Hank Sartin

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.

This is both melodramatic and overly tidy in its plotting, but its odd personal relationships are utterly believable.

Reasonably entertaining but predictable.

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.

The animation is remarkable, except for the stiff, marionettelike humans.

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.

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

Desperately wants to be whimsical and charming. But whimsy isn't easy to carry off, and director Alan Taylor, who has directed mostly television dramas, has a heavy hand -- scenes meant to be comical are destroyed by leaden pacing and a puzzling mix of tones.

At times Hirsch seems afraid to trust the material's inherent drama and becomes unnecessarily manipulative, staging performances in striking landscapes and playing the footage in slow motion.

All in all it's pretty lurid, but it delivers what it promises.

The concert footage is generally quite good, and Joplin is astonishing, but with so many hours of footage you'd think there would be more unexpected moments.

It's a bad sign when you can't name or differentiate any of the Lost Boys.

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

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.

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

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.

Episodic but entertaining fantasy.

Uekrongtham handles the material with reasonable restraint, and you can't help but cheer on the hero.

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.

Be forewarned: this comedy bears only the faintest resemblance to the classic book and film of the same name.