Desson Thomson

Despite a subject of immense potential -- the movie's surprisingly uninvolving.

The experience isn't for everyone. But it amounts to intellectual penicillin for our sequel-driven, franchise-heavy entertainment culture.

In Lost Highway, David Lynch dabbles in spooky, chilly implication and a sort of hip incoherence.

It manages to keep you going until the end and delivers the appropriate payoffs as a generic-brand thriller.

There isn't much to the movie, and you can see where it's going from kilometers away. But [Daniel] Auteuil gives the silliness a surprising heft.

She’s the One, Edward Burns’s swift follow up to "The Brothers McMullen," may not have the primitive charm of its predecessor, but it retains the humorous spirit. It’s also graced with returning cast-members Burns, Mike McGlone and Maxine Bahns, whose bright comic interplay makes an enjoyable family reunion.

Works better as a subject for high school study rather than lasting art.

As long as you focus on the central sniper-versus-sniper story -- and not the dreadful mishmash of jarring accents or the film's unconvincing romantic subplot or any of the personal relationships -- you'll enjoy it.

Another Stakeout -- like the original, directed by John Badham -- feels more like a rousing encore than a bold, new development. It's basically straight-out situation comedy, merely punctuated (or interrupted) by the evil doings of hitmen, FBI agents and other gun-toting suits. To those who seek these things, don't worry: People still get plugged with bullets. But comedy is the main artillery and Dreyfuss and Estevez, effortlessly replaying their elbow-nudging relationship, do most of the shooting.

For the most part, this case, which includes a convenient last-minute taped confession and a lifeless Cher-Quaid romance, should have been thrown out of court.

A fairly ordinary drama about young love, basketball, petty jealousy and high school politics. The movie also has one of the goofiest, over-the-top finales in recent memory.

It's funny! It's not Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" or anything, but it's pretty darned good!

Spends too much time being convivial and not enough time looking for the kind of real conflict that begets a good comedy.

What do we want in a sequel? Just a little taste of the original or a triple serving piled high? Dead Man's Chest opts for the latter. This Disney movie isn't a follow-up to the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" so much as its empty-calorie clone.

Screenwriter Robert Getchell and director John Badham (whose resume includes the fallen "Bird on a Wire") wouldn't know a believable moment if it hit them. Fonda's transformation to lethal weapon, her affair with Mulroney and the implied romance with Byrne are all lukewarm, lazily outlined conceits. There have been deeper human relationships in TV commercials.

The actual movie is the cinematic equivalent of cheap Chinese egg rolls: all flour and cabbage shreds, maybe half a nibble of pork.

As rich and fun as it was in post-Depression 1937 -- yes, 1937. And the seven dwarfs (Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Grumpy and Dopey) are every bit as charming as they "Hi-ho" to work at the diamond mine.

This movie's "Flashdance" on blades, an unending series of rock videos posing as a story. It's so slick, so loveless, so efficient, you almost take your hat off to the filmmakers.

The film's moral commentary is De Palma redux: same old Brian enjoying the peeping, bringing us into the guilt zone, then saying shame on all of us.

The gals are fab. And so's the movie.

Theron has rendered herself 100 percent unrecognizable. Not since Robert De Niro morphed into hulk dimensions to play heavyweight boxer Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull" has there been a transformation this powerful and effective.

Not about good storytelling, but it knows to turn up the volume, cut to dizzying closeups of driver's eyes as they negotiate dangerous bends and indulge its audience in the soul slaps, fanny grabs and head nods that govern this racing lifestyle.

Tomorrow Never Dies isn't one of the great Bonds, by any means. But it's familiar, flashy and enjoyable in all the right places.

Miller time for the funny bone.

Devolves into such utter ludicrousness, the best response (other than avoiding the thing in the first place) is to laugh.

The Devil's Own, which stars Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, is so epically awful, it's practically homeric.

This latest project, a murder mystery scripted by Aaron (A Few Good Men) Sorkin and Scott (Dead Again) Frank, is bilge water.

Despite an appealing, even ingenious premise, "Scorpion" is another quippy but uninspired comedy.

The trouble is, this is Hartley all over again. What seemed cutting edge and sharp in the 1990s -- the smart-alecky references to obscure filmmakers (Werner Herzog, Andrei Konchalovsky), the self-mocking tone in the actors' voices, the overall sense that this movie is subverting itself -- feels rehashed and old.

To watch Greendale is to understand everything about Neil Young. Like him, it's grungy, honest, disarming and unapologetically original.

To appreciate the movie, you have to be okay with vampire violence. I don't mean subtle little nips at the neck and, ooooh, it's directed by Werner Herzog.

Con Air, a summer blast of a movie, teaches us many things: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer never met an explosion, a car crash or 20 tough guys talking trash he didn't like. Nicolas Cage is one of our most enjoyable screen heroes. As long as you're funny, you can literally get away with murder in a movie.

The movie feels stretched out and thin.

Serves as a fascinating exploration of racial and social prejudice; and an indictment of cultural miscegenation.

The movie's big action scenes, at times, make you forget you're even watching animation. There's an in-your-face sequence involving a runaway, crashing train that will make you squirm in your seat trying to get out of the way.

Housesitter wants to please everyone a little, but nobody a lot. This low-achievement approach may guarantee success in the video stores. But on the big screen, it's fully exposed. For all Steve Martin's rubbery faces, and Goldie Hawn's watery-eyed expressions, the movie just sits there.

It's formula-packed business as usual. In fact, it's double-packed, triple-packed, more.

There doesn't seem to be much purpose to it except a half-baked notion that the histrionics of the mentally insane (or a moviemaker's idea therein) are eminently cinematic. They aren't.

All dancing and hugging and no good.

Insipid, by-the-numbers romance.

What really reaches us is the collective presence of the cast, most of them monks and other acting amateurs. They seem uniformly imbued with inherent grace and effortless spiritual bearing. And their smallest of gestures exude the kind of un-self-conscious gravitas that constitutes all fables.

Directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"), the movie is heavy on hokum but easy to like, thanks to the spunky Schroeder.

With the exception of Burton's jolting sight gags (I may never recover from the vision of Parker's head grafted on to the body of a chihuahua), the comedy is half-developed, pedestrian material. And the climactic battle between Earthlings and Martians is dull and overextended.

The road to stand-up Oz is littered with conventional, sentimental banana peel; writer/director David Seltzer avoids much, but not all, of it. His biggest slip-up is creating an unlikely relationship between Hanks and Field. Gold is a young, starving, responsibility-evading, med-school dropout who has psychic energy only for great comedy. As frumpy, mousey, older, married mother Lilah -- who thinks she just might be able to do that comedy thing -- Fields couldn't be more of a mismatch.

There’s so much high-voltage fun running throughout this comic sci-fantasy -- engineered gleefully by director Luc Besson -- you’re hard-pressed to be unaffected.

Spike Lee had something in mind while he shot School Daze, his follow-up to the cult hit "She's Gotta Have It." Unfortunately it's still lodged behind his cranium. And the movie's out.

Nothing like the sight of thousands of scuttling, hideous, practically indestructible insects crawling up the sides of a fortress, hellbent on destroying the human race. As they keep coming and coming, they’re the only things in this movie earning your money.

It's a kill movie, the filmic equivalent of a hate crime.

There's a little too much over-the-top drama, as well as superfluous detail, in this Icelandic film.

For the most part, the movie's a bland disappointment, on many levels.

The movie's initial intensity is so great, it consumes itself. By the time we reach the final scene, which is clearly supposed to exude glorious rapture between offbeat lovers Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, it has all the warming effect of cold ash.

It's about as deep as electronic white noise.

Becomes a strung-together collection of interesting, semi-interesting, boring and sometimes embarrassing (seemingly improvised) moments from the cast.

The kid chews up the scenery like a baby T-Rex, egged on, no doubt, by director Agresti.

There's only one problem with Betsy's Wedding. It's Alan Alda. But since he's the writer, the director and the father of the bride in the movie, that's a big problem.

Even though this will not go down as a great Zucker comedy, he has made Rat Race funnier than it could reasonably hope to be.

If any element takes us through the movie, it's him (Depp).

The cliches are obscured by the sheer fun of it all.

Let's not waste any time: This movie is just awful. Prime problem: Josh Kornbluth, the chubby, wild-haired, bug-eyed star.

Spouses Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger -- the latest flavors of the month to tie the knot -- slum their way through a glam-noirish extended video. Amid director Roger Donaldson's pseudo-atmospherics and the ersatz Thompson fare hacked up by screenwriters Walter Hill and Amy Holden Jones, they shoot guns, plan heists, talk tough and make love in silhouette.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves looks like big money. It has the stars, it's based on a classic (and foolproof) story and it's an exhilarating couple of hours. It fills the entertainment megabill utterly.

For all this potential, and the appealing presence of Nicolas Cage and newcomer Adam Beach, Windtalkers remains almost obstinately flat.

The movie's about its own playfulness. But that playfulness, all too often, feels labored.

But it's Roberts's memorably comic performance that is the most distinguishing aspect of the movie. As the gawky professional companion, she's ticklishly appealing.

With their inspired, absurdist taste for weird, peculiar Americana-but a sort of neo-Americana that is entirely invented-the Coens have defined and mastered their own bizarre subgenre.

This movie, directed with precision and an appreciation for (relatively) rich character texture by Sam Raimi, remembers all the fine elements of the original film (and the comic book story). It reprises them perfectly, including wonderfully choreographed, skyscraper-hanging fights.

In Things Change, the gangsters and bodyguards, the lounges and limos don't got, whaddya call, da same allure. You watch the whole thing with a detached amusement, like a goon cooling his heels in the lobby, just waiting for things to change.

Please circle the sentence that most closely reflects your feelings: 1. To me, this scene sounds precious, cute, madcap, zany, lovable, heart-warming, poignant and funny. 2. I find this scene nauseating, despicable, moronic, simpering, formulaic, tacky and culturally dangerous.

With The Baxter, Showalter's begging his way into the ranks of the safe and the mediocre.

Like the opium dreams that its eponymous hero becomes addicted to, this fragmented, trigger-happy account of Wild Bill Hickok's final years feels like a bad trip through every cheap western knockoff you ever had to sit through.

Uneven, not particularly inspired comic thriller.

A relaxed delight, a series of delicately tongue-in-cheek musings about the clash between American and French cultures.

A brightly wrapped, ketchup-drenched mush-burger, it slides down the Zeitgeist esophagus like a slippery McPelican. You pay, you swallow, you drive home. You're left with nothing except, possibly, heartburn.

Parents can vaguely console themselves, however, that amid the kiddie pollution available on Saturday morning TV, the Turtles rank slightly better than the rest. At least they care about each other and fight crime for other than fortress-destroying, fascistically gratifying reasons. And maybe, just maybe, this will make them curious enough, one day, to check up on the real Michelangelo.

You'll probably have some laughs along the way in spite of your better instincts.

Fails because of its gratuitous rape and violence and also because of its pretentious and intellectually one-dimensional grounds, which make the violence at the end feel even worse.

A passionate murder mystery with more twists than a thrashing alligator.

Aside from the obviously Australian flavor to everything -- which can be entertaining at times -- there's no X factor to justify the whole exercise.

Unfortunately, the message is made clear within the first 10 minutes, leaving us with about 80 minutes of thematic repetition.

It doesn't seem like overstating things to say that Eros becomes steadily worse as it goes along.

In keeping with the Smith rules, the movie is irreverent, self-referential, twisted, cheap and tasteless. And, of course, I mean that as the highest compliment.

Ishtar is an unabashed vamp for a pair of household names, and as such it works, often hilariously.

Fractured, tentative, oh-so-artsy and very much in the style of Wong's previous Hong Kong-set boy-meets-girl movies. But this time, the effect is contrived: a star-driven pseudo-indie affair that will please neither celebrity worshipers nor cineastes.

It is likely to disappoint more people than creator George Lucas would have liked.

Director James Bridges (a last-minute replacement for Joyce Chopra) infuses this Manhattan drug-recovery tale with an appropriate rush of humor, pounding dance-club music and breakneck momentum.

There are several requirements for you to enjoy Sister Act. Your love of Whoopi Goldberg must be infinite. The thought of her in nun's habit must be an automatic scream. Finally, your ability to forgive bad comedy needs to be celestial.

This bizarre little diversion will soon scamper into the wild grass, never to be seen again.

Aiming to blur the distinctions between truth and illusion, it simply blurs its own effectiveness by relying on predictable and not particularly convincing mystery-thriller formula.

An impressive but nonetheless obvious imitation has sprung up in the shadows of two brilliant movies-I refer to 1955's "Kiss Me Deadly" and 1974's "Chinatown."

Gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive.

Ultimately, SLC Punk! doesn't have enough dimension to maintain dramatic interest.

Director Phillip Noyce, who made "Dead Calm," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," keeps things moving at a kinetic, involving pace. And writers Jonathan Hensleigh (who wrote "Die Hard With a Vengeance") and Wesley Strick create a diverting human steeplechase.

Kidd, a first-time writer and director, has created a sophisticated but intriguingly toxic comedy of manners.

Yields the same sort of archetype and the usual results: De Niro's workmanlike in a dismayingly familiar role.

In Cadillac Man, the new movie by Roger (No Way Out) Donaldson, Williams certainly has his share of Robin-esque rejoinders, but he never quite reaches the feverish sales pitch most of his fans are likely to expect.

Without a compelling story at the center, this is just a mediocre MTV-Wagnerian fantasy.

In Hollywood, imitation is the most profitable form of flattery. That is the only plausible explanation for 101 Dalmatians, Walt Disney's disappointing live-action remake of its own 1961 classic.

There is nothing worth getting steamed over or particularly excited about.

The longer I take to review this movie, the more the absurdities loom. So let me finish before I think about the story's stupidly plotted structure or recall how tiring it was to watch apes perpetually pushing humans to the ground or sending them pirouetting into the air.

Oddly compelling.

The relation between Constantine and its source material is, at best, superfluous.

This is fun and there are few kids who won't have a good time of it. But it's no Honey, I Shrunk . . . The first movie was more interesting and inventive, with the tiny kids facing the jungle terrors of a giant lawn and the aerial attack of a zeppelin-sized bee.

Amusing only for its performances, including those of Chittenden and Wilson. The cast cannot hide the movie's derivative shortcomings, which only remind us that we've seen better and funnier elsewhere.

A politically incorrect but often hilarious jam session, in which men and women trade insults like musical licks.

A front-end collision of a romance.

William Shakespeare would need a sense of humor to view Jean-Luc Godard's "King Lear" without getting steamed up in his bodkins.

Fat Man seems unsure of which human story to concentrate on.

It is stylistically breezy but deeply sincere, as Tickell offers a thoughtful, well-researched argument for alternative energy.

When I say this movie's a charm, I'm really talking about Irwin.

This is a one-note deal, and it doesn't take long before you want to, well, just move out and leave these characters in their rent-controlled limbo.

The fight between good and evil feels fixed in favor of Hollywood redemption.

Turns potentially forgettable formula into something strangely diverting.

The lower your expectations, the more you'll enjoy it.

The best thing about The Island is this: Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, buffed and dressed in sparkling white, wondering how and when to kiss each other.

A mediocre comic romance.

Let's wait for a movie where they do get it all right: story, acting and dancing. It'll happen, just not this time.

A surprisingly gripping experience.

What counts is the comic tension between MacLaine and Cage. It's so well done, it doesn't matter how dumb things get.

Even by its own standards, the movie becomes increasingly macabre and ludicrous as Anne's machinations get the better of her, and everyone, including the audience, is left feeling shattered, shaken and vaguely unclean for having participated in all this.

If there's such a thing as freedom for everyone, Rory's determined to give the prospect its most grueling road test.

About as funny as digging your own grave in an unmarked part of New Jersey.

The documentary never gets more than skin deep. It rarely delves into the troubling regions that are the very orchards of documentary.

There's nothing authentic about this London lad ... Nothing particularly likable either.

Another product from Industrial Light & Magic, this fire-breathing, soaring creature is a technical wonder to behold. But they've skimped on everything else. The script douses the movie's fiery potential and director Rob Cohen soaks all remaining embers with his cheap, made-for-TV direction.

Instead of offering a perspective that, at the very least, laments a world where the flow of money hurts otherwise good people, Allen simply pushes the movie into an uncertain sinkhole between morality play and black comedy.

The movie comes across as a political science course videotape rather than a movie to fully engage a general audience.

Writer-director Niccol (who wrote and directed "Gattaca" and scripted "The Truman Show") uses disarming, but wicked lightness to damn the celebrity-worshiping culture and Hollywood's beyond-the-looking-glass filmmaking.

The movie's too slick and obvious about its intentions.

There are a few sight gags that might amuse the kids, but for the most part, the computer-generated effects are highly disappointing.

I think you can say that almost everyone watching this will be spellbound, whether they're stupefied by its insanity, more conventionally compelled by the various horrors in store or a combination of both.

We know the story will conclude with a crescendo of frozen-north hallelujahs. Cheering is endemic to Disney. They can't help themselves.

The direction has a fluid, no-nonsense authority, and the performances by Harris, Phifer and Cam'ron seal the deal.

Although the acting is committed and sometimes stirring, most of the characters are about as one-note as the biblical archetypes Martin wants to get away from in the first place. "The Name of the Rose" this ain't.

It's a movie full of quietly assured flourishes: elegant camera compositions, wonderful uses of silence and an entertainingly eclectic cast, including Peggy Lipton as a sensitive bartender.

Sketchy but often entertaining.

Dramatically and conceptually, the movie sits there, flat, naked and trying too hard with too little.

The movie covers too much ground with too little detail. It manages to be convoluted, complicated, incomprehensible and maddeningly thin all at the same time.

Nicotina skitters between dull and forced, this despite the use of split screens, jaunty music and the personable Luna.

If it lacks a certain fuzzy warmth, Kinsey makes up for the shortfall with spirited and (for a commercial movie) amazingly candid vigor. It's an alert, lively movie with a crackling performance by Liam Neeson.

It's very funny in places, even sort of tender. But let's not get out of hand.

Sentinel is a medium-dumb thriller that starts out with momentary promise but gets progressively sillier.

Stumbles and screeches on for an interminable two hours.

Let's make things perfectly clear. "Gladiator" is utter trash masquerading as an action picture with a message. You can listen to the lip-service about the importance of an education, about the evils of boxing, and laugh. It's a joke. The filmmakers know it. You know it. "Gladiator" is a fight movie, pure and simple. It's about breaking jaws, cutting eyes open and beating your opponent into a bloody pulp. It's about the joy of winning ugly. If you like your meat red, this one's for you...What makes "Gladiator" so watchable is the primal excitement of those life-and-death bouts. The fighting is choreographed convincingly by boxing coordinator Jim Nickerson and director Rowdy Herrington and it's filmed with gritty vitality by Tak Fujimoto, Jonathan Demme's cameraman.

Too long winded and dull.

Never better than fair to middling pleasant.

The movie's still a solid "B," a workmanlike drama.

Fraser is one funny, mixed-up guy

Unfortunately, Branagh and screenwriters Steph Lady and Frank Darabont (who also adapted The Shawshank Redemption) have created a story as badly patched together as De Niro’s Creature.

Screenwriter Todd Graff makes an inept, quasi-formulaic rehash of everything. He duplicates many of the original scenes but does so mechanically.

An overwrought gangster fable.

The only active ingredient is the dynamic between Smith and Jones. There's just enough of that to get us through.

The gags are physical but rarely funny.

This unusual convergence of stars doesn't amount to much.

Imagine settles disappointingly for rom-com cliches. It doesn't even bother to explore its own premise.

A religious feel-good message, first and foremost. As for drama, well, it's a distant second. For the right audience, however, this reversal of priorities will work just fine.

As with any band movie, this is a moral, rise-and-fall tale. Rock must learn he's a regular guy, not a nasty poseur. Like Spinal Tap, the movie basically peters out, tying up its narrative loose ends. But for the laughs you get, it's a small price to pay.

Follows all these rules, which is why you'll get the enjoyable basic minimum. But not a whit more.

Best news: over in 87 minutes.

This isn't a stand up and cheer flick; it's a sit down and ponder affair. And thanks to Kline's superbly nuanced performance, that pondering is highly pleasurable.

Entertaining for so long it's a downer to sit through the dumbed-down finale.

After introducing a provocative opening, the movie settles in for some pretty cheap scare effects, as well as by-the-numbers computer graphic imagery for the actual marauder.

Manages to be innocent, physically passionate, earnestly romantic and self-deprecatingly funny, all at once.

Kid 'n Play who just lit up House Party, are practically snuffed out in Class Act. This low-burning caper spends so much time with plot business and bubblegum advice, it forgets about the funny thang. The likable rappers never get to show their stuff.

Even if you tap only a little of the magic of "Peter Pan," you'll come away with some pixie dust.

It's simple, sizzly and very funny.

You are allowed to come up with a monster we haven't seen before.

Angel-A is counterfeit art-house chic writ large -- a French film that fails to produce the ineffable charms of the yesteryear movies it brazenly imitates.

Rather like the faltering way Dennis runs the race, Pegg the performer insists that we keep watching, ever hopeful for a decent gag. And we spend most of our time thinking back to movies that better showcased his talents, such as "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."

Like most thrillers, from "Fatal Attraction" to "Basic Instinct," the ending can't possibly live up to the expectations it creates.

Has an intoxicating, old-fashioned feel about it. We are instantly lost in the period, thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe's almost haloed images and Joseph Bennett's authentic, restrained production design.

You're hard-pressed to dislike the film.

That sense of fun is jackhammered into our skulls. The tongue that was so firmly in cheek last time has punctured through muscle and bone.

Edwards wants to leap deliriously between gender roles and stereotypes. But he treads on every possible corn, from heterosexual to lesbian.

Anyone want to watch some guy pick up women? Especially a fat-lipped, insincere kid who says "Did anyone ever tell you you have the body of a Botticelli and the face of a Dégas?" Me neither. But luckily, there's a little more than that to James Toback's The Pickup Artist.

Although the movie has its moments, it's a tearjerker that jerks too hard.

Above all, the movie's funny and wicked fun.

A respectable effort that doesn't care to do more than course smoothly and effortlessly through familiar waters.

This is an odd amalgam of bleeding-heart sentimentality and over-the-top guts-and-glory action. You're not sure how to feel. But you're certainly not as moved and stunned as you were in "Black Hawk Down."

At no point should anyone mistake this for an actual movie. This is an extended beach video that will leave no one swept away.

Even Posey -- who brightens most movies she's in -- fails to stir the movie's unresponsive tectonic plates.

Rather wonderful to sit through. It's fluff with flavor. And a cell phone.

Nothing more or less than a moneymaking encore. The story is functional. The performers assume their marks with almost flippant ease.

Add Big Town's collection of spotty characters (with motives murkier than the cinematography), cliche'-laden dialogue (from We gotta get out of here to I can change, I can change), abruptly ended scenes, no exposition when you need it, poor sense of drama (a deep breath), and you have something that should be pitched out into the alley behind the dingiest bar in town.

The story may be based on real events, but most of it feels patently false.

The film is all cliched atmospherics and no real insight.

Possibly the most suspense-charged mountain-climbing movie ever made.

Allen, who's a natural charmer, seems to be at half-strength here.

The movie is less than nothing special. The movie veers between pretentiousness (oh, the plight of the instant, start-up Artist) and vacuousness.

The best thing about the movie is its personable, amusing cast, all members of the five-man comedy troupe Broken Lizard. There's a chemistry among them, which obviously comes from having been together as comedians at Colgate University.

It's a triumph of vile over content; mindless nihilism posing as hipness.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man isn't a movie. It's an identity crisis. The previews would have you believe it's a zany comedy. But the jokes are too far and few between. And if it's a comedy, why is John Carpenter directing it?

Ruben, at least, is adept with suspense tactics. He keeps Bergin lurking off screen for an agonizingly long time and he knows his suspenseful way around a bathtub. There's also some respectably scary business to do with neatly arranged bathroom towels and food cans in the pantry. But Ruben is merely modulating mediocre material.

It's brutal, horribly manipulative, and we've seen this stuff before in better pictures.

Shallow Hal makes the case for restricting the Farrellys to mere gross-out movies.

It's a warm bath experience, soap-sudsed with sentimentality, improbability and other storytelling misdemeanors.

Tatum, the hunky object of Amanda Bynes's fancy in "She's the Man," and an engaging basketballer in "Coach Carter," is the best thing about this uninspired formula-thon.

There's grist here for a genuinely stirring film. But writer-director Bruce Beresford -- who created the screenplay from interviews with real-life World War II prisoners (who also performed music for the Japanese) -- reduces everything to its most uninteresting banality. [18Apr1997 Pg. N.44]

The best thing about Murder at 1600? Speed of exposition. Directed by Dwight Little, who made Steven Seagalís "Marked for Death," this thing whizzes from one unbelievable story point to the next. Your suspension of disbelief appreciates the momentum, if nothing else.

Doom Generation is an 85-minute, darkly comic assault on the audience, laden with satirically over-the-top (and below-the-belt) violence, unending profanity and enough references to the posterior to fill a proctologic encyclopedia. Araki wants to serve up the sleaziest, crudest fare he can dream up. His efforts can only be described as successful.

In drama, and just about everything else, almost is never enough. Which is why Martian Child, about the growing bond between an adult and child, never reaches us.

This is a movie for people more interested in the subject matter than its dramatic presentation.

Strikes an unsatisfying balance between serious romantic texture and outright farce.

Essentially a dumb guy's day in Heaven. The movie's retrofitted with stunts, fights, explosions, drugs, babes and cars -- not necessarily in that order.

This movie just doesn't match its predecessors.

Maybe they should have called A Love Song for Bobby Long something more appropriately descriptive, such as "When Actors Imitating Southern Characters Go Bad."

Producer-for-Life George Lucas puts his awesome creative machinery to work in Willow, a would-be adventure of little people, big people, good guys and bad. But the fantasy wheels grind to a halt, bogged down in Lucas' flat, derivative story, and not helped in the least by director Ron Howard's clumsy steering.

A Mexican movie in which the outcome is never in doubt, the scenes are endless -- sorry, we meant poetic-- and the false beard on the central character's face looks as though it could use a little extra gum.

A romper that doesn't shy away from sexual frankness or Mediterranean laissez faire.

Fans of bubbly romances can consider this a thumbs up. I call it a clenched-teeth concession at best.

Watching this movie, you also have to ask yourself: Just how many acts of self-inflicted finger amputations do I really want to see?

Although Ryan is cannily cast against type, she doesn't bring much more than muttery incoherence and nudity to the role.

Watching "Henry" is very gratifying on a nonintellectual level. Director Mike Nichols moves through this story through the appropriate emotions with linear simplicity. Ford, who goes from control freak to powerless (but triumphant) child, makes the rather one-dimensional redemption work.

This Matt Perry vehicle is funnier than anyone could hope to expect.

An ambitious, experimental mess of a movie in search of something more profound.

An entertaining affair whose wild-card creativity never ceases to surprise.

The Wachowski brothers have rendered their chronicles into banality, as if trying to imitate the qualitative tailspin of the "Star Wars" series.

The movie refuses to descend into the cute smarminess of a mutual recovery drama, thanks to originally conceived characters. We're always wondering -- and wonderfully surprised -- by their choices.

The story moves so slowly and obviously, you don't even need to be in the theater very much (or your living room when the video comes out) to follow it.

Elle fans will likely ignore the narrative shortcomings in favor of a well-loved character.

Trust me, you'll want to leave these people to get on with their tedious scams alone.

The firefighting equivalent of an Army recruitment commercial.

A fast-paced, twisty-turny, high-fiving, but ultimately spiraling disaster of a movie about air traffic controllers, gets lost in this hyperbolic cloud cover, never to be found again.

Both Scott and screenwriter Roselyne Bosch provide absorbing period detail. You learn about garrotings and massacres, Indian hairstyles and Spanish royal gowns. But this cinematic scrapbook of Columbian highlights is as beautiful as it is empty.

Awash in hackneyed old-time secrets and hydrophobic metaphor, never consumes us as it should.

This saved-by-an-angel story is redeemed mostly by Smith's comic instincts.

There are some very funny passing lines, but the movie's too uneven to enjoy.

Adult humor in kiddie films -- of which there is plenty in The Wild -- is not only welcome but, for many adult viewers, essential.

The special twist-which Paramount Pictures has implored critics not to divulge-redefines the story completely. It also ruins everything.

Pitiful.

Stallone is to humor what John Goodman is to ballet.

This one's for Silverstone fans only.

This movie is a predictable, gruesome piece of business.

As it stands, this movie seems to have conflicting desires: to endear itself to the audience and then repel it.

It tries unsuccessfully to make a wry gumshoe noir out of an overarching, cross-sectional political diagram.

The dialogue and acting are flatter than a punctured ball.

The movie, directed by Simon West isn't bad, although the repeated shots of Campbell lying spread-eagled on the ground, and the amount of detail we're forced to swallow about the horrors she underwent border on the offensive.

Hollywood Homicide is about murder, all right: the wholesale slaughter of anything funny, original or even vaguely logical.

Although this film doesn't have the classy quality of The Fugitive, it certainly goes down like an action milkshake. And Jones, one of the most enjoyable actors on the screen, plays himself to the hilt.

These storied 13 days feel like the Hundred Years War.

Andre Benjamin, Woody Harrelson, Maura Tierney and David Koechner -- all talented -- seem amazingly zombie-like here. And Jackie Earle Haley, as a stoner fan of the Tropics, is more disconcerting than funny.

"Mr. Jones" does have some things to savor. Director Mike Figgis, who made "Stormy Monday" and "Internal Affairs," has a distinctive, atmospheric touch. There's something memorably restless about Gere's performance. He never stops. Olin gives her white-uniformed, statistics-spouting, let's-work-together role an off-center appeal. And there are likable supporting performances from Delroy Lindo, as a construction worker who befriends Gere; Lauren Tom, a hauntingly beautiful but distraught mental patient; and Lisa Malkiewicz, as a bank teller who giddily falls for Gere when he effortlessly calculates accrued interest on his account. But these worthy elements can't completely disguise the conventional medicine we're ultimately being asked to swallow.

Peppy, funny and sensual. If you have to see any romantic comedy that's not directed by Billy Wilder, or written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

There is so much violence, as gangs kill gangs, or gangs kill cops, or the predator kills all of them, that it's hard to watch without the brain succumbing to self-protective numbness.

Filmmakers John Hughes and Chris Columbus go for repetition over comedy.

Ultimately, Forces of Nature is more of a lull than a passionate storm.

First-time filmmaker Jordan Roberts worked on this project for years, but merely ended up with dreary cliche.

Overwritten, overextended and clunkily symbolic

One-dimensional archetypes, too much predictability and not enough comedy.

If your teenage sons are looking for heroes, send them to Toy Soldiers. Even if they're not, send them anyway. They'll probably enjoy watching a judge being thrown out of a helicopter. Too bad the judge didn't take the script with him. Most reasoning adults will probably reject this far-fetched clash between American preppies and Colombian terrorists.

A lifeless pop vision of the future that tries too self-consciously to be irreverent, hip and cutting edge.

The only reason to watch this movie is for stargazing, nice shots of the sea and to revel in a world where false promises, lies and empty posturing are actively encouraged.

This vainglorious biopic about Bobby Darin is really about what the '60s pop singer and actor means to Kevin Spacey.

Some of it is funny -- particularly the physical comedy. Most of it is not.

Aside from the plot -- and if you can figure out the plot, the CIA's special projects unit wants to talk to you -- Cop II is a rarity: a sequel that's as good as the original, if not better.

If Slater were a bigger star, this self-serving vehicle would have been a hoot, a surefire DVD attraction for any Camp Night in the living room, not to mention a shoo-in for one of the 10 worst movies of 2005.

You can boost mediocrity a little, but you cannot raise it from the dead.

The movie loses all authority, despite wonderful work from cinematographer Peter Menzies and composer Patrick O'Hearn. In screenwriter Daniel Pyne's hands, every character becomes a disappointment. Even Dafoe loses his zest as the movie progresses.

The reunion is fun and frantic, like the original on double nitro.

Hoot may be warm and fuzzy with its adorable owls, triumphant kids and inviting Florida groves. But its forced, innocuous humor is unlikely to amuse anyone but the very young -- and the extremely forgiving.

A talented comedian, Lawrence has leaned all too easily on formula for his successful films. Imagine if he would test his flair against original and fresh premises, instead of the tried and trite. Why, he'd discover what it's like to take pride, not just profit.

This ethnic family sitcom thing is rapidly turning into wearisome cliche, and American Chai doesn't hold a candle to either "Beckham" or "Greek Wedding."

It's a brilliant concept, one of Allen's finest. Love the concept, baby. But the execution is, well, average.

But humans who live above ground, including horror fans, will find themselves only fitfully entertained and more consistently appalled.

It's not Christmas that's being stolen here. It's the spirit of Dr. Seuss.

Its use of minor expletives and a depressing chapter late in the movie will not satisfy parents seeking something sweet and lively for their children; nor will it charm art house audiences up for a smart adult fairy tale.

This muttering boatman seems to have lost his old-time heroism. No longer is Rambo killing for a cause, but for kicks. And his portentous blather, even by Rambo standards, becomes unintentionally hilarious.

Nobody likes a fixed fight, except the backroom boys making the deal. Which is why The Break-Up may have its share of laughs, but isn't much fun.

Penn, who also wrote the script, burdens the story with so many self-indulgent side developments that he loses emotional drive and Freddy's desperate obsession gets lost in the shuffle.

The movie's entertaining for some wickedly funny situations and witticisms.

The movie -- adapted from James Patterson's novel by David Klass -- operates on the crime-movie equivalent of automatic pilot. It takes off, flies and lands without much creative intervention.

The suspense is laughably absent.

Perhaps the ultimate "Judgment" comes from Estevez, who observes: "Nothing about tonight makes sense."

You can expect to fall about, snort and hoot, at times hard enough to hurt inner body parts that only doctors can identify.

This is a movie that knows its audience and realizes it doesn't need much of a story to hit that audience, literally, where it lives.

Big muscular guys pruning roses IS funny and charming.

Another gate-crasher at the let's-do-a-mediocre-update-of-Shakespeare party.

Mad City is for those who haven't seen enough movies about hostage situations. It's also for those who haven't seen enough ponderous movies about media exploitation, or Dustin Hoffman's ongoing reliance on muttery method acting.

This attempt to reproduce the old series still feels stilted -- a see-through marketing impulse more than a creative venture.

Unfortunately, apart from Downey's convincing contribution, the movie feels too contrived, stagy and inorganic to draw any pleasure.

About as funny as malaria.

Like the turtleneck cashmere sweaters and girdles that tie down these promising women, the movie is trite and trussed.

This is a Reagan youth's wet dream of underwater ballistics and East-West conflict.

We find ourselves wondering about the real story, not this version.

The movie is tentative, dramatically speaking...The most powerful moments come at the end -- documentary excerpts of Steve Saint, the son of one of the missionaries, and his friendship with Mincayani, the man who killed his father.

Delivers the entertaining goods without fuss or frills.

Surprisingly uninvolving, the least effective of Neufeld's Clancy-based movies. Surely he was not looking for this kind of film: one that bombs literally and figuratively.

A bad, unimaginative story posing pretentiously as the very opposite.

Proof of Life isn't a movie. It's an overpriced scrapbook.

Culkin's best comedy ever. If only this movie wasn't supposed to be a horror picture.

Flagging energy isn't the only issue here; Ford has become enslaved in his own cliches.

If 8½ seems stuck in the early 1960s, it's only superficially so. Somehow, the movie is more than the dated crisis of a naval-contemplating artist. It's about the inability in all of us to make sense of our lives, put it all together and come up with something meaningful.

The movie's a floating longboat that ought to be ignited and pushed out to sea, Viking style.

It's a pleasant movie, written with care for the characters. But as the film's title suggests, scriptwriter Mark Andrus has made too obvious and clunky a metaphor of George's house.

Weitz co-directed the wonderful "About a Boy" in 2002, but in "Dreamz" -- a tediously facile satire -- his comic instincts fail him.

Overdresses and ultimately abandons what drew us to its 1998 predecessor in the first place: an intimate embrace with history.