As an example of smash-mouth environmentalism, you'd be hard-pressed to surpass Fire Down Below. As an example of right-thinking American compassion and concern for our precious natural heritage and all the fuzzy fauna and fernyflora of the great outdoors, it's extremely forthright. And as a movie, it's a piece of drivel...Ugh! What a distasteful, silly, egomaniacal movie. [6 Sept 1997, p.D03]

Bissett, to her credit, is the only one who appears to know that the movie around her is a near-classic of sexy absurdity.

Death Ship unfortunately turned out to be about as frightening as "The Love Boat." No -- less. Except for one grisly, chilling scene too horrible to describe, this one was an unintentionally funny stroll. And pity the poor actors -- George Kennedy, Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso, Sally Ann Howes; it's the TV-jeebies. Strictly second-string city. [9 June 1980, p.B1]

Despite formidable competition, Looker makes a persuasive case for Stinker of the Year among suspense thrillers. [30 Oct 1981, p.C6]

A round of misfires from title to denouement, the new comedy "Modern Problems" is a modern problem for moviegoers: the latest rummy example of that strange abomination, the unfunny "fun" movie, victimized by utter confusion about its genre, tone and audience. [30 Dec 1981, p.B6]

What's left here is not so much a movie as an assault so unpleasant, it leaves you wondering what you could have done to deserve it. [27 May 1986, p.B3]

INDULGE me for a moment: Funny Farm, the latest lame critter from the Chevy Chase stable, is hogwash. A real turkey. A load of horse manure. There. Now that I have the farm puns out of my system, I can calmly urge you to avoid Funny Farm. [3 June 1988, p.N37]

The script is at once so undernourished and so obvious that you'll be convinced Cohen produced it via telegram: START MANIAC COP KILLS CIVILIANS STOP CLEANCUT GETS BLAME STOP WORLD-WEARY DETECTIVE FIGURES IT OUT STOP BODIES FALL STOP.

Tony Scott's Revenge is fascinating for one reason only -- as an example of full-scale, mega-star perversity. The star, in this case, is Kevin Costner, and there's a willfulness in the extremes to which he's gone here to alienate his public. Costner pitches his performance at his audience like a dare, as if he were seeing how far out on a limb it's willing to climb with him.

While in theory this seems like an altogether valid notion, in practice it falls apart because Fred is such an obnoxious boil of a character. Instead of wanting to release him you want to deposit him in a Davey Tree Grinder. Painful death, that's what this trickster deserves.

Shamelessly contrived pap.

Don't go to "Into the Night." It will numb your mind. It will bore your soul. And it will cost you $5. [8 March 1985, p.25]

Nearly unwatchable.

An ill-conceived and unsuccessful romantic adventure set in jolly, collegiate England. [24 Aug 1984, p.20]

The Wizard is not only tacky and moribund, but it teaches gambling and bad sportsmanship.

This 110-minute movie never seems to end, even after the various, idiotic storylines are finally resolved. After plying the audience with formulaic predictability, Getting Even doesn't even have the decency to end quickly.

There's a lot of ski footage here, but most of it is pretty standard beer commercial stuff. And the characters are on about the same level. Writer-director Patrick Hasburgh may know something about skiing, but he knows nothing about people. Or storytelling. Or filmmaking.

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.

You know you're in trouble when the cars in a science fiction movie look like those golf carts with football helmets on them. That's if the presence of Emilio Estevez wasn't already enough of a tip-off...Though the action is nonstop, it's so unengaging that we might as well be watching a blank screen.

In the end, He’s All That is not all that — not even a little bit of that.

There's no telling how many sounder, wittier scripts, including stories in the same genre, might have been overlooked or rejected in order to waste time and resources on this feeble in-house imitation.

Not only is the picture woefully short on laughs, it's also coarse, overbearing and, in places, downright insulting.

This suspense drama, which stars Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland and Joe Mantegna, tries desperately to press your vigilante buttons. But its manipulative agenda is so transparent, you don't know whether to take exception or laugh it off.

A retread of just about every rom-com cliche ever turned.

What Michael Bay did for the Hollywood blockbuster with his second "Transformers" movie, Jared Hess has now done for the low-budget indie with Gentlemen Broncos -- namely, stain an entire genre with a sense of soulless calculation.

Slack when it should be tight, dull when it needs to be sharp, The Bounty Hunter represents a failed attempt to make an Elmore Leonard movie without having to pay Elmore Leonard money.

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.

Good ol' Fred loses any sense of playful shock he once possessed and turns into a generic figure meticulously manufactured to simultaneously gross and freak us out. It doesn't work.