Chuck Wilson

In many ways, Marshall and Barrymore are an equal match -- while both have a flair for the small touches that build a good comic scene, each lacks the complex layering of motive and emotion that make a human life believably real.

Heartfelt yet overly schematic debut feature.

Parkhill's heart seems to belong to 1940s film noir, where a lonely man could be driven half-mad by the sight of a mystery woman performing a hot flamenco dance, a scene Parkhill stages here to unintentional titter-inducing effect.

Scimé and Adkins have real chemistry, but the script is forever cutting back to quirky, talkative Katie, and any chance of exploring the complexities of a relationship between two men, one of whom is intractable, is lost.

The cast of the original looks Shakespearean in comparison to Cook and her hapless cohorts, but to be fair, those first dead ducks had a real script to explore, which this bunch does not.

This film is lean, tight and irredeemably vile. People are gonna love it.

This should have been Beatty's "Wonder Boys," but the filmmakers don't seem to realize they've sent their hero on a sexual adventure that neither his heart nor his dick needs to take.

[A] clever but emotionally unengaging movie.

Immigrant is reportedly based on writer-director Barry Shurchin's own family history, but the story he's chosen to tell is so melodramatic and relentlessly grim that any passion he feels for the material isn't reflected onscreen.

The cell phone reception in Dracula's castle is pretty bad, but it can't be as frustrating as trying to fathom the plot of this woefully muddled horror film.

The film is sporadically amusing, especially early on. But as the gross-outs dwindle, one is left to contemplate if Stiller has always been this neckless and to wonder just why Aniston wastes her summer vacation on junk such as this.

Townsend and Aaliyah are sexy as hell, and clearly willing and able to explore the darker truths of villainy, but they can't compete against the unwieldy script.

Devotes too much time to a shrill, unfunny security guard who's pursuing the girls, but he does stage some zippy sequences, from the red-clad Julie's skateboard dash home to witty bits involving an energy-depleted electric car.

Ghastly.

Von Trotta and co-writer Pamela Katz can't resist cutting, again and again, to Hannah and her airless musings on the story's meaning. These interludes stop the movie in its tracks and, counter no doubt to von Trotta's intentions, do a disservice to the Rosenstrasse women themselves, who shouldn't have to fight for screen time.

There are all sorts of noteworthy people in this silly vampire epic, including acting greats Sir Ben Kingsley and Geraldine Chaplin, but the only artist this critic wants to heap praise upon is the regrettably unidentified Supervisor of Blood Splatter: Nice work, dude.

More dispiriting than the caricatured Italian families is the sense that, by picture's end, the filmmakers have neutered Angelo, so that his sexual energy is dulled, made non-threatening -- the perfect son after all.

Despite a few manic comic episodes, writer-directors Alexandre Charlot and Franck Magnier never again capture the sense of joyous connection that can exist between child and pet.

Until its dismaying final 15 minutes, this baseball redemption movie sails along on the charms of cute kids and a star who makes up in bone structure what he lacks in talent.

Full of gumption, Clarkson and Guarini soldier on, seemingy unaware that the perfectly adequate singing voices that brought them to the big screen are being drowned out, on a half-dozen same-sounding songs, by an overlayered backup group.

Boring.

Led by the honorably dour Firth and the charisma-free Harington, MI-5 is convoluted and dull, though Harry's revenge against that dastardly mole is pleasingly diabolical. But it's too little too late.

Lee has heaped so many social ills on his heroine that it's difficult to buy any of it, especially when the story slips into silliness involving bad guys and missing drugs.

There's not a believable moment in all of it, but for a while the film chugs along on Ryan's innate charisma. Even so, no amount of movie-star twinkle could lighten screenwriter Cheryl Edwards' bizarre character arc, which finds Jackie turning, overnight, into a callous, possibly racist, ninny.

Shawn is clearly meant to have deep feelings, yet the filmmakers have saddled her -- and Blair -- with a shallow angst that bums out the whole movie.

Bass isn't a gifted actor, but he retains his dignity, mostly by keeping his head down and avoiding the eyes of the idiots around him.

One almost pities the unnervingly twitchy Murphy, whose shiny makeup is dreadful, and who doesn't stand a chance alongside the focused intensity of Fanning, who commands the screen with the precision of a 30-year veteran.

Drab and muddled romance.