Loren King

Give credit to writer-director James DeMonaco for at least attempting to give his action thriller some heft with a plot that concerns our obsession with violence, ham-fisted as it is. But The Purge: Anarchy is still just an excuse to bombard us with high-powered weaponry, armored vehicles, vigilantes, and masked marauders in creepy Joker-like makeup.

That the mushroom-dwelling blue creatures still manage to be endearing even in their second big-screen extravaganza (in 3-D, no less) is about the best that can be said of The Smurfs 2.

You don’t have to be Jewish to love borscht belt humor, or gay to love camp, or French to love farce. But when all three are thrown into a blender with a dollop of generic family dysfunction, as is the case in Let My People Go!, oy vey doesn’t begin to address the result.

Unfortunately, the potential for screwball comedy is wasted because L!fe Happens never finds its thematic tone or comedic rhythm.

Any originality in this new movie is overwhelmed by its lazy eagerness to embrace the new standard for R-rated comedy.

Neither the comedy nor the romance is strong enough in Immigration Tango to offer any improvement on Peter Weir's similar, and better, 1990 film "Green Card."

For all its slickness, is an R-rated version of "Survivor," "Big Brother" or any number of reality-TV shows that present voyeurism as entertainment and exploitation as insight.

The film doesn't have enough innovation or pizazz to attract teenagers, and it lacks the novel charm that made ''Spy Kids'' a surprising winner with both adults and younger audiences.

Unambitious and transparent, but that doesn't mean it won't warm the hearts of audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Doesn't aim for more than padding a plot around Kennedy so he can do his Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character full-force. And the joke soon wears thin.

The Eye is a feast to behold, but it lacks substance and will leave most viewers wholly unsatisfied.

It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.

Surprising less moldy and trite than the last two.

Predictable and dull.

Schlock that could and should have been better.

Disappointingly hollow.

Lesnick seems to be saying that lesbian characters on screen can also meet cute significant others, spar in a lite Woody Allen fashion, and have a happy, sappy Hollywood ending. But a sitcom is still a sitcom -- gay, Greek or otherwise.

The movie moves predictably to its feel-good finale.

An adequate horror movie for the Halloween season, but it too easily sinks into haunted-house-film conventions, even if the haunted house is decked out as an Italian luxury liner.

It's a refreshing theme for a kids' movie, one that incorporates history and urban flavor, not to mention a preservationists' perspective, into the usual mix.

It makes the viewer wonder whether Circuit would have been stronger as a documentary instead of the well-intentioned, overlong, intermittently entertaining but flawed feature that it is.

The script boasts some tart TV-insider humor, but the film has not a trace of humanity or empathy.

Packaged fluff aimed low, and patronizingly, at Spears's legion of young female fans.

One can hardly argue with the desire to make a wholesome movie for families that extols honesty and decency, but it all comes too easily, too superficially.