Gene Seymour

Mindless escape. [12 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-4]

Script resounds throughout with astringent dialogue and stark authenticity.

So why does Eight Legged Freaks make one laugh out loud even though there is nothing revolutionary about its approach to the giant bug genre? -- the movie is so unapologetic in its crassness that it disarms even the fussiest connoisseur of throwaway disaster flicks.

His constant chatter may grate, but Noya does the wide-eyed wonderment thing very well.

An exquisite love story directed with admirable subtlety and sensitivity.

There's something plodding and uncomfortably strident about Little Animals that keeps the audience from sharing, much less understanding, Bobby's enchantment.

As long as you keep thinking of "Babe," you can't help thinking that there's no excuse for movies like Good Boy! to merely push the usual buttons, deploy the usual poop jokes and carry out the usual sight gags.

Snarkiness and sentiment are in constant battle for supremacy throughout Run, Fat Boy, Run with no chance of a comfortable draw.

There's no real rigor or craft applied to this story -- just mood, tone, neo-gothic imagery and frantic attitude. If only Penelope knew what it truly wished to be and how to go about it. Which is probably what this overly coy fantasy's modestly appealing title character wishes as well.

While Yamamoto's bullets never miss, Kitano's attempt at tragic grandeur of "Godfather"-esque proportions misses to an almost embarrassing degree.

The droll cast--especially Ferrer, who's exquisite as a tough-talking dunce--deserved something more fully realized than this.

The noir atmosphere doesn't quite smother the dialogue's cheesy smell.

The cause is just. But there's something off-kilter about the mix. Maybe it's because the animation retains its TV flatness while the story's texture is gratuitously bulked up.

The hard-sell comic delivery one expects from contemporary date movies is pleasantly tempered here.

Hostel II is far too shrewd and savagely witty to be caught engaging in higher seriousness. Roth could probably go even further with this particular franchise if he wanted to. Yet somehow, I think he's meant for grander, subtler and more intricate distractions than this.

They (Brooks and Douglas) are so out of sync with each other that they seem to be looking for different movies to take their acts, though neither makes you want to see those hypothetical films. Not even as an option to this one.

Griffiths' Pam holds your attention without any gratuitous mannerisms or broad asides. It's a sleek, rangy performance that all but redeems the hackneyed familiarity of the premise.

(Lawrence) has every right to be proud of carrying this rickety film on his stooped shoulders.

Documents accurately the capacity of pop culture to make mongrels of its consumers. But it doesn't quite know (or want to know) what to make of it.

Reunion is an awkward compound of paradoxical tones and ideas... But one shouldn't underestimate Perry's ability to make such contradictions work and get away with the most wretched excess.

Pettis is adorable, but she pushes the cuteness dial well past one's tolerance level. Still, if you've got small ones yourself, they'll probably enjoy the messes Joe and Peyton make together. They may also wonder why it takes so long for all the movie's messes to get cleaned up.

A hostage drama, cliches intact, is what we get.

The movie is over the top and garish. Its transitions often are sloppy and crude. But it brandishes its excesses like a loud, retro suit.

It's nice, once in a while, to come upon a movie that knows it's nothing special, proves it and doesn't care so long as its target audience feels good enough to have a refreshing beverage or two afterward.

Thinking too much about the contents will ruin what little pleasure there is in the experience.

There is plenty of nasty patter and aimless jokes about hard-core sex, soft-core drugs, dog feces and flatulence to keep you occupied while you wait, in vain, for any reason to laugh out loud.

Good Burger, K&K's inevitable first movie, will satisfy their audience's appetite for basic, messy silliness while leaving many grown-ups mildly bemused by the fuzzy obviousness of its humor, the gawky pacing of its sight gags and the second-handedness of its slapstick--almost all of which is redeemed by the eager but never cloying charm of its two stars.

For all its familiar conventions and hoary improbabilities, Double Jeopardy is a relatively efficient model of its kind.