Chris Kaltenbach

Gets credit for avoiding the easy path. Too bad the path it chooses doesn't lead us anywhere we want to be taken.

One gets the feeling Kaufman was so intent on putting fury and fanaticism on-screen, he forgot about having it serve any greater purpose. Which makes Quills the film equivalent of one of de Sade's novels: artifice, without art.

Lane gives the film her best shot; she's pretty much the only reason to see it. There's an intelligence mixed with ferocity that makes her performance compelling, far-more-so than anything else in the film.

Too much about the game and not enough about the town, the players and everything else.

The original Rocky would have found a way to ground that encounter in reality, to engender honest emotion and give audiences an Everyman hero both noble and believable. This film is too busy worshiping its hero to bother.

Doesn't match the impact of its predecessor, which both revived and reimagined the zombie-film genre.

There's a wonderfully funny and relentlessly cute 45-minute cartoon within The Powerpuff Girls Movie; unfortunately, it's padded out with almost as much filler.

Let's just say this is a perfect film for penguin lovers who also are devoted members of the Green party - and leave it at that.

Unwisely bills itself as a comedy.

There's a dollop of charm and a deluge of formula in Sleepover.

Thank goodness for Davy Crockett; without him, the Alamo could have proven the blandest heroic siege in movie history.

The movie's not nearly as cool as the setup.

If only all this wonderful talent wasn't in service to a story that pushes credulity beyond the breaking point, perilously close to the realm of farce. Too many coincidences, too much convenient timing, too little honest plot development.

The movie annoyingly waits until the end to reveal the names of those experts who have been doing all the talking; it would have been nice to know these folks' qualifications first.

The sad truth is that the film squanders almost all of its inspiration in the first 20 minutes or so.

Doesn't display a single deep thought, or even a middlingly profound one.

Graeme Obree was a champion bicycler who, by all accounts, rarely took the easy way out. Too bad this movie version of his life doesn't follow suit.

Benefits from an amiable chemistry between Harrelson and Banderas, and Davidovich always makes a good tough-as-nails dame with more smarts than any man will give her credit for.

There's a self-loathing at the center of Friends with Money that makes it a tad unpalatable, as well as a sameness, a dependence on cliche, that makes it seem trite.

Has its heart in the right place, and could have been an insightful rumination on corporate shortsightedness and mid-life obsolescence. Instead, it's another one of those Hollywood films whose feel for the workingman's life seems to come exclusively from other movies.

With Diary of the Dead, Romero goes back to the beginning, only this time the amateurish look is calculated and the resulting film far less effective - if only because a handful of filmmakers have beaten him to the punch.

There's no character to root for in this movie, no potential triumphs or resounding failures, just the sense of people going through the motions because they can't bother to think of anything better to do. And that's not a lot to hang your moviegoing hat on.

There are moments, heaven forgive me, that left me chuckling. Not to mention eternally grateful that it's these guys doing this stuff, and not me.

With all its cloying, tone-deaf attempts at genuine emotional warmth, all it really deserves is to be avoided.

Still, it's hard not to long for the Pooh stories of old, those endearingly anarchic little tales that captured the wonder of a child's world without ever once condescending to it.

The movie finally comes to life when Liu turns up.

Proves that marionettes can be as foul-mouthed and profane as their cartoon counterparts, but not nearly as clever.

The result is a film that plays like a creaking melodrama, with good guys and bad guys and precious little in between.

Short on details and long on extreme, unflattering close-ups.

A film not nearly as intriguing as it should have been, centering on a death that isn't nearly as intricately fascinating as the filmmakers think. Exacerbating the problem is a cast of actors who seem too self-consciously playacting.

The pleasures of Ocean's Thirteen are so slight as to be eminently forgettable. Most of the "twists" in the plot are of the ho-hum variety; it's not that one sees them coming, but that they don't amount to much when they show up.

Outside of a strong (and largely misused) cast and an abundance of moody atmosphere, there's precious little to recommend this exploitative mess.

Fans of anime probably will find Vampire Hunter D plenty thrilling. Non-fans, or those not familiar with the genre, will enjoy the film's gothic atmosphere, but may wonder what all the fuss is about.

Everything about this film is drenched in adrenaline.

This depressing look at love isn't quite worth enduring.

When Crews is onscreen, White Chicks is a film that fears nothing and no one. When he's not, it's a film too tentative and soft-hearted to scale the farcical heights to which it aspires.

The Last Mimzy displays a gentle touch and the best of intentions. But the film's message never quite becomes clear; what, exactly, are young minds supposed to take away from this film?

Despite stellar work from the cast, the movie seems as emotionally distant from its audience as its characters are from each other.

Moonlight Mile leavens the mood occasionally, but it cheapens things by insisting that everybody onscreen and in the audience leavethe theater smiling.

Heartstrings are pulled mercilessly in Dreamer.

The cinematic equivalent of a careless foot fault.

The Wicker Man is too loony to be a drama, too earnest to be a comedy, too predictable to be a horror film.

Anderson sees her subject as little more than a game-show contestant. One suspects the real Evelyn Ryan deserved far better.

The Reader is ponderously self-important and smugly Socratic, brimming with unfinished sentences and pregnant pauses; if a single character would only say what he thinks, the movie would be over in 30 minutes

The whole cast is good. It's too bad all that good work isn't in service to a better, or certainly more original, script.

The end result is more a lecture than a film; audiences may come away understanding what went on, but for most, the emotional connection will be lacking.

Garry Marshall, old pro that he is, couldn't be more endearing as the grandfather, struggling gamely to make things right.

Good intentions are no substitute for good filmmaking, and Spy Kids 3D is nothing more than a retread in flashier clothing.

The movie is so determinedly lightweight that it floats above the fray, stopping only for the occasional mild chuckle.

It's mindless, which is rarely true of French cinema, dull, which is rarely true of Hong Kong films, and portentous, which shouldn't be true of any film about a man-eating dog.

How much adorable can one person take?

Unabashedly sentimental and just as unabashedly cliched.

Forgive me for being underwhelmed.

Meandering, forgettable trifle.

The Legend of Bagger Vance is nothing but "The Natural" with Will Smith playing the bat.

Put the tango in "To Sir, With Love," and you've got Take the Lead.

Painfully earnest, The Astronaut Farmer is, sad to say, a bunch of hooey. It's Frank Capra without the genuine heart, certainly without any sense of perspective.

Spending more time with Downey's character would have benefited this movie no end.

The film ultimately is a letdown, leaving too many questions unanswered and ending in a gesture that doesn't really solve anything.

What the film needs is more heart, humor and maybe some honest-to-goodness humility, not energy. And unfortunately, that's about all Gooding seems able to bring to it.

Ella Enchanted is one cute movie.

Looking for comedy in Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy In the Muslim World is a fool's errand. There's hardly any there.

Features lots of cool dialogue but doesn't provide much of a movie in which to showcase it.

Based on Palindromes, it's easy to see what Solondz is railing against but almost impossible to tell what he's railing for.

Too bad it shortchanges the music and fails to provide much evidence for Wilson's appeal.

Eventually becomes cliched, predictable and crude. And that's a real sin.

Girls Will Be Girls thinks watching outrageous people acting outrageously is its own reward. It isn't.

Other than portraying Mary as an overwhelmed teenager, mystified that God has chosen her to be the mother of his child, it doesn't offer anything that hasn't been playing out in grade-school pageants for decades.

Even a superstar needs to surround himself with better material than this.

Almost sinks under the weight of too many red herrings, but is rescued by a skewed sense of reality and pervasive sense of dread that should keep audiences from dwelling on them.

It's unfortunate that none of the principal actors is able to convey the passion the characters are supposed to have for each other.

All that artistry is surrounded by a hackish, paint-by-numbers storyline that makes the time between dance numbers seem endless.

Gracie is painfully earnest, which might be OK were it not also painfully trite, painfully cliched and painfully formulaic.

Nacho Libre enhances Hess' reputation as a gifted filmmaker and suggests there's more to Black than manic dementia. Both director and actor, however, need to find projects better-suited to their respective (and often impressive) talents.

Just don't think about what's going on, and you should be OK.

Neither Grimm comes across as especially interesting to watch, and neither does anything in the movie offer much to get excited about.

See it to be reminded (if you need further reminding) of this actress' remarkable range. Otherwise, take a pass.

The final resolution is silly by just about any standard. A little grounding in reality and a larger effort to avoid the trite could have made Everyone's Hero fun and inspirational for everybody, not just the very young.

Johnny English never builds any momentum, and Atkinson simply isn't a good enough actor to mine continued laughs from repetitive material.

Conventional wisdom has it that the best Star Trek movies are the even-numbered ones. Nemesis may keep that streak alive, but barely.

As a narrative, it has serious problems -- holes so gaping that they're all but unavoidable.

Too bad director Scott Hicks and screenwriter Carol Fuchs didn't look more closely at their source material, a 2001 German film called Mostly Martha. That film used the same basic premise but injected real conflict into the mix, in ways sexual, culinary, even ethnic. That film tried to do something, even while it was entertaining us.

It's obvious and stereotypical. It's leaden and unconvincing. It's not nearly as outrageous as it thinks it is.

If you expect anything more substantive from a movie - characters of more than one dimension, storylines that at the least play new riffs on old themes, plot developments that flow from the narrative - you'd best look elsewhere.

Is there anyone out there who hasn't seen this movie a dozen times before? Maybe even as recently as last week, since it's basically the same story line as the funnier, if less heartfelt, "Four Christmases."

Scores some serious points for its dance moves but does a lousy job of remembering there's a lot more to this big old world than moving your feet.

Allen's latest, his 42nd effort as a director, is the work of an artist devoid of ideas and energy. Perfunctorily staged and lazily written, it comes to life in only the briefest of spurts, usually when the ever-reliable Tom Wilkinson is on-screen.

It's also unclear just what Niccol wanted this film to be: a satire? a spoof? a black comedy? a pointed social commentary? Perhaps all of the above - way too many hats for a movie this slight to wear.

The Sentinel moves quickly and never becomes a bore. It does become something of a cartoon, though, which proves a major letdown for a movie that aims for something far more intelligent.

Should sell its soul for a joke.

Unapologetically cliched and determinedly upbeat (even when it shouldn't be).

The whole movie is too predictable, its conflicts either forced or simplistic.

Like watching a 90-minute game of the video game Asteroids - all bang and no buck.

The Banger Sisters stands as proof that no movie is so bad it can't be redeemed by a single stellar performance. That performance is by Susan Sarandon.

It's easy to be offensive in a movie; it's much harder to be funny. Which is why Scary Movie emerges as such a waste; when you're so good at the latter, why keep falling back on the former?

Chicken Little is relentlessly cute. That's the good news, and those who consider the word cute anathema may want to look for entertainment elsewhere.

Puerile, offensive, degrading, dumb, pointless, insipid and may just well be a harbinger for the end of Western civilization as we know it. But I laughed. Sorry.

Young Cyrus is undeniably cute, and some of her songs are as catchy as the law allows - especially "Hoedown Throwdown," But asked to anchor a full-length movie, she simply doesn't have the chops to pull it off.