Jonathan Foreman

A predictable tearjerker whose main redeeming feature is that you don't actually see any of the angels in the title.

Uneven but occasionally hilarious teen comedy.

Boasts some genuinely intelligent and funny sequences and some nicely painful scenes of domestic tension - as well as surprisingly strong performances from actors like Neve Campbell and Donald Sutherland.

Hard-core chick shlock, weakened by odd shifts in tone and a slack pace, but elevated by a luminous performance by Natalie Portman.

In fact, for long stretches, especially during the first hour, it's as soporific as watching a bank of security cameras.

Agonizingly slow-moving and talky, it consists primarily of conversations between two men in a truck.

Essentially a feature-length commercial for both the growing sport of competitive cheerleading and ESPN2 .

Thereare moving moments in this over-hyped satire by the Israeli-Arab writer-director-actor Elia Suleiman, and it's fascinating to get a picture of daily life in prosperous Palestinian neighborhoods.

Flat dialogue and stiff performances (especially by the street kids, like Ballesteros, turned into actors by Schroeder) don't help.

There isn't a line you haven't heard or a stock character you haven't encountered before.

Strong cast is defeated by a labored, screenplay in this overlong, clunky love story.

Could hardly be more predictable.

Under the direction of Allan Moyle ("Pump up the Volume"), Nairn, McCarthy and Balaban give confident, believable performances but overacting plagues the rest of the cast.

Some wonderful films have come out of Iran in the past few years, but A Moment of Innocence, by highly regarded director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is too smug and too self-indulgent to count as one of them.

Eyes Wide Shut is Stanley Kubrick's Hindenberg.

A cold, emptily stylish exercise -- and one that sorely lacks the speed and vigor that made "Lola" run.

Turns out to be an exercise in flatulent pretension, puffed up with a bogus, empty "spirituality" and dependent on a plot filled with implausibilities.

Hardly a deep examination of gender relations or character, but in its unsentimental way it's a tender and charming story of friendship and tolerance.

Engaging in a soap operatic, rather glib way.

Generic memoir of lower-middle-class "white ethnic" life in the '50s.

In general, it's a confusing, rather shapeless disappointment.

It's hard to feel anything but disappointment and boredom by the time the picture grinds to a mystical ending.

The whole thing is shot in an irritating, self-conscious way.

If it weren't for a terrific central performance by the Icelandic pop singer Bjork, Dancer in the Dark would be all but unwatchable.

Much of Tomcats is actually boisterously, crudely entertaining.

Courageous, convincing performance by Dunst.

Familiar and predictable enough, especially if you have seen Hollywood serial-killer thrillers like "Se7en."

This second installment of Lucas Belvaux's acclaimed "Trilogy" is decidedly inferior to the first: a farce that simply isn't funny.

The Rock deserves better than The Rundown, a brisk, good- hearted but predictable and uninspired - not to mention bone-crunchingly violent - action comedy.

Better Than Chocolate is well-filmed and for the most part well-acted. But its technical professionalism only serves to make the amateurishly crude patches of Maggie Thompson's script more obvious. [13 Aug 1999, p.062]

Merely a watery, poorly directed update of "Clueless."

A genuinely clever plot.

One of those films that takes up a potentially fascinating subject only to fumble it.

Better than any automobile flick put out by Hollywood in a while and, thanks to some genuinely exciting moments, it is easily the most entertaining so far of this summer's big, brainless action movies.

Represents a kind of progress. Where once only a few ultra-talented, lucky black filmmakers got to make big studio movies, now we have standard-issue Hollywood schlock that happens to be made by, about and for African-Americans.

Disappointing and surprisingly crude.

More impressive than the sight of these acts on an eight-story screen is the excellent six-channel IMAX sound system.

If Schwarzberg had chosen to concentrate on eccentrics, rural artists or people like his New York bike messenger, female aerobatic champion and California cliff dancer, "Heart and Soul" would have been a much more interesting film.

A rather crude affair that feels like a student film, due to performances that often lack conviction and would-be "street" dialogue that rings false.

Crippled by lame storytelling.

Besson is unable to weave the comic scenes together with the serious gory ones, so both seem increasingly jarring and unbelievable.

It's a lumpy and disorganized film that remains unsatisfying, perhaps because the fundamental oddness of having sex in public for money as a way of life remains just as mysterious at the end of the film as in the beginning.

A gorgeously shot endurance test that is impossible to get through on anything less than a full night's sleep and a double shot of espresso.

Though it contains some very funny, cleverly written comic sketches, Human Traffic shares with other drug movies the problem that watching other people on drugs is not interesting.

Slow and predictable, and the characters are so poorly written that its hard to react to them in any way.

There are some charming moments and some funny scenes along the way. But you end up feeling sorry for the likes of Ron Howard, Karen Black, Fred Williamson and Peter Bogdanovich, who agreed to play themselves in cameo.

Amateurishly written and directed, and so predictable that it hurts.

Tendency to pretentiousness.

It tries to be an update of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" crossed with "Pygmalion," but while it has some funny and even original moments, it's too predictable to be "all that."

After a dreadfully clunky start, Left Luggage picks up and becomes quite moving.

Two things make this film slightly more interesting than its American B-movie equivalents. There's the artless way it shows the French state exercising its power and the charisma of French stars.

Staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to be madcap farce.

Begins exceptionally well. Indeed, for at least its first half it's an unusually thoughtful, admirably underplayed piece of work of disorienting, rather harsh realism that builds its mysteries in pleasurably oblique and unpredictable ways.

What makes Final Fantasy a final failure is a predictable, nonsensical plot, laughably lame dialogue and a surfeit of cloying environmentalist piety.

The first half-hour of Jeepers Creepers is so frightening that it's almost a relief when the movie subsequently collapses into silliness.

Although Scary Movie 3 boasts the same relaxed attitude to racial and sexual humor, some of the same eye for movieland ridiculousness, along with the usual cameos (Pamela Anderson and Simon Cowell), it lacks a single explosive, roll-on-the-floor gag, and too often repeats and belabors jokes that are merely OK.

It makes not just the "Thief of Baghdad" and the junky Ray Harryhausen movies of the '60s and '70s but even Disney's recent "Aladdin" seem positively multicultural by comparison.

It's perfectly entertaining (and well-executed) in its cute, undemanding way.

There's not a moment in it that feels fresh or authentic or inspired. But neither is it offensive.

Pumped-up, dumbed-down Bond, with tattoos instead of brains.

It's a film pregnant with comic possibility that ought to be much funnier than it is.

There are some decent jokes along the way. And none of the performances is bad. But they are limited by the script, which allows each character only one comic note.

The documentary equivalent of a Southern Gothic novel.

Not entirely bereft of chuckles, though it misses one comic opportunity after another (the best jokes are in the trailer).

A slack-paced, surprisingly bland affair, filled with jokes that sound like they should be funny but aren't.

One of those exercises in romantic whimsy that misses its mark: It's alternately sappy and uncomfortably harsh.

Isn't boring, but it is sanctimonious, relentlessly predictable and willfully ignorant of the period it's set in.

Draggy and contrived.

The sad truth is that TV series like "Dawson's Creek" do a better job with precocious teen dialogue.

Without a real story to go with the notion of Farm Belt "wiggas," the humor wears thinner and thinner until it disappears.

Slick but painfully precious, it strains to be darkly romantic but is bereft of genuine feeling.

Although Vatel is trying to say something about freedom and gilded cages, it feels more like a behind-the-scenes look at the high-end catering business.

Recycles gags from various, more successful gross-out and romantic comedies, but without any zest or imagination.

Isn't quite up to the comic standard of Rob Schneider's 1999 hit "Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo."

A messy, woefully uneven chick flick.

Woo has never been particularly good at human stuff, and to the extent that Paycheck is, or should be, a love story, it feels forced.

Has some entertaining moments, thanks mainly to Bullock herself, who is surprisingly glamorous as well as endearing.

Its faults -- banal dialogue, ludicrous and uninspired plotting, dull but vicious fight scenes -- make you realize just how much the summer action movie has declined in the last few years.

Recycles the teen romantic comedies of the last few years...and it's easily the worst of the lot.

Though it sometimes feels as if it's four hours long, Underworld has going for it an intriguing fantasy premise, an eventful plot and a look that is diverting, if finally a bit monotonous.

But even that talent (Freeman) isn't enough to distract you from the general predictability of Spider or the absurdity of its elaborate last-minute plot twists.

A crude, manic and embarrassingly unfunny satire that feels off from beginning to end.

Doesn't press all its obvious lessons, and there are actually a few surprises -- and even a couple of moving and interesting moments -- before an all too predictable resolution.

Could have been written by a computer programmed to cannibalize previous sci-fi films.

An ultra-stylized, empty mess.

Despite a script that occasionally calls for some embarrassingly awkward lines, Kollek's cast generally acquits itself well.

Resolves the romantic dilemma in the most artificial and unsatisfying way. A blaring swing score and some obvious dubbing do little to ease the pain.

A hokey, overblown and deeply unsatisfying movie.

The best thing about Equilibrium is its impressive look. Along with its generally fine cast and some well-choreographed fights, that goes a long way to making the movie watchable -- despite its underlying stupidity.

Unfortunately, Impostor doesn't do much with its template, despite a remarkably strong cast.

Simply not up to the task.

Travolta is terrific as a bad guy, making Saint almost sympathetic. His co-stars however, flounder in a sea of bad lines, with poor Romijn-Stamos getting stuck with the worst.

Plays to none of Rock's strengths (even though he co-wrote the film with members of his HBO team) and intensifies his tendency to mug and shout.

It's a wretchedly dumb, lazy and incoherent movie that's magically rendered watchable by Eddie Murphy's charm and Robert De Niro's presence.

It's moody and atmospheric. But with the exception of a few cool moments that remind you of Ferrara at his best, it's dull and written with little attention paid to basic storytelling.

Not a movie but a live-action agitprop cartoon so shameless and coarse, it's almost funny.

About two-thirds of the way through, a stupid, hyperbolic sensibility takes control of the project, running it screaming off the rails.

Pretentious and trite.