Desson Thomson

It's hard to believe the creative mind that gave us "Almost Famous," "Jerry Maguire," "Say Anything" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" looked up with satisfaction after typing 117 pages of this.

[Gere] seemed to be improvising his way from beginning to end, like he was disgusted with the actual script.

For all the filmmakers' efforts, this project is something of an artistic albatross. It's a conundrum that doesn't get answered until a sort of help-the-audience Cliffs Notes final scene, in which we learn Everything. But by then, more than a few of us may be wondering, was it all really worth the trouble?

Though Philip Haas's digitally shot film has the firsthand immediacy of such nonfictional docs as "Iraq in Fragments" and "Gunner Palace," its dramatic template feels disappointingly secondhand.

The humor, which made the first movie appealing to more than just TV kids, is far less adroit.

Bridges can't be a whole movie. But he's the main reason to watch.

You want to know if The Running Man is a good-time macho show, right? Stay at home and watch professional wrestling. Or Miami Vice (same director -- Paul Michael Glaser). Sure there's blood spattering and bullets riddling and Big Boys Banging Biceps. But through the dry-ice haze, Running Man is surprisingly boring.

Seidelman, Strugatz and Burns are so busy systematically constructing Barr's revenge and keeping her smugly vindicated, they fail to realize they've bulldozed all comical landmarks in sight. So it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not Streep is redeemed, Barr is vindicated, Begley is punished -- or whether or not they all go to hell in a handbasket. They're all buried under the rubble.

It's too bad the movie's intriguing effect wears off (so to speak) about two-thirds through.

The only way a self-absorbed treatise like this can get any kind of audience (not to mention distribution) is to cast famous people in it.

Even the staunchest of golfheads must know they're watching a cut-and-trite accounting.

If you're going to make a gross-out comedy you can't just be gross. You've got to be to be funny as well, or the movie will be DOA. Which is why Eurotrip should be toe-tagged and shoved into the deepest and coldest of video vaults.

Dramatically lackluster.

In Adrian Lyne's latest monstrosity, love takes on money -- and loses. Not necessarily in the story, of course. This is a Hollywood movie. I'm talking between the lines.

The Return is a pleasant if superfluous invasion of your local theaters. Everyone in front of the Cocoon Uno camera is back, including Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Brian Dennehy, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Steve Guttenberg and nine others. It's nice to see the old codgers still alive, kicking and making whoopee. But don't look for more than extra-terrestrial homecoming.

He's the anticop, one blood-soaked, quasi-psychotic symptom of Hollywood's desire to outgun, outkill and out-carchase itself.

It is the verdict of this court that it be led to a stockade reserved exclusively for cheap, pandering movies and duly shot.

The movie wants to trade on atmosphere more than plot, but even the atmosphere rings false.

Clearly enamored with the endearing brand of drawly sarcasm for which Thornton has become known, the filmmakers aren't sure whether to paint Dr. P as an uncompromising villain or a mischievous teddy bear. The upshot is that Dr. P's most menacing aspect is Thornton's rather obvious hairpiece.

Is Meg Ryan going to play the goofy romantic gal forever?

At the risk of eternal damnation on the Internet, I admit to laughing at -- even feeling momentarily touched by -- Rush Hour 3.

In this banal era of smart-aleck parodies and homages, Last Man Standing amounts to stylistic overkill.

In Chaos Theory, Reynolds's performance is taut, crabby and tense. And his beard and glasses, which intensify those already narrow eyes, suggest a mad bomb-builder rather than a hapless soul with whom we can identify.

Should have never made it up the distribution aisle.

This is not a fantastic movie. But there's more to it than just an MTV-slickified "Midnight Express" starring two young, photogenic stars.

Perhaps they should have called this "Bore-a, Bore-a, Bore-a."

The Jacket is doing nothing but sampling elements of "Jacob's Ladder," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Memento" without offering more than hackneyed solutions, including a rather cheesy conclusion.

In their desire to humanize the big story, director John Boorman and screenwriter Ann Peacock ... have resorted to groan-inducing cliches and clunky narrative.

Castro remains the star of the show. You can't stop watching him.

One mediocre, ploddingly predictable film, loaded down with cheesy Hollywood tactics.

It's funny for young kids, extremely non-critical moviegoers and possibly people with a catatonic medical condition. But it's painfully idiotic for anyone else.

No darn good.

Drowning in uncharted waters and way off-center in any world.

The episodes are too convoluted to get into.

Stumbles and screeches on for an interminable two hours.

Tough guys snarl at each other or dive out of the way before some explosion reduces their biceps to gymboy tuna. Van Damme still talks like a Belgian choirboy. But he’s physically awesome, of course. He can do things with his body that it hurts to even contemplate. If nature intended for men to do the splits or high kicks, boxer shorts would not have been invented. As for Rourke, I am convinced he’s made entirely of leather. He is essentially a boxing glove with a heartbeat.

It's hardly the best film in the world but you can have fun with it.

For the most part, the film's a bewildering disappointment.

Emotions in this film operate on a made-for-TV level; they don't engage you.

The mawkishness is ultimately too formidable.

It doesn't help matters that The Libertine seems to unload every olde English cliche on file.

May be ambitious in its genre-defying abandon, sideswiping science fiction, satire, film noir and melodrama along the way, but it's also exasperatingly convoluted, self-amused and politically sophomoric.

Never transports you to another place and time, as it intends to.

Terrifically funny romantic comedy, is a slam-dunk for Julia Roberts, the Michael Jordan of cuteness.

Performances feel too manufactured to be charming.

Although this film about a zebra who aspires to win horse races has a marvelous premise, it slows to a mediocre canter right out of the starting gate.

This adaptation of James Hadley Chase's "Just Another Sucker" isn't so bad you'd want to roast it over the coals, but it ain't much good either.

Slickers II is grounds for a stampede -- away from the theater.

Throughout, Garner retains a permanent grimace, as if persuasive acting can be achieved by contorting cheek muscles and pouting lips. It's not just depressing to watch; it's tiring. We want to tell her to relax -- for our own relief.

Feels patently inauthentic.

The film oozes sentimentality, soap-opera bathos and clumsy cribbings from the Frank Capra book of small-town values. Those are its good points.

There's a certain midnight-movie attraction to Lowenstein's unencumbered madness in "Dogs." Until it all gets encumbered, that is. He tacks on an ending almost worthy of Nancy Reagan -- if she'd stayed this long with the movie. Suddenly there's a Just Say No consequence to this Kind of Lifestyle. It changes the whole cast of the film (suddenly we've been watching a message picture), and it doesn't conclude the movie so much as rip the plug out. [22 Jan 1998, p.N23]

Crystal’s deadpan expressions and one liners interlock perfectly with Williams’s multiple personalities and verbal asides. They’re like basketball all-stars flipping no-look passes, trading slam-dunks and practically chest-bumping each other. Director Ivan Reitman doesn’t have to do more than keep time.

Never did sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll seem more shopworn and routine.

Only fitfully amusing. More often, it feels like a mediocre attempt to reprise the central elements of the infinitely funnier "Napoleon Dynamite."

The funniest scenes involve Jim and his father, thanks to the brilliant, improvisational skills of Eugene Levy.

The movie doesn't have the energy to be truly horrible. It's too muted and enervated. But it's a somewhat tedious thing to sit through.

The problem with this movie is the problem with most Renny Harlin movies: There's an excessive amount of excess -- a mind-numbing plurality of firearm battles, vehicular explosions and brutally frank sexual talk.

But by the end of the movie -- which seems to last longer than the Crusades -- all the good stuff has dissipated.

Although the movie has a few interesting twists and turns, its mind-versus-mind conceit devolves into a mundane warden-versus-inmate conclusion.

Its collection of one-liners and amusing situations could put you in a diverting spell. A studio-generated romp about three 17th-century witches who create havoc in present-day Salem, Mass., it's full of big-crowd laughs (thanks mostly to Midler) and suspense.

Unfortunately, "Youth" becomes so lost in its own conceptual, convoluted vortex, it becomes virtually incomprehensible. Coppola proves that even the best of our film artists can lose sight of what this medium is all about: entertaining, enlightening and including its audience.

A galactic slump of a movie that stuffs its travel bag with special effects but forgets to pack the charm.

With a premise as cavalier as this, perhaps director and co-writer James Wong could have found a tone more original than post-Wes Craven cynicism. Instead, he panders to viewers, allowing them to take gleeful comfort in the destruction of the stupid and doomed.

If you do not bring pride, good taste or sense to this third American Pie installment, you'll have a good time.

Has its moments of fun, many of them having to do with Reilly's deadpan comic style. But the movie lacks the original edge of its better predecessors.

What isn't so fascinating is this movie's absurdity of motivation. No one does anything that makes sense. No one seems real. When the actual perpetrator is uncovered, there is no enlightenment as to why the killing occurred.

Robert De Niro is one extended pleasure in Midnight Run -- a real actor putting his considerable talent to work in a well-scripted comedy. And he's more than complemented by Charles Grodin, a brilliant comic performer who has been wasted up to now in small roles or lousy movies. [22 July 1988]

Unaccompanied Minors, a sort of junior league version of "The Breakfast Club," never achieves the universal appeal of John Hughes's 1985 film about youth and authority.

The script's a plodder, and the acting's unbearably stilted. The movie's intentions are like the starry constellations that inspire the eponymous hero: out of reach.

You could be forgiven for thinking -- occasionally -- that you just stumbled into "The Silence of the Apes."

It's really weird. Has its share of visceral surprises. Slightly predictable and dumb when all is said and done.

Between them, Clooney and Kidman would still need a third party to work up a personality. In fairness to both, they aren't given much to work with.

If ever there was a movie fit for permanent entombment, it's this sequel.

Cut-and-dried sci-fi thriller.

The movie's great fun, particularly for kids used to that satirically hard-edged kind of kid show.

An unimaginative boy-and-his-mammal saga with only tenuous connection to the old television series of the same name.

An insipid potboiler set against the far more enticing surf and sand of Oahu's North Shore.

Amazingly stilted before accelerating into its exciting finish.

Nothing more, or less, than a cheap, dirty grab at our Christmas spirit.

Enough to make any thinking person want to shoot a hole in the screen.

Stumbles right out of the gate and never regains its footing. It's sad to see a gifted comedian like Janeane Garofalo trying, but failing, to anchor this mediocre affair.

In Big Adventure, Pee-wee's gadgety bike was stolen, and the dramatic interest rode on finding it. Big Top contains three rings' worth of people and livestock, but the interest is no-show. You'd be better off going to the circus. Or the zoo.

By introducing silly elements into a serious endeavor, the filmmakers undercut their own movie. In the end, we're watching a somewhat exploitative movie about exploitation.

Presumably, there's a poignant story to be told about the love between 19th-century poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. But Agnieszka Holland's Total Eclipse, a pretentious, flat affair, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud and David Thewlis as Verlaine, is not the film to pull it off.

While Phenomenon attempts, tritely, to ascend into mind-blowing significance, it also plummets into a pit of sentimental mush.

A serious been-there-done-that number.

Too lightweight and streamlined to be memorable.

A cold, protracted and unemotional affair.

Only reason to watch this: the grisly reward Irving receives for being in this picture.

The result: an empty comedy that takes hackneyed potshots at consumerism.

Love or Money isn't a movie. It's the director's cut of the promotion trailer. Fox seems to be shrinking -- if not dying -- in his regular, perky-capitalist role. It's time to look into the mirror and realize that Alex Keaton is turning into Dorian Gray.

It needs a wooden stake AND a silver bullet through its script.

Eugenio Zanetti's set design is wonderful. But the movie isn't enough to make people check the shadows when they leave the theater.

Everything in the first movie is pretty much redone again. But in this case, the repetition isn't a bad thing. It's par for the coarse. The original had such effortless, classic-trashy appeal, there's little reason to buck the self-made system. It works. It can continue. It does continue.

There are some very thought-provoking points, and the movie deserves a balanced listening-to.

Such a bizarre movie that it has completely occupied my thinking for days. Not because it's a good movie, mind you. It's more like the equivalent of a botched tooth extraction with a coat hanger. Some bloody shard remains stuck in an inflamed, fleshy part of my psyche, and it's going to take some serious tugging and tearing to root it out.

This doggy flick, starring Matthew Modine, Nancy Travis, Eric Stoltz and Max Pomeranc, is one of the weirdest, most depressing family films ever made.

Dismal. Lame. Not funny.

Forgettable the instant it strafes your retinas.

Paul Hogan has an easy plan: Simply be Mick Crocodile Dundee and the rest will follow. The rest is Crocodile Dundee II, and it doesn't follow so much as drag itself along like an alligator on dry land.

I'm guessing even die-hard "Clerks" fans will find this only-in-America stuff only partially satisfying, like something they gorged on at the Eatery, then wished they hadn't.

It's uninspired and insipid all the way.

Lacks that outrageous effrontery that might have socked it to its intended audience.

You're drawn in, like it or not. You can't get away from the immediacy. Or the feeling that you're getting sucked in, too.

The Rookie is like one of those maddening, waking dreams when you spend the whole night thrashing in bed while tediously repetitive images batter your racing brain. But at least morning comes. This movie, directed by Eastwood, never ends.

Williams is hardly at his comically inventive best. And the script (adapted by Chris Van Allsburg, and a string of others, from his book) pursues the least exciting avenues possible.

Never the magic charmer it sets out to be.

This movie is so wearying in its mediocrity, the inappropriate Ronica almost registers as dramatic relief.

Don't even rent the DVD, it'll only encourage them.

There's a certain trashy fun to this combination of "Blackboard Jungle," "The Principal," "Dangerous Minds" and the old "Miami Vice" TV series.

That mind-bending, mystical business was better handled in such films as 1990's "Jacob's Ladder."

Shows firsthand the appreciation and warmth from the musicians who worked with him.

An uneven collection of bodily function jokes, facial gyrations, sexual jibes and pedestrian slapstick, Dumb and Dumber appears to have been conceived by the leading lugheads themselves.

Its title may ring with pun and promise, but Stoned is a flat riff on Jones's short life. You'll get the highlights but no sense of what made him special -- or what really haunted him.

Never was this funny a comedian in this horrible a movie.

McConaughey remains more buffed than compelling. He's not helped by a two-hour convolution of episodes that are too busy imitating other, better movies.

Has its sinfully funny moments. Funny, that is, if you appreciate a certain cynical clamminess -- or Buck Henry seediness -- to your comedy.

Far too slick and manufactured to claim street credibility.

Not surprisingly, everything feels begged, borrowed and stolen from other better movies, from Quentin Tarantino's exclamation-point violence to the slo-mo bullet trajectory shots from "The Matrix."

Even by the low-low standards of cheap action flicks, this one's bad, boys.

The central story, in which Helms has to make up his mind whether to attend his sister's funeral, is too limited a conflict to hang a movie on. Ultimately, audiences will have to satisfy themselves with the collective presence of these actors and the movie's obviously good-hearted intentions.

Laugh? I thought I'd never start.

You'll be rooting for these people to get slaughtered out of sheer boredom.

Has so little going for it, you wonder if you've missed something.

Evolution is bad. How bad? Who cares? Do you ask how hot the fire is before running out of a burning building? No, you just run for safety.

It's resounding bunk, candied over with the lush music of Johnny Clegg and hyped to death by director John ("Rocky") Avildsen.

Whether the lines are funny, tasteless or not-so-funny, Chase keeps popping 'em; whether the scenes are from "48 HRS." or "Beverly Hills Cop," screenwriter Leon Capetanos keeps photocopying them; and director Michael Ritchie (who also directed "Fletch") makes everything move along to a frenetic zydeco soundtrack. Sooner or later, you'll find yourself laughing at something. Unless you're dead, too.

Another day, another inept homage to "Vertigo."

A well-intentioned, reverential but unenlightening portrait. It pays tribute to the artist. Yet it doesn't scrutinize him.

David Hogan keeps the action moving and loaded with fights, gun battles and other action-trashy thrills. Lee is terrific.

Lawrence's material runs between mediocre and offensive, and then he rescues it with his physical humor. He's at his best when he lets his face or inflection do the talking.

Isn't just for music fans. It's more accessible than that, thanks to Joel Schumacher's bright direction and a few storytelling embellishments.

Newman's cuteness aside, this movie feels long-winded.

John Schlesinger, who directed Midnight Cowboy and Marathon Man, knows how to weave edge-of-the-seat tension. But Mark Frost's screenplay, based on Nicholas Conde's occult mystery novel The Religion, is a haphazard affair of implausibility and pseudo-Voodoo.

This "Four" ain't so "Fantastic."

Enjoyable in some places, but dreadful in others. It's boring here and exciting there. And it's almost always goofy.

Francis Veber's Three Fugitives, a heist caper, starts off with comic promise then limps all the way from the bank.

A snooze, despite all the sex and other gunplay.

It's too bad about the ending because, until then, Pay It Forward... is Hollywood feel-goodism at its best.

There's one thing worse than a movie with two Jean-Claudes: A movie with two Jean-Claudes and bad fighting.

Unfortunately, it has no story. Toys is deader than a doornail.

It's clear this sequel (directed by Darren Lynn Bousman) doesn't have the same smartness (I speak relatively) of the original. Nonetheless, "Saw" fans can still look forward to involuntary incineration, wrist and throat slashing, bullets through brains and the bashing of someone's head with a nail-festooned club.

The movie, which is deadly slow and full of Japanese-bashing, is also an undisguised merchandising promo.

The driving drama of such a desperate situation is lost in the movie's casting silliness.

A conceptual train wreck, with half an idea scattered like disaster debris all over the screen.

This is all about getting your life back on course before you can fall in love. Which isn't such a bad idea for a movie, as long as there's something more. Unfortunately, there isn't.

An intriguing idea for about two seconds.

Its heart is vaguely in the right place.

The racial angle becomes the tiresome basis of almost every joke.

It's just respectable trash, and a dress rehearsal for better things ahead.

Director Howard is so mesmerized by the flames, he squirts formulaic lighter fluid over everything. A conflagration of hyped-up movie cliches, courtesy of George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic special effects shop, scalds your face.

Sitting through this is groan-inducing enough, but it's spiritually depressing to watch Djimon Hounsou, who deserves better.

An easy-on-the-sensibilities family film, Eddie Murphy practically assumes the easygoing manner of Mister Rogers, a character he used to wickedly lampoon on "Saturday Night Live."

This is for the pre-converted, certainly not the left, or even those who consider themselves detached observers.

After watching Vertigo at the Uptown, I was awestruck.

Makes the mistake of including too sweeping a scope in too small a movie and with too few resources.

None of the characters are compelling, despite the star-studded vocal cast behind them, including Madonna, Robert De Niro, Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Fallon. Our attitude toward them is casual interest, not anxious concern.

If P.S. I Love You proves anything, it's that Hilary Swank may be a great actress, but she can't do cute.

Seems like a pretty cool movie -- at least, for a remake of a 1970s Saturday morning TV show.

A disaster of a drama, saved only by its winged assailants. You know a picture's in trouble when you find yourself rooting for humankind to lose.

I'd recommend you actively or passively forget this one.

Kettle of Fish, starring Matthew Modine as a commitment-skittish saxophone player, is a warm-spirited romantic comedy, but it tends to have a squawky pitch.

Leadenly directed and almost soberly scripted, it never captures the campy brightness of the original series -- the herky-jerky animation, the wacky sound effects, the distinctive character voices and that cheesy laugh track.

This adaptation of the underground comic strip is mostly unfabulous.

There's more bathroom and slapstick humor than a sixth-grader could stand, and a veritable flood of drool, blood and less mentionable effluvia, most of it courtesy of Mr. Wayans as he tries to be – you know – funny.

Taking Lives would have to work nights to reach mediocrity.

The muddy, convoluted story revolves around the star's cool-guy poses and one-liners.

After the disastrous "Mixed Nuts," her last holiday season folly, Ephron appears to have hunkered down for a career of pandering mediocrity.

Doesn't deserve the energy it takes to describe how bad it is.

Just like "Bad Boys," only louder, longer and the stars get paid more.

Tries -- and fails -- to evoke that whoa-did-this-really-happen edge.

Possibly the worst thug-life flick to be released in the past 72 hours, this movie sags under the weight of the bling-bling cliches strung around its headless neck.

This movie is a particular disappointment. Although The Seeker is in Walden's tradition of positive storytelling, John Hodge's script is guilty of downright goofy utterances on occasion.

Intended as a fuzzy family fable, "August" plays more to the gag reflex than to the heart, especially when our little orphan starts playing the guitar like a virtuoso after what seems like a three-minute tutorial.

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.

This isn't real life. It isn't even a movie. It's an extended sitcom. And for the first time in your life, you'll actually beg for commercials.

The exuberance of the Rugrats seems nullified by the effete quirkiness of the Thornberrys.

The movie isn't exactly providing entertaining escape. In fact, the only escape on your mind is going to be the exit door.

The storyline is so familiar ("Cheaper by the Dozen," et al), the audience can practically call out scenes ahead of time.

One thing's for sure about Amos & Andrew: It ain't no "Thelma & Louise."

If ever there was a case for quitting while you're behind, this "Blade" is it -- ready to be buried in a vat of garlic.

How much you enjoy this movie depends on how funny you find Sandler talking out the side of his mouth with a gravelly squawk -- for the entire movie.

They go about scaring you, but only in the most hackneyed and cheap-shock manner.

The result is astoundingly boring and, frankly, tedious to sit through.

At its worst (and this is where Made of Honor comes in), it can leave you with a bad taste, not just in your mouth but in your soul.

Treat this project as you would a safari: It has its slow parts but the wildlife makes it worthwhile.

Feels like "Alien" as directed by Jim Henson. And the suspense is restricted to mundane slasher-movie tactics, including the frequent use of a mobile camera (call it the ’condacam) that’s supposed to represent the snake’s point of view.

Where there was effortless cool in the first movie, there is nothing but manufactured posing here.

Too infuriatingly quirky and taken with its own style to get down to telling a story.

Dull, plodding comedy.

A longwinded, predictable scenario.

Essentially, Chuck & Larry is an oafish chance for audiences to laugh at gay-bashing jokes and then feel morally redeemed for doing so -- courtesy of an obligatory wrap-up scene that reminds us that homosexuals are humans, too.

There's something secondhand about everything here. Hoge (this is his debut) seems to be mimicking the tone and fabric of other, better indie movies.

But despite the overall thinness, there's a great spirit afoot. It's a TV-cultural guilty pleasure to see this charming, dust-covered series from the 1960s gussied up and ready to go. Which is why it will work better back on your TV screen.

So dull and awful, you actually wonder if this is some kind of Andy Kaufmanesque in-joke, a deliberate attempt to douse the spark that made the original film so enjoyable.

Honey's a little too darling for reality but, obviously, that's not what this candy-cane vehicle of a movie is all about. It's about the way Alba moves and how good she looks when she's backlighted and smiling.

Clearly targeted at Christians looking to reaffirm their faith. Its chances of crossover success with the secular crowd seem remote, given the dramatic shortcomings.

Despite the Sybil-like plot (and questionable Rambo mentality), there's something watchable about it all. Weird it is, flop it ain't.

If you're looking to take your children to something harmless, that doesn't embarrass anyone, this light comedy (a gentle parody of those "Behind the Music" specials on cable TV) is your next outing.

It takes a two-hour act of will to keep facing the screen during this moribund movie. Every cliffhanger is enough to make you a cliff jumper. Davis and Modine are almost transcendentally unappealing, as they weather dull sword fights, ship-to-ship exchanges and other action-movie banalities.

But forget the vet-cum-love interest and the fish. It's the canine (not to be confused with "K-9") stuff that really matters.

An increasingly ridiculous hybrid of sexy romance, murder mystery and psychological mumbo jumbo, it's another bad spin on Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," with plummetings from high-up places, repressed guilt and love for a mysterious woman. But its watchability is more attributable to comic relief from Ruben Blades, Lesley Ann Warren and others than the ballyhooed steam between Willis and March.

With the exception of a few enjoyable action scenes, such as when Aeon and fellow operative Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo) flip and backflip their way across a lethal garden of bullet-spewing trees and spikes disguised as blades of grass, Aeon Flux is surprisingly draggy.

Screwball romance, action picture. Summer movie.

Consider the title your best advice.

The movie, based on the TV cartoon series, is exceptionally pleasant, and there's just enough humor to make it enjoyable for adults.

While you're enduring the usual formulaic yada yada -- at least there are yuks to enjoy.

Abomination of a movie.

To enjoy it, however, you have to do the mental equivalent of squinting your eyes, so the credibility is only fuzzily ridiculous.

Maestro is for people already aware of this history. For everyone else, this is pretty much invitation-only.

Even in this conglomerate era of marketed, predigested mediocrity, this Disney movie slips instantly into the humdrum.

A secondhand action movie that retreads all the tired staples of the 1980s and '90s.

Intentionally defies categorization and explication.

If the ultimate goal is entertainment, then Lady in the Water enthusiastically rises to the task. In a movie laden with enough symbolism, shamanism and mythic lore to make Joseph Campbell dance a tribal jig, Shyamalan never forgets to have fun.

Death Sentence, directed by "Saw" co-creator James Wan, swings the pendulum too far. One day Nick is a mild-mannered nerd who spends his days making (and loving) risk assessments for his company; the next, he's Travis Bickle from 1976's "Taxi Driver."

This David Spade comedy breaks an ankle, ruptures several knee ligaments and hits the dirt harder than a felled linebacker. Best thing you can do for this movie? Leave it writhing in the throes of forced humor.

Horror fans will twitch impatiently at those long stretches between killings. And audiences anticipating a feature-length "Girls Gone Wild" video will suffer withdrawal from the lack of loosened bra straps.

Things become almost too strange and convoluted to handle. The story's dramatic effectiveness starts to seriously malfunction. The fascinating and the mysterious become the silly and occasionally comical.

If only The Reaping had the decency to be coherent.

The performances take the movie to a higher level.

There's something so familiar and commonplace about this story and its characters...it's hard to get particularly thrilled.

Burke's face is impressively scaly, his head is adorned with shorn horns. He makes a great monster. If only he had a better movie to growl in!

KEN, KEN, KEN, not another Shakespeare, pleeeeeeez.

By its own deliriously rock-bottom standards, "Universal" ain't half bad. Of course, you have to be big on bloody slaughter, kickboxing, infrared gunning and impaired acting. But "Universal" executes its subtle-free mission with surprisingly watchable efficiency.

Lazily written and hopelessly miscast.

It's as pretentious and wispy as its title.

A jarring amalgam of sitcom goofiness and uncomfortable ooginess.

Doesn't anyone get sick of this same old routine?

As cliche-ridden horror films go, Hide and Seek builds a pretty darn good mousetrap.

A fascinating premise. And yet, the movie, directed by Bruce Beresford, never quite blooms.

There were moments when I thought Gone in 60 Seconds might be a passably entertaining movie. I figure those moments, strung end-to-end, would total 30 or 40 seconds.

A special-effects extravaganza that uses the barest of excuses to bring these characters together.

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.

A twentysomething comedy with a brain-dead script, unflattering lighting and 16 performers in search of a scriptwriter...[It] feels like one-sixth of an idea stretched to the breaking point.

So dull and formulaic, it ought to be leashed and led directly to the doghouse.

Luckily, life (just like the SAT) has its multiple-choice options. You don't actually have to watch this.

The best movie derived from a violent computer game we've ever seen. You can take or leave that kind of qualified high-five, but, for us, it was a thoroughly entertaining experience. Think of bargain basement "James Bond" amped up into TV den-sittin', mouse-clickin' overdrive. But with human actors.

A second-rate romantic comedy.

Lacks the spirit of the previous two, and makes all those jokes about hos and even more unmentionable subjects seem like mere splashing around in the muck.

Keeps you hanging on until the very last moment, not because it's scary, but because you can't believe that's all there is to it.

A disposable intermixing of son-of-Satan and cop-thriller cliches, featuring the requisite string of murder victims (with bloody pentagrams carved into their bodies).

While this HBO-produced, generically titled family caper isn't quite as dead as you'd expect, it doesn't exactly pulsate with comic originality. Borrowing from successful comedies of recent years, from Big to Risky Business, it bounces along with a familiar, pre-sold air.

Pfarrer's screenplay feels older than the Martian hills.

It sinks so deep and fast, you don't even see bubbles on the surface.

They (De Niro, Burns) look good together. But what a staggering pity they chose such a nasty, hackneyed movie to demonstrate their chemistry.

The outcome is deeply unsatisfying. And there's a rather unpalatable message that crime really does pay, and that irresponsible, woman-hopping egomaniac sports figures do finish first. This isn't basketball, it's more like a series of unnecessary timeouts, ending with the creative equivalent of an air ball.

A loud, standard-issue sci-fi action film that has a confusing mission.

All fire-and-brimstone bunk, a tired compendium of involuntary crucifixions, grim messages carved into human flesh, fly buzzings, ominous choral chants on the soundtrack and at least one head twisting.

Tedious.

This is definitely a family trip to stay home and skip.

If it were the last videotape available in the only video store in the remotest corner of Alaska, I'd take one last slug of Jack Daniels and start walking directly into the howling snows.

Entertainment more suitable for the living room than the movie theater.

This one's for Silverstone fans only.

There's little here to offend anyone, and even less here to excite anyone.

You can laugh with or without irony. Or you can simply stay away.

About as awful and shamelessly pandering as a fanzine movie could dare to be.

The story is more undead than all of these revenant shufflers. And the orgy of gore and home-engineered special effects doesn't make up for the shortfall.

There isn't anything here you haven't seen already in It's a Wonderful Life and a thousand other wish-list movies. Writer/director James Orr doesn't even do you the favor of speeding through the unoriginality.

Head-scratchingly ordinary, given Schwarzenegger's need to prove he's still a virile (i.e., non-aging) action hero.

Rather than the mad, kinetic video-game vigor you'd expect, the movie proceeds at a more leisurely and methodical gait. I rather liked that.

The movie is going to be fine for PG-ready audiences, assuming they don't have a problem with extremely predictable story turns.

If only Shadowboxer had gone for more than an unwavering commitment to imitate better movies, it might have been one for the cult shelves at the video store. Right now, you'll be lucky if you find it in the giveaway bin.

So resoundingly awful, there may be grounds to sue for mental suffering.

Well, it could have been good. But this goofy homage to Kiss fans gets dry mouth pretty fast.

An irredeemably transparent... DIRECT RIPPING OFF OF "SPEED."

Why did director Barry Sonnenfeld take on this project? Just to sully a fine comedic resume that includes "The Addams Family" and "Get Shorty"? And one last one: Which one of these levers do you push to send the RV careering off the mountain for good?

About half a notch above disaster.

Brain-numbingly innocuous, cliche-soused melodrama.

The movie automatically pegs itself for the straight-to-video sci-fi rental shelf.

Well, the movie's dumber than a coop full of chickens, but Pauly Shore makes a funny barnyard animal.

Essentially an extended cutesy session.

It's a diatribe from beginning to end.

If you're not rolling in the aisles, you're definitely in the wrong theater.

I suggest you RSVP in the negative to this "Wedding" invitation, unless you consider yourself a friend of the obvious bride to be, Ms. Lopez. But even then, you'll have to focus on her presence, rather than the silly ceremony around her.

Unfortunately, The Man makes the mistake of assuming casting is all it takes to make a good comedy.

Director Jay Chandrasekhar ... has found the perfect balance of old-fashioned charm and postmodern touches -- but not too many to overshadow the show's precious texture.

Even by Disney's formulaic standards -- is about as cut and dried as the phone book.

Don't hold your breath waiting for The Punisher to be original, not for one second of its torturous two hours.

This movie is all pretty faces and six-pack abs, but no characters. All surface and no soul. Come to think of it, the surface isn't so darned hot either.

A stunningly insipid romance, marks an all-time low for actor Zach Braff -- his "Gigli," if you will.

Some routines are funny, it must be said. But more often than not, you'll be groaning with painful recognition rather than actually laughing.

That cameraderie is bound to appeal to women looking for a howlingly trashy time.

An action opera designed to elicit Beavis and Butt-head-level appreciation.

The inside story is weak, dull and head-poundingly boring, and the outside story is only slightly better, thanks to the lukewarm likability of its two stars.

Heaven forbid a Hollywood romantic movie have any narrative surprises.

Lionel Chetwynd has achieved the impossible -- making a Vietnam prison torture movie dull. And although his sympathy for Americans missing in action seems genuine and laudable, the film liberal-bashes so heavyhandedly it's enough to make Nixon cry "Fonda."

So pleased with its own spoofy conceit it stays in annoyingly self-amused, predictable mode.

Suffice it to say, there is no comedy, no chemistry, no nothing in this movie.

Unfortunately, the film, written and directed by Sue Kramer, starts with a distinctly uncomfortable moral baseline: How exactly is any audience supposed to identify with a character whose relationship with her brother borders on the incestuous?

Do these soldiers make it? We keep watching and waiting. There's not much more to Gunner Palace than that, but it's no different than the soldiers' lot.

It's too bad we don't have red, glowing DELETE buttons next to those soda cup holders. I could have done the world a favor.

Doubling duties as director and cinematographer, Peter Hyams seems to have tossed the former for the latter. The Presidio, purported cop thriller, looks great. It is, in fact, less filling. The maker of "Outland" and "2010" infuses a San Francisco setting with evocative misty grays, but screenwriter Larry Ferguson's dull doings hang thicker than smog.

This 110-minute movie never seems to end, even after the various, idiotic storylines are finally resolved. After plying the audience with formulaic predictability, Getting Even doesn't even have the decency to end quickly.

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

It's difficult to concentrate on the story. Not that there's much to concentrate on anyway.

Deception is another example of when genre-fication (the forcing of otherwise intriguing stories into the straitjackets of horror, thriller or other genres) reduces our entertainment to head-shaking banality.