Ed Park

This poorly conceived sequel to Gore Verbinski's "The Ring" ditches that film's scariest conceit.

Bledel, consigned to corsets and croquet, looks so weepy for much of Tuck Everlasting. The reason might lie in a script that favors the starchy demands of period melodrama over her TV show's fizzy screwball banter -- or maybe it's just William Hurt's embarrassing brogue.

The self-consciousness is unintentionally touching, but it wet-blankets the film into a thirdhand lark.

Ismail Merchant's screen adaptation retains much of the novel's incident, but fumbles both the humor and moral ambivalence.

Bears some resemblance to "All About My Mother," but lacks its compatriot's flamboyance, content to traffic in glib banalities and unwitting self-absorption.

Strangely coy about its denominational allegiance.

Ultimately everything feels one-sided and sanitized.

Aside from cameos by Jim Broadbent (as the drunken major) and Peter O'Toole (as Nina's reclusive, eccentric father), much of the acting strains for a sophistication that quickly becomes annoying.

Bones splits the difference between horror and social commentary, with pallid returns.

Alas, The White Countess, the final Merchant Ivory film, is something of a lacquered dud.

White Noise vigorously pushes the supernatural line throughout, but unfortunately its final movement is so incoherent that the whole thing collapses.

Craig keeps Joe Rose on a hair trigger, but Morton is wasted as Claire; Ifans simply looks stoned.

A huge problem with the whole shebang is that the impressions (all courtesy Cornwell and Sessions) are shaky at best.

Emphatically acted, ponderous, and ultimately a little silly.

Grim headlines aside, FireDancer is hard to recommend, with its haphazard tone, wobbly acting, and cipher-like lead.

More fun to listen to than watch -- though this still leaves the problem of dialogue.

As hackneyed as they come, but the overall mood is less cynical than affectionate.

At least Sean Astin, as a scene-chewing prima donna, seems to be having a good time--and mom Patty Duke gets to call him a "turd."

The only possible surprise in The Tuxedo would be an extended demonstration of what was once Chan's trademark, the daffily choreographed kineticism forbidden of late by either his own age or the scruples of story editors.

A flatland of lowest-common-denominated retro-collegiate wackiness.

Syd's (Chris Evans) emotional tailspin is embarrassingly banal, and his assertion that "everybody here hates me" quickly applies to the audience as well.

Less effective in dramatizing the choices facing second-generation Indian Americans than as a showcase for Sheetal Sheth's terrific hair.

At least Macht emerges relatively unscathed from the mess, content to brood and mutter self-loathing observations while Johansson and (most painfully) Travolta spoon their Southern accents out of a jar and spread it all over the humid scenery.

CCM's dissipated endgame borrows soggily from "The Ring," resulting in something that wouldn't make it past the first script meeting for Scary Movie 4.

If The Last Man were the last movie left on earth, there would be a toss-up between presiding over the end of cinema as we know it and another night of delightful hand shadows.

The story has too many characters, about whom we know too little.

As earnest as a community-college advertisement, American Chai is enough to make you put away the guitar, sell the amp, and apply to medical school.

This mockumentary in which a group of failed Brooklyn rappers switch gears after listening to the Beatles wears out its welcome quicker than the shortest track on "The Grey Album."