Claudia Puig

Rio 2 teems with colorful animated splendor and elaborate musical numbers, but its rambling, hectic, if good-hearted, story is for the birds.

It would be nice to be able to report that Kinky Boots is a kick in the pants. But this conventional, manipulative British import feels like a re-soled pair of shoes that unquestionably have seen their day.

Freedom Writers is an earnest, well-meaning attempt at inspirational teen drama. It has some moving scenes and honest observations, based on a school in Long Beach, Calif., but the movie sinks under the weight of formula and stereotypes.

Aspires to be a cinematic "Sex and the City," but it's more like South Park Goes West.

Fame offers slick entertainment with some exuberance, but it's devoid of soul or heart.

A slog rather than the sweeping romance it aspires to be.

Some of the car gadgetry, Kato's specialty, looks cool...The Green Hornet is otherwise colorless, numbing and sluggishly paced.

Lacking in originality.

There is undoubtedly a good movie in the varied experiences of American newcomers. But it would need to involve sagas more urgent and more original.

Enraptured by bathroom humor that doesn't even reach sophomoric standards. It's more on the level of preschool.

Though not nearly as raucously funny as the leads in "Wedding Crashers," Nick and Shawn resemble junior versions of the one-track-minded womanizers played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

When it's not stalled on silly, it falls into slog territory.

Somehow Statham comes out of this improbable thriller with his dignity intact.

With the lackluster quality of its characters — aircraft, a smattering of trucks, RVs and motorcycles — the movie makes Pixar's Cars and its sequel look like masterpieces.

It's about as uncomfortable as sitting through an interminable counseling session - involving two people you hardly know and don't much care about.

Has some funny moments, silly mispronunciations and comical socio-political references. But it suffers from being the second animated movie this year to feature a dastardly villain for a hero.

Feels as desperate and static as being trapped in a traffic jam.

Makes its point ham-fistedly and then devolves into a blood-spattered slasher movie. It also unashamedly cribs from more disturbing films like "Straw Dogs," "Funny Games" and "A Clockwork Orange."

The best thing about Black Snake Moan, a song title, is the blues soundtrack. The movie is an absurdly jarring collection of archetypal characters in miserable circumstances with a resolution that feels forced and tacked on.

While the sound design and spooky minimalist music add suspense, and CGI effects are duly sinister, a climactic strobe effect is more annoying than frightening.

The corny love story is all the more disappointing given the pedigree of the octogenarian actors.

Dull, dreary Answer Man raises this question: Why?

Performances, plot and pacing are as mechanical as the hard-wired cast.

The contrived insult comedy here feels old, borrowed and blue.

Glimmers of a fascinating and lively period film surface and fade in the first half-hour of The Immigrant. What predominates is a dully morose, overheated and implausible story.

As it is, this uneven movie is more a compilation of contemporary images and concerns peppered with derivative raucous scenarios, à la Judd Apatow movies, than an involving romantic comedy.

Though the project, based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel "A Princess of Mars," is ambitious, it's also bloated, dreary and humorless.

Yet another foray into unnecessary 3-D, is a rehashed mishmash of Jonathan Swift's 18th-century classic. Mostly, it's a vehicle for Jack Black's zany humor.

Intermittently funny. But the movie's first 20 minutes is devoted to tediously showing how his career has taken off around the world. That might be fine if this were a documentary, or if it were done more artfully, and with humor — since we go into the movie expecting a 75-minute laugh-fest.

Despite its ultra-formulaic premise and juvenile sense of humor, there are a few laughs, and the movie's heart is generally in the right place, with the notable exception of racist characterizations of an Arab prince and Japanese businessmen.

Her (Garner) grace and mystical abilities make for a lonely burden, and we are supposed to feel her pain. Instead, we feel our own for having to sit through this silly movie.

It's nowhere near as funny or incisive as the South Park movies, and it has a much crazier style. Imagine Abraham Lincoln chatting up a giant milkshake and discussing slavery, and you get the picture.

There are viable flashes of comedy in the franchise. But with each movie, they grow increasingly dim.

The film is likable, with some funny moments and recognizable human conflicts. But the origin of the women's friendship is not explained, and the nature of Olivia's problems is not examined or taken very seriously, making her seem inexplicably lost and shallow.

Despite its patina of stylishness, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is sorely lacking in thrills.

Give Binder credit for addressing racial divides even if not as profoundly as one would hope.

Deep within Law Abiding Citizen lurks a thought-provoking movie. But most of what we see on the screen is implausible, superficial and only marginally involving.

It's hard to sustain that cheeky meta humor, and the film seems to just give in and join its slasher brethren, devolving into a string of gruesome, but unoriginal, slayings.

There's nothing terribly fantastic about this ho-hum futuristic foray.

Women may appear a bit smarter here, but both sexes are portrayed as superficial and silly.

It's serviceable, but certainly not much fun.

They may call it The Last Castle, but moviegoers will ultimately feel rooked.

Though the tale may fall short on imagination, the principal actors make Over Her Dead Body livelier than one would expect.

The film simply doesn't come together fluidly. Smaller parts aren't on par with the lead role, and special effects are overdone and cheesy. At times, the essence of Shakespeare's poetry is drowned out.

Essentially Cars in midair.

Though better than most of Perry's broad comedies, The Family That Preys still suffers from excessive predictability and mawkish sentiment, which detracts from the story's believability.

Marley & Me might be easy to watch, but -- even for die-hard canine lovers -- it's as easy to forget.

The story soon devolves into a far-fetched, futuristic snooze-fest that often defies its own logic. Characters' motivations are rarely clear, and allegiances shift with no explanation.

One of the film's biggest problems is that Richie is an unsympathetic and rather dim character. The badly drawn role does the likable Timberlake no favors.

Drippy, derivative stalker flick.

It's not the grand scale action-adventure it aspires to be, but this faux epic does offer family-friendly entertainment.

Firewall might be worth renting on an inclement weekend when the pickings are slim. It does have some tense moments - even if some of the technical plot points don't quite scan. But, overall, it just feels like a rehash.

It doesn't help that the performances are bland (particularly those of Christensen and Bilson) and that what comes out of their mouths is uninspired. Short on imagination and anchored by a wan hero, Jumper is a flight of fancy that never fully takes off.

Simultaneously brash and dull - hardly a combustible combination.

While the adult performances are strong, especially Jeff Bridges in the title role, youthful characterizations are not nearly as illuminating as they were on the page.

This shallow sequel to 2010's much cleverer Despicable Me — the 10th-biggest animated movie in U.S. history — seems to be merely going through the motions.

An ambitious but mind-numbingly tedious and often incomprehensible film.

We had hoped for just a funny movie, but instead we get some laughs and plenty of yawns.

Jennifer's Body is not as hot as you hope it would be.

Graphically gruesome when it means to be a provocative look at vengeance.

While there is a pleasantness about this faithful Shakespearean reboot, there also is some woeful miscasting and a lukewarm feeling about the straightforward production.

Nathan Fillion is the movie's brightest spot as Hermes, re-envisioned as a UPS manager. He makes a quip about how the best TV series always get canceled, in a nod to Firefly, the iconic sci-fi show in which he starred.

It would have worked better if the silly premise had been played for farcical satire, rather than following the cookie-cutter rules of the romantic comedy playbook.

Though better than its 2001 predecessor -- and teeming with cute creatures and fast and furious action scenes -- the movie feels excessively formulaic.

Ice Harvest's plot sounds like an antidote to the season's holiday sweetness. And it's being touted as this year's Bad Santa. But the only similarities are the holiday season, the criminal milieu and Thornton.

The movie tries to capture the crushing weight of loss, but between the insipid pop tunes and the repetitive shots cutting away to a lighthouse on a scenic outcropping, it feels more like a film version of a condolence card.

It tries to be a moody thriller, but cliched dialogue and too many coincidences make for a predictable and hackneyed film.

Wilts under a weak, formulaic story.

Makes one long for Martin's edgy work in films such as "The Spanish Prisoner."

Between the dogged efforts of the kids to save strays and the antics of the dogs, it's hard to resist this lively, though predictable, family movie.

Quvenzhané Wallis is adorably plucky as the lead in Annie. She and Jamie Foxx as the newfangled Daddy Warbucks character have an appealing chemistry and their songs together are the best moments in the movie. But the rest of Annie is banal, shallow and markedly cynical.

It feels like a wan version of the show -- one that has lost its otherworldly edge.

Audiences could use a wise and probing movie about the meaning of our increasingly digital, techno-juiced lives.Men, Women & Children is about half that movie.

Each twist and turn is so telegraphed and expected that the story feels wan and the comedy feeble.

Seems like a work in progress.

The minimal character development will frustrate filmgoers seeking substance, as will Coppola’s stilted dialogue.

A Tale of Love and Darkness seeks to blend serious political history and probing psychological analysis. The effort does not succeed, coming across disjointed and grim.

Louis CK’s I Love You, Daddy is queasy fare, not just because its rambling, self-indulgent story has strange and unfortunate associations with real-life allegations, but also for its tone-deaf narrative and offensive sexual politics.

In Cretton’s hands, this fact-based tale of an oddball, destitute upbringing rings false. It’s based on a woman’s complicated personal recollections of her traumatic childhood, and yet it feels like a cloying, one-note Hollywood tale, the beastly trauma all tied up with a pretty bow and de-fanged.

Despite an unlikely setting and a moderately intriguing premise, Chernobyl Diaries proves to be a generic horror flick where young tourists are systematically victimized in unoriginal and not terribly scary ways.

Annabelle invites unflattering comparisons with scary movies that came before, but its disparate parts never coalesce into a genuinely fearsome thriller.

Do yourself a favor and rent the 1996 original from Japan instead.

Doesn't make the movie worth watching -- even if you're monstrously bored.

Moore and Ford rise above the hackneyed story, infusing the proceedings with their own chemistry and appeal. If only the adults responsible for this film could learn how to deal.

God may forgive you for seeing this needlessly brutal film. But you won't forgive yourself.

Overflows with pretensions and absurdity.

Manages to be both toothless and tasteless in its satire of TV news sensationalism.

A failure from start to finish.

Machine Gun Preacher has a lot more wrong with it than a bullet-riddled premise. It is yet another iteration of the big, strong white man who comes to save legions of poor anonymous black Africans.

If you're a Rainn Wilson fan, catch a rerun of "The Office."

Despite its collegiate setting, 21 and Over is pretty much for people with an IQ of 21 and under.

Don't stop believing. Just avoid clichéd musicals that try to capture the anarchic spirit of rock with trite commercial re-treads.

It's almost impressive when a movie can manage to be both repellently vulgar and sickeningly sweet in the span of a mere two hours. Almost.

It's dogged by awkward dialogue, a ridiculous plot and lackluster performances, especially by the leads.

It's unclear why the writers bothered to update the cartoon, unless it was to expand the possibilities for quips and jokey ideas. If so, they failed in their mission, as the movie elicits few laughs.

Director Kevin Smith's tweets, jokes and sharp commentary after being denied a seat aboard a Southwest Airlines flight because of his girth were a lot more engaging than Cop Out, his new movie.

Too much. The hackneyed story about an affluent damsel in distress who decides to fight her bully of a husband is simply too overdone.

There's nothing worse than a boring behemoth.

Barrels around in manic fashion much like Carrey does in most of his movies. He's meant to be a fool for love, but mostly he's just bonkers.

The cliché-laden dialogue, schlocky special effects and predictable plot are derivative; the movie is overwrought and lacks suspense.

Balls of Fury makes "Dodgeball" look like high art. It'll be tough to crack a smile, let alone laugh, during this uninspired and sophomoric satire of sports movies.

The best thing about A Good Day to Die Hard is its title.

One of the more befuddling movies of recent years. The premise makes no sense, no matter how you turn it around in your head.

All cinematic creativity seems to have focused on devising the most repellent ways to maim and murder.

A movie that gives marriage, homosexuality, friendship, firefighters, children and nearly everything else a bad name.

Those who sit through this mindlessness get the booby prize.

Maybe for the next installment, they can go off to college and find something better to do than making these silly movies.

Defanged and drippy, the remake of 1939's The Women seems to have been made for the dullard granddaughters of the sassy, sharp society matrons in George Cukor's campy original.

Wastes a moderately intriguing premise by filling it with laughably clichéd dialogue, one-dimensional characters and implausible turns of events.

The Gambler is a hollow, overwrought and glibly cynical remake of a '70s drama about a self-destructive academic.

Can't decide what direction it's going in. Some of the time it seems to be a standard teen sex comedy. Occasionally, it appears to be spoofing the genre. It concludes on a romantic, almost honorable note.

It might be that Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) is experimenting with creating a pastiche of dreamlike sequences that audiences can interpret as they wish. Or it may be merely pretension and hubris that fuels such a stylized and insubstantial story.

The two main characters in Are You Here spend much of their time stoned or weeping. Those who watch this dreadful film may seek to escape or sink into despair as well.

The overwritten script and the ridiculous plot combine to make The Counselor a frustrating experience.

Silly, unfunny and formulaic.

Is there a word that means the opposite of Cowabunga? If so, that's the word for the charmless, dull and derivative new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

This is not only unsuitable for children, it's a colossal waste of time at any age.

Jude Law put on 30 pounds to play this slimeball. But the weightier question is, why would he bother to take this worn-out role, at any size?

Yearns to be fresh but ends up tasteless. It's as drawn-out, forced and annoying as a holiday meal with a dozen carping relatives.

Catch and Release is not worth catching. Release yourself from boredom by giving it a miss.

The entire undertaking feels like a waste of time and talent.

The name is a tipoff: Club Dread is dreadful.

The sci-fi film's reported $175 million budget must have gone largely into loopy production design, wild costumes, outlandish hairstyles and colorful make-up. It certainly didn't go into developing a coherent script or coaching believable performances.

Moore goes into operatic mode as Mother Malkin, a nasty witch who morphs into a menacing winged dragon. The worst performance, however, belongs to Jeff Bridges as a marble-mouthed, curmudgeonly knight named Master Gregory.

The players fall into recognizable stereotypes: the big and clumsy kid, the real talent who's also a showoff, the buffoon, the gross-out guy. But no one is more formulaic than the coach. He starts out smug with the kids and ends up smitten.

If you value your time and money, find an escape clause and avoid seeing this trite, predictable rehash. The 90 minutes could be better spent doing holiday shopping.

Everything about this fish-out-of-water romp is tired.

While he gets points for addressing the debate, the way in which Stein goes about it undermines his efforts to be even-handed and intellectually rigorous.

Sadistic mess of a movie.

Feels about as fresh and lively as a piece of burnt rubber.

This sequel to the clever and funny first "Transformers" not only is disappointing, it will give most people a throbbing case of metal overload.

Bonds are tested and feelings hurt, but who really cares? The story takes predictable turns, embraces clichés and dodges all humor.

It's problematic enough that the movie's lead characters are unlikable. But worse is the blackening of The Human Stain with a trite and forced plot, uninteresting digressions and clunky direction.

The last name Blart may be the funniest thing in the movie, so that's a hint as to just how bad this shopping-center saga can be.

The screenplay is thin, the dialogue lacks nuance and the acting is often laughable.

Here's a by-the-playbook movie if ever there was one.

It's déjà vu all over again. There isn't much more to say about "We Own the Night 2." Oops, make that Pride and Glory.

This second installment, based on Veronica Roth's series of YA novels, feels cobbled together and less focused than 2014's Divergent, and lacks tension and excitement.

In a summer filled with dumb comedies, this might prove to be the dumbest. Think "Road Trip" meets "City Slickers." Then dial the humor down a few notches, and you're left Without a Paddle.

Sitting through this movie is worse than being locked in a room with a continuous loop of "Nip/Tuck" playing on a jumbo screen.

While this third installment offers a jot more humor (mostly unintentional), the action scenes are disjointed, badly staged and mind-numbing.

Flyboys doesn't succeed as a wartime adventure story or as a period romance. Even the special effects, set in a historical context, are too ho-hum to save this over-long and tedious film.

Sitting through the teen skateboard comedy Grind is, well, a grind.

Labor Day feels like a belabored, sappy slog.

What is most troubling is how this film can serve to shape perceptions for impressionable kids. Young girls and boys will think that non-stop make-out sessions is all it takes to sustain "endless love."

The pirate ship has hit foul waters, and even the sharp wit and charm of everyone's favorite buccaneer can't save it.

Post Grad is a collection of unfunny, insipid and predictable vignettes in search of a movie.

Talented actors are wasted in a film that induces more cringes than chuckles as women old enough to know better act like horny sailors on leave, absorb mass quantities of alcohol and drugs, and generally behave horribly.

John Wick serves up a noxious, clashing blend of hyper-realistic and cartoonish violence. Too bad there's no cinema decontaminating service that can wash our memories clean of such useless gore.

The dialogue is beyond clichéd, and performances feel cobbled together from other movies.

Fighting seriously lacks punch.

The jewels in the buried treasure, once sighted, look fake. But the bigger problem is how artificial the whole story feels.

So leaden and obnoxious that it actually makes you long for the John Travolta of "Old Dogs."

Its use of trite "Win one for the Gipper" dialogue, overbearing soaring music and conventional plot devices makes it far too formulaic to truly move us.

By the time the movie reaches its protracted conclusion, it feels like a slog. Pacino has a few funny lines, as does Leguizamo, but not nearly enough to save the film from collapsing under the weight of its own self-righteous tedium.

You're bound to have more fun working overtime than watching Employee of the Month.

Director Steve Buscemi is not to be faulted for his filmmaking or acting skills, but as co-writer he could have done better than the false-sounding dialogue.

For a movie that touts the importance of humanity, Green Lantern is a strangely lifeless spectacle.

It's too bad more energy wasn't devoted to fleshing out the one-dimensional characters and crafting a decent script. The only reason to catch this harmless diversion is for the group dance sessions.

Given its predictable story, the only reason to see Stomp is for the rhythmic step dancing.

It takes more than an awkward title attempting to sound cool to overcome its mundane plot and silly dialogue.

Nothing about this rote exercise feels remotely fresh. It's a re-tread of the 2009 original, sans the inspired lunacy.

From the embarrassingly over-the-top performance of Ray Liotta as a tough-guy biker to the pratfalls of William H. Macy as a bumbling computer geek, this movie stinks of exhaust and desperation.

Some screwball moments elicit a chuckle or two, but the script is weak and the characterizations clichéd.

Shyamalan isn't drawing the caliber of performances from his actors as he used to. Who can forget Haley Joel Osment's haunting portrayal in The Sixth Sense or that of Toni Collette, who played his mother, or Bruce Willis in arguably his best role?

Ostensibly meant to be light entertainment. If light is synonymous with preposterous, frenetic and noisy, it qualifies.

Slavishly follows the well-worn and soggy Sparks path.

Though the lead actress, newcomer Jordana Beatty, gives a spunky performance as third-grader Judy, her character's borderline bratty charm wears thin fast. Mostly it's undercut by the movie's irritatingly antic slapstick style.

Misanthropic to the extreme, Bad Teacher fails across the board.

It's tough to summon sufficiently negative language to describe the unfunny, desperate mess that is Bad Words.

Perhaps there was a clever germ of an idea here, but the five credited writers didn't develop characters, scenarios or rules in this sci-fi world well enough to engage the audience.

Filled with laughable dialogue, Abduction goes nowhere.

It's an unrelentingly brutal movie set in an unusually scenic locale — the coastal city of Valparaiso, Chile.

It's an idea that might have made for a mildly intriguing skit, but blown out into a full-length feature it's at best campy and at worst an amateurish, sentimental schlock-fest.

A wan version of the same old tired serial killer story, despite its updated milieu -- cyberspace.

The Romantics is a misnomer. "The Spoiled Melodramatics" would be more accurate. Or better yet, "The Pretentious Ones."

The shenanigans of randy soccer moms and their obnoxious blowhard husbands are intended as comic relief. But the sappy plot of this formulaic romantic comedy is just as silly as its inane attempts at farce.

Too slight and pointless.

Somewhere amid the mind-numbing barrage of action sequences there's a story based on Greek mythology. But its essence is buried amid the clatter.

Poseidon is a sodden saga, with a script that is awash in clichés. It nearly drowns under the weight of its own soggy tedium.

There's nothing exciting about this awful, over-the-top reboot.

More often the film succumbs to clichés, grows convoluted and outlandish, and winds up dead on arrival.

It's a pretty twisted concept, bordering on offensive. But mostly it's just not funny.

The story's appeal is lost in all the fights between the monsters and robots.

The movie is devoid of laughs, except for a mildly funny segment when one of the chipmunks inhales helium. And since this is aimed at the under-10 set, it includes the requisite flatulence joke and a spit take or two.

Never was a film so visually stunning and so intolerable as To the Wonder.

With its excessive sleaze and gross-out gags, Soul Plane overshoots effective spoofery. Mostly it's a foul, eye-rolling experience.

This insipid, and sometimes awkward, blend of animation, computer generation and live action wastes a ton of talent and lacks a true sense of whimsy.

An American Affair is sordid business blandly portrayed and not worth meddling with.

The opening frame of Jonah Hex should say: "Caution: Made expressly for the male teen demographic. Not suitable for anyone of any age who prefers movies with coherence, an original plot or characters they give a hoot about."

Tooth Fairy will make your teeth ache and your skin crawl.

Far-fetched, flimsy and uninvolving.

A misguided attempt at comedy that needs to go last on anyone's list of movie options.

Vardalos' comedic style is old-fashioned in the worst way; her humor is stodgier than the most retro Catskills laughmeister.

If your idea of a good time is watching a disjointed period piece featuring a scrawny dog defecating, dozens of dissipated people fornicating and a syphilitic Johnny Depp with oozing pustules on his face, The Libertine may be just the movie for you.

Don't expect the seventh Star Wars film here. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is more like a long Saturday morning cartoon.

A didactic and humorless Western, Eli is too laborious for an action film and too brutal to be an inspirational tale.

It would appear that director Scott Kalvert never met a cliché he didn't like. No telegraphing is too obvious or simplistic for this movie.

While it's billed as a "re-imagining" of the horror franchise, this Friday is more like a rehash, delivering just what you expect and nothing more.

A sluggish, tedious film about lost souls living dead-end lives in a dead-end town. Their actions often defy rationality.

Where 1991's "Thelma & Louise" was funny and action-filled, Tammy's story is thin, cringe-inducing and, worst of all for a comedy, not funny. Jokes land with a thud and the pacing is leaden.

If you've been lobotomized or have the mental age of a kindergartener, Mr. Bean's Holiday is viable comic entertainment.

If you're of a mind to believe a dreary and far-fetched thriller about numerology-crazed alien life forms, then you may find the movie mildly diverting.

So sadistic and disturbing, Games is easily the toughest movie to sit through since 1994's "Natural Born Killers."

Family Weekend is the kind of dark-for-dark's sake, wannabe quirkfest that proves indie films can be just as clichéd and vapid as the most soulless Hollywood movies.

The story doesn't clarify why the dragons hibernated for hundreds of years, nor why they awakened. Clearly, however, the filmmakers might have benefited from more sleep before penning the script.

The only redeeming feature about The Gunman is its exotic locations.

The concept is unoriginal, the scenarios aren't funny, and its message is banal. Plus, Murphy alternately hams it up and phones it in.

A laughably bad horror flick.

It's so unfunny it almost stings.

Blackhat is a tedious, preposterous and incoherent cyberthriller that is anything but thrilling.

Hisses for Catwoman. Unfortunately for Oscar winner Halle Berry, this movie belongs in the litter box.

Within a few minutes into the ponderous prehistoric pseudo-epic that is 10,000 B.C., you find yourself longing for George of the Jungle to crash into a tree or the Geico cavemen to amble up and put an end to the droning seriousness of this tedious tale.

Veggie Tales is a faith-based franchise that uses a blend of a religious/moral message and humor to teach about honesty and forgiveness. But Pirates lacks the humor of the videos and "A Veggie Tales Movie."

A silly movie that's essentially a series of clichés strung together into a semblance of a movie.

Has a riddick-ulous sci-fi plot, overblown and numbing video game-style special effects and a going-through-the-motions lead performance by Vin Diesel.

Less a movie than a mind-numbingly dull road trip.

Who had the lamebrained idea for a post-apocalyptic 3-D Nutcracker that is lacking any trace of ballet?

The movie is so impressionistic, it obfuscates any sense of history. We expect at least a hint at the causes of the Mayan Empire's demise, but instead we get Mesoamerican Rambo.

If you didn't know otherwise, you'd swear that Gentlemen Broncos was made by a disaffected high school student – and not a particularly talented one.

Get Hard is hard to sit through and hardly funny. So unless you're really hard up for entertainment, stay away from this tone-deaf raunchfest.

Who would have thought an animated comedy satirizing the predictable nature of fairy tales could be so grim?

Not worth the ride.

Cloying and dated movie.

The film feels as calculatedly sentimental as one of those bland pink candy hearts.

Steer clear of Freedomland, the movie. Your time would be better spent reading Richard Price's much more compelling 1998 novel.

Killers is dead on arrival: miscast, horribly paced and murderously uninvolving.

Kimberly Elise gives the best performance as a beleaguered woman with an abusive boyfriend (Michael Ealy).

Yogi Bear is a big boo-boo.

The movie is a clunky, noisy contraption. Director Jon Turteltaub piles on gadgets and devices in the hopes we'll be dazzled enough to miss the story's lack of coherence and charm.

The best actor in Snow Dogs is a glowering Siberian husky named Demon. In fact, all the dogs in the movie do a better job than their human counterparts.

Trying to decipher all the convoluted pathways could drive you mad. Mostly, though, it is so ludicrous that it will unintentionally inspire laughter.

The movie's premise is as dopey as they come: A serial killer with a conscience is killing other serial killers.

Much as they would like it to, basketball can't save the youthful inner-city players here. Nor does the ultra-fast-paced street version of the sport save this movie from predictability and tedium.

Kick-Ass is a prime example of a movie that never should have bothered with a sequel. Not only is its successor played-out, but it revels in carnage while lacking the visual style and gleeful humor of the original.

A moviegoer's only defense against Jason is to avoid theaters showing this gruesome and derivative movie.

It's a syrupy, downbeat film.

Max Payne couldn't be more appropriately named. Sitting through this stylish-looking but derivative, vacuous and bullet-riddled movie inflicts maximum pain.

This is not the Travolta of "Pulp Fiction," nor is it the Williams of "One Hour Photo." Though no animals were harmed in the making of Old Dogs, the lead actors were defanged. But like a pair of Labradors, they have a playful rapport.

Russell Crowe may find himself discovering the simple joys of life in A Good Year, but audiences will be checking their watches during this joyless attempt at comedy.

If only the movie had heeded its own advice and tried to be different from the standard formula.

This wrongheaded biopic that bears her name does nothing to burnish her legacy. In fact, the tedious movie lacks any insight into the characters involved, and surely would have the late Princess of Wales rolling in her grave. And it can't be easy on her sons to see their mother depicted in such a one-dimensional fashion.

Chan has more chemistry with the kids than with Valletta, but the story is so insipid that it's likely to only sadden fans of the martial-arts icon and offer little enjoyment to its young audience.

Romantic screwball comedies are supposed to be at least a little romantic, but there's no chemistry between Perry and Hurley.

Viewers seeking a fresh comedy, a seductive romp, or even just an escape from boredom for a couple hours will be left dismally unsatisfied by this stilted, nearly humorless, non-titillating slog.

Audiences deserve a resounding "mea culpa" for the embarrassing dreck, masquerading as comedy, in The Guilt Trip.

Tedious, unromantic, sophomoric and only sporadically funny.

Been-there-seen-that wannabe laughfest.

The movie tries to be both comical and touching, as befitting the coming-of-age genre. But it feels forced, derivative and sometimes sappily sentimental.

Has plenty of fast cars and revving engines. But unless you're a fan of that sort of thing, its stultifying plot and wooden acting is likely to make you drift - off to sleep.

Nothing is right about this ridiculous horror schlockfest.

What was once fresh and innovative now is tired and overdone.

It will be hard for audiences to remain even vaguely attentive during this slog of a feudal vengeance tale.

The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and told sparely, but comes across as mawkish, tedious and self-indulgent.

It's an almighty, humorless bore.

Yes, it's a candy-colored Day-Glo world, but there's a liveliness missing from this lead-footed Speed Racer.

The film disappoints terribly, too. The directorial debut of such an imaginative and clever screenwriter was a highly anticipated event. His "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" are two of the most innovative and intriguing movies of the past decade. Synecdoche is one of the most maddening.

The characters in The Box are like cardboard cutouts: Some have "foolish victim" labeled on them, and others fall into the category of absurdly creepy villain.

The real shocker is how many grown men it took to conceive and write this lamebrained tale.

Fun is hiding behind a bad movie costume in this humorless and idiotic Halloween teen comedy.

Glaringly lacking in the film are any original Stones songs. The group, who fired Jones just before his death, must not have thought much of the movie if they didn't allow their music to be used. Smart fellows.

Though it's only 90 minutes, the film drags, making these not-so-easy riders pretty tough to watch.

You, Me and Dupree is a good idea badly executed.

The first one was silly fun, amusing and oddly inventive; the second is plodding, unfunny and almost cringe-worthy.

We're the Millers is a twisted road trip worth avoiding. Not only is it not funny, it's offensive.

Farrell is quite good, though it's hard to buy the Scottish McGregor and the Irish Farrell as brothers. But mostly, the film feels rudderless, almost as if it's been directed on autopilot.

Feels like a bad sitcom.

The story is tedious, noisy and banal. It is also rather dark and convoluted for children, though it does have the familiar bombast of a video game.

A succession of tired race jokes made worse by the bad comedic timing of the bland, under-talented Ashton Kutcher.

It comes off like a coughed-up furball: a wan rehash with too many elements of the hard-to-swallow 2004 original.

This implausible action thriller also stars Julianne Moore as an FBI agent who sees Cage's two-bit Vegas act and decides he can single-handedly save the world.

An insult to the memory of the cleverly written show and its celebration of friendship, it's a slap in the face for the four gal pals (often photographed at unflattering angles) and an affront to Muslims.

A documentary on the formation of stalagmites would have been more compelling.