Carrie Rickey

Speechy and preachy and just a teeny-weeny bit naughty.

One thing Kidman is not is a clown. She thinks fizzy and dizzy and klutzy are funny. She is mistaken. To be a clown requires a kind of witchcraft.

Too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday. Emphasizing Jesus' agony over His ecstasy, Gibson has delivered a blood-drenched epic more stunning for its brutal violence than for its depiction of the calvary.

Unfortunately, this all proceeds at a supersonic tempo, with Shyamalan's directorial finger stuck on the fast-forward button. Significant plot points whiz by in this movie equivalent of speed-dating.

There is no shape or pacing to Daniel Petrie's movie. It's like a bottle of soda left uncapped. So thus a story that promised effervescence ends up being flat.

The lead performances are very strong -- few actors possess as much sheer physical presence as this pair -- but their dialogue is stilted, as though lost in transit from a Victorian hothouse.

The script, which needs not just doctoring and could benefit from a spell in the critical-care ward, is full of dress-up and put-downs, and comes alive only when Prinze or Cook are on-screen. In short, She's All That aspires to be Clueless. It succeeds in being clueless.

Just as a fistful of drooping stalks does not a bouquet make, director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's random collection of think-pink gags, canine couture and smart/dumb blonde jokes does not a comedy make.

It's a stylish package with not much inside.

So although this multicharacter stew has a tasty morsel or two, in the aggregate it makes one long for the comparative complexity and subtlety of "Valentine's Day."

It's a fun gimmick -- the sartorial equivalent of those red shoes in the fairy tale that made an ordinary girl dance like Terpsichore -- if not an altogether fun movie.

By turns pleasant and preposterous, The Greening of Whitney Brown is a reverse Cinderella tale for tweens.

Mildly diverting but slight, the screwball comedy Gray Matters changes it up, more or less creating its own genre, the curveball farce.

Peppy, painless and -- happily -- not altogether brainless.

On the plus side are engaging performances by Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci. On the minus side is . . . everything else.

The film has two curious subplots and supporting performances that feel tacked on rather than organically part of it.

The cast is full of fresh-faced unknowns ready for their close-ups. Most likely to succeed is Kayla Jackson, an almond-eyed dreamer, as Brittany, anchor of the Ovations and of her family.

Where Finding Nemo suggested that under-the-waves adventure was limitless, Shark Tale suggests that this sea is over-fished. The krill is gone.

Two of its youthful actors, although adorable, are not skilled enogh to carry their parts.

If, like me, you were hoping for "Scarface" as a hip-hopera, I am sad to report that Get Rich or Die Tryin' has heat, but not sweep.

Throughout Flatley, now 52, is triumphal and indefatigable. There are two mysteries here: From whence comes Flatley's boundless energy? And why does it make me feel so tapped out?

Evening might be the most shocking waste of natural resources since the despoiling of the Amazon rain forest.

In some scenes, Faris' sheer velocity gives the movie liftoff. In others, it doesn't hurt that Evans, who looks like the very young Alec Baldwin, and has the sonorous voice of Mark Feuerstein, is the film's sex object.

Ultimately, this movie cowritten by Shelton and former L.A. police detective Robert Souza has more laughs than suspense, but not enough of either.

A movie that provokes as many rueful sighs as it does bruising laughs.

The main distinction of this particular raunchfest, about the economic opportunities available to women in the phone-sex industry, is that it does not reconcile its slim narrative conflict with a big, fat wedding.

Freely mixing reality therapy, fairy tale and satire, Dobkin's film does not maintain a consistent tone. Is it a seriocomedy about brothers who need to work on unfinished business? Is it a holiday fable about a Scrooge who comes to surf the yuletide? Is it a satire in which an efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) puts pressure on St. Nick to outsource gift allocation and distribution?

Most parents will find the movie has the familiar feeling of one of those kid birthday parties where the little ones are on chocolate highs and the adults run out of scheduled activities after 20 minutes.