Joe Leydon

Boasting strong performances by Jeff Bridges and Justin Timberlake.

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.

Sensationally exuberant, imaginatively crafted and intoxicatingly clever.

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

A seamless albeit frequently cornball scenario.

While The Longshots is by no means an unpleasant experience, it feels like a project carried out by people who began with the best of intentions but weren't quite able to sustain their initial enthusiasm.

Be forewarned: After you see Road Trip, it may be months, if not years, before you can order French toast with a straight face and a settled stomach.

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.

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."

This understated period drama may lack sufficient star power and emotional wallop to score breakthrough success with mainstream auds during its domestic theatrical run, but pic could find a warmer response in the same international markets where "Kingdom of Heaven" redeemed itself last year.

Despite teasing hints of supernatural influences throughout much of the storyline, Not Forgotten satisfies as a solidly crafted and persuasively acted thriller that relies more on dark secrets than black magic.

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

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

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

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.

Deftly interlaces heart and humor in a witty, warm and well-observed comedy about the unexpected and inconvenient blooming of romance at the weekend gathering of an extended family.

Has some genuinely amusing moments of dumb and dumber silliness.

Bleak, gripping, sporadically exciting drama.

An instantly forgettable trifle.

Aimed squarely at moppets with minuscule attention spans, “The Rugrats Movie” is a fast and frenetic animated feature that should delight young aficionados of the long-running Nickelodeon TV series.

A stealthy neo-noir drama that isn't afraid to take its time developing characters on the way to the payoff of a neatly designed caper scenario.

A muddled metaphysical allegory that isn't nearly sunny enough to camouflage its darker undercurrents.

How much mileage can a comedy get from a single joke? Quite a bit, judging from the guffaws-to-groaners ratio in MacGruber.

Plays like an overextended variety-show sketch.

With Davi and Chazz Palminteri fronting a first-rate ensemble cast, and a tasty soundtrack of golden oldies, this unpretentious indie dramedy has much to recommend.

Uses humor and high spirits to entertain while spreading the Good Word. Much of this slick and sprightly CGI feature is sufficiently funny to amuse even the most resolutely unreligious parents who escort their little ones to megaplex screenings.

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.

The 2000 version is louder, broader and much, much bigger.

With a mix of sly humor, homespun grace and affecting poignancy, Get Low casts a well-nigh irresistible spell.

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

Result is an unusually likeable family-friendly comedy.

Modestly engaging but thoroughly predictable.

Grim but engrossing.

Warm-hearted but clear-eyed indie effort richly repays audience patience during deliberately paced and provocatively allusive early scenes with a cumulative emotional impact that is immensely satisfying.

The deliberately jittery hand-held lensing enhances the mockery in this mockumentary.

First-time helmer Patrick Tatopoulos (who designed creatures for all three pics) offers a satisfyingly exciting monster rally that often plays like a period swashbuckler.

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.

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

Poet Maya Angelou's debut feature directing effort is a solid and affecting piece of work.

There's a pronounced lack of emotional pay-off that likely will derail any attempts to position Word Wars as an aud-friendly crowd-pleaser with breakout potential comparable to "Spellbound."

May be too grisly to extend its appeal beyond its fan base.

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.

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

Neither a grand slam nor a strikeout, Everyone's Hero is minor-league animated entertainment.

This stunningly shameless follow-up to the 2002 theatrical sleeper (and homdevid mega-seller) offers more of the same -- a lot more -- while repeatedly upping the ante in terms of offensiveness. Which, of course, should greatly -- and profitably -- please is target aud.

The overlong but involving drama has obvious cross-generational appeal.

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

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

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

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.

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

Documentarian Jessica Yu employs everything from animation and voiceover thesping to archival documents and eyewitness accounts while examining Henry Darger, a self-taught artist who has been posthumously lionized as a visionary genius.

A heady spirit of spontaneity permeates the proceedings, suggesting the entire pic, much like the concert it documents, was conceived, planned and completed in a single burst of creative enthusiasm.

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.

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

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.

A mildly pleasant, aggressively retro kidpic that should please undemanding moppets without unduly boring their parents.

A frankly formulaic but raucously entertaining action comedy.

Generally pleasant family-friendly fare.

Frothy, funny and formulaic, 27 Dresses is a pleasantly predictable romantic comedy that sees Katherine Heigl following “Knocked Up” with smooth moves at the wheel of her first starring vehicle.

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.

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.

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.

Formulaic but effectively gritty inner-city crime drama.

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

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.

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

Slither begins briskly, gradually accelerates and eventually achieves a breakneck momentum that makes the wild ride even more exhilarating.

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."

The adults do little more than provide marquee allure in brief bookending scenes that add little to rest of the pic. For the most part, Now and Then is a showcase for four fine actresses in their early teens.

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.

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

Looks, sounds and fascinates like an exceptional episode of a true-crime TV series.

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

Lacks focus and momentum as it attempts to interweave diverse story strands into a cautionary tapestry.

Well-cast relationship comedy-drama is played too broadly in the early going, but gradually settles into a more appealing groove as a glossy date-movie.

Too blandly insubstantial to expand its appeal beyond its target demographic.

Result: An undeniably clever commingling of a new cast (and spoken dialogue) with a silent classic. But pic fails to engage consistently on its own terms, and begins to coast on novelty value around the midway point.

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.

Ronnie is more complex, and much scarier, than the kind of self-deluding boob auds usually encounter in comedies of this sort. With the invaluable aid of Rogen, who's never been better, Hill sustains an impressive degree of tension between seemingly contradictory elements.

Decently crafted but oddly charmless.

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.

Premise is formulaic and execution is predictable, but Brock maintains a lively pace while eliciting first-rate work from thesps.

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.

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

Intelligent, informative and unusually entertaining documentary errs only when it yanks too insistently on heartstrings while focusing on worst-case scenarios involving desperate debtors driven to suicide.

Has more than enough across-the-board appeal to attract mainstream auds unfamiliar with source material.

Lee takes time to explain the stories behind the stories, to unearth revealing details under-reported in other accounts, and to identify individuals among the faceless masses of unfortunates.

Mouse Hunt is the cat's meow. Blending the graceful slapstick of Laurel and Hardy with the mock-Gothic visuals of "The Adams Family," this often screamingly funny comedy about a resilient rodent has enough across-the-board appeal to click with audiences of all ages.

A golden opportunity to witness the "unplugged," after-hours George W. Bush at his most congenial. "George" offers a portrait of a gregariously charming and self-mocking fellow who's perfectly at ease in his own skin, and who's no less slick and savvy a politician for being willing to make himself the butt of jokes.

A solid and affecting piece of work.

Intelligent, involving and intricately plotted thriller.

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

An undemandingly pleasant, mildly amusing fantasy.

An unappetizing mix of raucously vulgar comedy and teen-angst melodrama.

Uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory.

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

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.

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.

Very much in the tradition of "Slap Shot," George Roy Hill's raucously funny and foul-mouthed 1977 laffer about the misadventures of a minor-league hockey team, Semi-Pro scores big laughs with the rowdy play-by-play of hard-luck hoopsters struggling for professional survival.

Gleefully commingles slapstick and scatology, satire and sentiment, in a free-wheeling farce aimed at making auds laugh until they're thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

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

Even though Frakes is back, Star Trek: Insurrection plays less like a stand-alone sci-fi adventure than like an expanded episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Wildly uneven as it doggedly strives (sometimes with obvious strain) to sustain a free-wheeling, anything-goes air of exuberant junkiness.

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.

There's no denying the pic's overall impact as a compelling study of art as a source of transcendence. And it will come as no surprise if this well-crafted doc eventually serves as source material for a dramatic feature.

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

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.

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.

This enjoyable East-meets-Western likely will succeed on its own terms as a sure-fire, long-legged crowd-pleaser.

Koepp does a masterful job of grounding his intimations of the supernatural in a totally persuasive down-to-earth context.

Picture inspires respect for its first-rate performances, artful construction and meticulous understatement.

Cameron is genuinely compelling as Caleb.

With appreciably greater emphasis on action than its predecessors, and clever use of 3-D trickery to enhance storytelling as well as offer spectacle, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs could prove the third time really is the charm.

A seductive, fascinating tapestry of small-town life.

Junky, jokey and sometimes both at once, pic marks yet another attempt by World Wrestling Entertainment to establish one of its burly superstars as a movie lead.

A harmless and frequently humorous trifle.

Deliberately paced, richly atmospheric drama also boasts first-rate work by a splendid supporting cast and impressive production values.

Having earned his stripes by directing a few TV episodes, Frakes makes an auspicious debut as a feature filmmaker, sustaining excitement and maintaining clarity as he dashes through a two-track storyline.

Although closer in tone to "Office Space" than Herman Melville, Jonathan Parker's absurdist update of Bartleby is surprisingly faithful to the spirit, if not the letter, of the "Moby-Dick" author's 1853 novella about an under-achieving Wall Street copy clerk.

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

Infused with a strong sense of moral outrage, The Empire in Africa provides more heat than light while attempting to explain the motives and methods of combatants who waged the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone.

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.

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

Lightweight but likable entertainment.

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.

A sly curve ball of a documentary best described as a sports-themed "Rashomon" with an O. Henry twist.

With plenty of cheap shocks but little real suspense, Hoboken Hollow is nothing more than an uninspired cavalcade of carnage, much of it shamelessly gratuitous.

In an era when similar genre pics increasingly resemble videogames, musicvideos or glossy commercials, the blunt, brawny simplicity of helmer Jean-Francois Richet's storytelling style seems positively novel.

For all the pic’s sentimentality, De Felitta refuses to back away from some unpleasantly realistic touches.

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

Curtis and Pacula are thoroughly convincing in thinly written roles.

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.

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.

Francophile film buffs and obsessive deconstructionists might be amused, but less indulgent auds will find derivative pic artificial and mannered.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A sly mix of haunted house melodrama, slasher pic mayhem and retro-blaxploitation iconography, spiced with dollops of grisly, dark comedy.

Slick, straight-ahead action-thriller that marks a small step back and two bounding leaps forward for toplined Jet Li.

Its low-key charms are considerable enough to engage venturesome ticketbuyers.

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

There's a pleasantly dreamy quality to much of Eye of the Dolphin, and that goes a long way toward enabling audiences to ignore the formulaic plot and enjoy the laid-back charms of this innocuous indie.

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

Aggressively stylish but dramatically flaccid.

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

An over-the-top and beyond-PC comedy that sometimes deftly, sometimes slapdashedly infuses party-hearty anarchy with hectoring moral outrage.

Simply isn't funny or frightening enough to expand its appeal beyond core fan base.

Skillfully entwines stories of three young women drifting in and out of a Jersey City juvenile detention center.

A bland gumbo of wartime intrigue and home-front soap opera in the bayou country of Louisiana.

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

Segel makes an engaging impression throughout Forgetting Sarah Marshall, gamely making himself the butt of many jokes that involve Peter's non-macho proclivities.

Would have worked better with a few more ersatz coming-attraction trailers and considerably less filler. More than likely, it would have worked best of all as an hourlong special on Comedy Central.

An ingeniously conceived and devilishly clever opus.

The effectively offbeat casting of Paul Hogan and some impressive underwater cinematography do much to enliven Flipper, an otherwise unremarkable attempt to revive the franchise that spawned two features and a popular TV series in the mid-1960s.

So insubstantial that it practically evaporates on screen.

A curiously bland drama that fails to fulfill the promise of its early scenes.

By turns amazing, amusing and appalling.

A wildly uneven drama, by turns sincere and synthetic.

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

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

Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark Sydney as an impressive piece of work.

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.

Tyler Perry offers another blithely unbalanced mix of low comedy, sudsy sentiment and spiritual uplift in Madea's Family Reunion.

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

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

A classically low-tech monster mash.

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

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

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

Ticket buyers get two Jackie Chans for the price of one in Twin Dragons, but the pic itself is no great bargain.

Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the most valuable player here, revealing impressive comic chops and megawatt charisma even while serving as a human punchline for many of the pic's predictable sight gags.

An entertaining story that, while not terribly original, is sufficiently arresting and often laugh-out-loud funny.

Deftly mixing alternating tracks of playful rowdiness, thoughtful introspection, ferociously slamming rock and not-so-quiet desperation, helmer Manu Boyer scores impressively with I Trust You to Kill Me, arguably the best rockumentary since "Some Kind of Monster."

A smart and snappy drama tinged with dark humor and brimming with self-confidence.

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

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.

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

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

A genially amusing ensemble farce that doesn't quite achieve enough momentum for liftoff.

It's more likely to serve as a calling card than a breakthrough for any of the parties involved.

Has a washed-out look that may be off-putting to auds who might otherwise enjoy the pic's uncondescending view of Southern characters and customs.

Pic feels like a cross between an anthology of ambiguous short stories and a string of acting-class exercises. Thesping is first-rate across the board.

A frequently inspired hit-and-miss burlesque that definitely hits more than it misses.

Immensely entertaining and unabashedly inspirational.

Indie effort evidences more energy than wit, and spends too much time on set-up before a slam-bang pay-off.

A tickle-and-tease teen sex comedy that plays like a late-night channel-surf through soft-core sitcoms, "American Pie" wannabes and '80s Brat Pack romances.

Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hokey, sometimes heartwarming nature documentary.

A well-crafted and entertaining pic with broad, cross-generational appeal.

An ingeniously twisted mockumentary.

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

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

A hugely entertaining and more lavishly mounted follow-up to 2000's "Shanghai Noon," the high-concept East-meets-Western that first teamed top-billed duo, pic rides even taller in the saddle as a fleet and funny crowd-pleaser.

One leaves My Flesh and Blood with admiration for the lenser's craftsmanship, and for her ability to remain an unobtrusive observer during moments of extreme emotional turmoil.

Equal parts audacious dark comedy, wish-fulfillment fantasy and over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek action-adventure.

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

Fresh cast, a formulaic but engaging storyline, and a smoking soundtrack from rap and hip-hop luminaries.

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

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.

With equal measures of rock-the-house vigor and in-your-face attitude, Four Brothers proves usually potent and consistently enjoyable as an old school approach to what might best be described as the urban-Western genre of slam-bang, balls-out action-revenger.

Although cynics likely will reject The Ultimate Gift as warmed-over Capra-corn, this predictable but pleasant drama based on Jim Stovall's popular novel may be prized by those with a taste for inspirational uplift and heart-tugging sentiment.

Oswald's Ghost impresses as a concise, intelligent and rigorously well-researched piece of work.

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.

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.

Fortunately, helmer Michele Ohayon ("Cowboy del Amor") treats her tricky subject matter with sufficient sensitivity to keep doc from ever seeming offensively flip or overly sentimental.

Predictable but pleasant comedic fantasy.

Conspicuously underwhelming.

An engagingly rambunctious toon Western that likely will attract herds of family auds, if not multitudes of teens and tweeners, to megaplex corrals.

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

A sunny and sassy comedy that somehow manages to breathe fresh life into familiar stereotypes and stock situations.

A beautifully lensed but ploddingly paced tribute.

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

An obviously sincere but didactically repetitive documentary.

Compelling but traditional feature.

One of the holiday movie season's more pleasant surprises. A mischievously clever and slickly commercial sci-fi comedy.

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

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.

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.

This feeble comedy isn't the worst pic ever to be spun off from a "Saturday Night Live" sketch --"It's Pat!" maintains a firm grip on that dubious distinction -- but it is woefully lacking in the humor and charm needed to attract mainstream audiences.

Lean, mean and stripped for speed, Highwaymen fires on all cylinders as an edgy and unnerving road-kill thriller.

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.

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.

By turns comical and compassionate.

Indie comedy about an unsuccessful playwright who very nearly talks himself out of his last best chance for happiness recalls the early work of Woody Allen. But pic stands on its own merits as witty and well-observed grown-up fare.

Manages the difficult feat of being genuinely scary and sharply self-satirical all at once.

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

Sascha Paladino's overlong but engaging doc about banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck's harmonious journey through four African countries.

A numbingly pretentious approach to a moldy premise -- a handful of strangers interacting amid rubble in wake of WWIII.

Distinctive, physically ravishing indie is a natural for fests, but it's questionable whether this sometimes involving, sometimes obscure pic will have appeal beyond the specialty market.

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

Criminally short on laughs as it tries to wring humor from dull activity by dim bulbs.

Small children who will accept it as rock-'em, sock-'em excitement with a touch of gender-specific empowerment, and hipper teens and grown-ups who can appreciate the whole thing as a semisatirical hoot.

As discomfortingly fascinating as listening to a couple's heated argument at a table near yours in a restaurant.

At heart an unabashedly retro work, reveling in the cliches and conventions of the slasher horror pics that proliferated in the early 1980s.

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

Will please devotees without attracting many, if any, new converts.

Arguably the best sports-oriented documentary since "Hoop Dreams."

Painfully sincere yet hopelessly amateurish dramedy.

A fey and frisky farce with a fabulous fashion sense, Straight-Jacket artfully balances broadly campy humor and ironically overplayed soap opera.

Dan Aykroyd and director John Landis take a bumpy trip down memory lane in "Blues Brothers 2000," a sluggishly paced, fitfully funny followup to their 1980 musical comedy extravaganza.

Character's multiple mid-life crises could make this genuinely engaging drama especially appealing to older viewers.

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.

Unmistakably sympathetic but mostly even-handed documentary.

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

Smartly written and sprightly played, Sky High satisfies with a clever commingling of spoofy superheroics, school-daze hijinks, and family friendly coming-of-age. dramedydramedy.

A delightfully twisted fairy tale that artfully juggles broad tomfoolery and sly drollery, along with a generous serving of sight gags enhanced by special effects. Even though it's being pitched primarily at younger moviegoers and their parents, pic is exuberantly quirky enough to please almost anyone.

For the most part, Lemmon, like Matthau, recycles shtick from earlier, better pictures. But then again, their roles call for little else, and Out to Sea actually benefits from their stock turns. [30 June 1997, p.65]

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

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

Quaid's effortlessly compelling and engagingly earnest performance keeps pic grounded in down-to-earth reality.

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

Aimed squarely at the same family audiences that flocked to Murphy's "Doctor Dolittle" comedies, this is a lightly amusing and surprisingly sweet Fox release.

Deftly maneuvering through audacious mood swings and tonal shifts, The Matador emerges as a quirky yet commercial commingling of black comedy, seriocomic psychodrama, heart-tugging sudser and buddy-movie farce.

The Motel offers a fresh take on characters and conventions, and compels interest with shrewd, sympathy-inspiring storytelling.

Using archival material and fresh interviews — including testimonials from at least two of his former lovers — Kates and Singer underscore Rustin’s matter-of-fact courage and self-effacing pragmatism.

A strident, painfully repetitive and hopelessly stage-bound drama about self-indulgent twentysomethings on the fringes of the L.A. film scene.

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.

Ingeniously conceived and impressively executed, Pleasantville is a provocative, complex and surprisingly anti-nostalgic parable.

A modestly inventive, sporadically exciting thriller that nonetheless proves too faithful to its central conceit for its own good.

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.

Modestly engaging but mostly unexceptional.

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.

Too mild-mannered and fuzzily focused for its own good.

A frenetic, featherweight trifle aimed at tweener femmes.

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