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

Some of the dancing really is spectacular. Scenes from the competing clubs include impressive choreography and gravity-defying moves. If only the poorly delivered, trite dialogue and predictable plot aimed as high.

Unfortunately, it has no story. Toys is deader than a doornail.

It seems that Andy and Lana Wachowski have never lost that childlike ability to dream. But they also haven’t mastered the grown-up power to rein it in. The story they tell in Jupiter Ascending could probably occupy an entire television season. There’s way too much here for one movie to hold.

Isn’t Statham’s best — or most brutal — work, but it’s not bad.

It's clear this sequel (directed by Darren Lynn Bousman) doesn't have the same smartness (I speak relatively) of the original. Nonetheless, "Saw" fans can still look forward to involuntary incineration, wrist and throat slashing, bullets through brains and the bashing of someone's head with a nail-festooned club.

It isn’t unusual for a good premise to have a faulty execution. The Benefactor suffers from a conclusion that feels inauthentic to the real perils of addiction, as well as to its own story. The only remarkable thing about it is Gere, who really should stick to filmmakers worthy of his talent.

A kind of landmark of exquisite bad timing. And that's the most intriguing thing about it. [6 June 1986, p.D3]

As for the conflict, it's hardly riveting and often it's downright silly. The sets and effects betray their downsized budget. And the Japanese bashing is less artful than in Rising Sun, though just as obnoxious.

The driving drama of such a desperate situation is lost in the movie's casting silliness.

Still manages to one-up its predecessor, 1997's unintentionally campy "Anaconda."

Gary Sherman, the film's cowriter and director, has set up a showcase for scary effects, and some of them are rather nice, in a grisly sort of way. It's clear that Sherman knows how to engineer this sort of thing. What's also clear is that without some semblance of an actual movie around them, these pyrotechnics really start to get on your nerves.

Man on a Ledge has its diverting moments, but by the time it has reached its too-pat final twist, it turns out to be a title desperately in search of a movie.

Crass, dumbed down and stickily sentimental, it's a flavorless confection that clearly had too many chefs tugging at the taffy.

Writer-director Dearden, who earned his gruesome credentials as the screenwriter on Fatal Attraction, underlines his leading lady's lack of rudimentary skill by leaving the soundtrack full of dead air and amateurish articulation during numerous conversations. He's also repeatedly drawn to Hitchcock allusions that slip out of his grasp. [26 Apr 1991, p.E1]

For a suspense drama, Impact is a slack, oddly enervated and mawkish soup of largely lethargic performances.

A Ninja turtle soup of computer gimmicks, karate chops and kiddie Confucianism.

A rambling wreck from computer tech and a helluva souvenir –- that is, for those interested in artifacts representing the American movie at its worst.

Although the new version, which stars Keanu Reeves, is likely to make audiences pine for the meta-irony of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," it's not a complete failure.

Spiral, which involves the hunt for a serial killer by the police force of a nameless metropolis, is a thriller, a mystery, a police drama, but it hews closely to “Saw’s” grisly curriculum.

A conceptual train wreck, with half an idea scattered like disaster debris all over the screen.

Riveting in its low way. It traffics in imagery profoundly disturbing.

This film does other power-of-dance movies one better by downplaying the dancing and underscoring what its brethren often lack: a compelling, wrenching and wonderfully inspiring story.

All this stuff is probably right. It's just that the director, Victor Salva, underscores his points with thunderous obviousness and manipulates us through ham-handed plot gambits.

Getting teens to look past the superficial may be a noble goal, but when they're staring at the pretty but talentless Pettyfer, it's a hard lesson to take seriously.

"Wolverine" is full of angst, and yet has had virtually all the soul wrung out of it in an effort to create a live-action cartoon. But cartoons are rarely so unwieldy, or force a director -- in this case, the largely unsung Gavin Hood -- to juggle so much impossible plotline.

Visually, Brick Mansions is a duller and more conventional film than “District B13,“ which was, if nothing else, a sourball-flavored form of eye candy.

The film isn’t awful. There are moments of handsome cinematography and occasional effects that both frighten and impress.

It's neither amusing nor exciting enough to ensure a long-running franchise.

The audience hasn't the slightest idea what is going on.

A magical child movie in which the child is magical, yes, but the movie is not.

Exorcist II seems to have evolved out of delusions of cinematic grandeur shared by Boorman and writer William Goodhart. It's obvious that they wanted to contrive a metaphysical thriller that would be astonishing and spiritually inspiring, but their thought processes are so muddled that the movie degenerates almost instantly into a confounded shambles. [18 June 1977, p.B1]

As it is, the audience must content itself with baby poop, naughty words and the female anatomy at its pneumatic extreme, while Bateman and Reynolds's search for transcendence continues.

Even likable actors can’t obscure the fact that, holy gods on Mount Olympus, this thing is a slog, a movie that dutifully hits its plot points involving prophecies and fleeces without evoking a whiff of spirit or imagination.

It's a moralistic muddle with only one message: If Disney wants to make movies about Germans, it should restrict its efforts to German shepherds.

A stupid and violent delicacy, congealed nachos and Mountain Dew for the Beavis-and-Butt-head set.

Paquet-Brenner has assembled a talented cast.... Yet he elicits mostly unmemorable performances from just about everyone involved.

Extremities pretends to be a serious movie, and in a film culture where women are routinely exploited and revenge is taken blithely, it is, at least, a departure. But we don't learn anything about men and women, or revenge, from "Extremities" -- we just watch people score debating points, to the tune of J.A.C. Redford's stale TV-movie score.

This new Fame, whitewashed for the kids, leaps into a catchy rhythm at the start.

An intriguing idea for about two seconds.

The movie is still a routine Hollywood high school morality play.

Its heart is vaguely in the right place.

Watching the Care Bears' Adventure in Wonderland, the latest of the teddy superstars' animated movie escapades, is like being pelted mercilessly for 75 minutes with Lucky Charms. It's nonfatal (unless you have a sugar problem, in which case you're likely to lapse into a coma), but it's not exactly my idea of fun either.

An Innocent Man isn't an inspired piece of filmmaking, but it is tightly focused and efficient, and on its own modest terms it is effective.

If we lived in a just universe, Captain Ron, a farce filmed in and around the Devil's Triangle, would simply have vanished into another dimension. But we don't and it didn't.

This a sweet, mostly cute story about the importance of the people we’re related to, peppered with some fairly broad and not especially hilarious yuks.

The second half of the film -- that is, everything after the dubious wife-swapping -- is as mindless and sloppy as the first half is sharp.

In striving for a combination of grit and grandeur, Leterrier misses a chance to make the kind of camp classic that could have endured for generations. Instead, it's a muddled disappointment.

Sloppy compendium of filthy jokes and lowbrow sight gags.

Despite flashes of brilliance, Why Him? is perfunctory and boorish, the sort of film that already has begun to fade from memory before you’re too annoyed by it.

Kato's often the best part of the movie. Britt calls him a "human Swiss army knife," and he's right; Kato is not a sidekick, but a fully formed hero who's full of surprises.

Clumsily written and numbly performed comedy of yammers.

The rare film that is capable of offending both Trent Lott and Al Sharpton.

Ought to be called "Hook, Line and Stinker."

In the Cannon Films esthetic, the only good Ninja is a dead Ninja, and the bodies certainly fly fast and furious here. Okay, it's silly, but maybe you were expecting Tess of the D'Ubervilles? And from a director named Sam Firstenberg?

Like the original "Care Bears Movie," Care Bears Movie II is nothing but an insidious feature-length toy commercial. But since Funshine Bear has taught me to look on the bright side, I will admit that the animation in the sequel is of a higher quality.

Need for Speed is a piece of auto-collision pornography that weighs down its car-flip-and-massive-fireball money shots with a preposterous plot involving vehicular manslaughter vengeance.

In the end, “Nutcracker” is a delightfully old-school diversion. The plot may not always hum with the clockwork precision of one of Drosselmeyer’s mechanical toys, but like a music box, it nevertheless plays a sweet tune.

What really sells this three-hanky tear-jerker -- and there were a lot of women buying it during a recent screening -- is Lane's steely and vulnerable performance. Like Tinker Bell, she almost made me believe in fairies. Almost.

The movie’s most piercing barbs are left for the tech world and the inevitability that our phones will make zombies of us all. Does that make the Boss Baby franchise a bold cinematic bet? Not exactly. But as a safe play for parents and kids alike, it’s tough to complain about the return on your investment.

At nearly two hours, the movie feels bloated. It could easily lose 30 minutes, give or take, and live. It would still not, however, live up to its title.

Riklis isn’t heavy-handed here, and even when the film’s plot grows a little unlikely, its tone is never sappy.

Though Kidman delivers a workmanlike performance, the story manages to be soppy and ploddingly dull, told via a screenplay that drives home the fact that it’s not really about momentous events, but momentous feelings.

That none of the protagonists earns the audience's sympathy is more likely a failure of the real-life characters rather than the actors, who deliver fine performances -- especially Rhys, who seems to be channeling Richard Burton channeling Dylan Thomas at his most manipulatively loutish.

Unfortunately, Provoked possesses the tiny production values and schmaltzy music of a prime-time special, despite its ensemble of terrific actors.

Youngsters who love the shrieky singing and don't notice the tapioca of the story will probably get their money's worth. Parents: Bring earplugs.

A movie that can be smart-funny and astutely topical. But if what you're expecting is a start-to-finish laugh fest, beware: This picture takes some detours and never really figures out what kind of movie it wants to be.

The Bodyguard is a classic of show-business hubris, a wondrously trashy belly-flop, proving that no amount of glittering sets and star power can save a story that should have been buried with McQueen.

Ironically, it’s Zemeckis’s reluctance to embrace theatrical artifice over attempted photorealism that prevents “Here” from hitting as powerfully as it might.

A noisy, impenetrable and totally nonsensical cogitation on the nature of firefighters and the sizzling "animal" they love...We just wish somebody would call 911 for boredom.

This Dr. Giggles has a lot of hearts and no brain.

Sitting through this is groan-inducing enough, but it's spiritually depressing to watch Djimon Hounsou, who deserves better.

The Sword and the Sorcerer is neither sharp nor magical. [07 Aug 1982, p.C2]

If The Exorcist: Believer is all about devotion to spiritual (or at least cinematic) faith, its failure to live up to the power of the first film, which made zealots of even the most cynical moviegoers, borders on sacrilege.

Neither Grint nor the hoax subplot are compelling enough to hold our attention. Perlman, on the other hand, is a commanding, if peripheral, presence, diverting the focus of the film from silly historical speculation to the tale of a damaged psyche.

Indeed it looks as if this otherwise straight-to-video endeavor, which was made in 2003, is being released only to cash in on Bernal's of-the-moment-ness in Hollywood.

The Wraith is essentially a wall-to-wall car chase that writer/director Mike Marvin attempts to enliven with TV commercial visuals, tough-guy dialogue and modestly inventive casting.

Mediocre, unmemorable comedy.

Yes, UglyDolls is a musical, and the peppy songs, while devoid of any subtlety, help tell the story, and are delivered with sincerity. Such ditties as Clarkson’s “Broken and Beautiful” celebrate body positivity and self-acceptance.

Don't blame the fellas. They're good when they're together, but that doesn't happen nearly often enough in this sporadically amusing script. [07 Dec 1984, p.39]

Even with its cyberspace connection, the story comes across as flat and tired, merely a pretext for the filmmakers' occasionally dazzling but ultimately numbing special effects. The world of Virtuosity may be spanking new, but the ideas are yesterday's news.

If The Kissing Booth 2 is watchable, viewers have Elle to thank; King remains the strongest component of a now-franchise that, quite frankly, might be beneath her.

As Above, So Below is inherently absurd, but it would be somewhat less so had it fully committed to just one of its ridiculous premises.

The Gunman may start as a genre exercise of promising purpose, but it winds up being just a lot of bull.

An easy-on-the-sensibilities family film, Eddie Murphy practically assumes the easygoing manner of Mister Rogers, a character he used to wickedly lampoon on "Saturday Night Live."

Anemic, pretentious.

It's trivial and narcissistic and ultimately rather sordid.

This is for the pre-converted, certainly not the left, or even those who consider themselves detached observers.

Big Stone Gap suffers from some hokey moments, including an ending that’s both implausible and too heavy on the sap.

King and Romero -- the horror genre's equivalent of the daily double -- are back on the storyboard for 2, but with director Michael Gornick in charge, 2 goes nowhere slowly. Part of the problem is that King's short stories simply work better in print.

Despite the hackneyed script by John Posey, Legendary is not without merit, and the story works fairly successfully as a family drama between Cal, Mike and their single mother, played by the dependable Patricia Clarkson.

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

Your own final destination just might be the box office, to demand your money back.

Though Down Periscope is set in the age of the nuclear submarine, the jokes seem to date back to the time of the original battle of the ironclads.

Although The Other Woman nibbles around the edges of revealing truths about relationships, it leaves most of that potential behind, instead pursuing easy, exhausted cliches about zip-less marriages, upper class suburban drudgery, cynical careerism and dumb-but-sweet blondes.

Here, however, Atkinson may even outdo Cruise, with the comedian hurling his 63-year-old body into the service of comedy.

[Gere] seemed to be improvising his way from beginning to end, like he was disgusted with the actual script.

Relentlessly offensive.

One of the weaknesses of The Sitter is that Hill doesn't develop much comic chemistry with the children.

Tammy is a bummer, not least because McCarthy’s fans know she’s better than this.

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.

The storyline is so familiar ("Cheaper by the Dozen," et al), the audience can practically call out scenes ahead of time.

As is true with so much of Haggis’s work, Third Person suffers from an airless, too-neat lack of connection with organic life.

To its credit, Men, Women & Children seems to allow for a rational middle ground between technophobic Luddites and the lamentably over-wired. It never turns down the moral panic entirely, but neither does it let it completely boil over.

The finished film obliterates whatever promise of novelty and human interested existed in the basic idea of Belinski's culture shock. If the rabbi's odyssey was embryonically appealing, the filmmakers have nurtured it along pact from an elephant trying to hatch a robbin's egg. [27 July 1979, p.B1]

Spaced Invaders is a slight, obvious sci-fi parody that would like to be in the same league as Spaceballs, but doesn't even deserve the comparison.

As Crossing Over makes its patronizing points, by way of two-dimensional characters and billboarded plot points, it recalls other, better movies that dealt with the same subjects far more deftly.

Bekmambetov and Co. have created a redesigned product that is at once inferior to the original and a slavish imitation.

When “Dominion’s” final 20 minutes play as a beat-for-beat re-creation of previous films’ set pieces, it becomes clear that Trevorrow and Co. have nothing new to say.

Oink. Oink. Porky's II: The Next Day is just swill. But the millions who pigged out on "Porky's" will go hog-wild for No. 2: It's packed with the same old sub-teen smut and subliterate sanctimony. Sex is all talk and dropped britches and one so-so hootchy-kootchy queen's flabby fling. At the same time, it's sexist and sexless, acted by hams and written by bores. [1 July 1983, p.21]

The movie leaves us, like J.D.’s family, with only a mounting pile of baloney excuses for bad behavior.

One thing's for sure about Amos & Andrew: It ain't no "Thelma & Louise."

If ever there was a case for quitting while you're behind, this "Blade" is it -- ready to be buried in a vat of garlic.

Short on real teenage angst and emotion, the film is long on caricatures.

While I Am has its boogeymen - especially the rich, the racist and the ultra-competitive - Shadyac implicates himself whenever possible.

Though it boasts a big budget and is indeed busier and more densely populated than Seagal's previous efforts, Out for Justice feels cheap, not only in its production but in its content. It's "Scarface" without a point of view; it's shallow plot cluttered with extreme violence, both verbal and physical.

Solemn, earnest and as laboriously paced as a fat Sicilian's funeral procession.

How much you enjoy this movie depends on how funny you find Sandler talking out the side of his mouth with a gravelly squawk -- for the entire movie.

Can't wait for the next sequel . . .

An unsurprising, undistinguished piece of post-summer, pre-holiday detritus.

The result is astoundingly boring and, frankly, tedious to sit through.

Adore at its core is a bore, nothing more.

The most ghastly thing about the whole movie? The mainstreaming of these most outsider-y of outsiders.

A well-acted but narratively limp indie that's undermined by a failure to connect emotionally with its audience.

At its worst (and this is where Made of Honor comes in), it can leave you with a bad taste, not just in your mouth but in your soul.

Here's a film that so merrily thumbs its nose at propriety in exchange for visceral thrills, and at probability in exchange for the really cool plot twist, that it checks in as the guiltiest pleasure since "The 13th Warrior."

Krush Groove is a kind of "Purple Drizzle," partly because of the story, which is scattershot; mostly because of the music, which isn't music at all, but rap, that tired fad of worn-out rock critics. [1 Nov 1985, p.B4]

There's so much pluck and gumption on the screen you can smell it. Flesh and blood? Not so much.

Murphy is fine as the title character, although his performance consists mostly of suppressing all of his usual shtick. He certainly doesn’t endow Mr. Church with any unexpected depths. But then neither does the script.

Treat this project as you would a safari: It has its slow parts but the wildlife makes it worthwhile.

A sexless seriocomedy that would be a bust without the support of Burt Reynolds and Ving Rhames. The pair bring a much-needed lift to this tale of a mother at the mercy of the system. Without them, the movie is mostly a showcase for the star's personal trainer.

Such a half-baked, arbitrary update that the decrepit plot seems to arise from the misty region of a kind of Jewish Brigadoon in contemporary Manhattan, a Ghetto That Time Forgot. [20 Dec 1980, p.D3]

On paper, this is an extraordinary story. But the careless production values blunt its impact. The score is obtrusive and generic; the sound editing makes a shootout sound reminiscent of an old Western; continuity errors abound.

Despite the marquee names and their obvious talent, the film feels like a made-for-TV movie. It’s slight and episodic, with a weirdly scrupulous ambivalence about its subject, whom it seems torn between loving and loathing.

The only impressive thing about it is the monotony and thoroughness with which it replicates cliches from older, better movies and hammers them into pop alloy to an up-with-me beat beat beat of its musical score.

If in the end P2 contains few surprises, it's still a nice piece of polished escapism.

If anything, Baywatch is a litmus test for how low Johnson can sink while still winning us over.

Whether or not it's crucial for the gay community to have its own "Porky's" is a question for the ages; but please, not Another Gay Movie.

Golan and Bruner, in other words, have made the Holocaust into just another tear-jerking tool for the Cannon Productions shlockenspiel. This is called "chutzpah." The unoffended will find that the movie doesn't even deliver on its own sordid level. There isn't any action till 70 minutes into the film.

Mr. Whipple squeezing his Charmin is scarier than this phony baloney computer effects-driven anaconda.

With so many warmed-over jokes, you’d think that the delivery would at least be on point. But everything, including the timing, feels off.

It becomes clear that the situation is exactly as we imagine it to be, and that the sense of mystery that Shoaf has spent so much energy weaving is a red herring.

A kind of cinematic analogue of the Iran-Iraq war: It's overlong, it's hard to tell which one's the bad guy, and it's filled with lots of senseless carnage on both sides.