Even in this conglomerate era of marketed, predigested mediocrity, this Disney movie slips instantly into the humdrum.

There's not much adventure on these high seas. This buccaneering boondoggle is more like a slow voyage aboard the PMS Pinafore. [22 Dec 1995, p.C06]

Overstuffed, overlong and utterly uninvolving, this is a movie that feels as morbidly trapped as the poor little bird of its title. Rather than spread its wings and fly free, it stays frustratingly, eternally inert.

A rotten 89 minutes of night photography and close-ups of a man with the face of a dessicated bulldog. There's no kick, just sick: people who weren't being paid to watch walked out of the screening. [23 Apr 1982, p.13]

This time around, there's barely any plot, just excuses for Bronson to blow people away.

Grecian Formula and body corsets notwithstanding, Bronson looks like one of those sculpted potato heads and moves with appropriate grace. This is not the face of death; it's the face of old.

This tedious slog through the highland muck should win no Oscars, only groans and raspberries. Even the much-buzzed-about glimpse of a nude Pine, as his character emerges from a lake, doesn’t make this worth watching.

This is a movie that doesn't just make you feel dumb, it makes you feel as if your head has been hollowed out and pumped full of Cheez Whiz.

Just Police Academy all over again, without laughs.

Firefox may sound bright, hot and racy, but it browns out. Eastwood has an energy crisis as director, producer and star. [18 June 1982, p.15]

For those who saw the first two Massacres, this will seem pretty much deja-boo! All too much of III is rehashed horror. The first installment was genuinely shocking, unrelenting, visceral terror. II was camp terror, a gothic detour that cast Dennis Hopper as a good guy (albeit nuts). III envisions itself as a return to I, but director Jeff Burr is no Tobe Hopper (director of the first installment), and even the special effects seem bloodless imitations.

Sure, there may be a nugget or two of gold in “Lost City.” But it mostly stays lost, in this convoluted drag of a script. “Dora” should have picked a path and stayed on it. Instead, it’s a movie that is muy aburrido — boring.

The story is as stale as prison air and so is the star. [25 Mar 1983, p.18]

Zapped is a C-grade movie all the way. [28 Aug 1982, p.C5]

The lowest common denominator of smutty amusement [03 Aug 1983, p.B2]

Broadly acted and badly directed, the cast never clicks and the gags fall flat. (Or, they stoop to dog flatulence.) This is a movie made for one-stop shoppers.

There are movies that make you want to mince words, and then there's Poltergeist II: The Other Side, a movie so ineffably bad, you can't even find the words to mince. [23 May 1986, p.D2]

Everything is utterly unbelievable; it's Blackboard Jungle without a moral intelligence, Rock and Roll High School without a soundtrack. Sitting through it is like paying for detention on a sunny day. [14 Oct 1982, p.D15]

It doesn't take extra-sensory perspiration, as Ernest would say, to realize this undertaking is dumber than jaywalking at the Indy 500.

Those immortals keep noting that there can be only one. Perhaps they mean there should have been only one.

Hot to Trot is an unbridled disaster, a screwball horseplay so lame you want to put it out of its misery.

Once upon a time [Brooks] was hilarious. And can still be, in interview, which is his true art form. But for some time now, his movies have not even cruised near the neighborhood of funny. And this one is the bottom of the barrel.

Greta might pretend to turn the tables by presenting the sexualized predation of a young woman at the hands of a female malefactor instead of a male one. But the fetishistic leer is just as troubling and offensive. Disturbance eventually gives way to derangement in a story that grows exponentially more irritating the more preposterous it gets. As Morton might say: When it rains, it pours.

From the outset, The Possession is calculated to make an alternately ludicrous and sadistic spectacle of the family's victimization.

Child's Play 3 is further proof of the principle of diminishing sequels: The original was actually quite good, the follow-up was lame and now what is hopefully the capper is DOA.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas isn't a movie about human nature at odds with itself, but a witless and unwitting mirror for Hollywood's worst instincts and onanistic conceits. [23 July 1982, p.11]

The Villain is the sort of dumb comedy that never smartens up. [23 July 1979, p.B11]

It's a comedy to be laughed at rather than with, largely because the producers decided to dub Arnold's Teutonic voice with that of another actor, one who sounds like he's giving bus departure announcements at the Port Authority Terminal. [30 Jan 1992, p.C7]

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]

In short, it's about as charming as a gob of spit.

The movie is so flimsy that people might wonder how it could possibly have been made.

Charmless, stupid and badly made, No Holds Barred makes Rocky look like Citizen Pain.

A soppy songfest about a tubercular pea picker who drives to Nashville, where he hemorrhages and dies. It's unfit for human consumption. [17 Dec 1982, p.20]

Flowers in the Attic is slow, stiff, stupid and senseless, a film utterly lacking in motivation, development and nuance, and further marred by embarrassingly flat acting and directing.

There’s nothing wrong with a good cry at the movies. But a bad cry is emotionally manipulative and, well, just mean. A Dog’s Journey is the latter.

Everything about The Heavenly Kid is ripped off, from a sprig of music that apes the Beverly Hills Cop theme to Gedrick, who was obviously cast because he looks like Tom Cruise, but cheaper. [26 July 1985, p.D2]

Possibly . . . no, probably . . . no, definitely . . . the worst rock film of all time. [24 Nov 1980, p.B11]

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom feels like the friend at a middle school sleepover whose mom forgot to pick them up the next morning. You know, they know, everybody knows: The friend has overstayed their welcome, but you’re still trying to make things fun.

It is the story itself that never achieves liftoff.

A brilliant film has been made about the spectacularly corrupt administration of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. It’s called “Videocracy” and it’s available on a streaming service near you. Loro, on the other hand, is a much more mixed bag.

The dialogue is less than sparkling, and what passes for witty repartee is mainly a barrage of sarcastically delivered f-bombs and such insults as “gold-digging whore.” The style of acting would, at a sporting event, merely be called shouting.

Even Nanjiani’s endearingly funny turn isn’t enough to elevate Stuber above its own trite, lazy aspirations. He might drive away with the movie, he just doesn’t drive far enough.

A movie straining so hard to be edgily of-the-moment that it can’t help but be utterly irrelevant, strives to impress viewers with sadistic killings, oozing viscera and extravagant gushers of blood. But its most dramatic spectacle might be the sight of a facile, lazy enterprise being hoist on its own cynical petard.

Class of 1999 gets a D for dumb, dull and derivative, and so what if director Mark Lester, who made "Class of 1984" eight years ago, is borrowing from himself? The latter was just a punked-up version of the original rock-and-roll high school film, "Blackboard Jungle." For this new venture, Lester has simply tacked on elements of "Westworld," "RoboCop" and "Terminator" in a blatant attempt to enroll the action faction.

Paradise is about as romantic as sand in your pants. [07 May 1982, p.13]

There are so many problems with Graffiti Bridge. The major one is that this "contemporary musical drama" stars and was directed by Prince, who also wrote the script and the score. This may be four hats too many.

Reductive, ghoulish and surpassingly boring, “Blonde” might have invented a new cinematic genre: necro-fiction.

Bad as Bolero is, it is unfortunately not bad enough. Seekers of inadvertent high-camp hilarity will be as let down as those who are suckered in by the promise of Bo's golden flesh. [03 Sep 1984, p.D1]

Oxford Blues, the latest refinement in abysmal youth-pandering movies, suffers first and foremost from that modern filmmaking malady: The No Exposition Blues. [01 Sep 1984, p.B2]

The unsavory nature of the concept is softened to a considerable extent by the ridiculous nature of the depiction. The performers are obliged to stumble through such a prolonged, outrageous dance of death that the stupidity of it all tends to obscure the viciousness of it all. [26 Feb 1982, p.D3]

Imagine National Lampoon's Animal House without the raunch, originality or wit and you have Midnight Madness. [08 Feb 1980, p.16]

Add Big Town's collection of spotty characters (with motives murkier than the cinematography), cliche'-laden dialogue (from We gotta get out of here to I can change, I can change), abruptly ended scenes, no exposition when you need it, poor sense of drama (a deep breath), and you have something that should be pitched out into the alley behind the dingiest bar in town.

Only cognoscenti of things wet and wild could conceivably enjoy this B movie about an Arizona wave pool champion who comes of age by riding on water.

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]

There's one thing worse than a movie with two Jean-Claudes: A movie with two Jean-Claudes and bad fighting.

Return to the Blue Lagoon, which doesn't star Brooke Shields or that blond guy, makes the original Blue Lagoon look like Citizen Kane.

Scavenger Hunt, a solvenly farce about a frantic competition for a multi-million dollar legacy, is the studio's bottom-of-the barrel Christmas treat. [29 Dec 1979, p.C6]

It’s a movie that’s all too happy simply to go through the motions when its star is clearly capable of busting bigger, more interesting moves. Luckily, there are other films in the sea. This is one that Lopez should have left at the altar.

I’ll say one other nice thing: The film isn’t terribly long. You’ll keep waiting for the suspense to kick in. Spoiler alert: It never really does, except feebly, after about an hour and 15 minutes. And then, unceremoniously, it’s over.

There is such a thing as toxic fandom, to borrow the term used by one of this movie’s young protagonists, and “Scream,” which is filled with endless conversation about the difference between a sequel and a “requel” and more rules than a penitentiary, suffers from it, fatally.

An amateurish jumble of romantic and tear-jerking overtures from novice writer-director Willard Carroll. [28 Jan 1999, p.M20]

A flagrantly vicious and broken-down murder melodrama that leaves recognizable fingerprints all over the place while making a chump of director William Friedkin. [13 Oct 1995, p.C16]

The fun never stops because it never starts.

In Those Who Wish Me Dead, Jolie demonstrates her career-long fascination with action derring-do and physical punishment, to diminishing effect. In this pulpy, borderline laughable genre picture, not even her hair is believable.

Bogdanovich, who worked with McMurtry on the Last Picture Show screenplay, adapted this one on his own. It's kinda like he tried to pare down the big ol' Encyclopaedia Britannica and couldn't bear to leave out nothin' -- a lot of Billy Joe Bob types talking guff and hogwash and settin' round the Burger King eating fried eggs. This is purty near the worst movie of the whole year.

Never Ending Story II is as flat as the pages of its script.

Although Bostwick is left in the most exposed position by the nonsensical war games invented for Megaforce, it's obviously Needham who deserves the preeminent rap for fabricating a system of illusion so juvenile that the actors can scarcely avoid looking like chumps.

A good story lurks somewhere in Queenpins, but Gaudet and Pullapilly take the easy way out at every plot point and with nearly every joke.

Clerks III is a movie for die-hard fans and die-hards only.

With its outré images and pulsating shots of human viscera, Crimes of the Future is clearly meant to shock, as well as reference very real anxieties about technology, genetics and environmental degradation. But as the convoluted plot wears on, Cronenberg’s transgressive kink looks more and more played out.

Mawkish, obvious and manipulative, “The Son” is, quite simply, a disappointment, from its pat setup to its equally false — and, quite frankly, cruel — resolution.

It's mindlessly violent, profane and insultingly racist. It's also relentless, repetitious and tiresome, and leaves us feeling that a once-great director has run out of ammunition.

Like the opium dreams that its eponymous hero becomes addicted to, this fragmented, trigger-happy account of Wild Bill Hickok's final years feels like a bad trip through every cheap western knockoff you ever had to sit through.

Less intriguingly convoluted than concussed into lifelessness, “Marlowe” is the cinematic equivalent of a word salad: It parrots all the right lines while striking all the right poses, without saying much of anything at all.

Moon has lots of setup but no resolution, treading water for most of its overlong running time.

With The Hollywood Knights, Floyd Mutrux, the director of "American Hot Wax," seems determined to wear out the welcome of a once-amusing nostalgic device once and for all.

When Vaughn is cooking, his films can be stylish, self-satisfied junk food. “Argylle” leaves the style out of the equation — it’s filmmaking as processed interstate fare, high in calories, low in fiber, tasty until you’ve had enough of it and then you feel sick.

In the annals of overcompensatory anal-retentive joking, Rivers may have succeeded in carving out an even lower niche for herself.

Shakespeare this ain’t. In the long, long history of “Romeo and Juliet” movie adaptations, “Juliet & Romeo” lands well below the 1996 Baz Luhrmann version starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes and just above 2011’s “Gnomeo & Juliet,” in which the characters are portrayed as animated garden gnomes.

To paraphrase the T-shirt, everyone here went to the Isle of Capri, and all we got was this lousy movie.

Filmmaker Paul Flaherty apparently has never so much as given a friend directions to his home.

There’s nothing wrong with a good, dumb comedy, but “Bride Hard” doesn’t even qualify as in-flight entertainment.

This is a young filmmaker who so wants to make every shot freighted with import that he ends up robbing his film of importance.

North, which co-producer Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman adapted from Zweibel's slight novel, is awkwardly structured -- it's still in chapters -- not to mention mean-spirited and incredibly stupid.

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.

Dracula is one of the most confounding, and worst, movies I’ve seen in a long time.

Much of what's offensive and insufferable about All About Steve can be laid at the feet of screenwriter Kim Barker, best known for inflicting "License to Wed" on the world. Why do these people still earn obscene amounts of money churning out dreck? And why do stars like Bullock keep paying them?

May be the most disappointing American comedy of the decade, partly because it's jokeless and joyless but mostly because it squanders an all-star cast of superb comic talent.

A piece of pulp claptrap; it has no insights whatsoever into totalitarian psychology and always settles for the cheesiest kinds of demagoguery and harangue as its emblems of evil. They say they want a revolution? Then give us a revolution, one that's believable, frightening, heroic, coherent and not a teenagers' freaky power trip.

It plays like a soft-core-porn potboiler left over from the 1970s about a hot vampire chick.

In this case, the adage would go something like "material, material, material," also known as the Nicolas Cage Rule: Good acting can't overcome bad taste.

The makers of Miss Congeniality 2 have violated the cardinal rule of Sandra Bullock cinema. They turned her into someone unlikable.

Sahara is a mediocrity wrapped inside a banality, toasted in a nice, fresh cliche.

So primitive, it must have been written in lizard blood on animal skin.