Quick show of hands: How many people reading this are demented serial killers? One? Two? Six? It’s hard to say, but if we went by the sensational news reports that frequently aired during the ’80s, then all of us should have firsthand knowledge of the sound a puppy makes when you boil it alive. This is because we grew up watching horror movies and that way — so these reports claimed — inevitably led to mental illness and murder.
If you are a teenager having fun, someone somewhere is making money explaining to concerned parents how the activity you’re enjoying is going to rob you of your sanity and turn you into a demented maniac (or at least someone who doesn’t get into a good college). And chances are someone is going to eventually exploit this concern in a terrible made-for-TV movie. Which brings us to Mazes and Monsters.
In this early Tom Hanks vehicle, the threat to humanity is LARPing (or live-action role playing for those of you who have robust social lives or haven’t seen Role Models). Hanks plays Robby, a troubled college student who joins three other students to play the Dungeons & Dragons-esque title game, only to lose his ability to tell fantasy from reality when they take the game out of the dorm room and into the real world.
The script is as ridiculously overwrought as its plot suggests and eschews any semblance of subtlety in favor of in-your-face obviousness, usually to inadvertently hilarious effect. The gaming equivalent of Reefer Madness, it’s the kind of film you should watch if only to remind you that as crazy and dangerous as the kids may seem today, they’re going to eventually grow up to be as boring and normal as we are now. —Allan Mott
Remember in the days after 9/11 when media reports and overly sensitive people asked/moaned, “Will we ever be able to laugh again?” Well, of course, you dumb shits. And not to downplay the horrible, horrible, horrible tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, but with nearly a decade past, not only are we still laughing, but we’ve grown to the point of having an actual terrorist comedy, in the uproarious 
Director/co-writer Chris Morris’ film has the feel of a documentary, and reminds one of last year’s similarly scoped and structured 
The Ritz Brothers are like a combination of The Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello and … oh, I dunno, Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, just to even things out a bit. (Typical exchange: “How do you spell ‘gorilla’? Two Rs or two Ls?” “Gorilla. G-O … Gee! Oh! Gorilla!”) 
Stephen Hopkins’ film isn’t nearly as bad as its icy reception would lead you to believe. Okay, so it’s overly orange-looking and has an end scene that you can predict halfway through, but it’s fun enough and I’m always up for a movie in which fat people’s faces are covered with boils.