Jan Stuart

A ditsy and dizzying spook-house thriller in high-tech, high-hemline gear.

Isn't it amazing to see just how low some people will stoop if you pay them enough?

If Lonesome Jim feels like it's perpetually on the verge of evaporating, Buscemi brings to the material the boundless empathy for misfits and screw-ups he displayed in "Trees Lounge."

High-grade lampoon, at once more consistently on-the-money and less patronizing than anything off the Christopher Guest conveyor belt.

Ultimately, Journey to the Center of the Earth's minor-league visual pleasures will be most enjoyed by those with the smallest number of celluloid reference points, preferably those who have started going to the movies after "Jurassic Park" or, better yet, the Harry Potter films.

A funkadelic fun ride that shrewdly reinvigorates the eye-popping styles and pulpy veneer of '70s blaxploitation flicks.

Works up a decent amount of solid, creep-show atmosphere in its first act before making some absurd decisions of its own in its second.

Seems to have been tailored to its designated R "for brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, language and drug use."

Audiences who feel battered by Hollywood's usual hard-sell approach to farce may be disarmed by Koepp's soft touch and inclined to credit blandness as understatement.

Screenwriter Dan Schneider and director Shawn Levy substitute volume and primary colors for humor and bite. Granted, it's a kids' flick, but kids today have enough savvy about the movie industry to report for Variety.

Droopy remake.

The Irish-pretty Cyrus exudes a goofball vitality and sunny work ethic that ultimately wins you over, despite the slickness of her vehicle. The 3-D camera throws drumsticks and confetti in our faces, but the technical effects seem superfluous to the star's bona-fide energy.

The film's sunniest moments occur whenever song preempts all the fighting and smirking. Myers leads the cast in sitar-accompanied covers of such Bollywood favorites as "9 to 5" and Steve Miller's "The Joker," revealing a glimmer of the cross-cultural romp that could have been.

SomeBody reclaims well-trodden territory with an innovative hand that feels fresh as tomorrow.

Emulating its hero's recklessly independent spirit, The Wackness aspires to be something more than your average psychiatrist-bashing, dysfunctional-parents coming-of-age dramedy à la "Running With Scissors." It snows us with more visual flash than it knows what to do with.

This new romantic comedy from the U.K. lands on an emotional gold mine only to spin it into synthetic straw.

All of the actors convey the ebullience of old friends convening for an on-the-cheap reunion. The shared good spirits result in a diminutive comedy with a bounty of charm and shrewd humor.

There is even less going on between Ricci and Depp here than there was in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," mostly because Potter gives them nothing to play.

It's not awful, but the high cost of a movie ticket these days seems like a steep price to pay for 90 minutes of air conditioning and production design.

The impulse to shtick it up to burlesque-level inanity is encouraged at every turn.

Even at its stride, "The X-Files" was a load of malarkey. But it was thoughtful malarkey and compulsively watchable. One could say the same about the first two-thirds of The X-Files: I Want to Believe before it spins out of control and into a delirious plane of awfulness.

The result is stylish but awfully slim.

Sydney White is a carnival of ethnic and social stereotypes that are rising up against the lily-white status quo. In Hollywood, blond princesses and fairy tales die hard.