Chris Kaltenbach

While it's certainly too derivative to be a great movie, it's too goodhearted and modest in its aspirations to be denied.

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.

Lively and inspirational, with terrific performances from a big star and a host of supporting players.

It's a real shame the film gets mushy at the end. The result is an all too conventional ending on a film that should have been much better.

Lackluster in narrative and in no way original or innovative, the movie is pretty much generic Disney, a film about universal brotherhood stitched together from parts that worked better in other films.

A misfire in almost every direction.

Funny, sweet and only mildly offensive.

Whenever its noble aims miss, Bruce Willis saves it.

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.

Isn't perfect, but it's fun, and Tim Allen shines

Delivers an unexpected sweetness.

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.

The film may not be art, but it's got a beat and you can definitely dance to it.

Blues Brothers 2000 doesn't tell much of a story, but it makes for one smokin' concert. [06 Feb 1998]

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

17 Again errs not only by covering such well-trod ground, but also by doing so through a main character - played by a game but ill-served Zac Efron - who's about as dense as they come.

As shallow and manipulative a movie as any that come to mind.

Shark Tale is "Finding Nemo" with bigger-name stars, far less heart and, the guess here is, about one-third the staying power.

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.

While I have no problem with slackers making me laugh, when they start preaching, that's when my ears close and my eyes roll.

A comic-book rock band starring in a film that actually makes a point? Now that's something worth singing about.

A frequently hilarious exercise in one sex desperately trying to figure out the other.

There's comfort in seeing actors we know doing what we've come to expect them to do. But more important, the film surrounds them with supporting characters who are less familiar to us, who act in ways we don't expect.

With an all-star cast maintaining an amiable tone throughout, the result is a movie in which everyone should see themselves for at least a few minutes (and wish they were that young, that beautiful and that well-off).

To its credit, Heartbreakers lives up to expectations. Almost.

The action is thrilling enough.

Celebrates heroes without turning them into saints.

The Wild suffers from a breakneck pace that seems to exist only so that director Steve Williams can earn his nickname of "Spaz."

Better than his previous films, The Day After Tomorrow plays to Emmerich's strengths, making for a thrill ride that rarely disappoints when it matters.

Predictable but utterly engaging, 27 Dresses will likely be remembered as the film that made Katherine Heigl an A-list star.

It's all done with such good heart, and Stiles is so perfectly appealing as one of cinema's most grounded Cinderellas.

Anyone who isn't charmed by the idea of a Beetle crossing the finish line first is either chronically churlish or isn't trying.

The soundtrack is guaranteed to send chills where they'll be most effective, and the ultimate resolution is a real shocker. While it doesn't explain away everything that's happened, it comes deliciously close.

A comedy that doesn't work if you think about it too much. Cut it some slack, however, and you just might have a good time.

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

Whenever Just Friends threatens to become a total drag, Faris bops onscreen for some serious comic business - either saving the film, or making things worse by pointing out what could have been.

What makes the film work better than its nearly unbearable cuteness suggests is the casting of Christopher Walken as the son; the movie has yet to be invented that Walken can't improve simply by showing up.

If the movie were as funny as it is well-meaning, this would be one for the ages.

When the film is not focused on Wilson, it's really not focused at all. This is a comedy ever holding itself in check, filled with plot threads and asides that seem as though they should be funny but almost always fall short of the mark.

There's not a moment in Against the Ropes where you forget this is perky Meg Ryan up onscreen, talking trashy and acting tough.

As it is, Hoot doesn't accomplish anything a picture book of the Everglades and a few well-chosen Jimmy Buffett tunes wouldn't do better.

Imagine a Three Stooges short with a feel-good ending, and you get the idea.

It would be nice to say that Bruce is hilarious, rather than merely (and fitfully) funny; certainly, the premise suggests laughs more consistent and outlandish than are present here.

Misfires on nearly every possible level.

It's easier to accept a breakup when it's clear that the two parties are mismatched, but a better, braver film would reveal what caused the initial attraction.

Think you know where this film is going? You do, and the best thing about Must Love Dogs is that it takes only 88 minutes to get there - short enough to enjoy the film's modest, well-worn pleasures, but not so long that you feel your time could have been put to better use elsewhere.

Equal parts fantasy and cautionary tale, a film that manages to be uplifting and off-putting simultaneously -- fortunately, more the former than the latter.

The latest in a line of quirky, feel-good British comedies, Greenfingers fits right into the breezily entertaining mold but doesn't expand it.

Lighthearted fluff, not piercing drama. Still, a little shot of reality -- or at least an acknowledgement of same -- could have done this film wonders.

Put simply, Mona Lisa Smile is too much of a stacked deck -- a movie too concerned with ensuring that audiences feel a certain way to risk anything like nuance or interpretation.

It's like a Harlequin romance trying to pass itself off as something deeper and more profound.

A low-level hoot.

There's pleasure to be had in a film that suggests teen life can be hard without necessarily being tragic.

Fortunately, this film doesn't have to depend on off-screen dalliances to prove its worth.

Unlike Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," Lopez seems a little too comfortable in her new duds, which prevents the audience from rooting for her with passion, rather than just appreciation.

Two of the most insistently unlikable movie creations to afflict audiences in some time, a pair of self-obsessed anti-romanticists who spend some two decades doing stupid things at each other's behest. They also whine a lot.

The emotions seem genuine enough, even if Sandler is not a talented-enough actor to always pull them all off.

You get the film's message, that mankind does not react well when challenged by unpleasantness it can't explain away, within the first 15 minutes -- leaving more than 100 minutes to ponderously belabor the point.

The result is a charmer that boldly marches where lesser movies - at least since the heyday of John Hughes - fear to tread.

Cameron Crowe crams at least three movies' worth of plotlines into Elizabethtown, and gives short shrift to all of them.

When it sticks to the subject, the movie is sad and affecting.

Novocaine is neither funny enough to be a comedy, nor dark enough to be a true film noir. Like the drug of the title, it just kind of leaves you numb and anxious to taste the good stuff once again.

Though lovingly crafted and beautifully photographed, the movie does little to make Jones seem compelling, or even all that good.

Most of the humor is both determinedly puerile and unfunny, performed by a generic cast.

It's hard to figure where it's going, and when the movie's over, it's even harder figuring where it's been. But the careening roller-coaster ride calling itself Smokin' Aces is such a hoot to be on, who really cares?

McConaughey and (especially) Hudson manage to make it all work, maintaining their likability even in situations where they inevitably end up acting like jerks.

A pleasantly lightweight confection.

This military courtroom drama is full of questions, but woefully short of answers.

Doesn't really go anywhere or amount to anything - a fatal flaw in a time-travel movie designed not only to keep you guessing, but to build genuine suspense as well.

The movie lives and dies on the energy of stepping.

Especially discomfiting is the stream of kids in peril.

Like "Tango," Wang's film also seeks to uncover whether sex without emotion is really possible, or worth the effort.

Connie and Carla is a good-hearted comedy that missteps by trying to become a moralistic one.

It doesn't take a genius IQ to figure out the movie's final twist far in advance, leaving the attentive viewer to wonder only about how Shyamalan will pull it off and to hope the movie doesn't turn silly.

The mystery is, how the filmmakers still managed to come up with a movie that will satisfy almost no one.

Besides offering the giddy pleasure of seeing Mia Farrow play a demonic nanny, there's not much to the film that a repeat viewing of its earlier incarnation couldn't provide.

The Mexican is its own worst enemy, consistently undermining its best efforts. The result is an over-long series of quirks, a film that's far less than the sum of its often amusing and ingenious parts.

The biggest problem with Jersey Girl may not be exactly its fault; what is up there on the screen is cute and funny and heartfelt, even if it is unflinchingly formulaic.

With Anything Else, Woody Allen proves himself an old dog capable of thinking up some new tricks.

Barrymore gives a performance that's nuanced, assured and captivating.

Paycheck is one of those movies in which all the ingenuity went into the original idea and none into its execution.

Signs of fatigue are all over the film itself.

There's much more than a little Stifler here. Still, there's a recklessness to the character, as well as Scott's performance, that almost engenders respect; he's so determinedly unregenerate, so outrageously lewd, so unrelentingly grating, one almost looks forward to seeing just how far he'll go.

It may not advance the art form, but it's a movie with pleasures for the whole family, and nowadays that's saying something.

This is a movie that earns its suspense and validates its emotions, especially its examination of the bond between mother and child.

It's possible that a smart, insightful, sharp-edged comedy could have been written around these characters, but Trust The Man isn't it.

A slick sci-fi thriller that comes complete with enough twists to keep audiences satisfied and enough moral quandaries to keep the thinkers happy.