Kevin Crust

Walker-Pearlman's strengths lie in these characterizations and his ability to draw subtle performances from his actors. However, the powerfully understated moments are undercut by the film's unwieldy structure. Any emotional momentum that builds is lost with the interminable flashbacks.

Related to the 1953 Vincent Price film in name, embalming technique and Warner Bros. pedigree only, the new House of Wax is a dreary, predictable tale.

Fails to be anything more than a mild summertime diversion. Based on the Marvel comic book, it's a prototypical air conditioner movie.

Terrific performances and a bleak, riveting look at life on the economic fringes eventually gives way to an overly familiar tale of abuse, denial and catharsis that feels like warmed over Sam Shepard minus the poetry.

For the most part the film succeeds in producing a frightening Halloween weekend experience.

Though the film aspires to the epic with pretensions of deeper philosophical meaning, it ultimately settles for being the "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" of historical romances.

Has its rewards for those up to the challenge of tackling its nonlinear structure and brooding nature.

Despite the tired premise, Kenan Thompson -- is actually very persuasive as Fat Albert.

A lifeless pingpong comedy that ricochets from one flat gag to the next.

The movie unravels pretty quickly as Caleo almost immediately gives away the "what" but remains marginally entertaining as he manages to maintain some suspense in the "why" and the "how" before blowing the genre completely by going soft in the resolution.

Dreary, spectacle-driven adaptation.

Liman, who has a reputation for reviving troubled productions and salvaging films in postproduction, excavates an hour and 48 minutes of relatively engaging action-thriller material. It moves quickly enough to gloss over plot holes but leaves the impression that the novel was stripped for parts.

The scenario isn't entirely plausible, but the actors are engaging and you can't beat the running time.

A comedy so inane and tedious that it buries its premise and its various worthy points under too many arch and improbable shenanigans and endless dialogue, much of it seriously under-inspired.

As good as the leads and the supporting cast are, and as much action as gets packed into the film's relatively brief running time, none of it draws us in dramatically.

Fails to deliver on its main promise of big laughs, which is the film's truly unforgivable sin.

Horn, who knew Nomi, does an excellent job of evoking the exhilaratingly hedonistic period the film covers as well as the long shadow that the coming of AIDS casts over it.

Witt injects the film with plenty of razzle-dazzle on the visual side, but the pace deadens whenever the zombies are offscreen or the characters open their mouths long enough to do anything more than grunt.

There is something bizarrely compelling about the movie. It's slower than watching a train wreck but invokes that same level of disbelief.

The references, conscious and not, serve as constant reminders to the audience of other, better, movies, rendering Mute more atonal hodgepodge than carefully orchestrated pastiche.

Jumper is all high concept with little invested in characters or story.

The resulting film is a muddled, melodramatic, sort-of remake of "The Graduate."

Unless you're a connoisseur of movies that are so bad they're good, Hide and Seek is one game you're not going to want to play.

God-natured comedy.

The bedraggled movie limps along to its phony hogwash of an ending, adding the ignominy of sentimentality to its previous sin of being so derivative.

In some ways, The Man plays like a sequel to some terrible movie that was mercifully destroyed before it was ever released.

Originally titled "Fast Track" when it was scheduled to open last January, neither the wait nor the new title makes it worthwhile. The only fast track here is the one to home video.

It’s competent filmmaking in the service of lousy storytelling.