Would not even make a decent five-minute TV sketch. At any length, it smells.

Now and again, the bizarre occurs, such as when Fred and Barney don showgirl outfits and seem to be doing their version of "The Birdcage." But mundane is more the norm.

It's one bad apple.

Clean up the language, and this little roach of a movie could play the bottom half of a double bill with Rowan and Martin's “The Maltese Bippy.” [26 March 1999, Life, p.9E]

Not just stupid, but brain dead.

Imagine a movie so broadly conceived that it was written, directed and all parts were played by Charo — billed in her '70s heyday of Love Boat gigs as the "Cuchi-Cuchi Girl." That's what you get here.

Someone should have treated See Spot Run like a bone and buried it.

Here's ringside entertainment for those who think TV wrestling is too intellectual and restrained.

Clumsy on every level.

You know something is wrong when a preschooler's unwitting ad-libs are funnier than anything seasoned comedy writers can come up with. Kids say the darnedest things. Too bad the grown-ups don't.

The bad-taste murder farce is just an excuse for a bunch of actors to go slumming and ride about in - ha, ha - Yugos.

Bless me, Father, for I actually laughed once during this gosh-awful spinoff...about as funny as an oozing fever blister.

The word on Rollerball is "troubled," though troubled is what you call a high school junior with 50 snakes under his bed. Catastrophe is more like it.

It tries hard to be sexy, mysterious and dangerous, but ends up laughably inscrutable.

Structured loosely enough to work in all the excrement and incest jokes necessary to seem hip these days.

Only the makers of "Freddy Got Fingered" might crack a smile because it now has competition for worst movie of the year.

The premise was a yummy one in the Mexican hit "Like Water for Chocolate," but it's best to pack Tums in case of heartburn this time around. [5 February 1999, Life, p.11E]

The movie was postponed from 1998 and shielded from critics. (They were ot allowed to see the movie before the opening, usually a bid sign.) [15 January 1999, Life, p.8E]

Poor Sharon Stone! Poor Sidney Lumet! [22 January 1999, Life, p.11E]

A moviegoer's nightmare. The story is incoherent, inane and interminable.

Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate the startling sight of a phallus jammed into someone's ear.

This is a movie in which you rarely know where you are or who's doing what to the next person.

Even by teen gross-out movie standards Van Wilder makes "Sorority Boys" look like "Some Like It Hot."

Any civilization that can produce a movie this stupid probably deserves to be hit by famine and pestilence.

In "There's Something About Mary," the gross gags were hilarious. Here, they're just vile.

Drawn out and dishonest in equal measure, Sam fights it out with "The Majestic" for the title of worst "important" movie of the year.

Murky, pretentious and torturously inert.

Dead-carcass spinoff of Jay Ward's animated TV favorite.

Even the soundtrack doesn't rescue the movie from its tedious banality.

Worst of all, Marlon Wayans' performance as a cowardly thief would have seemed in bad taste a half-century ago.

A race-car drama full of flashy but empty images and a soundtrack that makes you feel as if you're being shaken on a motel rumblebed.

Ultimately the title is most revealing. It's hollow, man.

You keep waiting for there to be more, but there never is -- other than the fact that it all gets gorier and uglier as the dyspeptic look on Jones' face progresses from a four- to a six-a-day scotch-and-peppermint schnapps hangover.

Gere has never seemed more squirrelly.

Lacking even a hint of humor or a watchable story, Disguise has distinguished itself as the summer's worst movie.

That a group of creative people chose to direct their energies on this repulsive spectacle simply provokes disgust.

Not since Andy Kaufman's reign of terror has a supposed funnyman been so self-indulgently persistent in testing a fan's patience.

An embarrassing debacle...the rare movie that never seems to take off, but also never seems to end. It tries hard to titillate, but ends up making audiences want to avert their eyes.

Neither side is worth rooting for in this ridiculous blood feud, which features some of the year's most laughable dialogue.

Kid's tone is off 100% of the time. The young actors are irredeemably bland, and two of the adults (Michael Des Barres' bank president, James LeGros' Storm Trooper-like security guard) are hammy enough to make James Brown seem controlled.

The trouble with indulging Taking Lives is that it's taking your time.

No comedy this vile should be brazenly foolish enough to give itself this title. [25 November 1998, p. 3D]

Washed away by drippy plot. [16 January 1998, p. 4D]

Suspense takes a vacation in sequel. [13 November 1998, p. 6E]

A little soon for any movie this millennium to reunite overacting Matthew Lillard, underacting Freddie Prinze Jr., feigning mousy Linda Cardellini and the more obviously lip-glossy Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Anemic. [30 October 1998, p.8E]

Here's a late-August dog-days atrocity from the "aren't farts funny?" school of filmmaking.

Should the desire to see a clever zombie movie strike, try the recent remake of "Dawn of the Dead" or last year's "28 Days."

For a comedian (Allen) who often seems to be calling it in, he's more lackluster than usual. Curtis is a bigger disappointment, especially after "Freaky Friday," in which she was funny, smart and cheeky.

White Noise is the celluloid equivalent of a bad cell phone connection.

Face it. Parody comedies are no longer a laughing matter. [25 October 1996, p.5D]

Icky and incompetent (special effects aside) in equal parts, this groaner makes 1994's "The Mask" look like something you'd study in a film graduate course at NYU.

Sandler mugs through a back-to-school daze. [13 February 1995, p.D1]

In this Amityville, the performances are bad, the special effects ho-hum, and it's not even particularly scary.

When the cast starts wondering where the roadkill is, someone says, "Follow the smell." Good tip: That's how you'll know where Wax is playing.

A good script is the most essential ingredient for a good movie. Hiring a comedian isn't enough.

A pitiful update that saddles poor Cedric the Entertainer with the unenviable task of taking over Jackie Gleason's premier creation, Ralph Kramden.

So imperfect that it may qualify as one of the summer's worst movies.

Wow, dudes. Pu-trid. (1989 February 20, p.4D)

At a certain point, Bean goes beyond awful to surreally awful, like the rug Burt Reynolds sports in a cameo. The last-ditch plunge into pathos does nothing to redeem the feeling. Let's hope no sequel is in the offing. The only thing worse than Bean would be a hill of Beans. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]

The movie's biggest drawback is a failure to deliver what's promised.

That sound you hear is from jet engines gassing up, about to zoom Underclassman to DVD-ville.

Geared to 16-year-olds who can't name the governor of their state, this movie ought to be closed down by the health department.

As an artsy but minimally bohemian type, Russo maintains her dignity, an extraordinary accomplishment.

Why would a distributor suddenly yank an animated family film from its intended wide December opening until mid-January? Could it be that the advance word of mouth wasn't very good-winked?

There's nothing sleazier than sleaze that fails to titillate, and this drab blight on a hot cast is as sleazy as a preordained hit ever gets. [07 Apr 1993 Pg. 08.D]

The premise is misbegotten, the chemistry non-existent and the dialogue leaden. Did we mention how tediously the plot unfolds?

The 1992 phenomenon was creepy, tense and sexually charged in a bold yet tawdry way. This sequel lacks even a shred of those elements.

Unfunny, sappy and massively predictable.

School for Scoundrels will only leave you scratching your head in bewilderment and might possibly shave off IQ points.

The film tries to be stylish and slick, but is mostly just nasty and blood-drenched. Piven, so funny in other film roles and on TV's "Entourage," overdoes it here, and extended scenes of his debauchery grow excessive and thuddingly dull.

It's so derivative, unfunny and thuddingly bad that it's one of the more cringe-inducing movies of a genre chock-full of clunkers.

In most cases, doggedly pursuing a dream is laudable. But if it does nothing else, The Astronaut Farmer demonstrates that not every dream is worth pursuing. At least not the belabored one of a narcissistic crackpot masquerading as an admirable dreamer.

As if this drivel weren't bad enough, the ending blatantly threatens a sequel

Superficial and lurid, Perfect Stranger is the cinematic equivalent of spam and should, like those trashy messages, be avoided.

This is the worst kind of movie, one that insults its audience by purporting to condemn violence while simultaneously reveling in it.

It tries to pass itself off as a film about feistiness, forgiveness and the bonds of motherhood. Instead, it deals lightly and inappropriately with promiscuity, alcoholism, drug abuse, grief and child molestation. Georgia Rule doesn't make you feel good; it makes you queasy.

Near Cocktail's numbing end, viewers who are still awake will hear love interest Elisabeth Shue warn Cruise: "Your sexy little smile isn't going to work this time.'' Drink to that - a Bloody Mary to a bloody shame. [29 Jul 1988, p.4D]

The filmmakers behind the "Saw" franchise must love to see a movie like Hostel: Part II. Compared to this Eli Roth fetish video, the "Saw" films are Oscar bait.

Scrooged is so monumental a mess that even rabid Bill Murray fans - the ones who'll stand in line to see it despite critics' inevitable bashings - will wonder how it went so wrong. [23 Nov 1988, p. 9D]

The unfunny jokes center on outhouses, vomit and flatulence. Gooding mugs, screeches, even hops up and down to no avail. Nothing can wring an ounce of comedy out of this sorry spectacle.

This film is so superficial and shifts so jarringly in tone that nothing feels authentic -- not Bacon's hard-working husband and father, nor his maniacal vengeance seeker.

This may be the most laugh-free comedy of the year.

There is a blessed dearth of dialogue, but much of it is unintentionally hilarious.

The tagline for College Road Trip is "You Can't Get There Fast Enough." But for those who sit through this humorless and massively predictable movie, a more apt phrase would be: "You Can't Get Out of There Fast Enough."

This may be the most preposterous movie of the year. It is certainly the most ridiculous movie starring an Oscar-winning actor.

Only a truly dreadful story could make 81 minutes seem like an eternity. And Space Chimps is just that leaden experience.

Remarkably, the plot has much in common with "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," yet that bundle of fun has enough vision to make even its Barry Manilow interlude seem appropriate.

The movie is raunchier than expected, and above all clichéd, formulaic and thoroughly sexist. Worst, it's just not very funny.

A tribute to a giant leap for mankind feels like a clumsy shuffle backward for animation.

Saw V is a terrible combination: grisly and tedious. Let's just call it bloody dull.

The biggest mystery about Repo! The Genetic Opera is why the grisly Goth-horror musical is opening the week after Halloween. The second-biggest mystery is why this unfunny, unscary, preposterous bloodbath about organ transplants is opening at all.

Bride Wars is about as funny as a cringingly awkward wedding toast.

To say that New in Town is the worst movie of this fledgling year is to damn it with faint praise. It may be one of the worst movies of any year. Not content to be merely inane and predictable, it is downright insulting, humorlessly deriding those who choose to live in rural America, labor in factories or have a strong Christian faith.

Not only is it an unfunny movie shrilly told, it probably is the most ill-timed and appallingly insulting movie in recent memory.

Not only is it plodding and completely predictable, the carnage is rendered slowly and quasi-reverentially, making the whole brutal experience come off like torture porn.

Despite its appealing stars, The Ugly Truth is a charmless romantic comedy.

Shocking is the fact that three highly regarded actors -- Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke and Billy Bob Thornton -- chose to star in this dreadful film.

This is probably the year's worst romantic comedy -- and that's saying something in a year that includes "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and "Whatever Works."

This unfunny, über-misogynistic adaptation of Tucker Max's audacious best-seller of the same name is unlikely to please anyone.

Antichrist is probably the most disturbing, bleak and self-indulgent film ever made.

That's what The Bounty Hunter has rustled up -- along with a listless rom-com, a feeble thriller and a supporting cast of clueless characters.

Furry Vengeance is a slapstick stinker, easily the worst movie of the year.

It's really not much fun - in fact it's painful - to watch an actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It almost doesn't matter if the psyche in question is imploding artificially - as in staged - or organically.

It may be the only movie ever to feature a bad performance by Johnny Depp, one of the best actors working in films.

A documentary on the formation of stalagmites would have been more compelling.

Memorable for being one of the most obnoxious animated movies of recent years.

Sitting through New Year's Eve is like attending a crowded party filled with pretty people who have nothing to say.

A movie about a teen party gone horribly wrong, would be every parent's worst nightmare if it weren't so inane.

What audiences should expect is a tone-deaf, superficial, charmless ensemble rom-com, focused on five attractive, but uninteresting, couples.

That's My Boy is puerile, mean-spirited and charmless.

What snookered Slater (not to mention Donald Sutherland) into this film is a wonder, because there's not a genuine bone in it. Think the Bourne franchise meets the Bond franchise, without the wit or action.

The latest undead-soldier story carries on the franchise tradition of graphic violence and bad acting.

This genre stew throws in so many ingredients - including sundry body parts that are cut off and go flying, and heads that explode - that the result is a tasteless mash-up that's hard to stomach.

Alas, shell casings, switchblades and severed limbs are all that's offered in this vile film, whose sole redeeming quality is that it ends. Eventually.

The thrills, chills, frights, starts and occasional screams that a good horror film elicits from an audience are not there. Jeepers, the Creeper has little to recommend it.

An air of self-congratulation hangs over the empty tank of gas called Jawbreaker, as if writer-director Darren Stein just can't wait to dazzle us with the gaudy visuals he's soldered onto a standard-issue black-comedy script.

Hopped-up Falling Down is a technically proficient grabber that exploits white-male angst while adeptly juggling two stories filmed in contrasting styles. Slick, maybe facile, and with a nasty streak, it is nonetheless 1993's first consistently engrossing movie. [26 Feb 1993, p.1D]

With its long takes and a talky script involving an influx of revolving-door eccentrics, Nuts has the feel of a badly filmed play - akin to, say, any 12 of the worst Neil Simon screen adaptations. [21 Dec 1994, p.6D]

A comedy that has one good joke, four strange cameos and a spirit so juvenile kids may wonder what Sandler's deal is.