Lisa Alspector

The violence is suggested in a way that's neither overwhelming nor insulting to a child's intelligence as this crafty fairy tale ultimately finds a way for human and vampire characters to live and let live.

An effects vehicle disguised as a metaphysical meditation (or a metaphysical meditation disguised as an effects vehicle?), this strikingly unimaginative 1998 movie contains visuals that can barely assert their niftiness amid the vacuous themes.

Though the climax of the story is a little forced and sloppy, with both lovers behaving way out of character, this movie is aware enough of the conventions it's using that it's more moving than cloying.

Poor execution sometimes points up the difference between the telling of a story and the story itself--in this case, without diminishing the power of the latter.

It's hard to be diverted by a tale whose emblematic romances and terminal cuteness serve an agenda that seems particularly dated today.

All the comedy, tragedy, and various obstacles to romance seem to have been contrived to divert the story from its tendency toward pulp erotica.

This culinary fantasy is mildly inspired.

Though the questionable motives and bad planning of offscreen characters who far outrank Gibson make it difficult to take at face value one soldier's last words -- "I'm glad I could die for my country" -- some viewers will, which may be as the filmmakers intended.

The unusually thoughtful dialogue and soul-searching performances make this romantic drama seem deeper than it is.

The earnestness of some of the drama in the only deceptively unsophisticated narrative may be more shocking than any of the gross-outs.

But the bland plot involves nested crimes gone awry and a bad car chase or two, and its bulky, styleless exposition is hard to wait out.

Pretty funny caper comedy.

Demands that we see as coincidental if not ironic the ease with which Fraser cuts a rug at a swing club when he's hopelessly naive about everything else that's being revived in the 90s when he emerges.

This atmosphere-heavy drama, with its comfortably quirky characters, elegant performances, and ever shifting tone, is so innocuous it's not worth panning.

Mined for comedy and milked for drama, though what results is diminished by the very framing device contrived to punch it up.

The final image, a minimalist evocation--perhaps a compromise for an unmarketable ending--puts an intriguing spin on everything that's come before it.

May persuade you to identify not with race-car drivers but with race cars.

Too dry to be very funny and too contrived to be outrageous, this movie has a tone so unusual it almost seems to have none at all.

This brash shocker by John Sayles—who wrote, directed, and edited—is bound to annoy as many people as it intrigues.

Writer-director James Toback must believe his audience is hopelessly prudish if he thinks this pedantic story, which takes place over several hours in a Manhattan loft, is provocative.

Labyrinthine yet oversimple, the story seems to hide a more provocative one. But perhaps this is the nature of the beast.

Strives for comprehensive coverage of its theme of forbidden love.

This limp 1998 comedy tries hard to be both irreverent and ethical by suggesting that deceit motivated by self-interest is OK as long as no one gets hurt.

Time-travel cliches, female characters who exert authority only so we'll laugh at the pussy-whipped males, dialogue that's neither self-mocking nor serious, and an ostentatious though not particularly exciting production design keep the movie from taking off.

The filmmakers have created a pretentious extended "Twilight Zone" episode with obscenely high production values.

This concept comedy-drama would be even better if the intercutting among households had been timed to add dramatic content rather than simply advance the subplots.

This desperately all-ages movie just emphasizes its banality by throwing money and effort into effects and production design at the expense of pacing.

The filmmakers show habitual thriller viewers some respect by condensing the background story into iconic sound and image bites during the opening-credits sequence, suggesting they know we get the drill; this and the other stylish elements make it all the more disappointing that the movie's mediocre.

Denzel Washington is admirable in the role of a dauntless detective investigating murders and metaphysics, but his sincerity can’t carry the outlandish plot—you just wonder what a guy like him is doing in a movie like this.

Insights about romance are enhanced by the novel production design, which includes puppetry, but the story's reflexivity is smug and cloying.

This action comedy transforms LAPD detective Chris Tucker from an intolerably annoying egotist into a practically lovable intolerably annoying egotist.

Nicely toned.

Nothing's wrong with this movie--the hockey footage is exciting, the characters quirky, the subplots idiosyncratic--but nothing's special about it either.

Lightweight slasher.

The idiosyncratic instrumentation and melodies in the score by Angelo Badalamenti ("Blue Velvet") and a masterful opening scene are wasted on this pathetic thriller.

The shtick based on whether other people understand him is subtle enough for 79 minutes.

The movie's strength is in its comedy; a tragic subplot feels merely manipulative.

Unfortunately the allegory tends to overpower the characterizations even as it deepens them.

Big laughs are few and far between in this 1998 movie, which is more successful as motivational anecdote than as comedy.

The new sexism -- the old sexism plus the idea that everything is ironic -- is getting old.

With minimalist and universal fantasies as their points of departure, the superheroic deeds evolve only incrementally beyond the realistic -- a deeply satisfying process.

Doesn't quite support the weight of its allegory.

For all the high-tech allusions and middle-tech illusions, the movie--the 23rd in an immortal series--draws its power from its grittiness and unresolved allegory.

Mild gross-out comedy integrates a non sequitur -- a running joke made by a sidekick -- into the plot, providing some payoff.

All this is accompanied by a too-emphatic pop sound track that turns almost every scene into a bad music video.

It's a pleasing but shallow hodgepodge.

Shows her transition to sobriety as many ensemble stories do--mainly through the development of other characters, the quirkier the better.

Demands to be treated with conviction as parody if not as science fiction.

This mild thriller's consistently dark atmosphere makes the scene-of-the-crime tableaux...transcend exploitation and even suggest a kind of feminist odyssey.

The twists and revelations of this rigorous noir reduce it to canned psychodrama.

An open-mindedness in the plotting of this romantic comedy set on Ireland's Donegal coast adds a couple of mild surprises to the story.

Disturbing--if less sophisticated than the best SF (science fiction)-horror TV.

The script, which infantilizes one of the older siblings as much as the father does, undermines its own admonitions against parents and adult children meddling in one another's lives.

The lawyer is marvelously played by Evelina Fernandez, who wrote the screenplay based on her play.

Because so many female characters spend so much time trying to seduce Harrelson (usually successfully), the notion that multiplicity enhances intrigue is pretty worn out by the time any duplicity is revealed.

I never thought I'd see a slapstick animal action movie about the beauty of interracial relationships and nonmarital sex, but that's what this is, and kids seem to love it.

Takes too long to get its themes and characters out on the field.

Has the enthusiasm and naivete of a first feature.

The Griswolds, headed by Chevy Chase, are taking what could be one of their last family vacations.

Not unlike "Eyes Wide Shut," this is an eerily earnest contemplation of fidelity, and it's pitched as farce.

DeVito's low-key midlife crisis is consistently moving, but Spacey, saddled with the role of provocateur, is demonically boring.

It's a bitter story played for humor, in which a callous character is never quite allowed to see herself as such.

The feminist veneer is the most deeply disturbing part of this callow thriller, whose fetishizing of a dead woman's body (and a live woman's sexual behavior) is far more questionable than anything even "The Silence of the Lambs" has been accused of.

Antonio Banderas signs up for charisma lessons from Anthony Hopkins -- but they just don't take.

The makers of this eclectically animated adventure, a follow-up to "The Rugrats Movie," know their audience, though all the "Godfather" references will be thoroughly puzzling to at least half of it.

This underdog comedy and its title character have considerable charm.

Arch yet earnest.

A series of stunts with bears and lots of stage fighting involving characters who are unambiguously good or evil.

Its charm and humor will be overshadowed for some by the exploitation of gay stereotypes--which is ironic, since their arch usage ultimately allows the movie to be progressive, if only slightly.

The narrative emphasizes coincidences, but they're nicely understated. If it didn't seem gimmicky and self-indulgent...the movie might be more affecting.

Stylishly realized, but its striking cinematography, nontraditional editing, and consistently reflexive use of genre conceits add up as methodically as a math problem.

Slower, more earnest, and not as gory.

The ingenious if erratic slickness is disorienting and makes the movie more like drama than journalism.

Pales in comparison to the controversial "Life Is Beautiful"--a more provocative fiction, if only because it's even less realist.

This watchable 1998 psychothriller deflects its cliches with canted angles, metonymic cropping, and a creeping pace, making it as much a parsing of "Twilight Zone"-brand irony as an example of it.

Self-congratulatory feature, which artificially exalts the character--a classic saint with clay feet--by casting a grande dame and by reducing her motives to facile psychodrama

The gangster-movie plot, themes, and allusions aren't nearly as intriguing as the earnestly kitschy black-and-white wide-screen images or the mesmerizing, minimalist sound effects.

Has an adolescent energy and a tempered sexuality.

Elmo's obsessive reaction is never examined, compromising the ability of this rambling minor spectacle to put across its obvious lesson about sharing.

The filmmakers realize that playing baseball isn't nearly enough to fix what's wrong in these kids' lives, which might have made a more provocative ending than what follows.

If spelling out stereotypes were inherently funny the movie would be a hoot.

The childish humor and sensationalistic effects undercut the movie's philosophical agenda.

Leaking platitudes and cutesy ambience, this comedy folds a smarmy, social-issue subplot into a Saturday-morning-kids'-show sensibility; it's full of geeky gadgetry, and must've been a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.

Sometimes come together exquisitely.

Nobody ever shuts up in this schmaltzy, mannered drama.

Two obnoxious, swaggering brothers -- whose sexual naivete is supposed to make them endearing as well as pathetic -- find happiness in this more schmaltzy than funny Saturday Night Live spin-off.

Director Ron Howard makes too much of camera and editing tricks, as if momentarily confusing us about where a character is or which character's point of view the movie is taking will somehow deepen the narrative.

The perfectly acceptable shtick executed by Williams--whose I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself seduction techniques ought to make him a hotter leading man--occasionally justifies the relentlessly light tone of this preachy 1998 comedy-drama.

The plot keeps switching tracks.

Not even supercool Robert De Niro can enliven this boring tale about a team of mercenary operatives.

Told from too many perspectives, the narrative puts suspense above substance, and its social consciousness seems contrived.

Writer Philip Stark ("That '70s Show") and director Danny Leiner ("Freaks and Geeks") apply mature comic instincts to an adolescent genre.

The best short on this program of five is Bradley Rust Gray's 18-minute "Hitch."

Sweetly mediocre.

Sappy.

Its blurring of the line between parody and exploitation only makes it totally innocuous.

This serious if assaultively stylish meditation on faith uses traditional elements of religion-based horror in a way that's more innocent than calculating.

Instead of a credible main character this 1999 button pusher has lots of showy cinematography and generic dread.

The comic timing and Gibson's mugging are skillful, but the movie fulfills expectations of plot twists and ironic atmosphere only after having made clear that it won't be offering much else.

Big, schmaltzy melodrama with mini melodramas.

Bruce Willis's marvelous performance as a contract killer only makes everything else about this comedy seem more pathetic.

The plot is more convenient than intriguing, the characters more cartoonish than iconic--especially the heroine, who grapples with feminism in a way that should have been fascinating.

The more pathetic the role, the more evident Robin Williams's conscientiousness--but his professionalism doesn't make this fantasy worthwhile.

Time and space are condensed by means both elegant and crafty, and rarely are any of the characters made to be more--or less--than allegorical.

All the movie's free-form horror phenomena might have been more interesting if the plot didn't keep insisting on a systematic explanation for them.

Somewhat depressive anecdote drawn out to feature length.

Overwhelmingly grisly.

The scenes set on earth--messy, predictable satire about the commercial exploitation of fevered genius. The unconscious/underworld scenes may be boring because neosurrealism is a cliche.

The draggy narrative of this 1997 comedy is tough to sit through--there are even several overproduced musical numbers--but it does have an intriguing subversive element that I don't want to give away.

The acting--especially Dreyfuss's ability to roll with the mood swings--is impressive if not redemptive.

An ounce of self-awareness about its almost gleeful use of cliches would have improved this dance soap opera.

Geek-triumphs-after-all comedies can be charming, but in this one the triumphing begins so early it's hard to feel for the geek.

This earnest yet cynical drama makes the gang-infiltration genre seem exhausted.

Yet another unironic war movie.

The rest of these animated sequences...depend on gimmickry, cuteness, or facile ideology, and don't come close to demonstrating the complex relationship between sound and image found in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

Shakur’s performance get increasingly intriguing as his character becomes disenchanted with his partner’s tactics, but Belushi is in way over his head.

The clunky plot is set in Santa Fe, and includes a foil character who might as well wear a sign on his forehead.

Pesci proves he can act his way through anything.

This 1998 movie is essentially a compilation of things-aren't-what-they-seem games played on the viewer; all its little tricks, including Ricci's snide and smart-alecky voice-overs about movie conventions, are really old--except one. But it's not worth the wait.

Neither good nor terrible.

Oscar baiting is the main point of this unintentionally silly drama.

Stodgy storytelling and a hyperbolic score reduce their experiences to melodrama.

Hokey.

An intriguing noir whose conceptual sophistication is partly undermined by naive execution.

Satisfying in small ways.

Rowan Atkinson's recalcitrant TV character is the hub of this 1997 feature that will disappoint fans and nonfans alike.

Never seems to find its tone.

Nat Mauldin and Larry Levin's screenplay, indifferently directed by Betty Thomas, is simply an excuse for tired scatological jokes involving animal characters with the voices of well-known actors.

The tectonic shifts in this camp-horror extravaganza are unsettling.

Cliched narrative, which isn't funny as often as seems intended.

Clunky and obvious.

All of this comedy's jokes are old.

The feature has some lovely effects.

A narrative that tries to juggle thriller elements, tons of pop culture imagery, and way too much philosophical baggage.

Olympia Dukakis and Illeana Douglas come off poorly in silly supporting roles that make Aniston seem to have screen presence by default. Her character's habit of compulsively adjusting her bodice ensures our attention has the proper focus.

The buildup to social criticism in what at first appears to be pointless and partly misogynist exploitation is subtly impressive.

Partly because the seducer's technique is methodical--as a former conquest explains to the naive heroine--the movie's answers are too easy.

Blends extremes of violence and humor to create an irreverent tone that nullifies everything; the plot is so clever it crushes the characterization, making all the action seem perfunctory.

The result is an exploitation movie that seems like it's about something -- though what exactly I couldn't say.

It's all corny and contrived and usually sensitive. The filmmakers even dare to show the effects of illness--a subject frequently glamorized to the point of being insulting--in a love scene of rare honesty.

Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen") bend over so far backward to make Weaver's and Ryder's roles beefy that they end up mocking the characters' bravura.

Ultimately this is a sharp-focus issue movie, decrying intolerance as it explores the effects of labeling, the complexity of fetishizing, and the differences between business and crime.

A better disaster movie than it is a thriller.

This 1998 romantic comedy mostly bores with its cumbersome exposition and close-ups of trivial objects scattered throughout lackluster montage sequences.

Romantic comedy is set mainly in NYC, where the plight of its ambivalent lovers seems particularly trivial.

The ultimately uncomplicated view of sexual and emotional violence in a family is only tragic, not insightful.

A cute send-up of preadolescent stereotypes.

Becomes blandly idealistic.

Better than slick, though it feels pointless -- another homage to a kind of filmmaking that's had more than its share.

Dead-on imitations of some of the characters from the television series created by Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly will seem pointlessly stylized to viewers unfamiliar with the old sitcom.

Intriguing but poorly executed ideas are the basis of this not entirely unappealing romantic comedy.

Cathartically disgusting adventure movie.

The end justifies the means as long as everything turns out OK for the not-too-obedient American soldier and everyone else who enjoys Coca-Cola.

Director Bruce Beresford -- not intending to be funny but succeeding wildly.

Two generic ideas amount to nothing in this theatrical dark comedy about violence and information overload.

The movie's repeated attempts to combine seriousness and humor as in a blender give it a dysfunctionally earnest tone.

This kind of wheel spinning comes from having the desire to speak but nothing much to say, and Smith, who's made a slight movie about his being a slight filmmaker, seems to know this.

Contrasting the erotic with the disgusting is usually provocative and can be funny, but not in this underdog comedy.

Fast-paced editing doesn't compensate for unconvincing dialogue.

This terrible live-action comedy based on Jay Ward cartoons has its moments and its near misses.

In this inept thriller...the script is a coloring book, and the director's careful to stay within the lines.

People frequently cover the camera lens with their hands or refer to the "documentary" being filmed, as if to assure us that what we're seeing is real.

Too much plot and too much faith in special effects and adolescent humor doom this "Babe" wannabe.

In nearly every scene of her dangerously underwritten role, Diaz has a mouthful of cliches.

Writer Kevin Williamson, who's also responsible for the overrated "Scream," sets cleverness above emotional impact in a poorly conceived 1997 thriller with plenty of empty references.

This movie's story must have been computer generated along with its animation.

More of the abundant sight gags and slips of the tongue originate in bathrooms and bedrooms than are actually set there.

Unlike Michael Jordan, this 45-minute large-format movie demonstrates mostly unrealized potential.

Initially tolerable but increasingly stupid thriller.

The message must have got lost somewhere in the plot twists of this would-be topical thriller about the power of hearsay on a college campus.

Even the revelation of what the fifth element is at the end is disingenuous--in fact, the archness of this whole project is repellent.

This Farrelly brothers "hommage" replicates the mechanics of their work without echoing its spirit or complex tone, and many of the deliberate offenses fail to transcend mere exploitation.

A story that holds little suspense; we know exactly how happily this animated musical will end--and the wait isn't very diverting.

It's almost always night and almost always raining.

By the time the manic camera slows down to reveal the back stories of the characters, everyone's motives are either moot or redundant.

As the characters behave with symbolic excess in situations designed to provoke their bigotry and self-interest, superficial black comedy periodically gives way to painful drama.

The pranks are as bland as Macdonald’s demeanor, which is supposed to subvert expectations about the role of the straight man in a comedy duo; the subjects of running gags range from anal rape to anal rape.

This ambiguously pitched comedy--its idea of sexy humor is a cheerleader farting--shoots for camp without bothering with satire.

If misery were inherently interesting, this adaptation starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle as a couple plagued by alcoholism and child mortality might be too.

Ultimately the movie is alluring and respectful--its sadness may be what saves it from becoming sensationalist or trite.

Their splashy gore is more convincing than this incompetent horror-comedy's attempt to mock bourgeois high school dissoluteness without appearing judgmental.

Even the most shocking elements of the story are made bland by childish overkill.

The story, which is even dumber than it sounds, is told in flashback.

If DiCillo had been going anywhere with this, I'd have gladly followed. But setting up petty ironies and pathetic references to Woody Allen seems to be his only goal.

Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn are too good for this embarrassing remake.

Boring, irksome family movie.

Slow, arty thriller.

It’s a heart-tugging scenario undermined by a striking hypocrisy: obscuring a hot-button issue in casting, some actors with Down's syndrome have minor roles, while Penn plays the lead -- and chews the scenery.

Ritchie may be skilled at generating controlled chaos, but his surprise-a-minute strategy ultimately holds no surprises; Snatch is even more frenetically boring than his 1999 "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

Exploits all the cliches about shrewish women and pussy-whipped men without achieving satire.

Tedious mockumentary.

This comedy-thriller that has no particular motive for changing tones.

The movie occasionally makes an unexpectereference -- though with more desperation than wit.

The premise of this neither dark nor funny movie--which wants to be both--is that it's somehow ironic when wealthy characters are motivated by greed.

The thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one.

Conveys little sense of a connection, as if di Florio had made it mainly because she had access to a celebrity.

The fundamental problems with David Cronenberg's disastrous 1993 adaptation, written by Hwang himself, are twofold: the unsuitability of such a premise for film, where the actors and audience no longer share the same space, and the miscasting of Jeremy Irons as the accountant and John Lone as the diva.

The plot is largely a series of excuses for one-liners expertly delivered by Maguire, making all the hatred, maiming, and killing seem like digressions.

Writer Barry McEvoy and director Barry Levinson might want to brush up on the use of metaphor.

The majesty of the landscape and the sweetness of a plot strand about the horse learning survival skills from a 12-year-old girl might have been more intriguing without the cloying voice-over.

Viewers have almost two hours to become thoroughly disgusted.

The moody images and Michael Nyman's score aren't enough to salvage this banal 1997 science fiction story.

Makes for a tiresome antidrama populated mainly by unambiguously good characters who might as well be invulnerable.

The received notion that kids want their movies fast and furious is barely in evidence in this 1997 comedy, a laboriously slow suburban adventure.

The story--written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Richard Donner--was just dumb.

The kind of ugly-duckling role that's long been ironic for her (Bullock).

A kind of idealist fantasy that seems almost hamstrung by its plot.

Smug, uninsightful light drama.

Would have proved the point if it weren't so mechanically scripted.

Must have been slapped together fast: live-action stunts created by uninspired editing lead up to computer-generated imagery that's just as lame.

After loosening us up with some irresistible shtick that rigorously fulfills genre expectations, the movie subtly, systematically begins to break down familiar tropes in the depiction of attractiveness, attraction, and heterosexual courtship.

Trite transformation comedy.

A blandly twisting plot with no meaningful revelations or substantial themes.

With very little modification, this archly innocuous children's musical could have been marketed as a sequel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

This 1998 sequel seems almost deliberately designed to disappoint--our enjoyment is supposed to lie in making fun of the obvious red herrings, contrived opportunities to show cleavage, melodramatic dialogue, gullible characters, and inevitable to-be-continued ending.

Wasn't worth Allen's time and isn't worth yours.

Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin's straightforward script and Mimi Leder's toneless direction make this attempt so boring that the titles counting down the months, weeks, and finally hours to impact are best used to gauge how soon the movie will be over.

This gross sex farce actually has a point, though about half the population won't like what it is.

Full of meaningless tragedies left unjustified by the absurdly optimistic ending .. (an) intolerable story.

As if to justify a serious discussion of this comedy before dissing it, some reviewers have pointed out that it evokes Casablanca. Maybe that's why the plot seems imposed on the characters.

Virtually unendurable.

The inevitable isn't worth the wait.

One reason this production-design vehicle is so incredibly boring is that the characters keep having to explain the plot to one another.

This gross-out action comedy gets good mileage from its high-energy music and World Championship Wrestling characters, and leads David Arquette and Scott Caan are expertly pathetic.

This grasping comedy targets kids of all ages but will please no one as it exploits exhausted ideas about adolescence.

Grossly unimaginative.

First-time directors Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski must have written the script for this comedy when they were about 12--and not changed a word.

The shticky dialogue undercuts the solid genre plotting, which undercuts the humor.

Doesn't do much with its pseudosavvy characters.

The most subtly revolting aspect of the movie is how it manages to exploit violence for cheap thrills, in part by equating submission with love.

Wastes most of its 110 minutes making impotent jokes about male sexual behavior and the repugnance of old women.

This insufferable romance-adventure includes vague comedy as well as unintentional humor, and its target audience seems to be preadolescents who won't notice the calculated enthusiasm with which it sidesteps sexuality.

This multigenre parody is excruciatingly slow and unamusing; a go-go dancer in the opening and closing credits does as much in a few minutes to shake up our perspective on a bygone aesthetic as the entire narrative in between.

Wolfgang Petersen and writer Andrew Marlowe, apparently afraid to really make fun of any American icons, challenge us to take the story straight no matter what, but the only thing this ponderous movie has going for it is its unintentional humor.

Awful light drama.

The elaborate climax set in a Paris bakery is the least boring part of this trained-animal movie.

The grasping novelty of the visuals doesn't rival the uncharismatic leads or the hopelessly, unironically banal plot.

This asthma-inducing adventure set on K2 starts out seeming as if its corny storytelling and phony-looking settings were designed to show that it's as much about genre-movie conventions as anything else.

Ludicrous revenge thriller.

Schmaltzy comedy.

Seems like a miscalculation on multiple levels.

Failed romantic comedy.

Until the diverting special effects take center stage, this story, about an alien intelligence that builds an army out of flesh and metal, pathetically exploits genre conventions without generating self-reference, camp, or thrills.

This mildly moody SF thriller belabors standard dramatic conceits involving jealousy and sexual betrayal.

The characters seem both reduced and idealized, and the plot has turns a dispassionate dramatist would avoid.

Writer-director Peter Greenaway never uses narrative lightly...references to the act of filmmaking exhaust their impact pretty quickly.

Its ponderous explanations about why there are vampires in Arizona in the new millennium (blah, blah, blah).

The story is painfully slow.

A promotional tool that establishes its superfluousness simply by existing, this clumsy, smirking movie has a bitter soul.

Not particularly sensitive or funny comedy-drama.

Ill conceived or badly handled.

Isn't absurd enough to be funny.

Jamal (Martin Lawrence), starts trying to make the best of a bad situation, which becomes our job too.

Excruciatingly earnest yet convictionless movie.

Ugly Americans in Paris have run-ins with the native werewolf culture in this horror-for-laughs story, in which the characters' stupidity and the deadpan acting are out of sync--instead of being campy or clever, the plot and performances are just unconvincing.

Poorly paced action comedy.

Stylish but insubstantial thriller .

The labored storytelling in this movie about displaced ambition diminishes the impact of the powerful performances.

The filmmakers uphold an unfortunate tradition in movies based on TV shows by busily adding superfluous plot elements.

The writers must have racked their brains for the formula: two parts other movies to one part childhood revenge fantasies

Nearly toothless 1998 existential drama.

Adam Sandler displays no virtuosity and stirs no pathos in this special-effects comedy.

A euphemism for the right of anyone to make movies just as awful as those of big studios.

The insultingly trendy post-postmodern tale rationalizes its own product placement by using overkill.

It makes me sick all over again just describing this--the most affecting scene in a sluggish would-be comedy that reflects the dubious state of the art of fat male comedians exploiting themselves in 1997, the year its star died.

Formula thriller that exploits homosexuality better than murder-mystery clues.

Corky never becomes sympathetic, and without this fundamental irony the movie doesn't have a leg to stand on.