Adam Markovitz

There's barely a trace of the magic of 1939's "The Wizard of Oz"; the bricks are still yellow, but the road doesn't lead anywhere special.

It's fun to watch at first. All that twirling and sliding is a nice change of pace from the usual seat-shaking pyrotechnics.

Heaven is for Real has lots of sweet, Rockwellian imagery of small-town life and family high jinks. What it doesn't have is dramatic tension.

Sit tight through the end credits and you'll be treated to a few off-the-cuff outtakes of the guys doing things much funnier than anything in the film itself.

When the movie occasionally does confront its hero’s foibles, its answers are disappointingly pat.

Even the best player can only go so far with a bum hand.

PA4 develops the story ever so slightly (not enough to satisfy fans) and delivers a few good scares (not enough to satisfy newbies); mostly, it plays like a overlong prologue for the already-in-the-works PA5. Here's hoping this is just the tension-racking lull before the next big scream.

All those twangy, homespun observations interrupt and annotate the narrative until Black and MacLaine's scenes start to feel as trivial as reenactments on a true-crime TV show.

Trite lessons are learned. Plotlines play out in familiar arcs. A few blips of sex and drug use aim to make the movie feel more grown-up. Instead, they make it off-limits to the only age group likely to find any charm in its smug Britcom cutesiness.

Good news: The shrill CG rodents, who last infested theaters in 2009's Squeakquel, are stranded on a jungle island with little hope of survival. Bad news: They've brought us along.

At best, his poker-faced vignettes nail the icy comedy of war: A man chats on his cell phone, unworried about a tank targeting him a few feet away. At worst, they're totally opaque and unmoving.

Basically a nifty VFX reel in search of a plot.

The exception is newcomer Jenn Proske, who spoofs Twilight star Kristen Stewart's flustered, hair-tugging angst with hilarious precision.

What Halloween II does have, though, is Zombie’s claustrophobic visual style; he half-drowns his actors in shadow, then tracks them through windows and around corners like a focused predator. If only we cared about the prey.

A well-meaning dud.

Worse, he (Reiner) vacuum-seals it all in a patronizingly wholesome package, like an extended episode of "The Wonder Years" with all the wonder sucked out.

A pocket-size supernatural thriller that plays a bit like Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" retold by an unstable Sunday School teacher.

At least they do look sharp in those suits.