It's shaping up to be a long, dry summer, at least at the multiplex.

Ugly, dull, bloodless, dumb, and phony to its core.

A nitwit story about a nitwit author who has written a nitwit novel about a nitwit author who has published a nitwit novel which, in fact, he has stolen wholecloth from another writer whose personal behavior, as fictionalized in the novel-within-the-novel-within-the-film, can charitably be described as...nitwit.

The only reliable smiles come courtesy of Steve Buscemi, a frequent presence in Sandler movies, here voicing an exasperated, over-extended werewolf dad.

The movie never pauses -- at least, not to waste time on anything like developing the female characters. But there's no edge to anything, either dramatically or politically.

It's often said that actors with distinctive vocal styles could compellingly read the phone book -- in this case, it would absolutely be a more entertaining hour-and-a-half.

The deadly dull action-comedy Identity Thief is an infuriating waste of time, on all sides of camera and screen. I did not know I could yawn angrily. This movie somehow proved it possible.

It's written almost without wit or romance, it's populated by bland actors, and it's photographed as if through a Jell-O mold. If this is adolescence, then senility can't come soon enough. [29 Jan 1999]

Bay seems to have been gunning for something along the lines of "Blood Simple" or "A Simple Plan," but Pain & Gain is just plain simple.

A caustic, raunchy, often hilarious examination of how men use women.

One can only hope that the parties responsible for Bandits are brought to justice and someone can stop them before they film again.

An atrocity exhibition from start to finish.

A witless, listless muck-up that sends you reeling from the theater with thoughts of suicide instead of a chipper grin.

Ponderous, pretentious and boring, Levity becomes ironic on top of itself. You won't pity these people. You'll start laughing at them. Like a clown.

If the new I-wanna-be-a-stewardess picture View From the Top were an airplane, it would blow up on takeoff. If it were an airline meal, it would infect you with E. coli. If it were a parachute, it would be riddled with holes.

Dick works best as a catalog of style: It's the story and the acting that are the window dressing.

It's as sullying and disheartening an experience as the movies can offer .

A ghastly, unappealing mess that lacks a single absorbing character, engaging story line or entertaining snippet of dialogue.

Chris Koch exhibits little flair for comedic direction and, though this isn't saying much, you'd be better served watching his previous film, "Snow Day." Ouch.

Surprisingly bland even within its dubious genre of "chick flick."

It's a lame, gender-mixed, mistaken-identity, cross-dressing comedy: "Some Like It Tepid," if you will.

The animation is dull, the thought is fuzzy, the storytelling is vague and the music just plain stinks. It's not "National Velvet," it's sure not "The Black Stallion," it's not even "Dances With Wolves."

Intelligent teens will hate this film, and adults will just be embarrassed.

Stinky, boring, aggressively unfunny picture.

A resolutely awful film, it makes you want to swear off sex, comedy, Rupert Everett movies, flowers, yoga, children, roast beef -- many of the best things in life, in fact.

Quite possibly the single most artless gross-out comedy I have ever seen. It relentlessly slaps you with dead carp after dead carp of icky gags -- without any of the cleverness, cinematography or characterization that would give those gags even the slightest bit of juice.

Pretty much the worst recent example of a genre.

It actually makes the 1989 version (starring Dolph Lundgren) look pretty good by comparison. Oh, yes. It's that ghastly.

Clumsily animated feature; probably better as a video game than as a movie.

Given the abundance of tedious sex in She Hate Me it's no wonder the whole thing's such a turn-off.

It adds up to a truly taxing couple of hours: ham acting, visual noise, aural torture, elementary plotting and unconvincing emotions.

It's pathetic.

Endless and tedious. It's also written-in-crayon, smack-your-face dumb, and edited so that every other shot is a close-up of a flailing limb.

The movie is a septic tank of vapid noir posturing, bad narration, bizarre pacing, cartoonishly hot femme fatales and ineptly staged slapstick.

If you want genuine laughs and romance in a carnival setting, go rent "Adventureland."

The movie is stunningly perfunctory, soul-crushingly oblivious to its own lack of originality, and, to be blunt, just plain dumb.

Dissects the dicey question of fidelity with all the finesse of a Veg-O-Matic and leaves us with something closer to chopped liver than broken hearts.

As sometimes occurs in unsupervised experiments, the result proves foul-smelling and potentially toxic.

While you may like comedies and you make like thrillers, this film does neither of the above with any pizazz.

The Ringer is appalling.

An atrocious Robin Williams vehicle that might be Hollywood's first anti-romantic comedy.

Although it contains crime and absurdity, it's not thrilling or funny and the title doesn't refer to a gun.

It's awful. Awful. That's all. Keep walking. For the love of all that's holy. Keep. Walking.

I was stunned to learn that "Beth Cooper" was adapted by former "Simpsons" writer Larry Doyle from his young-adult novel and directed by "Harry Potter" helmer Chris Columbus. Rarely have two seasoned Hollywood professionals produced something so painfully, amateurishly, relentlessly unfunny.

Witless, tasteless, toothless, pointless, garish, repetitive, obvious, and painfully dull, Pirate Radio is that exceedingly rare film that never, but never puts a foot right.

Scenes will wander from gross-out gag to sentimental schmaltz to pervy leer to cheap nostalgia within a 30-second span, utterly free of clear directorial guidance. Even worse, very little of it is remotely funny.

May be the most boring film about forbidden love ever made. Unspectacularly shot on video, terribly scripted, with zombie-like acting that borders on the absurd.

A vile, stupid and ugly movie lacking utterly in pep, thrills, humor, finesse or morals, a dissipating waste of time, money and human resources.

Chock-full of the sort of levity that leaves you feeling you've been beaten about the head with a lead pipe.

An ugly and insipid film.

A movie of such rank stupidity and appalling taste.

Apparently, you can lead a Prinze to a movie, but you can't make him act.

It's a terrible movie, ugly to look at, tediously drawn out, unfunny in every cell and fiber of its being.

A shabby, joyless, 90-minute slab of "advertainment."

Once in a great while -- usually late August -- a movie comes along that's so lame, it doesn't deserve a bad review. It deserves a war-crimes tribunal. Ladies and gentlemen, Underclassman is that special film.

Director David Cronenberg has made a movie about a man who apparently needs to get his eyes checked. [08 Oct 1993]

Some clumsy nips and tucks later, Fair Game still doesn't make sense, and Crawford's performance still cracks you up. [03 Nov 1995]

The results are not endearing. Eddie comes off not as a beleaguered Everyman but a heedless, dishonest knob trying to undo a deal that gave him exactly what he deserved. The real surprise is Carlos Mencia, playing an exuberant clerk at the resort hotel. But when Carlos Mencia is the funniest thing in your movie, you've got serious problems.