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The Spirit is an example of what can happen to a comic book-inspired movie when the sense of style becomes so pervasive that it overwhelms everything else, including an unremarkable superhero adventure. Unfortunately, the eye candy quickly grows st...

To date, the 1978 theatrical version of Superman remains the only motion picture based on a comic book to have a lush, epic feel. Developed by Godfather scribe Mario Puzo with reverence for the venerable superhero, Superman pays homage to the lege...

According to the original plan, Superman II was intended to be released six months after the original Superman (in fact, the end credits for Superman contain the following statement: "Coming Next Summer: Superman II"). The idea had been to film t...

Talk about movies that haven’t aged well… Seen a couple of decades into the 21st century, this 1983 relic is an embarrassment. Come to think of it, however, it wasn’t that great when it came out. There are three major problem areas: the scri...

While watching Chris Farley, still at the top of his game, perform in Tommy Boy, it’s easy to ignore how fundamentally bad the overall movie is. A card-carrying member of the bloated, frat-boy comedies that plagued theaters during the early 1990...

When it comes to dark satires of the romantic comedy genre, few films are more vicious than Danny DeVito's 1989 offering, The War of the Roses. The film revels in its blackness in a way that few films during the last several decades have; even th...

On the surface, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is just another Martin Lawrence comedy, filled with slapstick, crude sexual shenanigans, and cruelty to animals. But, looking a little deeper, one discovers a surprisingly dark undercurrent. There's a p...

Until recently re-watching it, I had forgotten how funny What’s Up Doc? is. The combination of Peter Bogdanovich’s pacing, Buck Henry’s humor, and the actors’ comedic timing makes for one of the funniest outings of the 1970s. Moreover, ...