Jami Bernard

Mismatch of tone and material.

You don't mess with perfection. That is the main reason why The Singing Detective, a virtual remake of the ­brilliant BBC-TV series of the 80s, falls flat on its psoriatic face.

That the actors can work under such scrutiny is amazing, and they are superb. The standout is Brad Renfro as Marty, the kid most under the thumb of the neighborhood bully.

Slick entertainment.

A movie about a maverick ought to be a little daring as well, and Mona Lisa Smile is as safe and predictable as chintz.

In documentary footage played over the closing credits, the real warrior is introduced to American fast food and returns to his people too fat and sluggish to spear himself a snack, let alone a missionary.

The superior animation we've seen over the last few years has raised the bar for family entertainment like Hoodwinked, which features lackluster character design, so-so animation and only fitful bursts of cleverness.

An enjoyable, gorgeously photographed aquatic adventure whose stars are blissfully bodacious.

The book has been altered in mostly reasonable ways to suit the needs of the screen, but what it loses in the translation is invaluable in comprehending what led someone to pick up an ax and wipe out two-thirds of an island's population.

May be the biggest gathering of high-decibel performers in one movie. But they work well together and some are truly excellent.

A gangsta rapper without fire in the belly isn't terribly interesting, cinematically or musically.

About two faces of healing.

The visuals might be undistinguished, but the voices are excellent.

A haunting, melancholy work.

A strange, somewhat icky romantic comedy. [25 November 1998, p. 45]

There's a sensational, highly original performance by Swinton.

Old-fashioned comedy-drama.

When improv is done well, it sheds a unique light on the human condition. When it is done adequately, as it is in Full Frontal, it simply makes you long for a good script and pricey production values.

Even a soccer-savvy audience has better things to do - like instilling unsportsmanlike behavior in their kids or sabotaging rival teams.

Some of the scenarios are funny. But they're uniformly overplayed.

Has been fine-tuned for adolescent boys, from the hectic pace right down to the way Cassandra's breasts are always barely draped.

What sets Bootmen apart from the vast competition is its exuberant, sexy tap-dancing, but that's mostly relegated to the grand finale.

The result is a funny, tender, satisfying blend of fiction and cinema vérité.

Interestingly, though, the actor who plays Yanis is a dead ringer (despite the scowl) for Adam Sandler. That's surely an effect director Manuel Boursinhac didn't intend.

Graham is lots of fun to watch, but it's hard to reconcile the split halves of her character.

The 2,400 Americans who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor deserve a nobler memorial than this sentimental hogwash that reduces heroism to "Top Gun" antics and pretty cinematography.

Adrien Brody is cornering the market on roles where he's hunted, haunted and under-nourished.

Would be better if it weren't so preachy.

Too much chaos, not enough heart. Bad for the digestion.

A tepid amalgam of other, similarly themed movies.

Stiller and Aniston have zero sexual chemistry. But they have impeccable comic chemistry in a movie that features some stellar bits of business.

An uneven story undermines this horror franchise, despite high-quality performances by Naomi Watts and David Dorfman.

Nia Vardalos carved herself a niche with "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" in 2002, and she's still furiously digging away at it with the screechy, unpleasant comedy Connie and Carla.

In its unleashing of relentless, cosmic retribution, The Operator is not unlike the recent "Joy Ride."

A prettily photographed yet morbidly gloomy movie.

The result is a back-lot studio tour that's not exactly good-natured, but terrific fun and it gives the ensemble cast plenty of clowning opportunities.

Mostly pitched at a new crop of children who will detect the movie's mildly sarcastic, audience-winking tone with no problem.

There is undeniable pleasure in watching these pros at work, but the murky depths of the soul can make for a dreary two hours.

An unerring sign of the awfulness of Malibu's Most Wanted is a series of the least funny outtakes ever appended to a movie's closing credits.

Director and co-writer Steve Suissa misses every opportunity to go deeper, either for laughs or pathos.

Flails about desperately for a genre to call home.

Michael Winterbottom nakedly goes where no "respectable" director has gone before - to sex and beyond! His provocative 9 Songs is the first movie by a director of Winterbottom's standing to depict real, uncensored sex between its lead actors.

There are many delightful movie techniques out there available for making animals appear to speak, so it's too bad The Shaggy Dog doesn't use any of them.

Needs someone to roll down a window and let in some fresh air.

It's hard to care what really happened on Wonderland Ave. when the audience hates the neighborhood.

The teen actors grin twitchily as if tickled by sudden growth spurts, but apparently nothing can hurt their chances with the females in this libidinous zip code.

Miss Congeniality would not be out of place as a TV series, so it makes sense that Candice Bergen and William Shatner appear as pageant co-hosts.

Can't cope with its own weirdness.

A sexy crime story. The double-crossing complications don't make much sense, but it's fun to watch Wilson turn the hard-boiled dialogue into a series of ironic one-liners under the hot Oahu sun.

An unimaginative schoolyard-bully comedy.

Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant are distilled to the very essence of their annoying tics and quirks.

Smart, fun and mildly subversive, but it rides the wave of its joke a little too long.

Silly supernatural Viking epic.

Carrie is back and she's all the rage.

This sob story is a tough sell.

It's just as well that John Carpenter makes horror movies, because here's a horrifying thought picture James Woods as an action hero. [30 October 1998, p. 44]

The filmmakers' decision to go with prosthetic enhancements rather than CGI gives the snouts, fangs and snapping jaws a refreshingly tactile look.

The script is so ridiculous that nothing rings true.

A collage without context.

The bubble-boy niche is thankfully small. John Travolta began his career playing one in a TV movie, but this movie will undoubtedly finish off the genre for good.

For devout fans of the greenish monster and for those looking to shoot fish in a barrel.

Irritating wish-fulfillment movie.

Some of the jokes will elude Americans while the movie's hip quotient gradually fades away.

If you like your burger well-done, you're in for a disappointment.

Manages to look very good for its limitations, and features solid actors doing their best with a very sketchy script.

You may not realize just how much it takes to make a great mockumentar like "Waiting for Guffman" until you see Never Been Thawed.

A sluggish sequel.

The Substitute is just engaging enough that you won't wonder until after the movie why Mr. Smith is apparently the only teacher in the entire school. [19 Apr 1996, p.65]

What Short does not deserve - and neither do we - is a feature-length movie about Jiminy.

A formula movie that is way beneath Murphy's talents.[17 Jan 1997, p.45]

About as many characters, dragons and force fields as "Pokémon" has pocket monsters, so it may be difficult for the uninitiated to keep track.

As in "The Edge," in which Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins were stranded in the wilds, you can earn a wildernesssurvival merit badge just from watching.

The gimmick is that the script is based on the real-life experiences of actress Stephanie Bennett, who plays Samantha.

Beyond its baby-sitting capabilities, Power Rangers doesn't morph into anything special. It hasn't a single fresh idea.

Half a barrel of laughs. The other half is made of slime.

In his new concert film, a train wreck of self-regard, self-pity and not-so-humble pie, Martin Lawrence doth protest too much.

Alana De Roma is going to be a tremendous star.

Structure overwhelms everything, but it's not as if Wicker Park has nothing to say. It's full of ugly truths about emotional frailty, and implies that stalking is a bad thing only when you're not charming enough about it.

There are plenty of chuckles at the expense of Dr. Phil, Shaquille O'Neal, Carmen Electra, Charlie Sheen and series stalwart Leslie Nielsen. But with no comic carryover from one skit to the next, true belly laughs are few and far between.

The picture's a dud... Instead of Chow's gravitas rubbing off on the kid, Scott's dude-ness dilutes Chow's authority.

"On Deadly Ground," "Out for Justice," "Marked for Death" these are the last times Seagal gave us nothing. With Fire Down Below, he outdoes himself. [6 Sept 1997, p.32]

If the Founding Fathers had known National Treasure would be the result of their efforts to forge a new nation, they might have reached for the Wite-Out.

Family gatherings in the movies are shorthand for brutal trips down mine-strewn memory lanes. The Sisters doesn't disappoint in that regard.

Charlize Theron's Gilda in Head in the Clouds invites comparison to Rita Hayworth in 1946's "Gilda," which adds a touch of the ludicrous to this already strained material set in wartime France.

Disturbing, visually stunning thriller.

The movie delivers the promised ballroom action, but not the charm. And if you think the title is endless, wait till you see Goodman's death scene.

Despite a plethora of "naughty bits," it's a yawn.

Has some good music and hot dancing -- filmed choppily -- but it completely lacks the magic of its predecessor.

A comedy that successfully plays with stereotypes, both racial and personal.

It may be a dismal comedy thriller, but Antoine Fuqua's Bait has one piece of bait that's definitely appealing: Jamie Foxx.

Crudup gives it his best, but his character is so economically drawn, there's hardly anything there -- certainly nothing likable.

A mediocre fright-fest.

Amusing and good-natured, but necessarily thin.

As a meditation on love and loss, the award-winning script is perhaps too blunt.

Ho-hum, another serial-killer thriller. Even with Angelina Jolie thrown in for forensic sex appeal, this dog won't hunt.

Chronicles of Riddick is half cheesy, brawny adventure and half … something else. That something else involves a lot of leather, bondage, studded armor and heavy machinery.

The drama never gets too deep or the comedy too funny in this L.A.-centric story that feels more like a pilot for a "Friends"-style series.

Rickman and Richardson are excellent actors put to ghastly waste.

If you think you're tough enough, go ahead and sit through the endurance test that is Bad Boys 2, a brutal, 2 1/2-hour display of production overkill.

There ought to be a law about transporting humor internationally.

What really makes the jaw drop is the presence of so many talented actors in what seems like traditional TV treacle. Saddest of all is Debra Winger, reduced to playing the wife-as-wallpaper role. For this she came back to Hollywood?

It's just like Paul McCartney's first solo album after the Beatles broke up; he played all the instruments himself -- because he could.

More chemistry between the leads would have helped. But Laws of Attraction still would have had a tough case making a jury believe these two unlikable characters belong together, except as a way to take them out of circulation.

Lacks the charismatic presence of Vin Diesel, who has priced himself right out of the franchise. Without Diesel, there's not much gas, at least not from the nonvehicular elements.

Children may get a kick out of Flubber's lowest-common-denominator antics. They may not recognize that Williams' prodigious talent has been reduced to something sub-blobular. [26Nov1997 Pg 38]

Evans fumbles through painfully extended homophobic jokes, weak double entendres and agonizingly contorted double-takes.

The humor is supposed to stem from the clash of kids who have been raised so differently and of partners with opposing views of child care. But there are just so many jokes you can make about who gets to use the bathroom when.

Kinsella, in his feature debut, milks cliches, caricatures and an unlikely set of coincidences to tie things up in a neat bundle.

Crude and giggly.

The far too whimsical God Is Great, I'm Not leans heavily on the charms of Audrey Tautou -- As adorable as Tautou is, miracles are beyond her.

The movie is quite off its rocker: Jerry Springer, Chrisopher Walken, Tom Waits as a roadside prophet, a miscast, nervous Lucy Liu as an FBI agent -- it's a feverish, violent jumble that's shot as if high on mescaline -- the drug, not the salad.

The main problem with this whole Jerry Bruckheimer-produced mess is that they took a promising comedy setup and squandered it by trying to make a legitimate spy thriller out of it.

A brutal and preposterous action movie about a guy, a kid and a secret code. And a whole lotta shattering glass.

Never gets at what makes Quek tick.

The jolts are mild and too easily anticipated.

This movie is not just bad, it is breathtakingly, spectacularly, awesomely bad. You might want to see it out of curiosity. [23 Aug 1996, p.40]

This amateurish drama about street-dance contests and busted friendship is about as real as Lil' Kim's chest.

A grade better than the made-for-cable market whence it came.

A thin, by-the-numbers romantic comedy that nevertheless features one saving grace: Matthew Perry.

An admiring but overly simplified walk down memory lane.

A screechy chick-flick relationship comedy with a lot of things working for and against it - mostly against it.

A dreary comedy in the same mold (as "The Bad News Bears," only moldier.

The wordless six-minute animé shorts - at the end of which our double-jointed heroine would always die - don't lend themselves to a 95-minute action movie where viewers might rightfully expect something to make sense.

As a boxing movie, Against the Ropes is perfunctory, with a well-muscled Omar Epps diligently enduring predictable montages showing his rise to fame as Jackie's first protégé. As a biopic, it's likewise uninspired stuff.

There are some nicely gory touches for genre connoisseurs...But JC2 lacks the all-important character development we got in the first installment.

The film would be totally unwatchable without the very real charisma of Diesel.

There are lame comedies, and then there is Big Fat Liar, which is so lame that it merits its own reserved parking space.

There's definitely room for a female Woody Allen, an accolade garnered by a previous film. However, Amy's Orgasm is chirpy, shrill and coarse, more in the vein of one of Allen's more depressed periods.

Not only achingly dull, it has no respect for its origins.

The esteemed actor Derek Jacobi goes slumming as someone who pulls that metal badge from the chest of a cadaver. Shakespeare it's not.

Filmmaker Josell Ramos has his heart in the right place, but his camera is usually in the wrong place, complete with bad lighting and all-around lousy tech credits.

Overall the tone is dark and nasty, exemplified by the inelegant signature kung-fu move of the good guys -- a backward kick to the groin.

If you want pretentious and unsavory, check out Buddy Boy.

It all makes the head spin -- in the direction of the exit sign.

Grand passion, secrecy, world politics and mortal danger provide a heady mix for this spectacularly beautiful movie. If only the accents were as reliable as the azure of the sea.

Macaulay Culkin still can't act, and it's no longer cute. His performance in Party Monster is so embarrassing one doesn't know where to look.

The dialogue is nothing to speak of, but the movie has a dynamite opening sequence in which the corporation turns on its workers, leaving them, if not dead, then with "virtually no intelligence," like office workers everywhere.

Very much a freshman effort, lacking focus, edge.

Flimsy and forgettable, but it does have a few worthy action and special-effects sequences.

Aside from its relentless exploitation of a child, this minor thriller features an intriguing beginning, a middling middle and an increasingly silly end, with a multitude of red herrings going squoosh underfoot.

The audience for this chaste teen romance won't be film lovers, as the movie is sappy and listlessly paced. But it's just the ticket for people who want their movies sanitized.

Old monster movies were thrilling in a way that mingled terror, sexuality and a real preference for the monsters over their tormentors. Van Helsing is a kiddie adventure on an endless, meaningless loop.

With its mystical mumbo jumbo and even a helpful beam of celestial light in one scene, A Rumor of Angels is a kind of cinematic comfort food for an undemanding audience.

Mildly pleasant movie.

The floating, flailing, flying puppies in the inspired opening credits of 102 Dalmatians set the tone for an adorable sequel to the live-action version of the famously spotted cartoon.

Watch out for space junk.

Earthlings beware: The dialogue and characters have less weight than bodies freed from gravity's grip.

The movie awkwardly tries to present Bullock and King as an interracial odd couple. But the overall result is charmless, even insulting.

A tepid comedy whose only saving grace is the face of Jennifer Tilly in a crystal ball.

It's brain-dead start to finish.

The actor's directorial debut is a lugubriously poetic homage to the famed Chelsea Hotel, which is to New York's artistic and beatnik past what Ellis Island is to the story of American immigration.

Gore fans will dig the makeup effects and some of the tongue-in-cheek slice-&-dice.

An adequate but none-too-thrilling star vehicle for Jennifer Garner in flame-colored bustier and low-riding pants.

Pleasantly cheesy but undistinguished martial-arts and horror fare.

A depressingly hollow vehicle.

What is unusual and exciting about the movie is the assemblage of raw talent in the cast.

Mostly plays like a routine thriller with a classy cast.

There's no drug potent enough to make Grandma's Boy worth 87 minutes of your life.

Sappy and improbable.

Hell is sitting through a movie in which you have no respect for the protagonist and the "surprise" ending is as clearly lit as the exit sign.

The funny thing about RV - no, it's not the jokes, which mostly bomb - is that the characters are actually pretty likable. It's an odd achievement for a road-trip comedy that wants desperately to be loved for its potty jokes, not its humanity.

Characters seem phony.

Big Momma's got game, but she doesn't have much else.

Very Bad Things only getes worse. [25 November 1998, p. 44]

The screenplay has no idea how to modulate the banter between the movie's talented stars so that it approximates affectionate and playful sparring.

Gross, nearly unwatchable comedy.

A safely sanitized comedy with an important message about loyalty and individuality, plays to Lohan's strengths and gives the target audience a chance to live it up vicariously.

A bit of a slog for anyone not thoroughly Olsenized.

It features an insane amount of violence and a number of visual references to the comic, but it lacks the original's humor and spirit.

It's Rock's first venture into leading-man territory, and the material is carefully tailored to his measurements. He's fully believable as a standup comic. How he'll fare as a character other than Chris Rock is yet to be determined.

Falls short of the mark, content to shoot fish in a barrel.

Fathers and sons with problems expressing their feelings makes for a story that is universal, and that has also been done to death. Thankfully, the boxing scenes are extensive and pack the appropriate punch.

This is a movie full of tin-eared humor and situations too contrived to give romance a toehold.

Goes down easily only because Judd and Jackman are eye candy, and because Kinnear and Tomei provide solid comic support.

Dismal time-travel comedy that makes "Big Momma's House" look like "Citizen Kane."

A lame buddy-cop movie that squanders stars De Niro and Eddie Murphy as it races from one cliche to the next, blithely unconcerned with whether anything parses.

A stylish comedy low on amusement but high on sensuality.

Cedric is certainly the bright spot in this movie - personable, silly and lovable, with just enough of Gleason's girth, timing and humanity to make you wish he'd driven Ralph Kramden's bus onto the lot of a different movie.

Pretty thin feature-film subject. But the silliness is so contagious that it doesn't matter.

Mark Wahlberg could lose some of the good will he generated from his performance in "Boogie Nights" by playing an idiotically gentle killer for hire in The Big Hit. [24 April 1998, p. 53]

Intelligent and holds your attention, like a mystery story unraveling.

The movie creaks and groans, weighed down by clichés.

A hit-and-miss romantic comedy.

Does the testosterone fly? Not as fast as the potty jokes. Ditto the homophobe jokes zing! zing!

An abysmal comedy that should have been strangled in its crib.

The main theme is the loneliness of the social outcast. That, plus a soundtrack to wake the undead, and the morbidly entombed presence of Aaliyah, will attract an audience despite the movie's intrinsic cheesiness.

A weird, unpleasant little movie.

Nothing you haven't already seen elsewhere, except for Vin Diesel looking even then like a box-office champ.

Jackie Chan finally has met his match, an opponent so deadly that none of his considerable talent or charm can fight it -- a bad movie

You might want to sit out this season.

If only half as much attention had been paid to story and character as to set design, the cast wouldn't be playing second banana to a gut rehab.

I'd like to believe I could watch ­Cedric the Entertainer all day long. The tedious comedy Johnson Family Vacation puts a strain on that theory.

While their often-unclothed bodies are visible, their faces are replaced with digital "buttons" saying things like "Your ad here."

Christensen is a bold actress with chilly frosting. For much of the movie, her character seems determined, sophisticated and bemused, rather than just plain nuts.

Lohan's good work in movies like "Mean Girls" and the "Freaky Friday" remake is a faint memory as she struggles through antics, unfunny pratfalls and squirmingly bad set pieces.

Lame children's entertainment.

The award for hardest-to-watch movie of the year.

It's a difficult issue, one that is not well served by a hollow confection like I Am Sam.

Leaves the viewer exhausted, jet-lagged from the effort of investing equally in competing story lines.

Both a fan's dream and a moviegoer's nightmare: It ends up being all about those who remember and interpret Philip K. Dick and not about the man himself.

The story has a definite ick factor that detracts from even the small pleasures the movie might offer its teen audience.

A hellacious stew of romance and tragedy that gives the words "screwball" and "pathos" a bad name.

Thanks to that dog-torture element, Garfield may be too upsetting for younger kids. Meanwhile, older kids (let alone parents) will want to put this movie behind them like yesterday's hairball.

A movie needs more than a few sexual innuendos and throaty purrs to keep us from taking a catnap. How about a strong story and credible characters?

The fog also does something genuinely eerie: It causes everyone in the cast to deliver dreadful performances and display inappropriate reactions when their friends are drowned, burned, stabbed or thrown into glass display cases.

Gloriously inventive, delightfully nutty comic treasure is unlike anything you've ever seen. It's lunatic.

The movie is full of puzzling celebrity cameos, as if Brazilian director Bruno Barreto called in all his chits.

Trixie has "cult favorite" written all over it. That is to say, the general public is likely to say ixnay.

A movie that shouldn't be allowed on the same campus as "Animal House."

Phantoms is fear-less.

A cheaply voyeuristic story whose "twist" is hardly worth the wait.

Introduces American audiences to Luo Yan, a charismatic Chinese-born actress now living in Los Angeles. She single-handedly nurtured this project to fruition, serving as producer, co-writer and star.

Excuse me, but didn't Bette Midler already play this role?

Recycles the most obvious jokes from similar comedies that preceded it, such as "Tootsie," but with the most rudimentary characters.

Not even Rupert Everett is able to breathe life into soapy Thing.

The only intriguing character is the manager of the diner (and de facto fairy godmother), played by Regina King.

It's hard to take this oddball movie seriously.

This dismally strained comedy defies laughs and doesn't contain an ounce of internal logic.

A desperately unfunny comedy that wastes a brand-name cast.

The funny thing about this unfunny movie is that the cast is brimming with actors who are usually quite engaging. The Whole Ten Yards must be very potent chloroform, indeed, to make Willis, Perry, Peet and Pollak such zombies.

A painfully unfunny vehicle for Norm Macdonald, who here shows exactly why he was ousted from NBC's Saturday Night Live. [13 Jun 1998, p.27]

It's enough to encourage the aspiring film makers in the audience, no matter how wee in age, to yell "Cut!"

A dreadful animated movie stuffed with bad puns and little internal logic. More dangerous than the world icing over is the danger of eyeballs rolling back into the heads of parents accompanying kids to this.

See it only if potty-training is still the most vivid life experience in your book of memories.

A guilty pleasure, right up there with "The Water Boy."

Screenwriters look to many sources for inspiration. In the case of Saving Silverman, they looked behind them, and liked what they saw.

The movie is paint-by-numbers with several numbers skipped.

When is a holiday stocking more like a smelly gym sock? When it's the malodorous Christmas With the Kranks, a so-called comedy stuffed with bigotry, intolerance and bullying.

Stanze is to be congratulated on raising the bar for horror avant-garde filmmaking on a shoestring.

It has incest, sweaty armpits, nipple rings, drool, an amputee, a stroke victim and an engagement ring stuck in a sticky place. And Heather Graham. All that, and it's not very funny.

Just about every race and creed come off badly in this small-scale thriller.

Certainly a dark spirit is hovering over this inane production. Something has sucked the life out of it.

It's a movie that should have been called on account of boredom.

If you haven't had enough of the Central Park rampage videos showing human nature at its worst, you could always pay to see Boricua's Bond.

It's strictly amateur hour.

A failed experiment in magical realism that makes you wonder where the magic went.

Talk about waste products; think of the time, effort and money that went into this movie.

Everything to treasure about that magical, slightly malevolent feline of childhood verse is obliterated in the coarse, charmless Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat.

A remedial comedy for idiots.

Virtually plotless, the movie does its best to be offensive, but not in the service of any particular theme. The use of mentally impaired youngsters as actors is cheap and exploitative. You can only wonder about the emperor's new clothes, and how much Hollywood paid for them. [17 Oct. 1997, p.52]

To pay for all the explosions and stunt work, the filmmakers must have decided to skimp on the screenplay. The rule of thumb is that one page of script equals one minute of movie, but there is so little dialogue in Ballistic that it could have been written on a matchbook.

Ben Affleck's goose is cooked with Surviving Christmas, a movie that makes "Gigli" look like one of the crowning moments in his career.

Gigli is a disaster.

Serving Sara is D.O.A., with nary a laugh to be found.

Cuba Gooding Jr. can just return his "Jerry Maguire" Oscar right now. He has no excuse for making Boat Trip, a perniciously unfunny comedy.

Should have sold its soul for a little help in the script department.

Reefer mildness.

The story is a mess, some of the images offensive, the acting under par and the dialogue silly.

An "American Pie" wanna-be that, in trying to be as tasteless as possible, sometimes succeeds.

The game itself is meaningless, and the movie, much the same way, likes it like that.

Silly, perfect fun.

Exhaustingly manic but curiously unfunny movie.

This needlessly vulgar exercise in overuse of the n-word bills itself as a comedy. Even the outtakes over the closing credits don't live up to that.

It wastes no time getting to the punching, kicking, stomping and zapping that passes for a cinematic event. [22Nov1997 Pg. 35]

Profoundly depressing.

Features even more toddlers acting in a way only collectors of velvet paintings will consider irresistible.

The movie equivalent of a medical experiment gone horribly wrong and kept in a jar of formaldehyde as a warning to others: Comedy can be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands.