Joe Leydon

Modestly engaging, albeit instantly forgettable shaggy-dog story only gradually reveals itself as a seriocomic take on standard-issue noir.

A slickly produced slice of sentimental hokum that borrows freely from a half-dozen or so other, better feel-good fantasies.

It's plotless, shapeless -- and yet, it must be admitted, not entirely humorless. Indeed, the more outrageous bits achieve a shock-you-into-laughter intensity of almost Dadaist proportions.

To be fair: Maybe I Do is undemanding, painless and pleasantly diverting, and has the saving grace of never trying too hard for a cheap laugh. There are quite a few undeniably funny lines, many of them made all the more amusing by the perfect-pitch delivery of the pros in the cast.

Too many stretches of Wedding Palace are so garishly lit and broadly overplayed that they seem more cartoonish than the actual animated sequences that pepper the live-action production. That’s a pity, since this indie romantic comedy is not without its minor charms during its infrequent quiet moments.

Fuzzily conceived and blandly executed, Leave It to Beaver is neither fish nor fowl. Not exactly a straight-faced homage to the classic TV series, but far short of an outright parody, this exceedingly mild comedy plays like the product of a committee that never reached a consensus on which direction to take.

The interaction among opposites inspires an abundance of predictable race-based jokes, many of which have the saving grace of actually being funny.

Despite the bumpy pacing and the routine plot elements, writer-director Le-Van Kiet periodically generates a sense of palpable trepidation during what might best be described as a worst-case scenario about post-partum depression.

It's an unabashedly corny but occasionally stirring dramedy based on the true-life story of scrappy young baseball players from Mexico who, in 1957, scored an improbable string of successes while playing their way from a Monterrey sandlot to the Little League World Series.

Bader does a respectable job of sustaining interest by repeatedly introducing clichés and genre tropes, then upending expectations or taking unpredictable detours.

Performances are unremarkable but acceptable pretty much across the board, and the vocal talents -- particularly Thomas Haden Church as the belligerent Tazer and Josh Peck as the lovable Sparks -- are well cast.

Despite the assiduous grinding of plot mechanics by William Brent Bell (“The Devil Inside”) and scripter Stacey Menear, the movie never fully distracts its audience from the inherent silliness of its premise...and, as a result, is more likely to elicit laughs and rude remarks rather than screams and rooting interest.

Zippy enough to delight youngsters and clever enough to engage their parents.

A film made by people who respect its genre too much to be condescendingly clever, but embrace it so heartily that they want you to know that, yes, they’ve seen the same movies you have, and enjoy them just as much as you do.

Blank Check wallows in the exuberance of excess so enthusiastically, for so long, that even naive youngsters may have trouble buying pic’s ultimate “money can’t buy happiness” message.

Moviegoers devoted to faith-based fare will flock to megaplexes for Courageous, easily the most polished production so far from brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, the prolific and increasingly accomplished filmmaking pastors at the Sherwood Church of Albany, Ga.

A classically low-tech monster mash.

A few good laughs but few surprises in Next Friday, an amiably unfocused sequel.

Some of the funny business is very funny indeed, and the movie overall is more enjoyable than not. Which, again, makes it perfect for streaming.

A spectacularly trashy and aggressively flashy motorcycle melodrama in which computer-enhanced action scenes, unbound by gravity or logic, are choreographed, photographed and edited to resemble video-game stratagems.

Unfortunately, the new pic never really achieves maximum velocity as a full-throttle action-adventure opus, despite game efforts by returning star Milla Jovovich, still a lithe and lethal dynamo when it comes to butt-kicking, zombie-slicing derring-do.

A frenetic but undeniably funny follow-up that offers twice the number of singing-and-dancing rodents in another seamless blend of CGI and live-action elements.

The screenplay by Chris Dowling and Tyler Poelle is, at best, predictable pulp with a smidgen of religion. Indeed, the characters are so thinly written that they are defined entirely by the actors portraying them. But director Ben Smallbone (brother of the movie’s lead player) is adept at generating suspense.

Neatly avoiding temptations toward mawkish excess, writer-director Chris Dowling hits a solid double with Where Hope Grows, his intelligently affecting faith-based drama.

An efficiently formulaic shocker.

Being Frank isn’t very amusing, which normally would be the most damning thing one might say about an ostensible comedy. But that really isn’t the worst thing about it. There is something ineffably creepy about this contrived and mirthless farce.

Thanks to the immensely appealing performances by Apa and Robertson, it’s easy for the audience to take a rooting interest in the sometimes awkward, sometimes amusing development of the budding romance between Jeremy and Melissa.

There are sporadic compensations for your investment of time: Ian McShane’s robust overplaying of an unapologetically scuzzy small-town lawman, John Leguizamo’s dead-serious villainy as a scarily resilient hit man, evocative lensing by David Jose Montero, and a few modestly inventive twists in the otherwise predictable plot.

Too muted to have much lasting impact, and remains modestly diverting only on a scene-to-scene basis. There's no quotable dialogue, no standout action sequence, no flashy supporting performances -- in short, nothing to lift Illegal Tender from the level of competent but inconsequential B-movie.

One can always make the argument that it’s not absolutely necessary to have sympathetic protagonists for a drama to enthrall or enlighten. But Infamous pushes way, way too far in the opposite direction: Dean and especially Arielle seem so irredeemably psychotic even before they begin to mount a body count, you actively wish for them to be caught or killed.

Psychopathia Sexualis exists in the gray area between ponderous stylization and campy affectation.

Far too aggressively seamy (and ferociously foul-mouthed) to please diehard fans of traditional sagebrush sagas, this misfire offers nothing in the way of wit, innovation or even marquee allure to interest auds accustomed to edgier revisionist oaters.

The documentary works best when it simply offers a concise and cogent account of epochal events.

The term “freewheeling” does not begin to describe the slapdash, anything-goes quality of the screenplay co-written by Troma mogul Kaufman.

Despite a few grace notes and mildly clever twists, this handsomely produced indie is such a grating turnoff throughout its first third that its minor virtues may be discovered only by insomniac latenight cable viewers.

By turns defiant and apologetic, gleefully raunchy and anxiously defensive.

Surprisingly amusing.

A slickly produced and brazenly clever piece of work that could attract a cult by sheer dint of its ingenious nastiness and self-aware snark.

A wildly uneven, sporadically slapdash action-adventure that amuses in fits and starts.

Everything leads to a third-act twist that is absurdly shameless, even by Bollywood standards. Unfortunately, Johar doesn’t appear to have intended it as another joke.

Jack Frost is a slickly packaged and engagingly sentimental fantasy-comedy that stands out as one of the season's most pleasant surprises. Pic offers a shrewdly balanced mix of humor, high concept and heart tugging, along with some amusingly impressive special effects.

There’s barely enough plot for a half-hour episode of a weekly TV series spinoff. And there’s even less here in terms of acting, writing and filmmaking polish to appeal to anyone over the age of 10.

The makers of Grace Unplugged deserve at least some credit for resisting temptations toward melodramatic excess.

A harmless and frequently humorous trifle.

A slackly paced but modestly diverting trifle, with cameos by recording artists Beck, Beth Orton and Hank Williams III to elevate the hipper-than-thou quotient.

Working from a script by Lou Berney, which in turn was adapted from a novel by Turk Pipkin, director Tim McCanlies maintains an even hand throughout, so that neither the moments of broad comedy nor the stretches of tearjerking sentimentality get out of hand.

Generates a respectable amount of suspense and takes a few unexpected turns while covering familiar territory.

Some viewers may feel as though, instead of watching a feature, they're paging through a book of rough sketches by a deranged Disney alumnus.

A slickly entertaining piece of work that will doubtless delight the young pop star’s fan base, and possibly engage curiosity-seekers who have heretofore remained immune or indifferent to Bieber Fever.

fFat-footed and ham-handed in its attempt to reconstitute a popular '70s TV cartoon show as a full-length, family-skewing feature.

An uncommonly satisfying mix of medieval fantasy, high-tech military action and "Mad Max"-style misadventure.

The Intruder offers few surprises of any sort.

Once again, Beckinsale brings an impressive physicality and subzero cool to her portrayal of Selene.

Based loosely and playfully on Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," From Prada to Nada is a predictable but pleasant comedy.

It would be unfair, and not entirely accurate, to dismiss “Path to Redemption” as irredeemably dull and without merit.

How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town emerges as surprisingly tame fluff, a modestly amusing trifle scarcely saucier than those wink-wink naughty farces that were staples of the ’70s dinner-theater circuit.

Emerges as a curiously mild-mannered if not downright tepid drama.

For those who felt insufficiently uplifted by "Invincible" and "Gridiron Gang," here comes Facing the Giants, an aggressively inspirational drama about a born-again high school football coach.

Choreographer-turned-filmmaker Franc. Reyes covers familiar ground without stumbling or dazzling.

A one-joke comedy that is good for more than a few good laughs.

La Scala is able to maintain interest and sustain narrative momentum throughout his fantastical narrative, even while he covers overly familiar territory. In this, he gets immeasurable aid from the sincere performances by his game cast.

While marred by cheap tricks and borderline camp, picture comes off as a largely low-key, intelligent effort.

Be prepared to laugh less at a lot more of the same thing in this overbearing but underwhelming sequel.

An undemanding dramedy.

Visually uninspired and dramatically overheated, Paparazzi has overall look and feel of generic direct-to-video production.

So insubstantial that it practically evaporates on screen.

Blessed with abundant production values and a minimum of campy excess, One Night With the King is a surprisingly satisfying attempt to revive the Old Hollywood tradition of lavishly appointed Biblical epics aimed at mainstream auds.

Aggressively stylish but dramatically flaccid.

Despite a couple of slow stretches along the way, director Mayfield does a generally fine job of integrating the eye-popping special effects with the simple but serviceable plot. The pace is just brisk enough to satisfy youngsters with short attention spans, and Williams is winning enough to keep audiences of all ages involved.

This Dog won't hunt. Although well crafted and handsomely mounted, pic lacks sufficient sizzle.

Generally pleasant family-friendly fare.

As a stripped-to-essentials "canned theater" version of a classic Jacobean drama, The Changeling likely will prove most useful as a teaching tool in college-level drama courses.

There's little chance of grabbing teens (or even many tweens) during summertime playdates. Still, small fry will be enchanted by this rambunctious action-adventure.

Hopelessly stagebound, despite halfhearted efforts to open up what’s basically a talky two-hander, and risibly pretentious in the manner of soft-core porn that’s no sexier than glossy ads for expensive perfume.

Helmer Joel Schumacher and a game cast headed by Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman do their damnedest to build and sustain suspense while trying, with some degree of success, to breathe fresh life into a formulaic, even generic scenario.

Disappointingly plodding and ham-fistedly obvious in its attempts to offer an up-close and personal portrait of a mood-swinging, self-loathing 59-year-old Ernest Hemingway.

The performances are credible across the board, excessive sentimentality is largely avoided, and the sequences devoted to rough-and-tumble rugby match-ups are expertly shot and edited.

Seriously hampered by glaring inconsistencies of tone and intent, and often feels like a series of highlights carved out of a much longer epic.

Working from a formulaic script by Steven E. De Souza, Hark employs a variety of visual stratagems to keep the action fast and flashy.

A silly and plodding "Jaws" rip-off about a 40-foot man-eating snake on the prowl in the Brazilian rain forest.

It's almost impossible to enjoy this uneven but mostly exciting popcorn pic without flinching at a few plot elements that feel a bit too real for comfort.

The sentimentality is gently but firmly restrained in a potentially treacly subplot.

There's a provocative premise at the heart of Master of the Game, but uneven acting, indifferent direction and melodramatic dialogue blunt pointed ironies.

The picture all too obviously recycles bits and pieces from "Madagascar," "The Lion King" and other made-in-America toons. Unfortunately, much gets lost in the translation.

A genuinely clever kidpic that should delight moppets, please parents -- and maybe tickle a few tweens.

Michael Landon Jr.'s respectfully sincere but only fitfully involving film.

Insufficiently focused but undeniably intriguing.

Toddlers and pre-teens will be entertained, and parents will be pleasantly surprised, by this more-than-just-bearable musical road movie.

A smart and sassy comedy with a playful sensibility and subtle sensitivity.

Scarcely seems worth the expenditure of time, money and talent.

Scores a few chuckles while following a familiar game plan.

A new standard for wretched excess is established by Inspector Gadget, a joyless and charmless disaster in which state-of-the-art special effects are squandered on pain-in-the-backside folly.

Unfortunately, Berk’s movie is too plodding and predictable to generate anything more than a modest level of suspense; worse, it lacks enough excitement to qualify even as instantly forgettable popcorn entertainment.

Quickly devolves into a standard-issue crime drama laced with routine martial artistry.

Mo'Nique, a vet standup and sitcom performer whose sassy, brassy shtick isn't nearly enough to support material this insubstantial.

Any provocative questions LaBute might have wanted to raise are totally obscured as the rising tide of absurdity gradually overwhelms the entire enterprise.

An ungainly hodgepodge of vaudeville-style comedy, turgid soap-operatics, and joyful epiphanies of gospel-flavored uplift.

Overall package is potent. A few rock-the-house scenes of slam-bang derring-do -- are nothing short of sensationally exciting.

Jenkins and Nasfell refrain from hard-selling anything, so that Gavin never really comes off as an obnoxious jerk, his chaste relationship with Kelly — so chaste, they never even kiss — progresses at a credible pace, and the movie’s religious elements, while respectfully given due dramatic weight, are scarcely more conspicuous here than in many more secular entertainments.

Forever My Girl is a sweet but slight romantic drama that got lost on its way to the Hallmark Channel — or, more likely, was rebuffed by that channel’s gatekeepers for being, even by their standards, entirely too predictable — and wound up in theaters instead.

Offers a largely satisfying mix of broad slapstick, seriocomic sentimentality and mostly amusing satirical thrusts at easy targets.

Trifling time-killer.

Modestly amusing in fits and starts, Fired! proves most potent when on-screen interviewees are playing for keeps, not for laughs.

This two-seated star vehicle for top-billed Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz wrings a respectable number of laughs from a formulaic scenario about attracted-opposites who bicker and back-stab their way toward happily-ever-aftering.

By turns poignant and plodding, affecting and affected, Ithaca is the sort of frustrating movie that’s just good enough to make you wish it were a lot better.

It's not quite a catastrophe, but the updated remake of That Darn cat is a loud and largely charmless trifle. Very small children may be attracted in sufficient numbers for fair-to-middling opening weekend B.O., but this overbearing comedy isn't likely to pussyfoot very long in theaters before it high-tails to homevideo.

Neither funny enough nor scary enough to be satisfying as either a shocker or a spoof.

Despite enough good intentions to pave a four-lane highway, the ardently sincere but dramatically unfocused For Greater Glory plays like a multipart miniseries that has been hacked down to feature length.

Just fast, frenetic and funny enough to amuse both new fans and longtime devotees of the characters who have inspired more than 30 years worth of animated TV episodes and made-for-video features.

A glossy teen-weepie romance that often plays like an inspirational indie skewed toward Christian niche market.

Despite game efforts from a first-rate cast and acres of impressive production values, Event Horizon remains a muddled and curiously uninvolving sci-fi horror show.

Chalk it up as a middling B-pic that, with a bit more wit and style, could have been at least a cult item.

More than passably amusing.

Even under the best of circumstances, it would be late in the day for another bigscreen adventure from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. But coming so soon after the well-received reissue of George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy, the high-camp cheesiness ofTurbo: A Power Rangers Movie is especially unimpressive.

A lightweight, warp-speed, brightly colored trifle.

Perfectly harmless, often humorous, featherweight confection -- think "Serendipity" re-imagined as a teen-skewing Saturday morning sitcom.

Not quite a three-pointer, but definitely more than an airball, "Celtic Pride" is an uneven but largely likable basketball-themed comedy that should lay up decent B.O. numbers and perform even better in the homevid arena.

Sequel is louder and more elaborate (and even slightly longer) than predecessor, but the law of diminishing returns has caught up with this franchise.

Premature winds up resembling nothing so much as the coarsely smutty teen-sex comedies that abounded throughout the ’80s in the wake of “Porky’s.”

Indeed, you could argue that weighty questions about the nature of evil and the allure of sin figured more prominently in the similarly titled "Se7en," one of several other, better suspensers dimly echoed here.

Based on fact but mired in cliches, My All-American pays respectful tribute to U. of Texas football legend Freddie Steinmark (1949-71) with the sort of on-the-nose sincerity that transforms biography into hagiography

The title alone should alert auds that The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress is a hatchet job on the controversial politico known as "The Hammer."

Throughout most of the movie’s running time, Modine is tasked with the majority of the heavy lifting, and he handles the burden admirably.

Director Naveen A. Chathapuram and scripter Ashley James Louis, working from a story by Chathapuram and Doc Justin, have cobbled together a derivative and numbingly pretentious piece of work distinguished only by the relative novelty of a female lead (well played by Ali Larter) who’s as resourceful, resilient and, when push repeatedly comes to shove, purposefully brutal as guys usually are in movies like this.

Manages to distract auds from the predictability of the plot with fusillades of profanely funny dialogue and some playfully sexy chemistry generated by Cook and Hudson.

The movie offers a great deal more mood than matter.

Martian is loud, busy and altogether pointless. Worse, it’s simply not as engaging as the show that inspired it.

A boisterously Tarantinoesque mash-up of cliches, archetypes and bodacious craziness in the tradition of Southern-fried '60s and '70s drive-in fodder, The Baytown Outlaws is the sort of cartoonishly violent and swaggeringly non-PC concoction that defines guilty pleasure for many genre fans.

Plays more like '70s drive-in fare than a monster mash of recent vintage.

A modestly inventive but curiously bloodless version of the Bard’s timeless tragedy.

Long on atmosphere yet short on dramatic tension.

Lightweight but likable entertainment.

After 40 or so minutes of teasing hints that its makers may have hit upon a fresh approach to found-footage thrillers, “Phoenix Forgotten” indicates the genre may be having its last gasp on life support as the movie devolves into yet another threadbare patchwork of mounting hysteria, faux cinéma vérité, and shaky-cam visual clichés.

A frenetic, featherweight trifle aimed at tweener femmes.

Fires blanks. Thoroughly routine, pic plays like a paint-by-numbers pilot for bygone basic-cable teleseries.

Slickly produced and blatantly manipulative, Bannon's hagiographic tribute is a celebratory cavalcade of career highlights and glowing testimonials that doubtless will please Palin's devoted followers, appall her fiercest critics -- and, perhaps, occasionally surprise the undecided.

Newcomer Rachel Hendrix grabs attention and sustains sympathy as a lovely yet troubled 19-year-old student determined to unlock the secrets of her past after learning the circumstances of her birth.

Even when the blood-and-thunder hokiness of the over-the-top plot tilts perilously close to absurdity, the admirably straight-faced performances by well-cast lead players provide just enough counterbalance to sustain audience curiosity and sympathy.

The Girl in the Photographs is a slasher movie filled with smug and self-absorbed characters who are not nearly as clever as they obviously assume they are.

Equal parts 1960s-style Spaghetti Western pastiche and ’80s-style “Mad Max” knockoff, Scorched Earth is the sort of divertingly hokey post-apocalyptic B-movie that would have amused undiscriminating Blockbuster Video renters a generation ago, and now might pass muster as the pilot for a weekly SyFy series.

Despite all the flash and filigree, this monster movie is curiously -- and conspicuously -- lacking in heart.

It's obviously intended as a star vehicle, but Broken Bridges turns out to be a rattletrap jalopy for country music performer Toby Keith.

Unfolding like a better-than-average episode of a first-rate TV police procedural, Untraceable is a satisfying slice of solidly crafted meat-and-potatoes filmmaking.

Arriving so soon after "A Knight's Tale" -- and the 25th-anniversary reissue of the classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Black Knight is a textbook example of too much, too late.

Scattered stretches of suspense and a few undeniably potent shocks are not enough to dissipate the sense of deja vu that prevails throughout Chernobyl Diaries, a wearyingly predictable thriller about "extreme tourists."

Trendy influence of insidiously creepy Japanese horror pics is felt in almost every frame of Boogeyman. The effectively atmospheric and unusually involving thriller tells the story of a distraught young man's protracted duel of wits with the eponymous evildoer.

As bad as Dead Water might seem while you’re watching it, it’s even worse when you replay it in your mind after the fact, and pay stricter attention to holes in the plot and gaps in the logic.

Just funny enough to mollify purists and amuse the uninitiated.

A picture so thoroughly generic as to suggest a contraption assembled from spare parts with the aid of a how-to manual.

Robbins is such a live wire that he's able to jumpstart his co-stars whenever they're interfacing onscreen.

If Hangman were just a tad less formulaic, and settled for a slightly smaller body count, it might pass muster as the pilot movie for a basic cable police procedural.

Despite the considerable impediment of a premise arguably even sillier than that of the original "Red Dawn," helmer Dan Bradley's long-delayed remake of John Milius' 1984 kids-vs.-Commies adventure delivers enough thrilling action sequences and rock-'em, sock-'em fantasy-fulfillment to amp its B.O. potential.

Comes off as a retro reprise of those slam-bang, buddy-buddy action-comedies that proliferated throughout the '80s in the wake of "48 HRS."

Helmer John Luessenhop ("Takers") and a small army of scripters go back to the bloody roots of the long-running franchise to concoct a better-than-average horror-thriller that relies more on potent suspense than graphic savagery or stereoscopic tricks.

There is more mood than matter to be sampled in “The Disappointments Room,” a spooky psychological thriller — or, perhaps, a psychological thriller with spooks — that is initially intriguing but ultimately, unfortunately, lives down to its title.

Yet another attempt to mix raunchy excess and romantic-comedy sweetness in an anything-goes raucous farce, The Babymakers offers a few big laughs between ho-hum stretches of frenetic vamping.

Begins as a morosely melancholy study of a thirtysomething couple on the verge of divorce, then devolves into an unpleasant thriller about their confrontation with psychos.

An unsatisfying supernatural thriller with an effectively unsettling build-up and a frustratingly muddled pay-off.

Earns points simply for not being bad enough to leave a stain on the screen. Unfortunately, this annoyingly disjointed shocker stumbles badly after promising early scenes, and quickly devolves into a chaotic blur of underdeveloped characters, illogical transitions and standard-issue scary-movie tropes.

With extended closing credits, Marmaduke clocks in at 88 minutes and feels longer.

A dramatically flat and tediously disjointed drama that comes across as a standard-issue, cliche-littered, struggling-writer-finds-fulfillment biopic that has been cut-and-pasted into borderline incoherence.

A faster, funnier follow-up in which CGI-enhanced canines and felines effect a temporary truce to combat a common enemy.

A textbook example of the charm-free ephemera dumped by studios during the waning days of summer.

A hugely enjoyable romantic comedy that dares to suggest that love can bloom -- and, more important, hormones can rage -- after 50. Smart, sassy and slickly packaged.

Offers a relatively fresh take on standard-issue exorcism-melodrama tropes, along with a performance by Aaron Eckhart that is more than persuasive enough to encourage the investment of a rooting interest.

A frankly formulaic but agreeably funny comedy about has-beens, wannabes and never-weres.

Aimed squarely at adolescents who might find "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" too intellectually taxing.

The mix of raucous buffoonery and violent mayhem isn’t exactly seamless, and the laugh-out-loud moments come with conspicuously less frequency during a third act that suggests a rough draft for “Bad Boys 3.”

The actors manage to keep from being upstaged by the sets, though just barely. Abraham goes over the top, then further still.

Paradox, a waste of time made bearable only by its brevity, plays like a bad acid flashback from the 1970s, a time when similarly self-conscious trippy pastiches of rock music and genre conventions proliferated on the midnight-movie circuit.

It doesn't help that Zellweger, in an unfortunate attempt to make the aud appreciate her character's uptightness, spends many of the early scenes moving about as stiff as a flagpole in January.

Provides enough cheap thrills and modest suspense to shake a few shekels from genre fans before really blasting off as homevid product.

A genially haphazard but frequently amusing neo-stoner comedy that plays like "Cheech and Chong Go to Animal House."

Small children will be amused by the frenetic antics of Cuba Gooding Jr. Grownups, however, will be far less enchanted.

The line between priggishness and creepiness is repeatedly smudged by multihyphenate Rik Swartzwelder in Old Fashioned, a faith-based drama that looks as lovely as an expensive greeting card, but moves as slowly as a somnolent turtle.

Not so much a probing examination as a fulsome celebration.

So insubstantial that it practically evaporates on screen, Pooh's Heffalump Movie likely will play best with toddlers and pre-schoolers easily amused by bright colors, merry songs and lovable, huggable toon animals.

Plodding and repetitive in its efforts to maintain pressure-cooker intensity, The Divide resembles nothing so much as an extended "Twilight Zone" episode as it brings a sci-fi twist to a familiar scenario about stressed characters who bring out the worst in each other while trapped in close quarters.

Christensen underplays throughout 90 Minutes in Heaven, even in scenes when Piper isn’t operating under the influence of painkillers, and his earnestness often comes off as monotonous. Still, he generates interest and sympathy, almost in spite of himself, and Bosworth lends capable support as a loyal spouse.

Cameron is genuinely compelling as Caleb.

Still nothing but a gussied-up B movie.

The presence of a predominantly African-American cast arguably is the only distinguishing characteristic of this by-the-numbers thriller.

Uneven but modestly diverting.

For most part, The Perfect Man is too bland to merit anything more censorious than a stifled yawn.

Silly script, broad slapstick and overstated lead perfs by B-team cast might be acceptable to target audience.

Only very small children still easily impressed by interaction of human actors and CGI quadrupeds will be amused by Garfield.

If you approach it with sufficiently lowered expectations, and have fond memories of the ’70s paranoid dramas that obviously inspired director and co-writer Mark Williams, this might be your house-brand jam.

Even when judged by the standards of broad farce, however, Expecting repeatedly strains credibility and defies logic in ways too glaring to ignore.

A modestly clever concept gets indifferent execution in When a Stranger Calls, another bigger-yet-blander remake of an allegedly "classic" '70s shocker.

Unfortunately, interest lags between the grisly deaths, and, worse, none of the characters generates rooting interest.

A handsome but ho-hum swashbuckler that springs to life only during a few spirited scenes of acrobatic swordplay.

Although it falls far short of fulfilling its full potential as a dark comedy of desperation, Dead Man on Campus is a modestly amusing trifle that merits a passing grade as lightweight entertainment.

Too tepidly sincere to consistently excite or amuse. What keeps it at least moderately interesting on a scene-to-scene basis is the novelty value of seeing a strong and self-confident woman, credibly portrayed by Devika Bhise.

Much like a botched souffle that fails to rise, Simply Irresistible is a bland confection that remains doggedly earthbound while attempting flights of romantic fantasy.

Brosnan is very effective at playing Regan as a wary technophobe who has become too comfortable with his power and success.

The helmer generates suspense with shrewd pacing, deft emotional manipulation and efficient use of familiar tricks -- jittery editing, flickering lights and unsettling sounds -- common to haunted-house pictures.

It’s easy to laugh at the arrant contrivances and heavy-handed dialogue in the script penned by Alex and Stephen Kendrick. But it’s even easier to admire the persuasive sincerity and emotional potency of the lead performances by Shirer and Stallings, who do not transcend their material so much as imbue it with conviction.

Overall, though, the slapdash pic appears to be the work of folks who made things up as they went along; you might say they were, well, vamping.

Shamelessly sappy and emotionally manipulative, Patch Adams is an aggressively heartwarming comedy-drama that may be roasted by critics but embraced by ticketbuyers.

This tepid comic-bookish comedy should zip through its theatrical run faster than a speeding bullet. It likely won't perform much more superheroically in ancillary venues.

Against the Night isn’t a terribly good movie — it’s mostly a patchwork of clichés, stock characters and low-voltage shocks culled from dozens of similar small-budget thrillers — but it isn’t an entirely useless one, either

While it's highly unlikely that anyone predisposed to championing Obama would be won over by the sound and fury here, there's no gainsaying the value of "2016" as a sort of Cliffs Notes precis of the conservative case against the re-election of our current U.S. president.

An underwhelming and derivative sci-fi thriller that's only marginally more impressive than a run-of-the-mill SyFy Channel telepic.

There’s something curiously underwhelming about the blood-soaked mayhem on display in Hatchet III.

Under Dennis Dugan's rote direction, Schneider winds up playing straight man to Spade, who once again relies on his snarky coward shtick, and Heder, who comes across like someone doing a bad imitation of ... well, Heder himself in "Napoleon Dynamite."

All things considered, The Identical might have worked better as a TV miniseries, a format that would allowed the filmmakers to give equal time to Hemsley’s story.

An exceptionally lame genre parody that plumbs depths of ineptitude heretofore charted only by the marginally less abysmal "Date Movie."

Slackly paced and unexciting, Death Wish V comes off as a flat-footed, by-the-numbers programmer that, judging from what’s onscreen, failed to spark much enthusiasm among the people who made it.

Arsenal, a pulpy crime drama about desperate characters and excessive carnage in Biloxi, Miss., is memorable primarily for some random scraps of loopy dialogue, the credible evocation of a sleazy demimonde rife with white-trash lawbreakers, and yet another Nicolas Cage performance that could be labeled Swift’s Premium and sold by the pound.

Predictable but pleasant comedic fantasy.

Costner's earnest performance is a major plus for Dragonfly, keeping the picture grounded in some semblance of reality even as it becomes progressively more fantastical.

A well-intentioned misfire featuring 3-D CGI animation that recalls lesser vidgames of the mid-1990s.

A B movie that somehow won the lottery and got an A-movie cast and director.

It's doubtful that anyone, even executors of Greene's literary estate, will be able to discern much of the source material in this frenetic trifle.

As thrillers go, Shut In is conspicuously short of thrills. It’s an undistinguished and predictable hodgepodge, so blandly generic as to suggest that it was cobbled together by filmmakers referencing a how-to handbook who picked spare parts from other, better thrillers.

Despite an effective Jim Caviezel, this anecdotal drama never rises above the level of lightly likable.

There doesn’t appear to be any purpose at all to the random exchanges and interactions that pass for a plot.

Despite stretches of skillfully sustained suspense, Apollo 18 ultimately comes across as little more than a modestly clever stunt.

A flagrantly derivative but modestly diverting drama.

While the sheer novelty of a feature about lacrosse may be enough to generate some audience curiosity about A Warrior's Heart, this respectably crafted but thoroughly predictable indie rarely deviates from the gameplan followed by countless other dramas about self-absorbed young hotheads who get a shot at redemption on the playing field.

The five leads earn kudos for their ability to come across as something approaching credible.

A clunky and cheesy disaster.

Christmas Eve isn’t likely to make anyone feel exceptionally merry. Still, it remains modestly diverting from scene to scene.

Highly reminiscent of Kingpin in its willingness to try anything for a laugh, Dirty Work is a shameless and sporadically hilarious comedy about two thirtysomething underachievers who start a revenge for hire business.

Destined to be better remembered for its grisly billboard imagery than for its relatively tame torture-porn tropes, Captivity is a thoroughly nasty piece of work that nonetheless earns credit for generating modest suspense after a predictable but effective plot twist around the 50-minute mark.

Lightning fails to strike twice -- an underwhelming follow-up to one of the career-stalled action star's better efforts.

Solid performances, handsome production values and a few genuinely creepy scenes are not enough to save Godsend.

Vaxxed comes across as a grab-bag of charts, theories and anecdotal evidence that would never pass muster by the editors of any major scientific journal (like, say, the Lancet), and too often resembles the kind of one-sided, paranoia-stoking agitprop that political activists construct to sanctify true believers and assault infidels.

The narrative is so predictable that, when an outburst of trash-talking doesn’t escalate into a barroom brawl, it’s not just surprising, it’s pretty close to shocking.

[A] ponderously paced, needlessly convoluted and altogether unexceptional thriller.

This undistinguished picture qualifies as an endangered species. As a digital babysitter, however, it may prove sufficiently efficient to generate fair-to-middling homevid sales.

Smoothly maneuvering within the limitations of genre conventions, Bats emerges as a vigorously paced and surprisingly satisfying piece of work.

It's an instantly disposable and shamelessly derivative piece of work -- call it petit guignol, and you won't be far off the mark -- but first-time feature helmer Jonathan Liebesman shows a savvy flair for atmospheric visuals.

The road to hell is paved with well-intentioned clunkers like I’m in Love with a Church Girl, a strenuously sincere but tediously schematic and heavy-handed attempt at cinematic proselytizing for Christianity.

This is hagiography, not history. If you accept it as such, you may find yourself mildly engrossed from scene to scene, regardless of your political persuasion, without ever viewing “Reagan” as anything more substantial than a small-budget docudrama series on cable TV.

Kind of a drag when it resorts to frantic slapstick and tired action-comedy tropes, but modestly engaging during stretches that suggest the project would have worked better as an exuberant musical.

It’s hard to imagine that even the least demanding of tykes will ask for a second sampling of this thoroughly second-rate animated feature, which has all the charm, and twice the volume, of a barking dog.

[A] drearily lame time-waster.

If Redemption Day were any more generic, the first thing you’d see on screen would be a bar code in place of the opening credits.

The series' quest for different and challenging Pokemon reaches a nearly absurd endpoint this time.

It's debatable whether the original 1974 "Black Christmas" is, as its most rabid fans claim, the mother of all slasher movies. But there can be no argument regarding the scant merits of its slapdash, soporifically routine remake, suitable only for the least discriminating of gore hounds.

Emerges as a formulaic thriller that plays more like direct-to-video fare than a megaplex-worthy feature.

At once annoyingly hyper and underwhelmingly dull.

Might be extremely effective while preaching to the converted, but it's no great shakes as secular entertainment.

Gun Shy is the sort of leaden misfire in which actors labor mightily to transform themselves into cartoon caricatures in a desperate (and largely unsuccessful) attempt to make viewers think, despite all evidence to the contrary, they are watching a comedy.

Entirely comfortable as the crude character he has honed in countless stand-up routines and TV appearances, Larry the Cable Guy sustains a level of likeability that enables him to get away with a lot more than he has any right to. But, he remains very much an acquired taste.

Some bad movies trigger swells of anger and outrage, while others prompt industrial-grade snark and scorn. And then there are leaden clunkers like Just Getting Started that provoke an ineffable sense of sadness as one considers how much time, money and talent has been squandered on something so thoroughly useless.

Haphazard mix of boisterously crude comedy, romantic entanglements, class-conscious clashes and intensely competitive hardball.

Looking and sounding like a second-tier '80s made-for-cabler, Crazy on the Outside is the sort of bland trifle one might watch to kill time during an extended flight.

The hit-to-miss ratio is less than impressive throughout A Haunted House, a frenetic and freewheeling satirical comedy that only sporadically scores a bull's-eye while aiming at easy targets.

Plays like an overextended variety-show sketch.

Ranks as the most slapdash comedic star vehicle to hit screens since Harland Williams misfired with the career-stalling "RocketMan."

Overblown and underwhelming, Bitch Slap is a desperately unfunny attempt to satirically recycle cliches and archetypes from sexploitation actioners of the 1960s and '70s within the time-trippy, multiple-flashback framework of a Quentin Tarantino. extravaganza.

The script is so thinly written that the main characters are defined almost entirely by the actors playing them. Fortunately, seasoned pros Slater, Rhames and Cromwell are able to flesh out their boilerplate parts.

Curtis and Pacula are thoroughly convincing in thinly written roles.

Reprisal is not a very good movie, but it leaves you with tantalizing hints that some people involved with it are capable of doing something much better.

Fitfully amusing prequel.

How late can a thriller spring a plot twist that at least partially compensates for all the cavernous plot holes, risible dialogue, and ludicrously illogical behavior that precede it? Probably not nearly as late as the makers of Replicas wait before introducing a third-act reveal that brazenly acknowledges just how silly things have been up to that point.

More uselessly redundant and shamelessly money-grubbing than most third-rate horror sequels.

An unsavory and unsatisfying blend of dumb plotting, leering lasciviousness and full-bore gore, pic should warp-speed to video shelves.

Anemic action-fantasy.

Sweeney, who first invented the character while a member of the L.A.-based Groundlings comedy troupe, has almost perversely turned the relatively harmless TV character into a boorish, egotistical creep for the bigscreen. Fans of the “SNL” sketches will be disappointed. Non-fans won’t bother.

An instantly forgettable trifle.

A sloppy and shoddy piece of work, filled with just about every cliche and caricature common to low-budget, low-brow comedies with predominantly African-American casts.

The Darkest Hour turns out to be a modestly inventive and involving variation on a standard-issue sci-fi doomsday scenario.

Despite the palpable air of deja vu that hangs over it like a light fog, The Devil Inside generates a fair amount of suspense during sizable swaths of its familiar but serviceable exorcism-centric scenario.

An appalling misfire that tries and fails to evoke the anything-goes spirit of such '70s sketch-comedy concoctions as "The Groove Tube" and "Kentucky Fried Movie."

By turns frenetic and flat-footed, Mr. Magoo is an uninspired live-action comedy.

The lame mediocrity of Vampires Suck undeniably reps an advance for writer-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. By just about any other standard, however, this instantly forgettable trifle is fairly close to worthless.

This enervating muddle of paranormal nonsense manages the difficult feat of seeming frenzied and lethargic all at once, while building toward the sort of ludicrous cop-out climax that often incites die-hard genre fans to shout rude things at the screen.

Even if you’re willing to forgive the laughably fake beards, the unconvincing computer-generated imagery, and a man-versus-lion skirmish that might have embarrassed Ed Wood, the overall clunkiness of this enterprise may tempt you to shout rude things at the screen.

Throats are ripped, heads are crushed and limbs are severed with brutal efficiency throughout See No Evil, but that's not nearly enough to dispel the sense of deja vu that pervades this generic slasher thriller.

The four leads are nothing if not game, and actually earn respect, along with a fair amount of sympathy, for their uninhibited willingness to go to extremes. But there are limits to what they can do to dispel the overall sense of mounting desperation as the gross-out tomfoolery grows ever more tedious.

It's less substantial than cotton candy, but Material Girls is as slickly produced as one of the Marchetta TV spots.

Action pics rarely come much more blandly generic than Extreme Ops, an instantly forgettable snow-and-stuntwork extravaganza.

A surprisingly effective teen-skewing thriller that soft-pedals graphic violence (in marked contrast to the R-rated 1980 original) while generating a fair degree of suspense.

Much like the ongoing real-world meltdown of its troubled star, Lindsay Lohan, I Know Who Killed Me is a disaster that exerts a perverse fascination.

A frenetically junky action adventure that will quickly dribble off to vid stores after a token fast break in theatrical release.

For auds unwilling or unable to grapple with the subtle nuances of "Scooby Doo," Warners now gives us Kangaroo Jack, a shrill and silly farce.

Loosely plotted and wildly uneven farce.

A plodding patchwork of derivative fantasy-adventure, medieval production design, risible dialogue, unimpressive CGI trickery and haphazardly edited action sequences.

Seldom has a pic been more appropriately titled than Disaster Movie, yet another frantically unfunny free-form farce.

For the most part, however, D’Souza gives the impression of someone obsessed with whitewashing any and all dark chapters in U.S. history books. There are times when his defenses and rationalizations come across as almost laughably facile.

By turns laughably simplistic and confoundingly muddled as it charts the "final battle" between good and evil.

Obviously the product of minimal effort by all parties involved, Strange Wilderness is a slovenly, slapped-together stoner comedy.

Exuberantly rude and crude, but generally more frantic than genuinely funny.

If Love, Actually had actually been as bad as its most vociferous detractors have long insisted, it would have looked and sounded a lot like this misfire.

Arguably the lamest of all the free-wheeling genre parodies that have taken flight since "Airplane!," Date Movie is stupefyingly unfunny in its attempts to mock romantic comedies, celebrities, reality TV shows and anything else that pops into the heads of its creators.

Grotesquely smutty and obnoxiously overbearing, this is a pitiful excuse for a comedy.

Lazy, lame and painfully unfunny, Meet the Spartans is yet another scrambled-genre parody.

There are bad movies, and then there are worse movies, and then there are full-bore misfires such as Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?

Latenight cable TV filler disguised as a feature film.

Conspicuously underwhelming.

Trick ‘r Treat neatly apportions scary and campy elements while cleverly interlacing four storylines on Halloween night in an Ohio hamlet.

A '70s-style redneck romp aimed at folks who felt intellectually challenged by the complex narrative stratagems of "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo."

A low-key charmer that's bound to enchant small children and amuse their parents during many hours of repeat viewings.

Modestly engaging but thoroughly formulaic drama about a boxer turned preacher who returns to the ring to fund a community-outreach center.

Plays like a mercilessly extended version of an uninspired "Saturday Night Live" sketch.