Though R-rated, its real target audience is under 18 -- either in years or IQ points.

A tired old quote about truth being the first casualty of war is a strange way to start 5 Days of War, an overwrought drama that, whatever its good intentions, could hardly be said to aim for objectivity in its account of the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Silent Night, Deadly Night takes off from the notion that Santa Claus is an ax murderer, but it never quite lives up to the delicious perversity of its premise. An idea this shocking has to be earned; instead, director Charles Sellier Jr. ("The Boogens") gives us another casually constructed splatter flick that has more to do with morbid arithmetic (the body count continues!) than movies.

Reinhold has a face that is halfway between leading-man handsome and Donald Duck, and a relaxed, drawling confidence with a line -- he seems to float not above the action but on it, like oil on water. And he seems to survive Head Office, a comedy so confused and cowardly it makes television look daring. [4 Jan 1986, p.D4]

Doubling duties as director and cinematographer, Peter Hyams seems to have tossed the former for the latter. The Presidio, purported cop thriller, looks great. It is, in fact, less filling. The maker of "Outland" and "2010" infuses a San Francisco setting with evocative misty grays, but screenwriter Larry Ferguson's dull doings hang thicker than smog.

New World Pictures has been promoting the film not so much as a fright show but more as a campy romp (the comic trailer was more entertaining than the picture); unfortunately, it doesn't work very well on either level. [01 Oct 1985, p.E1]

The fun never stops because it never starts.

Marshall and screenwriter Andrew Cosby went overboard with their R-rating, introducing so much gore and profanity that it, quite frankly, gets dull. The flat performances and incoherent story do not help matters.

The film rises above its conventions. Just when it seems to be a fable of sexual initiation, An American Affair pivots away from sex. Just when it seems to be a re-dredging of the Kennedy mystique, it pushes past history. Thoughtfully and imperfectly, it dramatizes the flight from childhood, the surrender to adulthood and the pieces of us that survive.

Unfortunately, even for devotees of the derivative, Legacy has all the scarifyin' power of National Geographic. It is a gross, hollow and hokey joke in which even the red herrings prove anemic. [05 Oct 1979, p.B1]

With all the dog dung in Envy, it's almost too easy to generalize that it stinks. But it does, unfortunately, despite the big-name actors in its cast.

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.

So tame and limp, it may actually give mothers-in-law a good name.

Reynolds never figures out whether he's making a thriller or a spoof, which for years has been the problem with his performances, too. His acting swivels from gravelly, glowering tough-guyness to nudge-and-wink appeals to the audience -- Mr. T and Johnny Carson in one. And he's way too polished for the character Leonard wrote; when he enters the slick world of Miami finance, he blends right in.

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.

Oh, please. Stop and smell the manure.

Ultimately, the problem with this Red Dawn is the same problem with the first one. Despite the more realistic battle scenes, nothing in it feels more fateful than a football game.

One hackneyed, inauthentic, predictable scene after another.

Deception is another example of when genre-fication (the forcing of otherwise intriguing stories into the straitjackets of horror, thriller or other genres) reduces our entertainment to head-shaking banality.

It would be hard to reduce filmmaking to its basics more than Fire Birds does. It's more video game than motion picture -- the first coin-operated movie.

Each sweet moment is inevitably punctuated by some in-your-face joke that’s at least as stupid as the preceding moments were heartfelt. Blended has other problems, too, including some faulty editing and a typically predictable finale. But there are some genuinely sweet and funny moments, which are more than enough to exceed expectations.

Cutesy in the television sitcom sense.

To call Lawrence a poor man's Richard Pryor libels not just Pryor but also the 33 million Americans currently living under the poverty line.

Trapped in Paradise, a heist caper starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey, gets lost in a snow flurry of subplots and formulaic run-and-chase -- right around the time you've settled in for a good comedy.

Love the Coopers is one of the most jumbled, tonally misguided holiday movies in recent memory. It is an insult to tidings of comfort as well as joy, and a complete waste of the time and talents of its ensemble cast.

There isn’t one joke, sight gag or piece of slapstick tomfoolery that lands with any success or originality in Hot Pursuit.

It's a performance in search of a movie.

Most of the comedy, however, is unintentional. House At The End of the Street may not draw much of an audience during its initial run, but the movie's preposterousness certifies it for future midnight screenings, where the story will get the jeering it deserves.

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

It’s the filmmaking equivalent of a monkey with the head of a goat, the tail of a fish, wings and teeny-tiny rat claws.

The only thing that distinguishes this teen-magnet wannabe from its predecessors is how lazily it appears to have been slapped together.

It’s unfortunate that the tribute to veterans that is so much a part of the movie’s marketing turns out to be little more than a framing device that’s dispensed with for most of the plot.

With its fancifully moldering sets and technical effects, Highlander 2 is little more than a barbarous arena, a Conanistic return to paganism for those among us who still laugh at violence.

What could be more frightening than an indestructible murdering mutant? Consider the unbelievably horrifying performance of Stephen Furst as Charlie, the sheriff's deputy. Couple Furst's incompetence with a scene like this one and you know real fear: Charlie tells Sheriff Dan that he just isn't made for law-enforcement. Not because he's incredibly out of shape and dumb as a post, not because he can't drive a squad car. No, no, no. It's worse. The coquettish Charlie confesses to some pretty grim experimentation of his own. He tells of giving his first puppie a bath by swishing it around in the toilet. Then he put it in the freezer to dry. Voila! the first freeze-dried pupsicle. [2 Apr 1982, p.11]

Tiresome and messy.

Let's talk about it quickly, because the thumbs of both my hands have gone similarly crazy. They're pointing downward and refuse to budge until I finish this review.

Another tediously sanctimonious message movie from Alan Parker.

Winter’s Tale is ambitious with its otherworldly ingredients and temporal leaps. It’s not always a success, but the movie has one thing going for it: spot-on casting.

A genial and surprisingly self-contained performance by Adam Sandler.

Not quite documentary, yet by no means drama, Inside the Mind of Leonardo is what might be called poetic biography: maddeningly fragmentary and idiosyncratic, but 100 percent true.

When a master dedicates his genius to the production of schmaltz, it's not a pretty sight.

Despite a few well-timed jump scares, Friend Request never really builds much tension.

The Cave isn't just a bad movie, it's a very, very, very bad movie, so bad that it can't even redeem itself by turning into high camp.

Alex Cross isn't meant to be analyzed too deeply. The title character probably sums up the best strategy for appreciating the film's modest pleasures when he says, "Don't overthink it; I'm just looking for a bad guy."

Anyone with a modicum of good sense -- or a weak stomach -- will take it as a warning to stay the heck away from this literally and figuratively deadly "War Zone."

Stone-dead bad, incoherently bad... Cage acts as if he has been taking hits off of Dennis Hopper's gas mask. There's no way to overstate it: This is scorched-earth acting -- the most flagrant scenery chewing I've ever seen.

Doesn't just play like a cheap "Batman" knockoff, it plays like a cheap "Batman" knockoff that knows it's a cheap "Batman" knockoff -- and wants to be sure everybody knows it knows.

Annoying.

You judge a movie by its own standards, right? Bulletproof, starring Damon Wayans and Adam Sandler, is rambunctious, crude, ridiculous, violent and -- incidentally -- very funny.

In her imperfectly beautiful way, Bell suggests Carole Lombard. As a comedian, Bell is enough of a distraction that you can forgive all the inanities around her. And there are many.

To make matters worse, this third “Hangover” is dull.

With no real comedy to enjoy, it's torture to watch Diesel undergo a predictable change from emotionless soldier to loving family man. Makes you want to spit out your pacifier in disgust.

Manages to make sex look like no fun at all.

It's not brazenly bad or heroically bad or stridently bad. It's bad in all the old, dull ways of being bad: poor performances, absurd story, dreary special effects, witless dialogue and the excessive length of someone taking himself far too seriously.

Less a movie than a meticulously, tediously accurate Civil War reenactment committed to celluloid.

Although Kill Me Three Times includes a few murders, it does nothing to justify its title. Mostly, it just shoots itself in the foot, over and over.

In the world of Freedom, slaves and the people who help them are Christians, and the bad guys don’t believe in God.

Here are some of Summer School's favorite things: idiocy, illiteracy, irresponsibility, drunkenness, dumbness and debauchery. Piqued? [24 July 1987]

Little Boy is a as phony as a game of three-card monte.

The Boy Next Door plays best as unintentional comedy.

On the plus side, Allen's basic movie-making skills are sound. The $13-million film looks crisp and clean. An idiot could follow the story line and two hours could go by without many glimpses at the wristwatch. In short, the perfect made-for-TV movie. [15 Jul 1978, p.E1]

What saddened me, however, wasn't the silliness but recognizing the great Swedish actress Lena Olin under a lot of "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" makeup. What a waste.

It's lewd, crude and socially irredeemable.

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.

The movie is unsurprising and not especially ambitious, but it’s agile enough to vault over most of its flaws.

Hampered by Niall Johnson's script, which is often confusing, muddy and ultimately cliche-ridden.

Sadly, this movie is a far cry from the atmospheric, even thoughtfully crafted original, which made you truly scared for the unkempt, everyman victims. But this latest version, though just as grisly, is literally hackwork, and stars a forgettable, airbrushed cast of slaughterees.

The movie itself is already like one long commercial.

Is it mindless fun for the kids in an air-conditioned environment? I guess, sure, but it's maddening how many details in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore are swiped wholesale from other stories.

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

Legend may turn out to be legendary, but not in the way the filmmakers intended. As a flight of fancy, it has the balletic grace of the goony bird, crashing on takeoff and spending the next 90 minutes in a fluttering tizzy on the ground. [24 Apr 1986, p.D3]

This movie, written in crayon by James Kearns, is too dumb to come up with a way of defeating the system by using its own rules.

A knuckleheaded but amiable summer trifle, Stroker Ace is aimed straight at Burt Reynolds' vast heartland public.

Grown Ups finds Sandler reverting to lunkheaded, lazy-laff form.

It’s a shame that the beginning of a movement that has come so far, so fast has been reduced to a trite, calculatingly manipulative reenactment.

Tries to cram too many ingredients into one small pot.

A considerable cut above the crop of recent features by other 'SNL' alums.

A lightweight skating story/road-trip film, is apparently the best it can do, which is to say, not good at all.

With a surprisingly unhappy, anti-Hollywood ending that will appeal to those who like things dark.

Two if by Sea, directed by Australian Bill Bennett, suffers from a symptom common to romantic comedies that begin after the couple have visited the haystack: There's simply no more sexual tension. Without it, you'd better be as good as Tracy and Hepburn.

The Smurfs is exactly like Amy Adams's princess-in-Manhattan comedy "Enchanted," only far less clever, kindhearted, original, exciting or entertaining.

As directed by Steve Miner and shot by Gerald Feil, the film's use of 3-D is spectacularly and viciously effective. (Gray-lensed Polaroid glasses are handed out at the door; this 3-D process works much better than that used on recent 3-D TV broadcasts.) Not only sabers and butcher knives are tossed into the movie house, however; there are also such relatively benign protuberances as popping popcorn, a leaping snake and a blue yo-yo. From the back of a van, a hippie reaches out with a joint, and very early in the film the audience gets poked at with a pair of rabbit ears atop a television set. An opening scene of sheets flapping on a clothesline is attractively eerie, and a later shot of a victim sitting on a pier that juts into a pool of water is actually pretty. The playfulness is so engaging it's really too bad that the gore has to be so unrelenting, but the producers of these films are now trapped in their own excess [17 Aug 1982, p.B1]

If it touches on notions of scientific arrogance and the question of what makes us human, it ultimately does so lightly, and with a mix of eye-popping action and loopy good humor.

Will satisfy only those who can't tell the difference between the good, the bad and the ugly.

A meet-cute whimsy set among divorced fifty-somethings in New York, it blunders on toward oblivion, excruciatingly unfunny and pitifully unromantic.

The movie feels like Nicholas Sparks fan fiction.

What a bomb this highly touted union turns out to be...There is less drama than a Dr Pepper commercial, and its feeble attempt at camp makes "The Return of the Living Dead" look like a production of Stratford-on-Avon. [20 Aug 1985, p.C3]

When he crushes a patrolman's head between his hands, you think you're watching a happy campesino lusty for coconut milk; when he skewers a depraved camp counselor with a knife in the temple, he is the happy barbecuer on a sunny Sunday afternoon. "Soup's on!" he might have cried. Then he tears a girl's head clean off. Well, the head probably wasn't doing her much good anyway. [6 Aug 1986, p.D10]

Madhouse is excruciating fluff for moviegoing masochists. It's what bad cinephiles can expect in the cineplexes of hell. No, it's probably already on video there.

The result isn't merely ludicrous, it's something far worse. It's drab. It's uninteresting. It squanders Chan's uniqueness; it could even be said to squander Jennifer Love Hewitt!

Tries to put your tear ducts in a headlock with a litany of catastrophes.

A field goal, not a touchdown.

Pratfalls and agonizing tumbles appear to be James's business, and man, business is booming.

The most misguided, ill-conceived and lamentable film.

Johnson and Wayans are both gifted comic performers but are given way too little to do in a film that wends its way from set piece to set piece, not with antic glee but desultory and-then-this-happens randomness.

Just a few more tweaks and Crossover could have been something special -- a truly terrible movie to savor for the ages. But nooo, this street ball movie -- has to settle for middle-of-the-road badness.

A buddy cop parody of the lowest possible caliber, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 empties its chamber but only nicks its enormously deserving target. It's a fusillade of tired jokes and cheap shots, primarily meant as a burlesque of "Lethal Weapon," but "Basic Instinct," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "48 Hrs." also come in for some lame bashing from director Gene Quintano.

Tries to combine humor with ghostly horror but excels at neither.