, jokey or homicidal, Stage Fright doesn’t deliver the goods with sufficient spirit. It lacks the sparkle to be a truly killer show.

Planet 51 is cute, but it's no "Shrek."

I'd recommend you actively or passively forget this one.

Despite a solid central performance by film veteran Lynn Cohen and a Detroit setting that will please expats and current residents of the Motor City, there is little here to lift this film beyond its regional appeal.

Director Scott Hicks lavishes good taste and sunsets on a story that - devoid of genuine tension, conflict or combustible chemistry between its two stars - just prettily sits there.

The gags just aren't very funny, relying overmuch on the usual British understatement...Morons From Outer Space has, by my count, eight laughs (which works out to 62 cents a laugh). [21 Nov 1985, p.C16]

Secrets, lies and vast array of medical emergencies beset the game cast (which includes Kathy Bates and Felicity Huffman, Macy’s real-life wife) before the story goes fully off the rails.

Nightmares, an anthology of suspense shorts, is about as scary as getting up to face another day. It's teddy-bear terrifying, definitely not for those who're into blood and guts. [09 Sep 1983, p.23]

The true crime is the eight bucks the filmmakers want to steal from you. Best advice: Don't let them get away with it.

Two Moon Junction is a soft-porn boudoir thriller with the look of a perfume ad and a spaghetti-strap-thin wisp of a plot...As in the antiseptic "9 1/2 Weeks," there's smut, but no sweat. You get the feeling King would make love wearing not only his socks but a pair of surgical gloves.

Shamelessly contrived pap.

Kettle of Fish, starring Matthew Modine as a commitment-skittish saxophone player, is a warm-spirited romantic comedy, but it tends to have a squawky pitch.

Pleasant-to-watch, easily forgotten drama.

The "stone"-shtick gets mighty old after about 15 minutes. More than 30 screenwriters worked on the Flintstones script, and the result just proves the ancient saying about too many cooks.

This adaptation of the underground comic strip is mostly unfabulous.

There's more bathroom and slapstick humor than a sixth-grader could stand, and a veritable flood of drool, blood and less mentionable effluvia, most of it courtesy of Mr. Wayans as he tries to be – you know – funny.

With the exception of Carrie and The Shining, the novels of Stephen King have not made the transition to film particularly well, so it should be little surprise that Pet Sematary is another DOA -- Dog on Arrival.

Weakens, dilutes, disinfects and otherwise undermines the legacy of Tobe Hooper's 1974 original.

Taking Lives would have to work nights to reach mediocrity.

The muddy, convoluted story revolves around the star's cool-guy poses and one-liners.

After the disastrous "Mixed Nuts," her last holiday season folly, Ephron appears to have hunkered down for a career of pandering mediocrity.

Piven is so in the pocket as the smarmy, aggressive, inappropriate Ari that, when the movie he’s in does little more than double down on the bro-ing out, the whiffed opportunities become all the more obvious.

Genisys goes back to what made the franchise work in the first place: not the machine inside the man, but vice versa.

The script screams of a thinly written, ’90s-era narrative reanimated for audiences who now expect more depth from their action movies. The final product is less a technical marvel than an ambitious experiment gone wrong.

Though I don't think giving it a cuddly human personality and the vocals of Rachel Weisz helps much, the thing itself, part dog, part fish, part weasel, part dinosaur, is a terrific illusion, and the technical team manages to really sell the idea of flight. Too bad the acting is so lame, the story so derivative and the thing so long.

What this ill-fated journey is all about are never rationally explained, but then it seems most of the little thought in Galaxy of Terror was put into the special defects, which include a crewmember whose head and tummy snap, crackle and pop; an arm that gets cut off and still manages to spite itself; and a tiny worm that grows and rapes a comely crew member to death. [12 Nov 1981, p.C17]

Doesn't deserve the energy it takes to describe how bad it is.

Although filled with fey, flamboyant characters, the stereotype of the gay hairdresser seems to have been meticulously expunged.

The franchise is cheapened by Disney's crass commercialism in releasing material that, by rights, should have gone straight to video.

Just like "Bad Boys," only louder, longer and the stars get paid more.

Tries -- and fails -- to evoke that whoa-did-this-really-happen edge.

In the hands of director Bluth, An American Tail is technically impeccable, combining much of the richness of bygone Disney animation with modern technological effects. But if it's polished, it's also strikingly uninspired.

Summer Rental is the kind of movie that could make you wish you had poison ivy -- at least the scratching would occupy your mind. [10 Aug 1985, p.D7]

Unfortunately, The Champ does not let well enough alone. It slogs on for about two reels too many, concluding on a note of utterly contrived tragedy that should make just about everyone feel wretchedly deceived. [04 Apr 1979, p.B1]

Kumail Nanjiani is the best thing about Men in Black: International. That’s saying something, considering that the actor never appears on camera and that the character he lends his expressively plaintive voice to is a CGI alien the size of a gerbil.

Sleepwalkers is badly plotted and unimaginatively conceived, though not without a number of seat-squirming scenes.

The nicest thing is the Asian American actress known as Maggie Q.

Uma Thurman delivers a mesmerizing performance in The Life Before Her Eyes, a film that, once seen and fully digested, exerts the same haunting pull as the shattering events it chronicles.

A lot of it is low, crude, admittedly comic in the rudest positive sense, which involves a lot of falling down to humorous effect.

A train wreck of a film lying inert where the tracks of the Feel Good Line cross the Path of Good Intentions.

Possibly the worst thug-life flick to be released in the past 72 hours, this movie sags under the weight of the bling-bling cliches strung around its headless neck.

There’s a fundamental problem here. The movie relies on the instinctual human fear of death, but its message is that dying is a promotion.

King of the Gypsies gets caught in a paralyzing bind between sordid subject matter and ridiculous casting. Ostensibly a serious, compelling melodramatic chronicle about dynastic conflict within the gypsy subculture of contemporary American, the movie resolves itself lickety-split into a laughter. [20 Dec 1978, p.E1]

Though Ouija starts off evoking a nicely eerie atmosphere of dread, it ultimately goes too far, making the liminal space between the spirit world and this one all too eye-rollingly literal.

Every Asian character is either a ruthless murderer or anonymous collateral damage. A lot of locals have to die, the film suggests, in order for one white family to survive.

Rebecca may owe everybody for everything, but Fisher definitely owns the movie. She is the only one outside of Ritter who gives a bona fide performance.

The November Man turns out to be the classic August movie: a triumph of competence over imagination and schlock over taste. Its highest value lies in reminding filmgoers that fall can’t come too soon.

Hafstrom largely ignores the progress made by his demon-banishing predecessors and delivers a palatable PG-13 thriller that's safe, soft and sinfully cliched.

Defiantly sophomoric, often hilarious and crude as all get-out.

The plot, the dialogue and the main characters' love connection are basically mind-numbing.

A tad preachy and more than a little bit sanctimonious.

You are likely to encounter more surprises on the way to the bathroom each morning than you do in this film.

This movie is a particular disappointment. Although The Seeker is in Walden's tradition of positive storytelling, John Hodge's script is guilty of downright goofy utterances on occasion.

Too frequently and too loudly, the sci-fi bells and whistles of Chaos Walking overwhelm its quieter, more engrossing elements, making it hard to hear what the film really seems to be saying.

Jokes about race, women’s anatomy and little people are sprinkled, like rancid pepper, over a script that depends on the inherent humor of cuss words. Not that coarse language can’t be funny, but here it appears to be evidence of a toxic mix of laziness and sociopathy, not defiance of seasonal propriety.

The jokes in Ktown Cowboys land with a thud.

Dull and repetitive, even by the standards of an already repetitive genre.

Since I had been fortunate enough to miss or avoid the earlier installments, "The Love Bug" and "Herbie Rides Again," the latest entry in the Disney studio's cycle of farces about the exploits of a sentient, racy Volkswagen, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, came as a more stupefying shock than it probably should have. As excruciating kiddie vehicles go, a Herbie is certainly more diverting than a Benji, but comparison at this level smack of sheer desperation. [27 July 1977, p.B7]

On the whole, it feels like a cross between a PBS special hosted by a series of low-rent Deepak Chopras and an infomercial for self-help audio tapes.

Phillip Noyce, the Australian who directed "Patriot Games" and "Dead Calm," knows from thrillers, but "Sliver" is more of a friller. It's not scary but the decorator was good. Stone, who spends a considerable amount of time biting her lip, chewing her finger, moaning, grunting, writhing and wiggling, also proves that she's a good actress when she is wearing her underpants. It's just that Baldwin can leave no side of Stone unturned and there's so little time to emote.

The film degenerates into sophomoric name calling and a brand of insult humor that would embarrass Don Rickles.

Pali Road toys with some interesting questions about the line between romantic love and fantasy. In the end, however, it’s no more than a mildly scenic ride.

Alongside this silly kiddie Halloween comedy, reruns of Hee Haw seem works of great comic sophistication.

Think Like a Man Too, the derivative, intermittently amusing follow-up to the surprise hit rom-com from 2012, is so frenetically paced and hysterically pitched that it makes almost no room for simple enjoyment.

Intended as a fuzzy family fable, "August" plays more to the gag reflex than to the heart, especially when our little orphan starts playing the guitar like a virtuoso after what seems like a three-minute tutorial.

Free Birds has the colorful palette, zippy action and silly story to keep kids giggling, but it also delivers a few worthwhile winks to parents.

A picaresque romance of self-discovery that delivers a near-constant flow of small delights until veering too far into screwball preposterousness.

It's a kind of "Miami Vice" with many more carz and numberz where all the adjectives used 2 go.

Insipid, unfunny and cliche-ridden.

Let's blame it on poor Robin Williams, who tries so desperately to be likable, whimsical, lovable, smart and funny all at once that he just wears you out. Blame it also on the behind-the-scenes engineers at Disney who think that effects are more important than story and character.

Max Rose seems to come from someplace personal, but its pain feels dialed down a notch to make it easier to digest. Still, the movie gains resonance from its look at what may be the final years of a movie legend.

Reiner assembles a square meal of rom-com pleasure points, but it’s bland, by-the-numbers and not particularly memorable.

A heady blend of beefcake, derring-do and jingoism, their adventure is not merely action-packed, but well-built to boot.

This isn't real life. It isn't even a movie. It's an extended sitcom. And for the first time in your life, you'll actually beg for commercials.

Irony is the movie's escape hatch. It allows the filmmakers to stage maudlin bits and, at the same time, signal the audience that they're too cool to actually believe in them. Their cool is all-purpose, and it carries with it a note of genuine nastiness. They manipulate us into a sentimental response, then kick us in the teeth for buying it.

So cheesy and cheap that it almost attains high camp.

The exuberance of the Rugrats seems nullified by the effete quirkiness of the Thornberrys.

A beautiful, sad, spiritual story with joy and delicacy, visual chops and emotional depth.

It's so over the top, the top isn't even visible in the rear-view mirror.

The movie isn't exactly providing entertaining escape. In fact, the only escape on your mind is going to be the exit door.

Most of the humor in The Pink Panther derives from Martin's silly French accent, especially when he tries to pronounce the word "hamburger." But zat joke, she ees not funny. And The Pink Panther ees, how you say, ze real dog.