Lisa Alspector

All of this comedy's jokes are old.

All I saw were unimpressive digital effects; artless, quick-cut abstracted gore; and a last-ditch attempt to evoke a visceral response by heaping the climactic scene with bat shit.

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.

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

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.

It's doubtful that the haste with which two actors of the same sex break away from a kiss in this comedy was in the script, but otherwise everybody stays in character, which is impressive given the manic range of some of the roles and the comic monotony of others.

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.

This thriller largely succeeds in putting quotation marks around its use of genre conventions, mixing subtlety and overkill to create a pensive mood that transcends the plot.

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.

Sweetly mediocre.

Awful light drama.

Excruciatingly earnest yet convictionless movie.

At first Costner seems to distrust the hokey character he plays, but his performance and the movie's slanted humor, rash melodrama, and ludicrous action soon become riveting.

Disingenuously naive romantic comedy.

This underdog comedy and its title character have considerable charm.

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

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

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.

The plot keeps switching tracks.

Schmaltzy comedy.

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

Lightweight slasher.

Pesci proves he can act his way through anything.