Hank Sartin

In this eerily tranquil psychological thriller, Nicole Kidman's placid countenance is like a Rorschach: you'll project onto it what you want to see.

The film never quite achieves the sharp edge satire demands, largely because director Andrew Niccol, who was so good at managing tone in "Gattaca," can't decide whether to go with nasty or hilariously farcical.

Argentinean writer-director Daniel Burman uses a shaky handheld camera and voice-over narration to take us inside Ariel's head, which gets a bit exhausting, even in the more emotionally satisfying second half.

Hits the ground running and never looks back. But after an hour of propulsive pacing the shock value wears off, and all that's left is pop-up carnage.

Has an affable charm, but the script is paint by numbers.

Reasonably entertaining but predictable.

There's an uplifting message about heroism, dispensed in dialogue so familiar you can practically lip=synch it.

This harmless comedy by Steven Mallorca comments wryly on America's weird hybrid culture, but the characters are too broadly drawn and the story drags in the last third, just when it should be hitting comic warp speed.

The audience is subjected to a series of emotional contortions, encouraged to experience them voyeuristically, and then scolded for doing so. The bathetic music Kim favors is profoundly at odds with his chilly attitude toward the characters.

All the male pulchritude can't make up for a muddled script.

This Hamlet elevates plot to a height that retains the play's atmosphere but squanders its thematic richness in a welter of "Mommy, how could you?" melodrama.

I expected this to be much funnier: Latifah coasts on her charm and Fallon seems incapable of playing an actual character.

There are a few witty touches (POV shots given to the urn holding the mother's ashes) but the mood swings erratically and ineffectively from deadpan drollery to heartfelt romance.

If, as some critics have claimed, "The Cabin in the Woods" made the horror genre obsolete, someone forgot to tell screenwriter Oren Peli.

Every eerily tranquil shot, weirdly elliptical scene, and peculiar line reading contributes to a mood of detachment rather than creeping dread.

As hard as the film tries to pander, the kids at the preview screening seemed a bit disengaged.

This bleak little drama started as a play, and I'd bet that even onstage it felt contrived.

Wacky mix-ups and a stunningly unfunny climax.

The result is your basic Bruckheimer action spectacle plus lots of leather, shaggy haircuts, and Celtic tattoos.

A talented director might have made Bullock seem like a comic genius, but Phil Traill has no control over tone, leaving the audience unsure whether to laugh or cry.

"Friday" had moments of stoned charm and telling neighborhood detail; this second sequel never gets beyond the angry, cruel, and misogynist.

Every joke is stretched to the breaking point, and no one seems to be having any fun.

Even the action sequences are poorly executed, with lots of choppy editing meant to conceal the fakery.