Connie Ogle

Turns out to be a more disappointment than joyful reunion, a tedious and desperately drawn-out affair that tests your patience even as it brazenly courts (and often earns) your contempt.

The Age of Adaline is a modern romantic fairy tale set in San Francisco, marred by bad narration and an unnecessary desire to overexplain random magic.

Late Marriage's stiffness is unlikely to demonstrate the emotional clout to sweep U.S. viewers off their feet.

A well-acted, well-crafted but excruciatingly tepid romantic film about a subject that will attract poetry lovers and yet test even their considerable patience.

On the Line's cutesy premise is no more ridiculous than that of most romantic comedies.

Better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways.

For most U.S. audiences, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, an Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, is going to feel more like a history lesson than a movie.

As it spins along at a reasonably good clip - no one is going to mistake it for the slicker, more action-packed "Salt" - The Double unravels its secrets, which prove to be its undoing.

The overwhelming sensation of deja vu is exhausting and disorienting. You really HAVE seen it all before.

One of the problems with Rampart is that we've seen guys like Dave in movies and on TV for years now. The bad cop psyche has been delved into pretty deeply on all fronts, most notably in FX's brilliant series "The Shield."

What The Bank Job ends up stealing is all your precious time.

If you're making a movie that purports to be about real love, at the very least, you have to make the audience care whether the lovers work out their problems.

Unfortunately Miracle is long on cliché and short on originality.

Watching A Late Quartet feels more like sitting through a Classical Music 101 lecture than entertainment.

Joyful Noise is too tone-deaf to put its few blessings to good use.

The good news is, The Vow is not excruciating.

A slightly dull film by photographer Sam Jones.

The film isn’t overlong. But it tries to fit so many themes into its brief running time — that it merely touches on most conflicts instead of exploring them in depth or with any delicacy.

The Great Debaters keeps things on the surface and pushes the obvious buttons, hoping you won't notice its distinct lack of depth.

The film hardly aims to be serious entertainment, and, to its credit, it's never uninteresting visually.

The idea of cracking a secret message from the enemy during war is thrilling; making the process interesting to watch is more problematic.

Freedom Writers is prone to throwing in unnecessary plot developments, so it never quite succeeds as anything more than "Dangerous Minds" Redux.

Soon settles down into a drizzle of steady mediocrity, never living up to all the frenzy of those first few moments.

Comes off curiously flat.

Shakespeare's rich language does not fit soundly inside every mouth.

The film's opening credits are terrific, and the first 10 or 15 minutes -- in which Ford and Arthur speedily load up on beer at the local pub -- are absorbing and funny. It's such a promising start that it's doubly deflating to realize that once they land on Zaphod's spaceship, the humor vaporizes.

Chéri never fulfills its emotional promise.

Feels more like a lecture you've already heard than a galvanizing call to action.

The film is weighted down by a dour sensibility at odds with the book's insouciant charm.

Ends up as colorless as Reeves' first Superman suit.

You might not think it would be easy to make a dull film about love, war and a bisexual threesome, but Head in the Clouds manages this task efficiently.

The uneven Goldmember seems to take a big step toward the extremely juvenile, with more scatological and fewer sex jokes

The only positive thing about the aimless film The Yellow Handkerchief is the idea that William Hurt may be ready for his Jeff Bridges moment.

If Magic Mike XXL is bulging with anything, it’s inane conversation.

17 Girls is allegedly inspired by true events, but this diffident, dreamy film is so insubstantial it's hard to believe there's a speck of reality to be found in it.

What's missing most in the film, though, is a palpable sense of tension.

Put in such an uncomfortable position, the audience needs something to fall back on, like chemistry between its stars. Here that's half-hearted at best.

Entertaining in spite of itself.

The film, bound to bore the socks off impatient viewers, mistakes reserve for depth and ends up hamstringing its talented cast into playing characters you never care about all that much.

There was, however, another question the screenwriter should have asked: Why does the script focus on the wrong couple?

It's a disappointing chapter in what until now has been a highly entertaining, even thought-provoking series.

The misery is there, all right, in every woozy, spaced-out shot of Hoffman clutching his gas-soaked rag. But in the end, do we really care?

Unfortunately even a clogging Timberlake can't stop the movie's march to a conveniently happy ending. Nor can he block the flow of psychobabble. It's enough to make any fan beg: Play ball. Please.

Anything but light on its feet. It lumbers instead of dazzles, drags where it should feint and jab.

The dance numbers grow tiresome after a while, and director/screenwriter Ramon Salazar throws in so many calculated oddities that it's impossible for anyone to become too attached to his characters.

As it is, Gemma Bovery is as dry as day-old bread: Not inedible, but why bother with it if you can find something fresher?

The problem -- aside from the fact that one of the best things about Foer's story is its irreverent, intricate, just-maybe-brilliant writing -- is what Schreiber has decided to cut.

Smart People tastes as fake as a Wal-Mart corn dog. Besides, it doesn't even know the work is Faerie Queen, not ''Fairie.'' Somewhere, Edmund Spenser is turning in his grave. You don't even have to be smart to know that.

In the wake of TV's powerhouse "The Shield," Dark Blue comes off as something of a retread, with little of "The Shield's" electric fury, edgy camera work or deft characterizations.

Casanova doesn't seduce so much as lull the audience into a stupor with tedious blather about the battle of the sexes, intermittent but pointless swordplay and clumsy slapstick.

Shockingly, it's an understated but amusing Ferrell who keeps Winter Passing from growing unbearable.

The film improves once the assassination attempt goes awry, but the audience is never truly invested in the actions of these heroic men.

Compare Sylvia to another, more powerful film about a tragic literary death: "Iris," about Iris Murdoch's descent into Alzheimer's, leaves you with an aching heart and reddened eyes. After the equally sorrowful Sylvia, we are entertained but unmoved.

Midlands finds some measure of success in its use of regular, real-looking people -- as opposed to the oddly glamorous characters who turn up in most romantic comedies -- but it's as though the writer used up all the personality traits before he got to Shirley.

The real Guerin deserves a more complete cinematic tribute.

The cast, which includes Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) as a coach who pushes her daughter too hard, is likable and energetic, and the film's messages are entirely reasonable.

There was a fine family drama to be made here, but what we get instead is too sweet to swallow.

Worst of all, nothing happens that we don't see coming. Nothing. If, as Nathan seems to believe, surprise is a crucial element in any campaign, then The Last Samurai might win a battle or two for your attention but is doomed to lose the Oscar war.

Just amusing enough to provoke a few chuckles and just short enough to keep you from glancing at your watch.

Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a failure that should have at least been a magnificent mistake, a risky endeavor that showed a daring intent even if its brash vision didn’t quite succeed. Instead, the movie leaves you cold and weary and vaguely disgusted.

It's fitting. Valentin and Jane may be awakening from life's slumber, but mostly they're just putting us to sleep.

The idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a small town sheriff is ludicrous, but then that's the whole point of his new movie: It's dumb fun, emphasis on the dumb.

This period piece, directed by Richard Laxton, is shot in such a grim and grainy fashion you long to turn on the lights — which is fitting, because you also wish the filmmakers had illuminated the characters a bit more clearly.

The racing itself is entertaining enough, though it's not so mesmerizing as the shorter, more focused competition in the far-superior "Seabiscuit."

Observe and Report conveys an essential truth about Rogen: Like every other actor on the planet, he needs good material to do good work.

You won't necessarily applaud The Notebook's excesses, but its final moments of grace will leave you in a sodden heap on the theater floor.

With more time and a dash more cynicism, the film just might have achieved the thrilling allure of Becky Sharp's perfectly icy heart.

There are not enough thrilling musical interludes, and few come close to capturing the sly joy in Porter's music.

Solondz's determinedly removed eye for the graphic and shocking is by now practically a cliche. If Solondz really wants to outrage anyone, he'll have to make a sweet and heartfelt drama.

Only two characters are worth much notice; neither is a prince, and one is a really big mouse, which tells you something sad about Narnia's royal family.

This is getting old.

What we're left with is an unfocused, rambling concept that lumbers off the ground but never really soars to the level of lunacy it could, especially at the afterthought of an ending, which is nonsensical at best.

Gridiron Gang is not imaginative, but neither is it painful to watch.

Guggenheim managed to turn a Power Point presentation into a crowd-pleasing Academy Award winner, but he can't do much to free Gracie from its constraints and clichés.

While the attentive art direction of Running With Scissors pays scrupulous and imaginative attention to period detail, the film overlooks its greatest asset: Burroughs.

If you can get past the ludicrous fantasy — well, wait, that’s the problem. You can’t get past the ludicrous fantasy.

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

Too much of the breezy humor that made the book a delight is stripped away, replaced with predictable jokes and broad slapstick, sitcom-quality encounters with women and bears and a pushy, grating sentimentality.

Mostly due to luminous writing, Baxter's novel evoked a sense of magic, but this Feast, though never completely uninteresting, leaves you hungry for enchantment.

A competent but utterly unnecessary retelling of the story.

This is an insignificant film with a passably entertaining premise that goes wildly to hell the instant it strays from its comic ideals with brief, unsatisfying detours into the realms of art and high-end lingerie.

The sins of the inspirational Saint Ralph are venial, but they undeniably prevent the small Canadian film from stretching beyond the boundaries of an After School Special.

Despite its contemporary-sounding anti-French cracks, could easily have been made 20 years ago.

Little happens that you don't see coming, down to which cast members will get picked off and in what order. It's a dumb action movie in a summer full of dumb movies, and yet it's always entertaining. And you won't really miss Arnold at all.

Assassination Tango offers little heat. In dancing with death, Duvall stumbles a few too many times.

You might call My Sister's Keeper manipulative, and you would not be inaccurate.

The cast is impressive, and the story even soapier than "The Tudors," if you like that sort of thing.

It's pretty much a waste of everyone's time, especially yours.

Overall, the film's sheer mediocrity prevents Thurman from flying to its rescue.

Sets out to be a study of grief and how to overcome it, but it rings too false to offer much hope - or entertainment.

Think "Cruel Intentions" in period costume, or better yet, Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette," which managed to take its subject matter lightly and seriously at the same time.

If you're not a rabid fan of Texas hold 'em -- the poker phenomenon that swept the country a couple of years ago but is hardly cutting edge now -- you might want to step quickly away from Lucky You.

Assange is a compelling figure that merited a better effort.

Despite all the flying bullets, which are admittedly entertaining at times, Shoot 'Em Up doesn't offer enough bang for your bucks.

If nothing else, Broken City manages to pull off a difficult feat: It's too convoluted to follow and simultaneously too simplistic to be believed.

It's unimaginative, crude and so derivative it hurts.

McGillis, though, is the film's worst enemy. Her wooden attempts to recreate Kathleen Turner circa 1981 undermine too many scenes.

A tepid sort of romantic comedy, with lengthy stretches during which nothing much happens punctuated by bouts of paralyzing boredom or, on rare occasions, random but fleeting hilarity.