Chris Kaltenbach

The setup is bad even by slasher-film standards: poorly acted, atrociously written and unimaginatively directed. But once Freddy and Jason have at it, the movie takes on a recklessly kinetic energy that finally delivers on its title's promise.

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

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

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

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.

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

Relentless in its crudity, so indiscriminate in its pursuit of tasteless laughs, so pure in its determination to offend, one almost has to admire it. It's even funny. Sometimes.

The cinematic equivalent of a careless foot fault.

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.

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.

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

Save for Jesus' skin color, which he shares with some of his fellow Jews, little about the story is re-imagined or re-evaluated.

Children should enjoy Jungle Book 2 just fine. Adults will wonder why anyone bothered.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Unable to embrace the world he's seeking to depict, Cherot is left with a lifeless shell, a movie so preoccupied with being noble that it forgets to be interesting. The problem with G is not that it's unbelievable, it's just boring.

The story is a comic-book tale at its most basic level.

Go to enjoy the technical expertise, and take a first-grader (and not a particularly savvy one) along to find something of value in everything else.

Ella Enchanted is one cute movie.

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

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