Elizabeth Weitzman

Where the first film was a seminal forerunner of early stalker classics like "Halloween," this version feels as stale as old gingerbread.

Striking naturalism and blatant dishonesty blend awkwardly in this bleak drama.

Paul Auster's suffocating romance makes you feel as if you're helplessly stuck inside the head of the most pretentious person you know.

Those who need little more than a car chase, gunplay, pretty girls and a solid soundtrack will be entertained. And Ice Cube fans won't be disappointed. Everyone else may want to think twice before shelling out hard-earned dollars.

To be fair, Sandler deserves some credit for bringing us the first mainstream movie about Chanukah. Too bad it's completely idioticah.

A jumbled composite of blurred images, poetic yearnings and metaphoric dialogue.

It's hard to say which is worse: The fact that 20th Century Fox believes this sour, sexist fantasy reflects anyone's actual experience or that Hollywood is so woefully behind the cultural curve.

Commits the cardinal sin of moviemaking: It leaves you bored.

There are a few funny jokes scattered throughout, but the halfhearted direction and clunky script are underscored by performances that feel like they belong in community theater.

At its best moments, the film offers a tender portrait of the park's youngest regulars, charmingly earnest performers from a nearby music school. But then, inevitably, their stories fade into a backdrop, as his camera turns to catch yet more women sunning in the square.

Arnold's heart is in the right place, but somebody needs to save him from himself - and soon.

Novice director Lucky McKee wrote the first draft of this labored horror flick while he was in school, and for a student film, it's not bad. But it's not ready for the big time.

A warmed-over ripoff, rather than the gritty urban drama it so desperately wants to be.

Oddly enough, given his limited role, the movie seems to have been made around Nelly; when he's not onscreen, everything falls apart.

If karma exists, Alvin and the Chipmunks must be Lee's punishment for appearing in the likes of "Jersey Girl."

Having mined England and Ireland dry, filmmakers are now turning to Wales for their quirkiness quota.

Does little more than re-create the oppressive feeling of suffocating employment. And why put yourself through that experience without the promise of a paycheck at the other end?

The unhappy dead populate Geoffrey Sax's third-rate thriller White Noise like a pre-Christmas crowd at a suburban mall. This is a shame, since they are neither scary nor sad, and less likely to haunt an audience than simply bore them to death.

Profoundly mediocre supernatural thriller.

One of Walsch's precepts is that you should never make a living doing something you hate. If I'd known that, I might not have felt obliged to sit through every excruciating minute of this sanctimonious infomercial.

Only a memorably commanding Ruehl transcends the limitations of her two-dimensional character.

After languishing unseen for years, Laurent Firode's long-delayed comedy is finally getting its day in the sun. Too bad there's such a heavy shadow hanging over it.

It's an ugly affair overall, but at least you can say you've never seen such beautiful shirts.

All the subtlety of an Olive Garden commercial.

You don't have to rise very high to get above the level of these gags.

The movie is hindered by its weak script, but there's also a bigger problem to overcome: If we want to laugh at superficial celebrities, we already have plenty to choose from in real life.

By the time you've worked through the allegorical implications, you may be wondering why you didn't just go see "Charlie's Angels."

Goldberger's stubbornly insular script - adapted from a novel by Harry Crews - might have fared better on stage, where the story would feel more contained than suffocating. But by the time you crawl across this finish line, you'll know just how those sluggish the birdsfeel.

Heavily influenced by Guy Ritchie, director Mo gets most of his comic mileage from a Hasidic Jew and an angry dwarf -- which should tell you everything you need to know.

Could easily be just another episode of "Hey Arnold!" the TV show. Except that it's three times as long, and not half as much fun.

Director Andy Fickman seems to have thrown everything into this artificial comedy, in the hopes that something might stick. Almost nothing does.

The movie's strongest draw is its kitsch value -- along with a wisecracking Bruce Vilanch, the cast includes '80s TV refugees Jm J. Bullock ("Too Close for Comfort") and the Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt.

The martial arts are well represented, the gentler arts -- like, for example, acting -- are not.

If you're in an especially generous mood, you'll give in to a few laughs. By the end, though, you just may find yourself pining for the good old days of Pauly Shore.

If he earns no other accolades for his directorial debut - a distinct likelihood - Lee Daniels deserves some kind of award just for assembling the most bizarrely random cast of this young century.

A convoluted mess of a horror movie.

The full title of this animé import is WXIII (Patlabor the Movie 3), and if you think the name's confusing, you may want to spare yourself the work of figuring out the film itself.

Subtlety has never been Perry's strength, but his previous films balanced the sermonizing with good humor and sincerity. Perhaps next time, he'll ease up on the lectures, and bring back the love.

The best that can be said about the big-screen Bratz is that they are not nearly as appalling as their toy-shelf twins.

Too solemnly boring to entertain parents or older siblings - but, alas, too loud for a long nap - Yu-Gi-Oh! is basically a feature-length promotion for the trading cards.

A few relevant themes do bubble up from this visually intriguing swamp of self-indulgence, but Arquette's pseudo-philosopher seems to speak for Almereyda when he says, "If there was a point, there wouldn't be a story."

The movie eventually chokes on its own pretensions.

A muddle of good intentions and bad direction, this amateurish road movie follows a young Brit across Europe as he reconnects with his Jewish roots.

Exploitation shamelessly posing as empowerment, Neema Barnette's self-congratulatory drama about women in prison promises to reveal shocking truths.

The best part of this proudly absurd experience is the music.

The movie doesn't even have novelty on its side, since we're basically watching the original "Final Destination" all over again, minus the smarts and humor.

Having written, co- directed and played the lead in this awkward, ego-driven memoir, Hayata has turned a genuinely compelling life story into an embarrassing vanity production.

The truth about Lies is that it's a case of art-house porn being more porn than art.

There are moments of amusing melodrama, but for the most part, the action is too preposterous to take seriously, and too serious to be very much fun.

Like a mango rotting in the sun, Frank Flowers' squishy Caribbean thriller has been sitting on the shelf long enough to attract suspicion. Bite into it at your own risk.

Director Uwe Boll wholeheartedly embraces the film's concept, and with some fancy editing and a pulsing soundtrack, the effect really is like watching a video game.

But where the original was slight but sweet, the remake is depressingly superficial and cynical.

A classic case of good intentions and bad filmmaking.

Cantor seems to have noticed how dull the actual footage is, since he relies heavily on "arty" shots and black-and-white inserts.

Unfortunately, the visuals are not compelling enough on their own to hold our interest, and a highly mannered Derek Jacobi is all wrong as the narrative voice of Nijinsky.

Though Flicker based the story on real events, the execution is so melodramatic that none of it feels remotely true.

Unless you happen to be one yourself, chances are pretty good that you'll take an immediate dislike to the self-satisfied hipsters who populate this disappointing comedy.

If you only want a sequence of slashings, impalements and head-squishings, you'll get your money's worth. But if you like a little movie with your mayhem, you're out of luck.

Aside from the shamelessly promoted corporate sponsors, nobody emerges from this game a winner. But the biggest losers are the ones who paid good money to watch it.

Preposterous collegiate drama that exists simply to show pretty girls kissing, pretty boys undressing and pretty people of every sexual orientation drinking, doing drugs and otherwise wreaking postadolescent havoc.

With little dialogue, a murky night setting and the slowest of plots, this Portuguese fantasy only comes alive when it conforms to its true nature as arthouse pornography.

If you're really hoping for a perfect holiday, steer clear of this stale fruitcake of a comedy.

Self-indulgent in the extreme, Julián Hernández's laconic ode to heartbreak feels like the work of a lovelorn teenager.

Features amateurish acting and direction, and a going-nowhere script.

A bizarrely off-key animated comedy.

Stambrini puts so much weight on shock value, she overlooks the matter of emotional resonance.

How do films this stale and generic continue to get made, let alone with topflight talent? Cedric has been stealing scenes from bigger names for nearly a decade; he deserves better than a few amusingly-improvised minutes at the end of his own movie. And so do we.

Unfortunately, while director Steve Boyum is a successful stunt man and off-road biker, his skills do not extend to the relatively passive arena of filmmaking. Somehow, he even makes much of the action static.

A murky swamp of a movie, Terry Gilliam's defiantly surreal Tideland finds every good idea drowning in an excess of indulgence.

Writer-director Claudia Myers' clunky debut feature makes the case that first-timers should probably focus on either writing or directing.

It's too bad the film never makes good on its early promise, but clearly, the rolling fireballs and flying bullets are the priority.

There is a fair share of turkeys at the multiplex this week, but none are quite as overcooked as Extreme Ops.

Phelan makes nice use of the New York locations, but all the trees in Central Park can't make up for a clichéd script and characters who speak entirely in platitudes.

Since Adam Sussman's script is as lazy as Asif Kapadia's direction is disjointed, nothing ever makes sense, even after the anticlimatic explanation is revealed.

Possibly the sourest revenge movie ever, Audition starts off as a sweet, low-key romance, then abruptly turns into a grisly, sadistic thriller.

Alternates between being amusingly pretentious and studiously dull.

This time around, the cult director dispenses with the feminism, the satire, and even the issues, so he can concentrate on his true passion: the dissecting.

Bajestani is believably repellent as someone whose split lives as an obsessive loner and respected family man are disturbingly concordant. And Nadim Carlsen’s gritty camerawork pushes the film’s sense of grim social realism further still, providing a viscerally authentic horror. Abbasi doesn’t seem to realize, though, that he’s creating much of that horror himself.

Since Håfström and his crew stick their landing, those who particularly enjoy second-hand claustrophobia may find it worth the long journey. Everyone else, however, will be better served by more engaging enterprises here on Earth.

Too much of Dear Zoe, though, feels factory-designed to engineer emotion rather than aiming to earn it organically.

Even Downs, so appealing on Nickelodeon’s “Henry Danger,” can’t fight the forces of this soulless script (which was based on a potentially promising story idea by Wenonah Wilms).

Unfortunately, though, the leads — both of whom radiate individual charisma — are entirely lacking in chemistry. And it’s not just them. There is little connection between anyone, or even any event, in a project that takes all its assets for granted.

While Stoller’s script does boast a few solid laughs, everyone involved deserves and can do better.

Even a weirdo drug comedy needs some clarity. And there’s not much to be found here, either in the muddy visuals, familiar special effects, or pursuit of psychotropic faux-wisdom.

There’s no rule that every criminal has to be charismatic, or all their heists have to be heart-pounding. They just can’t commit the one sin that’s truly unforgivable: leaving us bored.

Hoping for a little emotional manipulation with your popcorn? Look no further.

The best way to watch Chronically Metropolitan is to think of it as a parody of a particularly pretentious brand of indie romance. Unfortunately, though, director Xavier Manrique and writer Nicholas Schutt (“Blood & Oil”) play it so solemnly straight for their feature debut that it seems unlikely they’re aiming for satire.

Well, you've got to say this for Death Race: It knows what it is and doesn't apologize for it. What it is, incidentally, is junk.

If you hired an independent filmmaker to create a perfume ad, and then turned that ad into a full-length movie, you’d probably get something that looks a lot like Dimitri de Clercq’s directorial debut, “You Go to My Head.”

Overall, the whole project feels weirdly empty and off-puttingly self-congratulatory, as though the very idea of turning women into action heroes is revolutionary.

Even in the lazy days of late August, this movie is hardly worth the price of popcorn.

There's nothing here but a messy lump of coal.

Zemeckis and co-writer Chris Weitz do make some attempt to dust off the concept, but the modernized moments further undermine their efforts. When they add empathy, the story loses its soul. And when they jam in easy updates, it just highlights how out of touch the rest of the script feels.

A patronizing, self-satisfied piece of work, Funny Games is Michael Haneke's way of chastising us for blindly following the traditional rules of entertainment.

We’re told over and over how stunning, how sensitive, how remarkable he is. But he’s such a blank slate that there’s not much actual evidence of these traits. It’s not Dickinson’s fault; he’s been directed towards a particular style of performance that favors tell over show.

Presumably, Sudeikis took this job to prove his dramatic skills, and he does deserve credit for achieving that goal. What he’s never able to generate, though, is a compelling case for the movie itself.

I can't imagine why De Niro, who is a fine comedian, is still coasting on his gangster act, and surely Crystal can do something other than play himself...it feels a little like an exercise in laziness.

For the most part, writer-director Stephen Susco (“The Grudge”) sees the Internet as a gimmick, a way to get some attractive, disposable protagonists from Point A to Point B. (Point A is “alive,” so…).

This version seems to have been made not to honor Alcott’s little women but instead to please the parents who want blandly wholesome family entertainment for their own. One can only imagine what Jo herself would have to say on the subject.

Some may wonder why Jennifer Aniston keeps taking projects about single women unlucky in love. But the bigger question in Love Happens is why, with her pick of scripts, she chose one so utterly uninspired.

A sex comedy lacking in sex, silliness or subversion, when just one would do.

Some B-movies, of course, are highly entertaining. This one, though, seems like it was as much of a slog to make as it is to watch.

It’s tough to get invested in a romance between two people more interested in likes than love.

What’s particularly disappointing about this effort is the amount of talent wasted.

Whether he's the victim of poor directing or misguided ambition, Bass is almost entirely charisma-free.

Mystifyingly bad given the talent involved, Southlander is an in-jokey, hipster escapade that appears to have been made on a drunken weekend because there was nothing better to do.

Even diehard fans will get more out of watching a four-minute music video than they'll find in this mixed-up mess.

Adam Rifkin's dank, relentless drama puts you savagely through the wringer without bothering to enlighten or entertain.

A story of miserable people leading miserable lives, Iowa is a sour vanity project: trash posing as a socially relevant "cautionary tale."

It's hard to say what's most disappointing about She Hate Me, Spike Lee's absurdly - and arrogantly overlong comedic drama. But there are plenty of options to choose from.

A joyless exercise in IP mining, Cheaper by the Dozen is all the more depressing for its glimpses of unfulfilled potential.

Still, if it gets little else right, at least Epic Movie is accurately titled: It may be only 86 minutes long, but it feels as if it lasts forever.

You've got to give Norm Macdonald credit. When he cheats his audience, he warns them first.

The most bizarre cinematic experience of 2002. So misguided as to be utterly mystifying, this shameless vanity project is almost surreal enough to be entertaining. Almost.

Here's what's missing from Casey La Scala's film: Likable characters, a comprehensible script and any semblance of a good time.

A cheerless sequel to an uninspired remake, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is, at best, well timed to serve as a backup baby-sitter during the hectic days of winter break.

Misguided at best and repellent at worst, the movie has, ironically enough, a single asset: Lohan's performance as a rebellious, uncontrollable teen.

If you're looking for a modern-day "Meatballs" - or, for that matter, "Meatballs 4" - you're out of luck.

You've got to admire Hilton's complete conviction in herself as the center of all that is beautiful and good. And maybe such unwavering self-regard is actually kind of hot. Or not.

An almost comically unsuitable title. There's absolutely nothing singular or special about this slapdash sci-fi film featuring martial-arts megastar Jet Li.

It's hard to know who is the intended audience for this misguided mess.

The movie's a botch, but at least it'll make you feel good about your own daily drudgery.

Too superficial to shock or surprise.

A mediocre movie that will be wiped from its stars' résumés with head-spinning speed.

Cheesy horror flick that feels like straight-to-video material.

Given a plot and dialogue that ring entirely false, we're left with a bunch of unpleasant characters who do unpleasant things for no apparent reason. Enjoy.

The worst kind of horror movie: trash that takes itself seriously.

So misguided as to be genuinely mystifying, Jeff Stanzler's queasily blended political psychodrama isn't simply a lousy movie. It's also a lousy movie that boldly exploits the events of 9/11.

Dev Anand's unintentionally hilarious Bollywood romance would be considered terrible by any artistic standard, but it serves as proof that sometimes the worst films make for the most fun.

The affable Ice Cube is all that makes this forced, unfunny film watchable, and, frankly, it's hard watching him waste his efforts on a movie so woefully cynical.

Even The Rock, who can usually be counted on to enliven any scenario, seems bored by the laughably feeble script.

Given that its predecessor hit bottom in the glorification of thug thrills, State Property 2 had nowhere to go but up. Yet, it doesn't.

Seemingly made while writer-director-star Cevin Soling was heavily under the influence, this generally witless ode to illegal substances is apparently meant to be viewed that way, as well.

This warmed-over slop feels as if it's been congealing for twice that long.

You'd be better off spending an evening with the collected works of Rob Schneider.

The movie is composed of three disparate shorts meant to explore a range of connections. Instead, all three feel as if they were designed inside an echo chamber thematically, and none displays a desire to push the envelope creatively.

Turns out, subtitles don't make soft-core any classier.

There are a couple of nominal insights here, but honestly, you'll find more intellectual edification (or whatever else you're looking for) flipping through Richards' photo shoot in the current "Playboy."

At heart, "BSM" is no different from the midnight movies of the '60s and '70s that reveled in a head-spinning blend of blatant exploitation, provocative racial commentary and overwrought performances.

While there's no fun in mediocrity, ludicrousness is another matter. Boll is the best at what he does, and what he does is make truly terrible films.

Since there's no suspense whatsoever, we're simply stuck with awful people doing awful things to each other.

On the whole, this is an awfully long slog through very arid terrain, in which generic soldiers track, fight and try to escape from generic villains (you'd be surprised at how uninteresting mutant flesh-eaters can be). I can't speak for the hills, but I spent most of the movie just trying to keep my eyes open.

Although this wasteful effort from the “Bad Moms” team is uninspired in almost every regard, it does advance cinema in a single way: writers-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have figured out how to modernize one of the most traditional and apparently still essential Hollywood tropes: the Crazy Bitch.

Don't blame Haley, though. Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer's screenplay goes in the wrong direction entirely, dropping Freddy's sick sense of humor while turning him into a generic bogeyman.

As it turns out, the only truly interesting element about this clichéd surfer flick is that it was made by celebrated directors Michael Apted and Curtis Hanson.

Stahl should have had a career similar to Sam Rockwell's, blending thoughtful indies with fun popcorn flicks. Instead, he's spinning his wheels in junk like this. Calamitous indeed.

The 6-year-old I watched it with summed it up perfectly: “It starts out fun but then it’s kinda sad and scary. And sorta boring, too.”

A frenetic spoof of 1961's disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, Company Man is likely to be forgotten quickly by audiences.

If only the movie could live up to its own potential. Instead, we're stuck with blandly unappealing costumed characters meandering through a boring quest to find some lost balloons.

Miller clearly wanted to make an impression, and that he does. Maybe it's better to be remembered for one of the worst movies of the year than forgotten for a mediocre one.

It would appear that for his first feature, Mikael Buch wanted to leave nothing to chance. So he threw in enough action for five movies, amped the comedy up to frenetic levels and encouraged his cast to play to the rafters.

One of those factors must have settled upon the unlucky shoulders of Stephen Frears, who certainly has the pedigree to go all the way. And yet, he stumbles so badly with Lay the Favorite, his comic adaptation of Beth Raymer's memoir, that one is left wondering what could possibly have gone wrong.

The one crime a B-movie should never commit is boring its audience. By even these low standards, Shark Night 3D is dead in the water.

With all the talent on tap — including screenwriter Buck Henry, who worked with Michal Zebede to adapt Philip Roth’s 2009 novel — you’d think we’d get something better than this outdated indulgence.

Unless your own horoscope recommended wasting two perfectly useful hours of your day, take a pass.

Jonathan, who was so great in "Roll Bounce," deserves better. It'd be overly generous, however, to say the same about anyone else involved.

Despite the revved-up start and a suitably dusty setting, the movie stalls almost immediately. The story is uninspired, Lyons looks lost, and Booth makes for a bland femme fatale. Clarke tries to inject some energy into the action, but even he seems to realize this ride’s going nowhere.

Is it an exaggeration to call The Women the worst movie of the year? Well, yeah, probably. But it may be the most disappointing, given all the effort that went into it.

Why would you watch a bad movie about better movies, when you could just rent the originals instead?

There probably is an interesting story in Van’s rags-to-riches tale. But all we get in this extended publicity stunt is clichéd filmmaking, stilted performances and a self-aggrandizing hero.

She's (Heigl) disastrously miscast as a character beloved by fans of novelist Janet Evanovich.

Are two Demis better than one? How you answer will determine the level of patience you'll need to sit through this bizarre pet project.

Though Jaglom intends for us to be charmed by show folk, the amateurish performances and perennially misjudged direction wind up portraying them instead as boundlessly needy narcissists.

The plot makes absolutely no sense.

When you name your movie Dom Hemingway and then require the titular antihero to repeatedly declare, “I am Dom Hemingway!” the filmmakers must be very confident that there is something special about their character. Too bad there isn’t.

Anyone hoping to engage even a single brain cell, however, is out of luck. Which is too bad, since popcorn blockbusters don't actually have to be mind-numbingly stupid or soul-suckingly empty.

None of it makes any sense, but it is just nutty enough to provide a few (entirely unintended) laughs.

The most charitable approach to this unfortunate diversion in Jackson's career would be to pretend it never happened. Now, who wants to go see "The Avengers" again?

What's most baffling is that such a canny actor is so unable to direct his own cast.

This year's installment is as disappointing as a Halloween bag filled with nothing but raisins.

Does John Leguizamo need a better manager, or does he just have terrible taste in scripts? Because aside from voicing the "Ice Age" movies, he wastes too much time on misfires like this one.

There are no twists or even surprises, except the final realization that director Alan White is taking his culturally clueless, ineptly shot B-movie totally seriously. Judging from the uniformly underwhelming performances, he’s the only one.

John Leguizamo can do so much better than this weak rom-com, in which men are morons and women are either neurotic or nasty.

So instead of the rom-com, we now have the “non-com.” The cardboard characters and predictable rhythms remain. But this time, we get all the comic cliches with none of the romance.

The real challenge is for viewers, who must tolerate overacting, idiotic scatological jokes and juvenile innuendo. The only way it might be endurable is if you’re wasted, too.

Despite this chance to experience something thrilling and new, her life is just as dull the second time around.

In this group, only Hemsworth stands out.

A director who really wanted to honor these actors’ legendary roles, rather than simply use them as a marketing hook, might have found a way to make this concept palatable. Segal (“Get Smart”) is not that director.

Painfully dull thriller.

The filmmakers were too busy throwing together potential blockbuster material to notice all the loose ends and gaping holes in logic. Which may, ultimately, explain why Willis looks so confused throughout. Maybe he, too, is straining to locate some intelligence amid all the machinery.

As for that title, neither character is Italian, but each thinks the other is - a weak device designed purely to inspire a slew of stereotypes.

Writer-director Carter Smith got his start as a successful fashion photographer. But you wouldn’t know it from the murky look of this generic thriller.

This synthetic comedy is instantly grating.

It almost seems unfair to mention that Carla Gugino shows up as a cop 80 minutes into these overlong proceedings; by then, viewers who walk out would never even have known that she was involved.

You certainly won’t learn anything of interest about the Princess of Wales in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s misguided new biopic. But Diana can be declared a success in one regard — its vacant inanity serves to remind us of the perpetual indignities forced upon this unlucky Lady.

Haven’t Cleveland fans suffered enough? Not only have they never won a Super Bowl, but now the Browns serve as the center of Ivan Reitman’s painfully creaky sports drama.

On the plus side, the Irish landscape is gorgeous, and Scott and John Lithgow are amusing in small roles. But Goode barely makes an effort, so Adams' frantic exertions feel especially disheartening

It’s admirable that writer/director Michael Walker wanted to make a socially conscious thriller. But surely he didn’t have to replace all the thrills with broadly moralizing messages.

This ill-advised romance from director Andrew Fleming is the sort of indie lark that nearly drowns in its own whimsy. Wade in at your own risk.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with faith-based entertainment. The problem comes when, as with any heavily slanted perspective, the faith takes precedence over the entertainment.

If I were to guess how Hollywood envisions the inside of a teenage boy's brain, it would look exactly like Zack Snyder'sSucker Punch."

Perry's characters have always been drawn with broad strokes, as heroes or villains. In this case, all the villains are young women, and all the young women in this film-without exception--are monstrous.

Thirteen-year-old boys big enough to sneak into R-rated movies are presumably the prime audience for this witless comedy from the Broken Lizard troupe.

There have been times when the right team has been able to transcend the gooey schmaltz of Sparks’ stories. This effort, however, sinks like a rock thrown into a sun-dappled lake shaded by magnolia trees sparkling under a sky of shooting stars.

Rarely has there been a movie as misguided as Hounddog, which self-righteously indulges in exploitation while loudly decrying it.

The blatantly misogynistic treatment of the female characters, who exist solely to service Rob and his best friend (Craig Roberts), would have felt retrograde in a movie made decades ago.

Other than those related to cast and crew, it's difficult to imagine who else would sit through Ry Russo-Young's self-obsessed indie.

The story itself is fairly straightforward, but lands with a thud.

Even if we had never heard of Woody Allen or Adam Sandler, this schlocky effort would feel about as fresh as a week-old bagel.

Though the central blowout is as epic as advertised, so is the movie's self-congratulatory obnoxiousness.

It would be nice to say that Rourke, at least, offers a reason to see this junky thriller, about an American agent who gets involved in an Indonesian terrorist plot. But as entertaining as it is to watch him adopt a strange accent and swan around in sarongs as an eccentric jewel thief, it’s also a little depressing. The paycheck cannot possibly be worth it.

Cryer makes a likable sad-sack and Will Sasso provides balance as his narcissistic best friend. But both guys deserve better. As do we.

Hudson has, if nothing else, traded up: last winter she was stuck in "Fool's Gold."

The performances are dreadful, the direction shoddy and the final twist so idiotic, your mind can’t help but drift toward all the better scripts just waiting, sadly and silently, for the chance wasted here.

It must be said that everyone - including Dominic West and Rosamund Pike -- works awfully hard to entertain us. But that just makes it all the more depressing when joke after joke falls painfully flat. Stay home and introduce your kids to Mr. Bean, instead.

Jessica Goldberg’s sluggish directorial debut feels like a leftover from the 1990s, when dank indie dramas littered film-festival lineups.

The only real reason to see this movie is to show unwavering loyalty to Cena. And even so, he'll never know if you wait to watch it on cable for free.

How ironic (depressing? predictable?) that the week after we celebrate the best in movies, we are force-fed its very worst. 21 & Over is filmmaking by formula, and evidence of Hollywood’s assumption that appealing to viewers’ basest instincts will always pay off.

It's bluntly written, poorly shot and edited, and cruel without being clever.

On the bright side, Ivan Reitman's disappointing new comedy isn't just cheap and formulaic, but so forgettable few people will even remember she (Portman) was in it.

Both LeBlanc and Larter glide through the synthetic setup like pros, but they have no connection because their characters barely resemble human beings.

Ever fast-forward through a late-night cable romance just to get to the good parts? This amateurish relationship dramedy features all the stuff you'd skip, and nothing else.

A tacky 'Fatal Attraction' for the lesbian set.

The real culprit is first-time director Marcel Langenegger, who seems to have studied for his debut by watching nothing but Cinemax. The score hints at ominous activities that never happen, a rain machine provides the only atmosphere and the actors have to suffer through the silliest sex scenes in recent memory.

If you set out to combine the worst parts of Hallmark holiday movies with the worst parts of frenetic ‘90s rom-coms, you’d probably wind up with something a lot like About Fate. The women are nuts, the men are clueless and the production is so cheap you could pass the time spotting every mistake no one bothered to fix.

The atonal script is credited to first-timer Michael Brown, but there’s still no explaining Shapeero’s lump-of-coal debut.

The danger in writing, directing, producing and casting yourself in the same movie is that there’s no one to pull you back from the cliff. Simon Helberg (“The Big Bang Theory”) did co-direct this grating vanity affair with his wife, Jocelyn Towne, but neither seems to realize how misguided it is at every step.

If there were a Lifetime Channel for Men, Emilio Aragón’s unabashedly sentimental take on old age would surely wind up there.

How does a comedy troupe even get from the frat-humor antics of "Beerfest" to the middle-class suburbanality of Babymakers? Well, everybody gets old eventually. Growing up, on the other hand, is optional.

Forgive us for being demanding, but shouldn't an animated kids movie like this one be, at the very least, fun? Cute? Watchable?

Ellis' stamp is immediately apparent, from the absurdly vapid characters to the undercurrent of barely repressed anger.

Skip the movie and go buy yourself a drink instead.

The concept itself is bafflingly empty. We’re never given any reason to respect Teddy or his work — which is built on tired, self-help clichés — so we hardly believe in his rapturous fans.

Who could have predicted that one day we would long for the relative subtlety of “Twilight”? Richard LaGravenese’s Beautiful Creatures is so outrageously florid, Bella and Edward’s baroque courtship looks understated by comparison.

Does Hollywood have so little to offer women that well-regarded actresses feel obliged to accept demeaning indies like this flatly unfunny, morally vacant comedy?

Statham brings so little energy that the fight scenes are hardly more vivid than the gambling ones. His one-liners have no heart; his cynicism is no longer sharp.

Even if you've got a soft spot for silly rom-coms, know that this one is as empty-headed as it gets.

Shallow and frustratingly misguided drama.

Surely an Oscar-nominated filmmaker like Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”) can do better than this nasty and unconvincing thriller.

Phil Alden Robinson’s overheated dramedy feels disconnected from reality in every emotional way.

Both written and played in broad strokes, each character quickly devolves into the most simplistic of symbols. The results comes across more as an agenda than art.

"War" is depressingly mean-spirited.

If Meghan's misadventures were funny, or creatively told, or even just mildly entertaining, perhaps Brill ("Little Nicky") could get away with such lazy filmmaking. Instead he wastes all of his resources, including two top-flight comic actors, shamelessly.

There is no reason a film with an agenda can’t also be engaging or thought-provoking. But what we have here is not so much a movie as a blunt Sunday sermon.

Before you spend good money to see the purported comedy, Blended, watch the trailer. The entire movie is packed into those 152 seconds.

Shabby on the surface and indulgent at its core.

From an artistic perspective, Ron Krauss’ heavy-handed drama, Gimme Shelter, fails almost entirely. But if the director set out to combine the stilted falsity of 1980s after-school specials with leaden political dogma, he’s certainly achieved his goals.

Charmless and derivative.

A movie without a moment of truth to be found.

As generic and forgettable as its title, this half-hearted attempt at a teen comedy feels like a term paper you might buy online: poorly written and cribbed from a million other sources.

Unfortunately, Vardalos has no one else to blame for a shockingly amateurish effort that goes from bad (her oddly insincere performance) to worse (consistently sloppy camera work) to make-it-stop (it would be an insult to television to call the script sitcomish).

Yep, Hess wrote and directed "Dynamite," and here's proof we shouldn't have rewarded him. The hollow "Broncos" is even more cruelly disdainful, designed primarily to scorn the pathetic lives within.

The compelling Draper’s the creation of “Mad Men” mastermind Matthew Weiner, the writer-director of Are You Here. Which begs the question: how could Weiner make, as his debut comedy, a movie as amateurish and off-putting as this one?

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a movie that feels as though it was made by someone who just discovered the collected works of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.

Brooks' shallow screenplay feels half-finished, and he never compensates with additional guidance or directorial flair. So all his actors are forced to flail about ineffectually. Apparently, none of them read the script in advance. Because surely then they'd have known to take a pass.

Do not, in fact, go at all. Because aside from the actual nutcracker, most of the crucial elements are missing from Andrei Konchalovsky's bizarre miscalculation. Magic and joy top the list.

The biggest trouble with "Bliss" is the way it wastes a cast that deserves so much more.

Dano is a talented actor who needs to aim higher, and it should go without saying that Deschanel can do - and should know - better.

As for our leading man, he’s clearly just messing with us now. Who else would make a revenge thriller called Rage and then sleepwalk his way through it?

Albatross is the kind of movie that looks good, begins with promise, and then nosedives into deep disappointment.

You can always tell when filmmakers get their ideas from watching other movies. First-time writer David Congalton must be a Christopher Guest fan, because his derivative mockumentary feels like the work of someone who’s seen “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show” too many times.

There’s no explaining the presence of Guy Pearce in Pauline Chan’s sappy, atonal family drama. But it’s easy enough to understand why he looks so uncomfortable throughout.

In a movie, nothing good ever seems to happen at a country house. And when it comes to this film, nothing very interesting happens, either.

Franchise morphs into generic slasher series without Jigsaw.

The story has more holes than a shot-up metal door, the acting feels bored at best, and the intermittent action, while passable, hardly makes up for the downtime.

So do the minutes. They stretch on as one tiresomely quirky sadist after another appears. Cusack is typically likable and De Niro is amusing in his brief scenes. But unlike Jack, you’re too smart to make big sacrifices for so little return.

Travolta, who delivers an impressively enthusiastic performance, seems to have no idea that he's stuck in one of the year's worst movies. The perpetually pained expression on Williams' face, however, suggests he knows otherwise.

It's hard to know whether Sebastian Gutierrez is imitating or satirizing the hard-boiled noirs of Hollywood's past, but either way it feels like a botched attempt.

All we’re left with is the sight of older men hiring a gorgeous young woman to take her clothes off and fulfill their desires. If nothing else, Ozon does leave us wondering whether he intended such an uncomfortable parallel between life and art.