|
88%
|
The Usual Suspects (1995)
|
"It may ultimately make sense; no one could tell without at least four or five viewings. What is totally commanding, however, is the level of ensemble acting [and] the adroitness of the storytelling."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
8%
|
Spy Hard (1996)
|
"The result is 80 brief minutes of movie skits assembled in an order that sort of resembles a plot."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
8%
|
The Next Karate Kid (2001)
|
"Amid its familiar banalities and formula twists, The Next Karate Kid comes up with one new idea for dealing with difficult American teen-agers: ship 'em off to a Buddhist monastery for two weeks!"
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
7%
|
House Arrest (1996)
|
"Only Pollak and Curtis create any semblance of character in this tapestry of stereotype, but the movie doesn't give them enough to do as the louder idiots take to the fore with clumsily imagined escape gambits."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
68%
|
Point Break (1991)
|
"Did a dry California wind scramble the script as they moved into the third act? Did the tape recorder go on the blitz at the story conferences? Was there a fire in the editing room?"
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
40%
|
Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill (1996)
|
"Excuse me, is this any lesson for kids? Hey, kids, if you dream hard enough, mythical heroes will step out of your fantasies and help defeat your enemies with fancy gunplay."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
0%
|
Father Hood (1993)
|
"The terrible problem with "Father Hood" is that no one involved seemed to have any idea of what kind of movie it should be, and one feels their conflicting visions at play throughout."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
41%
|
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
|
"For all its message about self-discovery and self-respect, this is really a 100-minute opportunity to titter at hunks in heels."
|
Lawrence Toppman
|
|
68%
|
Point Break (1991)
|
"This is a very macho movie, and if the better film schools are looking for a contemporary film that very keenly exemplifies the marriage of sound and shoot, this is it."
|
Lou Cedrone
|
|
11%
|
Chill Factor (1999)
|
"Gooding possesses so much boundless energy that he practically dares you not to care, not to get involved, not to root for his success."
|
Milton Kent
|
|
8%
|
The New Guy (2002)
|
"Maybe the only thing revelatory about The New Guy is how redemptive a good heart can be to even the most derivative film. Be prepared to smile."
|
Chris Kaltenbach
|
|
5%
|
Serving Sara (2002)
|
"This movie doesn't play; it just lies there, waiting to be kicked around by anyone unfortunate enough to have shelled out good money to see it."
|
Chris Kaltenbach
|
|
6%
|
Gigli (2003)
|
"Excruciating."
|
Michael Sragow
|
|
8%
|
Problem Child 2 (2004)
|
"The problem is not so much the child. The problem is the movie, one which is, in its own way, amazing. Why was it made? Who made it? Do they have children? Would they want them to see this thing?"
|
Lou Cedrone
|
|
13%
|
Mannequin 2: On the Move (2008)
|
"The plot is the same, only dumber."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
16%
|
North (1994)
|
"Unfunny. Boring. Endless."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
17%
|
3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994)
|
"Loud, callow, jejune, infantile, puerile and annoying as hell."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
12%
|
Surf Ninjas (1993)
|
"Here's the concept: These ninjas surf!"
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
3%
|
Bless the Child (2000)
|
"By turns lurid, risible and offensive."
|
Ann Hornaday
|
|
16%
|
The Super Mario Bros. (1990)
|
"Devotees of the game may derive some pleasure from seeing its obstacles given quasi-flesh and set in motion, but that inert pleasure soon pales in a torrent of none-too-special effects, confusing story line and characters without personalities."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
1%
|
The Master of Disguise (2002)
|
"The humor here is relentlessly juvenile, and not even the kids in the audience seemed to like it much."
|
Chris Kaltenbach
|
|
3%
|
Speed 2 - Cruise Control (1997)
|
"Action heroes are best when they are charming, winsome and witty. Bullock is inane, annoying and whiny."
|
Michael Ollove
|
|
2%
|
Battlefield Earth (2000)
|
"There's so much to mock in Battlefield Earth, it's hard to know where to start."
|
Chris Kaltenbach
|
|
4%
|
Getting Even With Dad (1994)
|
"Culkin is Culkin, cute and malleable, absolutely empty, absolutely precious, absolutely irritating."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
42%
|
Phil Spector (2013)
|
"The cast and crew for Phil Spector is pretty much a pop-culture dream team. And its members deliver a film worthy of their reputations and talents."
|
David Zurawick
|
|
0%
|
Wagons East! (1994)
|
"The jokes tend to be watered-down versions of the tasteless kind that enlivened the Naked Gun movies and the early films of Mel Brooks."
|
Stephen Wigler
|
|
7%
|
In the Army Now (1994)
|
"This is Hollywood combat at its most irritatingly banal."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
9%
|
Milk Money (1994)
|
"A work so rancid and alienating you can only suppose it was planned as a tax loss."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
4%
|
Mobsters (1991)
|
"Mobsters is a bloody little fairy tale that makes good guys out of Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. According to the film, a largely plodding affair, they were just four kids who liked to kill people once in a while."
|
Lou Cedrone
|
|
0%
|
Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991)
|
"The movie is occasionally cutesy. That's the worst of it. You can't call it gross, but it is cutesy."
|
Lou Cedrone
|
|
32%
|
Radio Flyer (1992)
|
"What you get in Radio Flyer is an unholy brew of whimsy and blasphemy. It flits from the unwatchable to the unbelievable, with nary a pause between them and the effect, to say the least, is unsettling."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
40%
|
Newsies (1992)
|
"Newsies is a live-action musical, but it's only barely alive. Call it Snoozies."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
29%
|
The House of the Spirits (1994)
|
"It's also a wretched paradox: a big budget, star-driven art film whose very elements subvert its ambitions and turn it into the thing it least wants to be -- a listless '50s-style Hollywood melodrama."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
68%
|
The Crucible (1996)
|
"The physical production of the film is so authentic and compelling, you can't get beyond it, not for a second."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
22%
|
Color of Night (1994)
|
"Worst of all, the film never develops much suspense."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
94%
|
Pulp Fiction (1994)
|
"Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is a Saturday Night Fever dream: a hot, dense, wicked disco of tough-guy posturings, vivid dips of violence and literally unbelievable plot moves."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
80%
|
The Boxer (1997)
|
"Precisely because it lacks bombast -- not to mention cheap sentiment, cant and pretension -- The Boxer makes its mark as a quietly powerful contender."
|
Ann Hornaday
|
|
97%
|
Schindler's List (1993)
|
"It looks, without ever averting its gaze, at the darkest of the dark."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
97%
|
Groundhog Day (1993)
|
"The movie is expertly calculated to derive maximum comic energy from Bill Murray's great, deadpan mug and his drop-dead I'm-not-impressed line readings."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
98%
|
One False Move (1992)
|
"One False Move doesn't make a single false move its own self: It's as tough and gripping as they come."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
59%
|
Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me (1992)
|
"If you didn't get it then, you're not going to get it now."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
98%
|
The Wild Bunch (1969)
|
"It's one of the great, arrogant take-it-or-leave-it jobs in history, and by this point it is so beyond either defense or attack that I come neither to praise nor to bury it but merely to describe it."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
80%
|
Fight Club (1999)
|
"A movie that wants to keep its audience unsettled from beginning to end."
|
Ann Hornaday
|
|
77%
|
The Mask (1994)
|
"Carrey may be the finest comic to come along since Robin Williams."
|
Stephen Wigler
|
|
92%
|
Ghost World (2001)
|
"The modest yet redeeming triumph of Ghost World is the offhand way it brings to the screen a streak of American dark humor that is dour, resilient and unexpectedly infectious."
|
Michael Sragow
|
|
78%
|
Addams Family Values (1993)
|
"Addams Family Values turns out to be both a trick and a treat."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
82%
|
The Crow (1994)
|
"The movie's central value and its most melancholy tone -- Lee's star presence. It's amazing and it's tragic."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
81%
|
Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm (1993)
|
"Fans of classical animation are hereby warned to steer clear of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, for it will put them in instant vapor-lock and there aren't enough ambulances available this time of year."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
81%
|
Batman Returns (1992)
|
"It's not really a movie. It's a painting and Burton is a painter, a Hieronymus Bosch for our time. The thing seems to come straight from his subconscious and unspool in dream-logic."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
|
86%
|
Akira (2001)
|
"[Akira] is a blast and a half, a twisted dystopian parable of violence and rock and roll, Japanese-style. It's Disney on PCP, mean, rotten, psychotic, but incredibly vivid."
|
Stephen Hunter
|
72%
77%
61%
52%
26%
4%
