While by no means a masterpiece, the comedy, by Canadian director Ken Scott, is a careful calibration of crass gags and genuine sentiment that succeeds more often than it fails.

It ain’t worth the price of admission, but it is, in one of the drowsiest, dullest summer movies ever, a bit of an eye-opener.

There's a nagging question at the heart of Chernobyl Diaries. It isn't what, or who, is stalking these kids. After awhile, the answer becomes apparent, leading to a denouement that, while mildly exciting, feels like a ride you've been on before.

Repo Men grafts moral ambiguity onto the action thriller, and the result is a weird but likably misshapen beast.

Lamentably short of sense and acting skill but extravagantly long on choreographic combat, Revenge of the Ninja supplies a mock-bloody feast of acrobatic punching, vaulting, cutting and thrusting for presumably insatiable martial arts fans. [28 Sep 1983, p.B11]

Xanadu cannot possibly be described as a good movie, but it can be recommended to those who can tolerate large amounts of intravenous marzipan. The music is highly enjoyable -- though perhaps more so once one gets the record album home and isn't bothered with the story -- and the film so unerringly airy that it has a beneficent, tranquilizing, bemusing effect.

Will Gluck directs with frantic, go-for-broke pacing, which is what you do when your reserves of wit are bankrupt.

The Blue Lagoon is a plump sitting duck, waiting to be roasted by sarcastic spectators. But director Randal Kleiser and his associates may enjoy the last laugh at the box office if this oblivious romantic idyll connects with susceptibilities as naive and dumb-founding as their own.

This highly stylized adaptation of the popular Max Payne video game is 70 percent dark, snowy atmospherics and 30 percent loud, violent action.

It's all too silly to bother. Without style and attitude, nothing gets old faster than horror.

As directed by Perry, The Single Moms Club goes for a mix of escapism and reality-based drama and winds up with a movie that can only be enjoyed via the running, snarky commentary that will inevitably scroll through most audience members’ heads as they watch.

By and large the film seems humorless, the reflection of exhausted or snide entertainers. [21 June 1978, p.B13]

Genre aficionados looking for chills and thrills will be disappointed; this one could play uncut on television -- network, not cable. The effects and the jokes are equally few and far between, and for all its amiable intentions, House II deserves few boarders.

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

Screenwriter and sometime animal trainer Stewart Raffill directs from a screenplay by Ed Rugoff, who also co-wrote "Mannequin." Rugoff is fond of asking and answering the question, what if a mannequin came to life? But judging from "Mannequin Two," Raffill is probably better at sweeping up after elephants. The actors, bless their little wooden heads, would be better off pulling puppet strings.

Edwards persists in the missing-person subterfuge in Curse while avoiding the blatant outrage of recycling old footage under false pretenses. He's shot new footage this time, but that technicality hasn't prevented it from feeling depleted and secondhand. [17 Aug 1983, p.B6]

Despite classy lead performances by Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde, the movie, from horror factory Blumhouse (known for cranking out sequels in the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, among others), relies too heavily on reanimated monster movie cliches and scientific gibberish to keep it alive.

Suffice it to say, there is no comedy, no chemistry, no nothing in this movie.

At times, it's downright nasty; and that's when I like it best.

Smurfs may be all over the multiverse, but it doesn’t land anywhere worth writing home about.

Wes Craven, who started the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, should know a lot better.

While this reboot is fun, it’s also forgettable and occasionally infuriating.

Just another thriller, utterly disposable.

While the chemistry between characters is impressive and the comic delivery spot-on, the jokes feel unoriginal.

Grown-ups might not roll over for Show Dogs, but children almost surely will. With its fart jokes and smart-alecky canines, this talking-animal comedy is aimed at a young audience anyway. For dog-loving adults, well, it’s just engaging enough to make them prick up their ears.

Even this garbage-can world deserves a better grade of junk. [7 Aug 1980, p.B4]

Nearly unwatchable.

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.