Sloshes between comedy and drama, never quite hitting stride as either.

Subliminally speaking, you may not like this movie because it goes so far. Or, you may not like it because it stops short. Or you may like it for one of the above reasons. [21 Feb 1986, p.68]

Mixed Nuts, opening today at Bay Area movie theaters, is laced generously with chuckles, though it neglects one little detail that helps make movies satisfying: a plot. [21 Dec 1994, p.E1]

The Dead Pool isn't much of a movie. It certainly isn't as fun, nor as compelling as its predecessors, and now and then the forced plot gets so ridiculous that it is certain to try the patience of even the most die-hard viewers. [13 Jul 1988, p.E1]

I would not take very young children to see The Goonies - too intense. I would also discourage any adults who are borderline in their liking of children from seeing this film. The Goonies could easily turn a lot of otherwise tolerant grownups against children, and I'm assuming that would be a terrible thing. [7 Jun 1985, p.75]

Fans of J-horror (for Japan, where the genre was born; its conventions have since spread to South Korea and Thailand) will find Shutter familiar; others may just doze.

When a movie sets out to be awful and achieves its goal, does that make it a success?

A case of ho-hum humping leading to boring betrayal. The ingredients are predictable and the snail's pace is punishing. [26 Oct 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E3]

An overstuffed, underfed numbskull movie.

Numbskull entertainment.

Spins an unconvincing, miscast noir tale.

Women had to struggle for years to launch their own basketball league; it's a shame that the first movie to address their success is a drag comedy, and a lousy one at that.

A half-baked disappointment...never flies, never comes close to meeting its own expectations.

Rotten, pretentious movie full of minimalist dialogue and self-consciously arty cinematography.

This noir mystery is murkier than it needs to be, through no fault of Stallone's.

A movie like this depends on clever bits and incidents, but there's little invention here to disguise the film's formulaic nature.

Has a vacant, inept, why-oh-why feeling from its opening minutes and only gets worse.

The last 15 minutes finally get it together for what passes as a movie experience with a considerable "gotcha!" quotient.

Something so sappy, no one would believe me if I told them. It has to be seen to be disbelieved.

Don't let this dog out -- please.

The schmaltz is relentless in The Legend of 1900, the newest film from "Cinema Paradiso'' director Giuseppe Tornatore. It comes in waves, it leeches onto every surface and it turns decent actors into sticky-sweet fuzzballs.

It's implausible, cartoonishly overdrawn.

Jumbled and stupid plot, bad acting and a few predictable gags that fall flat.

It means to be knowing and cynical but is just callow.

The movie's most inexcusable failing is that, despite all the flashbacks, we never get a sense of what this relationship was like when it worked.

Ugly. ..and unpleasant -- and clueless on a grand scale.

Father-daughter relationship lacks impact.

The film is like watching a very bad play as presented by a very bad director.