Has some laughs - more than a few thanks to Michael Douglas as a dead swinger (the movie's Jacob Marley) - and some moments of tenderness, too.

It is a boilerplate action comedy.

The movie has some clumsy dialogue and awkward turns, but the picture is brisk and likable.

It's an entertaining movie, which is half the game, but it's not scary, which it should be. Neither is it something to be taken seriously, though it's intended to be.

The picture is more impressive as it goes along, revealing a symmetry of construction underneath the rudiments of a thriller.

Year One has one joke, but it's a good one, played for many variations over the course of an often very funny comedy.

Instead of concealing it, I'll just come out and say that I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about this well-acted and gracefully directed movie, but for reasons that might be called philosophical.

It's a gorefest, a borefest and a snorefest.

With most movies that fail, the fault can be ascribed to carelessness or lack or inspiration or cynicism. But Chelsea Walls, directed by actor Ethan Hawke, is clearly a labor of love.

Just not worth revisiting, unless one wants to tie one's brain into a knot for no discernible reward.

Excess Baggage falls down as a showcase for Silverstone, who made a big splash in "Clueless" and whose production company is releasing this film. She comes across as unappealing and unseasoned in ways that go beyond the role.

Almost every moment has flashes and explosions and a pulsing, relentless soundtrack. It's like being trapped inside a video game.

There are lots of cameos, as well, too many to count. However, it is worth mentioning that singer Taylor Swift shows up in a couple of scenes, playing a vapid Valley girl, and she's very funny.

The strange case of a movie that clunks in every possible way but the ultimate way -- it entertains.

There's a case to be made for The Real Cancun as a document of the mating dance as well as an unintentionally poignant film about the brevity of youth.

Another inert, soul-dead action drama that turns actors into zombies...It's garbage.

Uninvolving. Even the sex is boring. Are these scenes supposed to be wildly erotic? If they are, they don't work. [20 Mar 1992, Daily Notebook, p.D1]

The strange thing is that for all of Fonda's whining, Pullman's wary squinting and muttering, the bad dialogue, the cheesy effects, the severed toes, the severed heads, the severed bodies and the cliched directorial choices, Lake Placid adds up to a halfway enjoyable time at the movies.

These are good moments, and there are a few others, that prevent Tomb Raider from being one of the worst films of the year. But they're not enough to make it worth seeing.

Super- violent, super-serious and super-stupid.

There's no satisfaction and no pleasure to be gained by sitting through it. The characters are ludicrous and, worse than that, boring. And this is despite all the lead actors doing the best they can.

Not a campy film, but it revels in extremes, and has the same sort of appeal.

Though charming at times, just misses, due to a contrived story.

It's not bad. It's cute.

Though Zack Snyder is known as an action director, he is a genuine artist and one of the most exciting and promising filmmakers to emerge in the past 10 years. His new movie, Sucker Punch - let's just say it - is a failure, but there's so much talent on that screen that the movie can't be dismissed as a waste of time.

Let It Ride has atmosphere, plus a good setting, appealing actors - and a bad script. [19 Aug 1989]

RV is a horrible movie about horrible people, and just because they call it a comedy doesn't mean we have to play along.

The bottom line here is that Cyrus is ghastly in The Last Song, bad not just in one or two ways, but in all kinds of ways.

Mindhunters is as effective as a movie can be and yet still be 100 percent forgettable.

A very funny romantic comedy that nicely combines Adam Sandler's acerbic sweetness with Aniston's down-to-earth warmth.

Father-daughter relationship lacks impact.

There's a psychological undercurrent. The movie occupies a zone where science fiction and nightmares collide and intertwine.

Arrives in theaters today with a sheet over its head and a tag on its toe. So to speak. What we have here is a complete systemic failure, a comedy that's not funny, with action that's not thrilling.

In stiff competition for the lamest thing ever put on celluloid.

Amusing and holds interest largely thanks to its re-creation of a glitzy, flamboyant era, not to mention its soundtrack of disco songs that sound a lot better today than 20 years ago.

Virtually every word and plot turn is insincere, manufactured, unfelt and dishonest, and its portrayal of people demonstrates either an ignorance of human behavior or a disdain for truth.

200 Cigarettes doesn't have a bad scene or a false note. The picture is a succession of pointed little moments, nicely written by Shana Larsen and acted with comic assurance and sensitivity.

While it's possible to have a great time with the movie without having any interest in Kiss, it should be noted that the band does make an appearance.

Tony Scott's vigorous direction is sometimes too vigorous. Loud rock music underscores many scenes, and Scott's habit of shooting at odd angles begins to seem like a mannerism. But on the whole his ambitious attack helps make The Fan entertaining in the moment, even if it's forgettable immediately afterward.

A fairly mediocre film, not nearly as funny as it should be, nor as heartfelt. On the plus side, it's only 85 minutes long and isn't boring. On the downside, it has an intrusive pop soundtrack and a screenplay full of fake conflicts.

The Ex isn't painful, horrible or despicable, but it is an amazing mess.

Proves that it's possible to make a movie so tasteless and so crude that audiences don't laugh. This is worthwhile information. It means there's a limit.

Nothing but a showcase for the inherent comedic gifts of Cameron Diaz. The problem is she doesn't have any.

In UHF we get 90 minutes of Al Yankovic, and that's 85 minutes too much. The problem isn't that he's weird, but that he isn't weird at all. The premises for his gags are commonplace and predictable, and his follow-throughs lack imagination. He seems incapable of spinning more than one tired joke from each set-up. [21 Jul 1989, p.E1]

Either Shelton knows this world well, or he's such a great bluffer it doesn't matter.

The satire is unfocused, while the story goes nowhere. Too bad. The material is ripe for satire.

It's original and poetic, and if you see it you will probably remember scenes from it a year from now, because it's not really like anything else. It's very much its own thing.

A boxing movie that exists in that gray area between prototypical and typical, the quintessential and run-of-the-mill.

A cute and amusing little romance that has all the fiery impetuosity of an egg sandwich.

An overblown action monstrosity with no surprises, no exhilaration and no thrills.

It's a romantic comedy with insights into sex and relationships that are old and obvious.

Saint John of Las Vegas was a bad script that somehow got made into a bad movie with good people in it.

As plain awful as Untraceable is, possibly the worst thing about it is that it pretends to mean something.

Martin Lawrence finally gets to show what he can do as a screen comedian.

A disgrace to the talents of Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy, but it's not enough just to say that. It's also a disgrace to the talents of Rene Russo and whoever drove the coffee truck to the set every day.

The race is on for worst film of the year honors. Among the top contenders: Men Cry Bullets.

There's a good idea behind Repo Men, not a whole lot of thinking, but at least one whole idea.

With its flat story, numbed-out protagonist, and faux artistic lighting and set design - everything is dark or moody or darkishly moody or moodily dark - Max Payne seems a good half hour longer than its running time.

Delpy and Scott are able to put it over. She's French and deep and mysterious. He's a fresh-faced American, an open book. Liking them makes it possible to (kinda) like this otherwise routine horror movie.

The most enjoyable way to watch Surveillance - "enjoyable," in the relative sense - is to take its awfulness for granted and pay attention to everything Bill Pullman does.

When Travolta plays, everybody has a good time.

A third-rate effort, with a weak script, cheap-looking effects and no genuine frights.

To see Perfect Stranger is to wish for a more sophisticated vehicle for a film actress this good, but actors -- and audiences -- take what they can get. This is better than most.

Perfectly acceptable, perfectly bland, competently acted but by no means a scary horror movie, in which "they" are coming to get people.

An ugly, misguided exercise.

It's monumentally coarse and vulgar, aimed at the mentality of a 14-year-old locked inside his father's liquor cabinet, and nothing about it is funny, least of all Adam Sandler.

Unfortunately, the characters are so programmatic, the premise so ridiculous and the situations so far-fetched even if you accept that premise that no energy can be built, and the little that's there can't be sustained. Red Dawn is a vigorous but pointless exercise.

Has a high-gloss, heightened style reminiscent of that of the film's executive producer, Joel Schumacher.

Taps into a fear hitherto unexplored by cinema: fear of Bill Gates.

It's hard to tell if Cage's performance is a grand stab at all-out, no-holds-barred comic acting or one of the worst dramatic performances in a film this year. [2 June 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E8]

The result is a film that's far superior to Neil LaBute's "Your Friends and Neighbors'' and more entertaining than Todd Solondz's "Happiness.''

The film is neither fish nor fowl nor some arresting new entity, but a lumpish coagulation of conflicting impulses and unrealized gestures.

A generational spectacle that's fun to witness.

The result is a worthy woman's film and Jolie's best showcase to date.

A sour story with a repellent lead character, deadly comic schtick and tin-eared direction to produce 90 minutes of sheer, plodding mirthlessness.

If the first "Hangover" movie were this awful, there never would have been a Part Two. This is a joyless, unfunny mix of comedy and drama, a complete waste of time, with exactly one good joke in the entire movie. It comes in the first minute. After that, you can leave.

Represents his (Smith) first act of cinematic cynicism, his first crime against his own talent. With this action comedy, he has given us 110 worthless minutes, a bad formula movie like every other bad formula movie.

The resulting film has the integrity and the ugliness of the truth. It's not true because it's ugly; no, it's ugly because it's true.

As for Fraser, his clumsy humanity is endearing, but by now, assuming he has invested wisely, he should have enough money saved so as to not have to waste his talent anymore.

By the end, it reveals itself as too pat, too absurd and -- as a polemic against capital punishment -- philosophically self- defeating.

Jack is a warm, heartfelt disaster that shows that life is fleeting but movies can be very long indeed.

The most shocking thing about Harry and Max isn't the subject matter. The most shocking thing is just how tepid it is.

There is one thing interesting about Alex Cross, and if you miss this, you've missed the whole movie. It's not the story - it's worse than mediocre. It's not the lead actor - nothing wrong with Tyler Perry, but as an action star he's no Vin Diesel. And it's not the dialogue, which has a clunker every other scene. It's the direction. Notice the direction. Alex Cross is a good example of what a seriously talented director can do with a heaping pile of garbage.

The big disappointment of The Babymakers is that it doesn't come close to being worthy of its two stars, Paul Schneider and Olivia Munn.

Neither original nor presented in a convincing way.

It depicts the world of a century ago in a way that comments on the anxieties facing the world today, and it does so, at least for a while, with cleverness and a sense of fun.

It's a plodding, episodic film, reverent and sanctimonious, and its pro-Southern viewpoint -- a time-honored Hollywood tendency -- makes "Gone With the Wind" look like a Northern polemic.

A good movie that has been sitting in a film can for two years waiting for a miracle. The miracle came -- Suvari's sudden popularity.

More hokey than heartfelt.

In its own ridiculous way, The Butterfly Effect is an entertaining movie, despite mediocre acting, lackluster direction and a story that's sometimes frustrating. It has the integrity of camp, maintaining an odd earnestness in the face of its own absurdity.

A wretched comedy about middle-aged romance.

Just like a low-budget football comedy, only with money.

As far as complete wastes of time go, Zookeeper is not especially offensive. Yet it is surprising that everything you might expect to be charming in it just isn't - namely all the bits involving animals.

We all know how actors overact when they play Italians, and we all know how actors overact when they play brain-damaged characters, so just imagine Knight's performance as a brain-damaged Italian American.

A thriller that presses all the buttons: parental love, childhood terror, fear of Vince Vaughn.

Bleak.

A respectable and fairly decent movie.

Attempts to convey emotional dislocation and passion at the same time. All we get is distance.

Take a wretched premise. Imagine the worst picture that could be made from it. Then imagine something even worse. That's Alien vs. Predator.

No more than a minute into this, and it becomes obvious that the next 98 are going to be trouble.

A romantic comedy and an adventure story, but in this case that just means it bombs in two distinct ways.

Most of this huge-cast extravaganza is a botched farce. When that doesn't work, it turns sentimental. The presence of liked and familiar actors helps make it watchable, but there is no disguising that this is a weak, badly constructed comedy. At least it's short.

The picture gives us two protagonists and sets up a situation in which only one of them can have a decent life. Then, having devised this sour souffle, the screenwriters find no adjustment to make it palatable. The resolution is flip, at best.

Not about the justice or injustice of the legal system. Rather it's about the tragedy of Sam's predicament.

About as awful as a film can be without being the ultimate awful, which is boring.

It's the lightest of the Batman movies, the most cartoony, the dumbest and the least ambitious. But it holds the audience's attention, brings on a few laughs and never really gets boring.

Had a chance to be not just OK, not just fluff, but something special, and it's a shame that the people making it either didn't realize it or didn't have the guts to take this movie where it wanted to go.

The kind of horror movie that's not a bit scary and quite a bit gross.

That was probably writer-director Roman Coppola's main responsibility in "Charles Swan," to give the audience a character worth watching. Get that right, and everything else falls into place. Get that wrong, and the audience finds out just how long 84 minutes can be. The answer: really long.

The story, a dystopian tale with heroes and villains and lots of triumphs and reversals, is so busy and so inherently interesting that the movie is entertaining until the finish - or the sort of finish. As only the first part of the story, Atlas Shrugged doesn't end, it stops.

It has a weak story that provides no tension, feeling or interest. Its opening action sequence is just a long, drawn-out dud, filmed by director John Moore in the worst modern style of quick cuts and smeary, jittery photography.

Setting out to make a cult movie is almost as strange as setting out to make a camp movie. Or setting out to make a movie that's so bad it's good. If you know you're doing it, you're not really doing it.

It's as close to nothing as anything could be while still being something.

There's just the matter of facing it: that The Perfect Man is just something slapped together -- by people who don't care, for an audience they figure will care even less.

Neither a masterpiece nor a remake of one, but its wistfulness is infectious, and its melancholy mood lingers for days.

This is a movie in which the audience knows half the gags in advance, but thanks to director Dennis Dugan's timing and Farley's execution, the audience doesn't just laugh anyway, but laughs harder. Knowing in advance is part of the fun.

As vile, unredeeming and thoroughly unpleasant experiences go, I Spit on Your Grave at least has one thing interesting about it. It's a document of the most paranoid fantasies that urban, Northern people have about a rural Southern people.

Four screenwriters are credited with this sloppy piece of work. Divide the embarrassment into quarters.

Twenty minutes in, the movie is already operating at a deficit, and it never recovers.

Sometimes it's unpleasant, sometimes it's insincere, and for long stretches it's boring.

Fascinating in its own strange way, not as entertainment but as a cultural document.

A childish, empty effort.

For Friday night this will do just fine. It's definitely a good matchup -- Stone's cynical bravado versus Berry's resilient spunkiness in a world-class cat fight.

It's amazing how far a movie can go on nothing but speed and directness.

As a movie, it's not much. But it's the best showcase for his charm that Butler has ever had.

Harmon proves that he can act stupid, and that's not enough to make the movie funny… You're supposed to like Freddy (Harmon), and you're supposed to like his brainless students… But you hate everybody. [24 July 1987]

How one likes Taxi has everything to do with how one responds to the hapless cop character, played by Jimmy Fallon.

The overall premise, involving mental illness and suicide, isn't all that funny, at least not in practice, and the picture begins to seem labored and long.

If Eddie Murphy gets an Oscar for "Dreamgirls" later this month, the deciding factor with voters may be his performance in Norbit. It's much more impressive than anything he does in "Dreamgirls."

It's a movie, a goofy little movie. Not so bad, but as far as food and sensuality go, ``Like Water for Chocolate'' still has the edge.

An awkward comedy made surprisingly bearable, most of the way, by one actress' ability to turn on the charm and sparkle.

Not surprisingly, only Samuel L. Jackson seems fully to understand that he's in a bad movie, and he makes a virtue of it, using it as an excuse to hang loose, overact and ride the scenes for wherever they might go.

It's a dreadful exercise, tin-eared and sincere, bereft of any truth or inspiration.

The whole movie is like that: cute, dead and endless.

Just awful. But uniquely awful -- awful in a way that might just attract a cult audience. [3 Sept 1993]

Has to go down as a failed comedy. It's just not enough of a comedy.

One could criticize A Night at the Roxbury for being a comedy that provides not a single laugh. That would be too easy.

You know how I realized I actually liked I Melt With You? I kept talking about it, and at one point, in the middle of mocking it, I accidentally referred to it as "a good picture." That's when I realized, yes, it really is good, albeit in ways that are different from other movies.

It's entertainment, but mild entertainment.

Late in the picture, Sobieski has some line-readings that are so emotionally full, strange and truthful that really nothing more need be said.

The film is intended to be light and whimsical, but with a core of sincere emotion. But it's as if the thing were made by Martian anthropologists who assume that human audiences are as twisted as the people onscreen.

There's bad, there's awful and there's horrible, and then somewhere beyond that, in its own Kingdom of Lousy -- where all the milk curdles and the jokes aren't funny -- is License to Wed, the latest ghastly exercise starring Robin Williams.

A funny comedy for about 90 seconds. Then Bette Midler goes off a cliff.

The best bits come in the first few minutes -- or maybe the jokes just seem fresher then.

What we have is the case of a movie with a straight man (Jason Lee) who really is funny, but with a comic (Tom Green) who sadly isn't.

Meandering and inert. Yet as an etching of an emotion and a vehicle for Costner, the movie makes a case for itself.

It's the most tension-producing movie out there right now -- in the best way, it's almost unbearable.

It plays like a string of cliches linked together to form a movie with not a single moment of surprise or originality.

An old formula made fresh.

A stink bomb of a movie.

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, is a stiff, guaranteed to disappoint just about everybody, except those rooting against him. [11 Jul 1990, p.E1]

Has a shameless B-movie exuberance.

Original enough to come up with new ways to go wrong. For one, the film is a blatant showcase to promote O'Neal as a rap artist.

In Godsend, we have the spectacle of three good actors tied to the mast of a sinking premise.

A disappointment, but it's not a disaster, and that's at least something.

Though the Jill problem is too insurmountable to ignore, almost everything else in this comedy succeeds.

Falls apart immediately, then limps on for 45 minutes more.

The Condemned isn't post-modern junk, smirky junk, faux junk or clever junk. It's pure junk, with a certain integrity to it.

A big disappointment.

This may be hard to believe, but there's not a single moment of drama or tension in any of the action sequences. And the film is made up almost entirely of action.

About as weak a movie as can be made without actively trying.

But Congo leads to nothing but a fierce battle with the gray gorillas, a kind of guns vs. fangs scene; and a convenient and incongruous volcano eruption that looks as artificial as a video game.

It's so low it scrapes through the barrel and deep into the earth's core. It's the lowest piece of garbage to hit screens in months.

Innocuous and dull.

Standing Ovation is an innovative film in the sense that every minute or so it comes up with a different way of being annoying. Moreover, it often goes for a layered effect, in which it's annoying in two or three ways simultaneously.

It is possible to watch 90 minutes of this comedy without once cracking a smile. [12 Jan 1994]

In the same genre as the Farrellys' "There's Something About Mary" and "Dumb and Dumber," only lousy.

If garbage could think, it would look down on 9 Dead Gay Guys as garbage.

The equivalent of a full-course meal with no calories. It is a mirage of a movie, 100 minutes of nothing.

While the plot is worthless and the battle scenes cheap-looking and unengrossing, Wing Commander has clearly defined characters and relationships. In other words, the film's young actors have nothing interesting to say, but they say it well.

Has an air of detachment and sadness, enhanced by the movie's being set a full quarter century ago.

A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.

It's a dishonest satire that manages to be (disingenuously) contemptuous of white people and (unintentionally) condescending toward black people, without ever being funny.

Why, if Chase is such a funny guy, does he make such unfunny movies?

This is the weird thing, Old Dogs is not that bad.

Why was the sight of scrawny Woody Allen kissing pretty Diane Keaton never revolting, while scrawny David Spade kissing beautiful Sophie Marceau in Lost & Found is the creepiest cinematic sight of the year?

To call this effort misguided would be kind. The job this "prequel" does on the original Dumb and Dumber is the movie equivalent of surgery that removes all the vital organs and then gives the patient a prosthetic third arm. What's needed isn't there, and what's here we don't need.

Ill conceived and unworthy (and dull and ridiculous).

Movies don't get much worse.

Everything about it is manufactured -- the emotions are false, the sentiments are phony, and the story is a construction of mirthless silliness. It's a product, not a creative expression.

Valentine isn't scary, but it is unsettling; not ultimately satisfying, but arresting in the moment.

The most thoroughly joyless and inept film of the year, and one of the worst of the decade. We're talking about a disaster, and not of the fun "Showgirls" variety, either.

Even camp status eludes this tepid and misguided picture.

Perry isn't the only thing wrong with Serving Sara, but he's the thing that takes a pleasantly mediocre movie and turns it into an unpleasantly mediocre one.

If you're like me and think that any Pacino movie is sort of worth seeing, so long as he never says, "Hoo-ha," then 88 Minutes won't be a total disappointment.

Just awful… There is probably not one interrupted 60-second stretch in which a line of dialogue doesn't clunk, an action doesn't ring false or an irritating plot turn doesn't present itself. [25 May 1991]

Part of the appeal is that it's so bad it's good: The story is ridiculous. At other times, it's just plain good: There are ski and snowboarding scenes, plenty of them, that are beautifully filmed and exhilarating to behold.

Is it a comedy if the audience laughs or is it a comedy if laughs were intended, irrespective of whether they're generated? Excuse Me for Living qualifies under the second definition.

Only a complete idiot could think Epic Movie is remotely funny.

What's completely baffling is that everyone in the film thinks Nomi is one heck of a dancer, even though her one move -- throwing her arms out stiffly -- is straight out of "Dr. Strangelove."

The film is a failure in just about every way, save for its acting, which is adequate.

Remarkably empty, remarkably noisy, remarkably pleasureless. It's unwatchable.

In the long history of bad movies about bad illnesses, A Little Bit of Heaven just might be the worst.

The audience has already checked out, long before the formulaic finish.

Will you find yourself wishing you were looking at someone else? Not really.

Great trash, one of those mediocre movies that in its own crass way is more enjoyable than most things that get nominated for Oscars.

It's a completely botched effort -- botched in its direction, its writing and editing.

Cocktail is unbelievable - a picture that sets itself up as a gritty, authentic character study but is laughable, false and stupid in all its details. The only connection to reality here is that there are actually such things as bartenders. [29 Jul 1988, p.E1]

A discordant comedy that gives bad taste a bad name.

At times, it actually hurts to watch.