Cody Clark

The execution is crisp and the fundamentals are solid. Like its protagonist, Finding Forrester got game.

The only thing about this movie that will haunt you is its boggling ineptitude.

The result is a feast for the eyes but frequently a famine for the frontal lobes, a movie of towering imagination and middling rewards.

Rises instantly above its genre merely by taking the time to develop its characters and scenario.

The movie is more or less competent for being what it is. Of course, I could say the same of most brick walls -- but I'd hardly recommend that you pay eight bucks to sit in front of one for two hours.

Has its share of small pleasures.

Allen's good with the material, but Hunt sparkles, repeatedly razoring her diminutive antagonist to shreds.

A movie interesting enough in its conception to appeal to adults winds up being best suited to preadolescent sensibilities.

The best kind of summer blockbuster -- the kind that makes you immediately crave a sequel.

Something of a featherweight, but it's also a positively divine comedy.

A teenage movie that trusts its audience -- it sounds crazy, but it's actually quite beautiful.

A wide-eyed, action-adventure throwback to the era of Disney's magnificent adaptation of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Because so little of what occurs on-screen either engages or entertains, there's ample time for the boiler of your self-respect to build up quite a head of indignation at the forfeiture of your time, money, and (exceedingly minimal) cerebral exertion.

Whenever the movie's not in the midst of a cinematic spoof it loses considerable steam.

McDonald makes for an appealingly befuddled bloke, and the sprightly Montgomery would turn any blighter's head. In a better movie, we'd care about what happened to them.

Mad About Mambo's steps may be as familiar as the hokeypokey, but there's just enough gusto in the execution to make it a guilty pleasure.

The actors playing the team members have stereotypical roles, but these kids have got game.

Almost nothing happens for most of the movie.

As romantic comedies go, this is definitely not one you'd take to the altar, but you might enjoy having a cup of coffee with it.

This wretched jumbo helping of Christian Fundamentalist agitprop takes itself entirely too seriously to be anything but ploddingly dull.

Oh-so-tiresomely familiar.

Thinking (logically or otherwise) about this movie is a waste of your brain cells.

High drama this ain't. And yet, anyone looking for a hearty banquet of gymnastic, kung-fu tomfoolery won't walk away hungry.

This saga of one robot's determined quest to become human is so coldly calculated it could give you frostbite.

Folks who are desperate to ogle Hewitt and Weaver probably can't be warned off this turkey.

It's a yabba-dabba-delight.

Spacey and Bridges -- generally provide exactly the level of investment required for their characters to be convincing. Neither one showboats, and both make good use of the dry humor in Leavitt's script.

Comes off as an exceedingly pleasant, wistful romantic romp.

If Company Man were a wreck on the interstate, it would involve multiple cars and at least one jackknifed tanker truck, and traffic would be backed up for miles as passing motorists slow to gawk.

It's a larky hoot in its best moments, and it has a refreshingly unforced sense of fun that buoys the scenes that are straight out of Lame Movie Laffs 101.

Even if the antic futility of attempting to get an entire shtetl to pull together in the face of genocide is your idea of a day at the races, don't laugh too hard -- the out-of-nowhere ending will make you choke on every chuckle.

Without full-bodied characters to play, Smith and Damon are left to get by on their native charm -- something both have in considerable quantity, thankfully.

If you're in the mood for a helping of lite cheesecake, you ought to find plenty of reason to shake your pom-poms.

Swordfish is exactly the kind of nominally high-octane actioner that breeds legions of apologists who will encourage you to "check your brain at the door" before seeing it.

This wildly imaginative thriller is a futuristic head trip you most definitely want to take.

Whatever the amount on Roth's paycheck was, it's the only truly charmed sum Lucky Numbers has to offer.

Bird's movie neither panders to children nor sneers at them, and it beautifully, lucidly captures the giddy adventurousness of childhood.

The real revelation, however, is Keanu Reeves. His character is something of a caricature — a violent, white-trash wife-beater — but Reeves' portrayal is joltingly authentic.

It's a lock to pile up the honors during Hollywood's annual awards season next spring (at the Golden Raspberries and the MTV Movie Awards).

It's funny. Really funny.

The ending is so absurd, in fact, that it feels like it was improvised by a committee of 6-year-olds. If the raptors truly were intelligent, they'd have eaten the final reel.

Every time the movie seems poised to veer into watchability, however, Turteltaub is there, like a beat cop for the Fun Police, reminding us to laugh, sigh, or tear up.

The characters and their dilemmas are never convincing.

If you can overlook its condescending wholesomeness and static, visually drab, endlessly repetitious animation, then you have a more forgiving soul than I do.

Roos combines a sharp script with excellent performances.

Moviegoers of any (or no) religious persuasion can share in the simple satisfaction of his tense, well-spun murder mystery.

"Trek"-heads will laugh hardest, but there are plenty of yuks for the uninitiated as well.

None of the movie's abundant humor is better than faintly amusing.

A full-throated shout-out to the lowest common denominator.

Whenever we're not at the ballpark, the film falls back on teenage relationship clichés. That's most of what's wrong with it, actually.

An empty reminder that Martin Lawrence can be pretty funny, in a spastic, loose-limbed way -- maybe next time he'll get a worthwhile script.

Hark! A Christian thriller about the Last Days that doesn't (totally) suck. That's got to be a sign of the times.

The satisfaction of watching it essentially boils down to seeing whether or not Reeves can pull it off.

A bully good romp, and it thumbs its nose at the bloated blockbusters towering over it at the multiplexes by ending the moment it arrives at its raucous, richly deserved climax.

Quite handsomely produced, and there's a definite swashbuckling verve to it. Most of the characters have been contemporized, but the actors are engaging.

So wretched that it practically defies description.

If you're desperate for a James Bond fix, skip the movie and blow your 007 bucks on a copy of the soundtrack.

What sells Shrek is ultimately the full-bodied personality of its characters.

The movie's most glaring flaw is that the brothers and their screenwriters, Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, don't manage to preserve the secret of the Ripper's identity for nearly as long as they intend to.

Gamer geeks, I speak your language! And I warn you: Flee! Or, at the very least, crank down any expectations you harbor -- a few notches below "zero" should do it -- before buying a ticket.

As though fatalistically compelled, all three leads self-destruct: Li is as flat, colorless, and stiff as a panel of Sheetrock, Karyo plays his every syllable in overdrive, and Fonda seems trapped in the midst of a failed screen test for Pretty Woman II.

It's a gleefully unfettered gross-a-thon first --also second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth -- and a movie perhaps seventh.

Fuhgeddaboutit.

Pie 2 has neither undercurrent, and hence what was passably cute the first time seems much more puerile and shrill here.

An outrageously silly movie that makes me laugh.

The story is a pleasant one despite its pointed righteousness.

Once the action starts to kick in, Megiddo morphs, minute by minute and scene by scene, into a Mystery Science Theater smorgasbord.

Crowe's script is a thing of wonder, and he again proves himself to be an outstanding director of actors.

None, repeat, none of this is funny.

To paraphrase the movie's too-knowing tag line: It's not very funny. But when the lights go out -- it's still not very funny.

Dreadful demonic disaster.

Plenty of the tasteless gags don't fly, and for every celebrity cameo that works (a hilariously heavenly Reese Witherspoon), there are two or three that crash and burn.

An early scene inside a theater seems intended to wink at Sin's critics: "Disgusting! Cheap melodrama," a lady sniffs during intermission. It's a neatly reflexive acknowledgement of what we ourselves are watching, but even at that, our filmmaker is praising himself too extravagantly by half.

There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing two stars given this much time and space to examine a complex relationship.

Murphy's second outing as the M.D. who talks to the animals is surprisingly engaging.

What comes before and after the sound and fury of the bombing raid are reams of banal dialogue.

The watchability of Extreme Days can be mostly chalked up to Hannah's playful impulses -- and his cast's infectious camaraderie.

Given a decent script, they might make a fun summer movie. Given the script for Shanghai Noon, they've come up with a middling Old West oater that falls flat at least as often as it finds the funny bone.

Feels like it was pulled out of the freezer and hastily microwaved about 10 minutes before you arrived at the theater.

With the dependably compelling Freeman present, even its worst moments are not unwatchable.

The worst thing about The Animal -- is how frequently it becomes boring.

It has no subtlety, no shadings, and no suspense, and might as well not have a screenplay.

It's good enough, smart enough, and people will like it. It's also a high-concept cop-out, a convention-strangled genre movie that never zigs when your every instinct is screaming that it's about to zag.

As for genuine willies, well, chances are you've had more disturbing encounters with, say, a belligerent Shih Tzu.

Dracula 2000 is a stake in the heart.

If Parker had aimed more at capturing the author's unique voice, and worried less about getting the details right, his movie might have been extraordinary as well.

As its plot is entirely negligible, whether or not you enjoy One Night at McCool's probably depends on how funny you think the performances are.

Beautiful it ain't, but it is kind of cute.

This joyous romp is no mere new groove, it's a live wire -- 110 volts of pure holiday cheer.

Whenever Voight steps to the forefront, A Dog of Flanders is poochy-keen; alas, the rest of the time it's doggedly dull.

The plot that propels them (Pitt, Roberts) along separate story lines is both unusually character-driven and a hoot.

So packed with knowingly dreadful puns, wily sight gags, and self-referential cheek that it's impossible not to be charmed.

I'd write it all off as something that is, after all, intended for young viewers -- but then I'd be insulting their intelligence as cruelly as the movie does.

It's Norton's movie, really, and he shines both as cocky Jack and as cerebral-palsied Brian.