Keith Phipps

Chow has a future in a America if given better material with which to work; here, he's wasted in a movie that's forgotten 20 minutes after the credits roll.

As a piece of storytelling, The Haunting In Connecticut is pretty lazy. As a horror movie, it’s lazier still, bringing out every annoying shock-cut and disorienting sound-design trick of the last decade.

Whatever its model, the film is assembled from much poorer material, leftover parts of Lifetime movies and well-meaning indie films seen only on opening nights at some forgotten festival in Tampa.

The film combines dour heroes with a drab look, and the string of "Don't try this at home"-style stunts should underwhelm even viewers too young for James Bond or XXX.

The original was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.

A fairly faithful adaptation of what a game is like, but without the pleasure of getting to play or the much-needed option of pressing the "off" button.

As a sci-fi action movie, the latest Moreau is sub-schlock. As a thinly veiled post-colonial allegory, it's dangerously close to racism. Either way, it's one of the most ridiculous movies in a ridiculous summer.

As for the 3-D, much ballyhooed in the film's advertisements, it's another muddy conversion that does little but make the film's unconvincing blood effects look a little darker. It's good, theoretically at least, to have Craven back. But why come back for this?

A mud bath of sentiment, strained speechifying, and gloppy music.

The best that can be said of Son Of The Bride is that it's attractively photographed. But, then, so was the Hindenburg explosion, and this packs far less excitement into its two shapeless hours.

Tough to respect a documentary that doesn't play fair. Anyone interested in the subject would be better off spending Life And Debt's torturous 80-minute running time with a good article on the topic.

It's... directed by Andy Tennant ("It Takes Two") with all the flair of an episode of "7th Heaven", making it that much more worth avoiding.

About Piven: When did it go wrong? When did the caustic character actor guaranteed to liven up even the dullest movie turn into a walking black hole of smarm from which no joy can escape?

Maybe the broad gestures, colorful costumes, and exaggerated acting worked in the theater. As a movie, it's actively, fascinatingly terrible, with a vision of Christ more likely to instill in viewers a fear of traveling bands of loony street performers than a desire to embrace the Holy Spirit.

However misguided, it’s clearly one from the heart, a movie that should never have happened, and one that’s hard to believe actually exists. Roar is one of a kind. With any luck, it always will be.

Through it all, Muccino piles on one shrill confrontation after another. At times, he seems headed for the melodramatic turf owned and operated by Pedro Almodóvar, but where the young Almodóvar would have deployed a prankish wit and the older Almodóvar scraped toward the humanity beneath.

There's not a relationship in He Got Game that feels right, especially the one between Washington and Allen, and if that doesn't work, neither does the film.

Dredd, a second attempt at making Judge Dredd a movie star, overcorrects, veering in the opposite direction with a dark - literally and otherwise - nearly humorless bit of ultraviolence distinguished largely by a fondness for spurting CGI blood.

Some good Bob Dylan songs are called in to underline the big moments, but end up eclipsing them instead. There's more drama and insight in a snippet of "One More Cup Of Coffee" than the entirety of Jack & Rose.

Adults should steer clear. Kids should be sent to it only if they’ve been extraordinarily naughty.

Beloved has an almost gut-wrenching quality to it. But the same can't be said for the movie overall--it's a noble, ambitious failure, but a failure nonetheless.

Gibson makes sure that no blow remains unfelt, and his approach can't help but stir the body, but he never touches the soul.

Maher's too smart to make a movie this dumb.

Troy does look good--so good, in fact, that it takes a while to reveal itself as a thundering dud with much action but little personality, human drama, or brains.

Never recovering the energy of its early scenes, the heavily improvised Château becomes shapeless and dull.

This isn’t a movie. It’s a MySpace page.

Mostly Boogeyman remains content to be a film about a boogeyman who hides in closets and under beds and gobbles people up. And for that, it deserves a certain amount of respect. On the other hand, the film could hardly be any sillier.

What a shame that The Hunting Of The President feels like part of the problem.