Lou Lumenick

Nowhere near as funny as you’d expect with its stellar cast.

There is much more of an emphasis on action in this nicely crafted, fast-paced sequel, which at its best shares the antic qualities of classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

It largely consists of Franco musing about depictions of homosexual activity on film. As well as gay cast members speculating whether Franco will take off his clothes and perform in explicit footage. He doesn’t.

Basically a Lifetime movie that somehow found its way into theaters.

De Niro gives a technically brilliant performance as Walt, struggling with a body that will no longer obey him.

The sort of movie that seems to exist for no good reason except to keep the studio's pipeline filled with filmed product.

Though quite watchable thanks to its cast, the overly ambitious Don McKay ends up as confused as its main female character.

Duplex, a shoddily constructed and alarmingly unfunny dark comedy that squanders the talents of Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore, is one real-estate deal you should walk away from.

So strenuously inoffensive it makes Disney's "High School Musical" look almost racy by comparison.

In effect gives you two movies for the price of one. The better one doesn't star Sandra Bullock.

It's not a total shipwreck, but abandon hope all ye seeking a coherent, much less satisfying, narrative. Expect instead a reported $300 million worth of eye candy, delivered with enormous technical skill.

In the course of How About You, much champagne is consumed, pot is smoked, and a good time is had by all, the audience included. Redgrave even sings the title song.

Another mean-spirited black comedy from Todd Solondz, tries even harder than the director's two earlier films to shock and outrage -- but the overall effect of his sophomoric excess is tiresome and dull, like watching someone else's 2-year-old act out for the 50th time.

Garage Days is fun, but it would have been even more entertaining if Proyas had taken an unplugged approach.

A lazy, noisy ADHD-addled collection of animated clichés guaranteed to give anyone older than 5 a headache, even if you don’t see it in optional 3-D.

The funniest and arguably most envelope-pushing episode stars Winona Ryder as a newlywed who falls in love on her honeymoon - and steals the object of her lust: a ventriloquist's dummy.

Child of God is, like the source novel, loosely inspired by the notorious real-life cannibal murderer Ed Gein. So was Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.’’ Nobody left that classic bored — but they sure will be by Franco’s film.

Stewart's intense, courageous performance as a 16-year-old New Orleans prostitute is really something special.

A wildly misanthropic and overlong black comedy.

A triumph of low-budget filmmaking.

So udderly mediocre.

It's pretty hard to make a dull movie about Henry VIII and his complicated love life, but The Other Boleyn Girl, a failed Oscar contender, manages to do just that, with yawns to spare.

Grows ever more manipulative and predictable.

May be the first movie that effectively erases virtually its entire story line by the very last scene.

These people are so selfish and self-absorbed you may not want to spent even 72 minutes with them.

This midsummer crowd-pleaser from the ateliers of Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard is still a great deal more rip-roaring fun than, say, the campy movie version of "The Wild Wild West."

The Coen brothers might have done something inspired with this, but director Kanievska... turns out a more modestly entertaining little low-budget movie.

Splendidly spectacular, intelligent and very well-acted.

A slickly entertaining war movie that's sometimes striking, sometimes silly -- but never, ever boring.

It's the audience that gets punk'd in this crass and sloppy comic recycling.

Little more than a supersized version of the popular PBS animated series that's stopping briefly in theaters en route to its natural habitat -- video.

While Clooney and especially Blanchett give solid performances, and McGuire plays effectively against type, the movie is best appreciated as an exercise in vintage Hollywood style.

Dreamcatcher is a lark probably best enjoyed by 12-year-olds -- or anyone still able to get in touch with their inner 12-year-old.

As you might suspect, the 2012 dialogue is pure Velveeta.

Does offer solid laughs, engaging performances and a captivating setting.

Barely enough chuckles to keep from running out of gas. Yet it's the sharpest-looking movie shot so far on digital video, outdistancing even "The Anniversary Party."

Visually striking but gets bogged down in supernatural clichés.

A lot of preaching to the converted.

Basically a mega-budget war movie that makes fun of mega-budget war movies.

Wears out its welcome fast because of its artistic pretensions and self-absorbed characters. You'd be better off renting "Manhattan" instead.

It's as purely entertaining as it is thought-provoking and timely.

His late father directed "Rambo: First Blood,'' but Panos Cosmatos' debut feature couldn't be more different - this would-be cult classic is the movie equivalent of gazing at a lava lamp for nearly two hours.

Harmless if not exactly inspired, and rarely hilarious.

When New York, I Love You was previewed in Toronto a year ago, there were two additional segments that have since been cut. So you'll have to wait for the DVD to see just how bad Scarlett Johansson's directing debut is.

Basically "csi: East Texas,'' the debut feature of Ami Canaan Mann is long on style and short on coherent storytelling, not unlike numerous efforts by her director dad, Michael, who serves as a producer here.

Miller never really fleshes out all of these colorful characters in her emotionally facile script, leaving the heavy lifting to the actors. Fortunately for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Wright is more than up to the challenge.

The season's first guilty pleasure, Shoot 'Em Up is a joyously silly, R-rated, John Woo-in flected Looney Tune, with Clive Owen as a carrot-chomping, gun-toting Bugs Bunny matching wits with Elmer Fudd-ish assassin Paul Giamatti.

To put it as positively as possible, there's never a dull moment in this flick - and that's not something you can take for granted at this time of the year. At the same time, though, there's rarely a believable moment in the script.

Has a secret weapon in Winger, whose part is small but crucial. Looking a bit older and with redder hair than previously, she brings an earthiness to a movie that could use a lot more of that quality.

Falters seriously is its too-leisurely pacing.

Disco may still be dead, but Benji: Off the Leash! resurrects another dubious artifact of the '70s - the crudely made family films starring that lovable mutt.

This movie fails so spectacularly - and on so many levels - that it's like watching a train plummet off a bridge.

Aside from a relatively brief appearance by Joan Cusack's avatar as the kidnapped mother, there are no involving characters or situations.

For much of Flannel Pajamas I wondered if the couple's big problem was that Stuart was secretly gay. Nothing so interesting - he's just a narcissistic control freak and she's off-puttingly needy.

Suddenly topical because of parallels to the kidnapping and death of Daniel Pearl.

It's like your appendix - you'll never even miss it.

Modestly entertaining.

This romantic dramedy tries to cram enough plot twists for a season’s worth of TV episodes into an hour and a half, but is still worthwhile for its fine performances, including the best work that Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Connelly have done in quite a while.

Superficial and hokey yet still oddly endearing.

Rock appears to have edited I Think I Love My Wife with a roulette wheel.

Apprently novice filmmaker Angela Ismailos' definition of a Great Director is one who's willing to sit or walk with her while she lobs innocuous questions and gives herself lots of awed close-up reaction shots.

Remarkably sluggish and not particularly suspenseful.

So eager to please, it practically licks you in the face.

Might as well be called "Around the World in 80 Yawns."

If this overcooked version of James Ellroy’s novel - inspired by a famous 1947 Los Angeles murder - is less than fully satisfying or even believable storytelling and acting, it’s still possible to get a kick out of this fever dream loaded with eye candy.

More watchable for secular audiences than the handful of earlier films released under the Fox Faith label, this one actually has a sense of humor, a politically progressive point of view and a solid cast including the ever-reliable James Garner.

Offers a few laughs - and little sexual heat.

Unfortunately, as in Bay’s “Pearl Harbor,’’ much of the sometimes draggy 2 1/4 hours is given to clichéd inspirational drama.

The Good Night is at heart a mediocre Sundance variation on the Dudley Moore-Bo Derek alleged classic "10."

As much as we like Alec as an actor, it's hard to imagine that any amount of editing and reshooting under his supervision could salvage his complete ineptitude as a director.

A sloppy and only mildly engaging documentary.

An excellent case for euthanizing the entire talking-animals genre.

Winning performances by Roger Rees and Mary McDonnell, as well as colorful Virginia locations, lift Crazy Like a Fox slightly above the TV-caliber script by its director.

Doesn't quite reach the heights - though it does plumb the depths - of its hugely popular predecessor. But it will have an enormous, appreciative audience doubled over with belly-busting laughs.

Perhaps the most fascinating vintage footage...depicts what happened in 1961 when the city sent police into Washington Square Park to stop the longtime Sunday practice of singing without a required permit.

While the film has impressive 18th-century trappings and vivid battle scenes, the plotting and acting are rudimentary.

In the clumsy hands of director Rob Marshall, this tacky, all-star botch more closely resembles a video catalog for Victoria’s Secret.

Gut-bustingly funny -- perhaps this waning summer season's ultimate guilty pleasure.

If you insist on seeing Soul Men, stick around during the closing credits for the best part of the movie, an interview with Mac.

An unsatisfying drama that premiered at Sundance '07 and was supposedly delayed because of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Wholesome entertainment that will please the under-10 crowd without boring their parents.

Kline's divine -- alas, the film isn't.

The biggest load of New Agey hogwash to grace the big screen since Spacey's "Pay it Forward."

The Price of Milk, which boasts a lush classical score recorded by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, has a few more twists that make this a Valentine's Day delight.

Short, fast and nasty, The Mechanic is considerably more fun than the rather lethargic original.

The feel-bad movie of the holiday season, Spike Lee’s often-repellent Americanized reimagining of Korean director Chan-Wook Park’s twisty 2004 revenge thriller Oldboy is relentlessly gruesome, self-consciously shocking and pretty much pointless.

It's certainly a lot more charming than the last attempt at a Peter Pan sequel, Steven Spielberg's star-laden, ham-fisted "Hook."

The first half of Scotland, PA is by far the funniest, with witty dialogue, hilariously ugly period fashions and hairstyles.

A marginally funny comedy at best, recycles themes, scenes and even lines from Allen's own old movies - like many of Allen's later efforts.

Overlong and sometimes schmaltzy — but still hugely engaging.

One big hunk of cinematic moussaka with lots of appetizing shots of food.

It isn't as ridiculous as this year's other version of a local best seller set during WWII ("Captain Corelli's Mandolin"), but it's arguably even less entertaining.

Little more than an infomercial for the candidate.

Proudly airheaded, incoherent, endlessly pandering - yet fitfully entertaining.

A civics lesson about integration very artfully - and entertainingly - disguised as an upbeat family sports movie.

Ride sounds a bit like a Lifetime movie, but in Hunt’s capable hands it’s a brisk, funny and touching comedy for boomers.

While My First Mister has considerable charm, it suffers somewhat from comparison with "Ghost World."

An uninspired recycling of themes that were far more gripping in "The Lion King" and countless other earlier Mouse House classics.

One of the better political documentaries flooding into theaters after "Fahrenheit 9/11" and before the election.

Writer-director Julian Henriquez does a great job staging the lively musical numbers.

Divergent is a clumsy, humorless and shamelessly derivative sci-fi thriller set in a generically dystopian future.

Gorgeous location filming on Italy’s Amalfi Coast and a voice-only performance by the great Claire Bloom as an elderly woman remembering World War II are the main attractions in Kat Coiro’s familiarly snoozy romantic drama.

The film at least achieves the level of mediocrity thanks to the professionalism of two slightly younger participants — Kline and Mary Steenburgen, who also have Oscars on their mantels but go well beyond phoning it in here.

Whatever message Brooks was trying to put across with Spanglish, it clearly got lost in translaaaaaaaaaaation.

It's a shame, because the actors are so much better than the threadbare material.

Pleasant and has not a few laughs.

Frey's harrowing depiction of this milieu transcends the indifferent acting and contrived plot.

The film repeatedly disappoints because Sandler and his director...have so little faith in focusing on the two characters' plight that they interrupts the romance repeatedly for vulgar, Farrelly brothers-style sexual and ethnic jokes that are so relentlessly unfunny they may not even rouse Sandler's core constituency of 12-year-old males.

Tried to turn this into a replay of its 2000 military-rescue hitBlack Hawk Down -- though, in the end, it's almost totally lacking in the serious hardware and viscerally paced action that propelled Ridley Scott's movie to the top of the box office.

Michael Moore makes many of the same points, with far more impact, in "Bowling for Columbine."

Like “Traffic’’ on a massive dose of downers, Ridley Scott’s The Counselor is a great-looking and star-filled but lethally pretentious, talky, lethargic drama.

Not an easy movie to watch, and it's far from perfect - but it does have an artsy integrity and a fascinatingly intense performance by Paul Giamatti.

Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane is been there, done that.

Despite this seemingly surefire premise and cast of veteran comedians - there's even a cameo by Liza Minnelli as a masturbation coach - The OH in Ohio just lies there, without a single laugh.

An extremely awkward cross between "Ocean's Eleven" and "Rain Man."

Might have worked as a 10-minute sketch.

An alarmingly unfunny French comedy where the two main characters are constantly yakking on a cell phone at an airport.

Becomes almost laughably melodramatic and wields just about every rock-movie cliché in the book.

“Let’s show ’em some good old-fashioned American swagger,’’ MacArthur says on his arrival in Tokyo. It’s too bad director Webber and the screenwriters, David Klass and Vera Blasi, didn’t take his advice to heart instead of largely wasting Jones and some very nice period details.

Heavy on celebrity voices, pop culture references and rock tunes and low on memorable characters or imagination, Chicken Little is on a par with such mediocre but popular CGI films as "Madagascar" and "Shark Tale."

A slick, shallow and thoroughly generic caper flick.

Peter Krause, the fine actor from "Six Feet Under," gives a one-note performance that seriously undermines Civic Duty, a thriller mining minimal dramatic payoff from the potentially potent subject of post-9/11 paranoia.

At 52, Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) still looks a treat and, more important, effortlessly wields her double entendres like a Romanian Mae West.

Morrow fares less well with the script, which he also produced and collaborated on.

No one's going to confuse The Core with art -- or even a good film -- but it's 25 minutes longer than "The Hours" and I had at least 25 times as much fun.

Laugh-out-loud comedies are so rare that you shouldn't casually pass up Super Troopers, which is essentially a smarter and much funnier version of the old "Police Academy" flicks.

This remarkable new documentary from Raymond De Felitta ("City Island") fruitfully revisits the aftermath of a TV doc that his father, Frank, produced for NBC in 1965.

An entertaining if nonsensical variation on Hill's greatest hit from that bygone era, "48 Hrs.''

A brave but ultimately futile attempt at adapting a piece that is so quintessentially theatrical that it defies translation to another medium.

It's terribly predictable and often risible stuff.

Black, who all but stole "High Fidelity," is disappointingly bland and one-note in his first starring role.

I might be able to get past that if Hathaway and Sturgess had any chemistry. There are no sparks whatsoever, and that's always a deal-breaker for me in romantic films.

There isn't anything terribly exciting or original on offer in the somewhat poky directing debut of screenwriter Zach Helm.

Under Mark Palansky's uninspired direction, magic eludes Penelope in scene after scene.

She’s (Fey) so good that — up to a point — you can ignore Paul Weitz’ erratic direction and a patchy script, both of which clumsily handle shifts between comedy and drama.

One of those painfully earnest -- and pretentious -- little indies in which a pair of emotional cripples neatly resolve all of their problems within 48 hours of meeting each other.

A family-friendly, Hallmark Channel-ready musical dramatic fable whose plot more closely resembles Spike Lee’s “Red Hook Summer.’’

Strands several generations of performers in a highly derivative script and hackneyed direction.

Stengarde gives an arresting performance as a mentally unstable woman.

Beyond the Ocean, which at its best is reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger in Paradise," doesn't integrate its two story lines in a particularly satisfying manner and the ending is somewhat abrupt.

Might have made a tolerable five-minute "mockumentary," but it's apparently meant seriously.

This laugh-starved twist on "Big" and the many lesser body-swapping comedies of the era is basically a lecture on sexual abstinence.

Often charming and funny, though sometimes quite gross.

Director Raymond de Felitta, who directed a little-seen gem called "Two Family House" a few years ago, gives Falk plenty of room to do his thing. There's an underlying emotional truth even in scenes that seem terribly contrived.

Shamelessly derivative, contrived and predictable, The Proposal is nonetheless a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy.

Overall, the rambling Jayne Mansfield’s Car is almost as big a wreck as its namesake.

A shipwreck. They say a dead fish stinks from the head first - but the animated shipwreck Shark Tale arrives reeking all over.

Macht is the best thing in A Love Song for Bobby Long, but his intelligent performance doesn't justify a tough, and very long, sit.

Yes, there's some spectacular footage. But there's also an awful lot of filler for a 40-minute movie.

Played by Logan Lerman -- the Zac Efron look-alike who was young George Hamilton in "My One and Only" -- Percy is a Manhattan high-schooler who learns he is a demigod.

The material has been dumbed down for contemporary tastes and Carrey's frantic comic style.

Cynics need not apply, but I found Bella a real heart tugger.

More fun than you'd expect from an adaptation of a '60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon that was in turn derived from a comic book.

Somewhere along the way, Borstal Boy became fatally compromised.

A disappointing erotic thriller from director Jane Campion that amounts to an implausible update on "Looking for Mr. Goodbar."

May not be vintage stuff, but it goes down fairly smoothly.

After a slightly promising start, this great-looking but ultimately deeply confusing and unscary sci-fi/horror opus turns into a quite boring rehash of M. Night Shyamalan's post-"Signs" films.

An offer you shouldn't refuse: It's laugh-out-loud, side-splitting funny.

Draggy and incoherent.

This Canadian-South African labor of love has its heart in the right place, even if the leads seem to have been cast more for their hunky looks than their stiff acting.

Like the recent "Sex and the City" movie, this spinoff not so subtly tries to have its cake and eat it by ALSO suggesting that a woman is nothing without a man.

This (hopefully) final chapter's interminable first hour...showcases some of the clunkiest dialogue and wooden acting since the most recent "Star Wars" movies.

Presenting a “true” adventure about a giant whale that supposedly inspired “Moby-Dick” raises tsunami-high expectations about In the Heart of the Sea that are crushed as thoroughly as if star Chris Hemsworth had brought down his “Thor” hammer on the entire enterprise.

The “Transformers” hottie undergoes her very own transformation here, thanks to satanic possession.

Most of the laughs are collected by Lucy Punch as chirpy, borderline-psychotic teacher named Squirrel.

Big-Hearted and often quite funny if crudely made, Fat Girls cleverly subverts the clichés of high school comedies to serve an autobiographical story about an overweight gay teen in a small Texas town.

This new low-octane version is hardly going to make anyone forget Robert Aldrich's semi-classic, testosterone-laden original starring Jimmy Stewart.

Those looking for another "Showgirls" will be disappointed - writer-director Steve Antin avoids the seamy side of the business, and the same-sex flirtation is mostly between guys.

Unlike Van Sant's grittier, less sentimental recent small films, it's twee enough to make your teeth ache. It's the director's biggest miscalculation since "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" 18 years ago.

Quietly persuasive and very timely documentary.

Brain-dead political satire/tear-jerker.

Taylor also makes an impressive comeback as the conflicted daughter who instinctively distrusts Heather, but Starting Out in the Evening is first and foremost a triumph by Frank Langella.

Terrific performances by Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as a comic duo clearly modeled on Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin get swallowed up in Atom Egoyan's muddled murder mystery.

This morbid and self-consciously literary adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's Pulitzer-winning novel is no crowd pleaser.

So slow the movie itself seems to be suffering from a hardening of the arteries.

Wildly uneven, but contains moments that are right up there with "The Player."

An unholy mess.

The low point of the new Shall We Dance comes when Miss Paulina finally confesses why she's so sad.

Sometimes there's a fine line between a labor of love and a vanity project, and The Lost City, Andy Garcia's heartfelt - but hackneyed and interminable - love letter to his native Cuba, repeatedly crosses it.

Nicely photographed and has impressive sets; too bad there's so little going on that it seems long even at 78 minutes.

There'll likely be more Z's in the audience than on the screen.

Director Boaz Yakin (“Remember the Titans”) indulges in an awful lot of gunplay for a PG-rated family film, but sure knows how to stage a dirt-bike race. The Belgian malinoises who play Max way out-act the humans.

No worse and no better than the majority of chick flicks.

Filmmaker Alison Murray drew on her own experiences, but Mouth to Mouth would have benefited from more focus and fewer dance sequences.

At heart a cliché-strewn melodrama about a bunch of white, upper-class Manhattan kids who aspire to ghetto culture.

May not set back Danish-American relations, but it's amusing to imagine how this schlock would have turned out under Denmark's most famous director, the American-hating Lars von Trier.

Though Lohan doesn't embarrass herself in a film in which she appears in virtually every frame, this tepid tribute to girl power hardly represents a step forward from Lohan's breakthrough roles in "Mean Girls" and the remake of Disney's "Freaky Friday.

A fine cast headed by the underrated Greg Kinnear lifts this year’s third major religious movie, the fact-inspired Heaven Is for Real, somewhat beyond its Hallmark Channel-caliber script and visuals.

Strictly summer schlock.

Shankman's staging of the numbers - especially the leaden choreography and hackneyed locations such as the Hollywood sign - was far sloppier and less creative than for his last musical, the vastly superior "Hairspray."

Atmospheric and moves briskly, but it's basically TV writ large.

Thornton lends gravity, focus and humor that are otherwise in short supply in this serious-minded but meandering, talky and action-deficient epic.

A depressingly predictable journey of self-discovery.

There's no real payoff - artistically or emotionally - in Gregory Harrison's gimmicky and tedious psychological thriller November, shot on ugly digital video.

Even a great British cast and obscenity-laden gangland dialogue aren't enough to make what amounts to an extended acting exercise into much of a movie.

Overlong, overblown and utterly forgettable.

A highly personal, provocative and in some ways riveting vision with an inspired performance by Jim Caviezel as Jesus.

Has its share of laughs.

A rare film that depicts a skinny male in a relationship with a plus-size woman. And, small wonder, Brittain's sweet charisma makes her the most lovable big woman on screen since Lynn Redgrave in "Georgy Girl."

The story is also engaging and hip enough to make it a far easier sit for parents. And it's hard not to like a hero who takes public transportation to a showdown with the bad guy.

Funny and frothy sex comedy from Spain with a very appealing cast -- and mediocre musical numbers.

Comes perilously close to being a vanity production for the obscure singer Isabel Rose, who stars and wrote the autobiographical screenplay with neophyte director Robert Cary, based on her own struggles as a cabaret singer.

The longest 85-minute road trip you could imagine.

Autumn wants to do for Jean-Pierre Melville what "Reservoir Dogs" did for Hong Kong cinema, but this new film is a joyless exercise in film appreciation.

This would be a stultifyingly incestuous affair even if all the jokes about fertilization weren't so tiresomely lame and predictable.

This intense psycho-sexual drama doesn't easily lend itself to the camera.

This overlong, obvious and indifferently acted melodrama was written and directed by Luke Eberl, a former child actor, before he turned 21.

A well-acted, well-directed (by TV veteran Anthony Hemingway) popcorn movie with great aerial battles and solid dramatic scenes that hold your attention for two good hours.

Despite risible dialogue, Mercy is watchable because of Caan's physical presence -- and a couple of scenes with his real-life father, James Caan, as his cynical dad who pronounces that "love -- it does not exist."

While there are laughs, the farcical elements of The Oranges are not presented with sufficient discipline to live up to the full potential of its cast. But as a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey suburban experience, I can testify that it nails the milieu's specifics.

About as artistically profound as those framed 3-D photos of the Twin Towers emblazoned with "Never Forget'' that are still for sale in Times Square a decade after 9/11.

The willfully eccentric Beyond the Sea seems to be telling us a lot more about its star and director, Kevin Spacey, than its ostensible subject.

Johnny English Reborn sounds like a reboot, but it's actually a tired recycling of something that wasn't exactly fresh to begin with.

Although the golden-hued cinematography (a filming cliché that really needs to be retired) and the sometimes slack direction by Marc Evans are minuses, Hunky Dory does deliver in the musical department.

Uncompromisingly mediocre comedy.

Another ridiculous anti-American screed by the minimalist Danish director Lars von Trier, who has never set foot in this country.

Eric Schaeffer's rip-off -- er, homage -- to "Magnolia," is a marginally better movie than his previous self-absorbed atrocities like "My Life's in Turnaround" and "Wirey Spindell."

This rambling, overproduced, tone-deaf melange of romance, comedy and drama is only slightly more engaging than Brooks' other feature this century, the unfortunate Adam Sandler vehicle "Spanglish" (2004).

The stars look bored out of their minds when the fourth episode of the franchise stalls between racing sequences.

A genially scattershot mockumentary.

Ron Howard's splendid The Da Vinci Code is the Holy Grail of summer blockbusters: a crackling, fast-moving thriller that's every bit as brainy and irresistible as Dan Brown's controversial bestseller.

No surprises here, though the stars make it surprisingly watchable.

A beautifully shot film with a funny French-twist ending.

The actors don't seem to have been directed at all, and the movie is very sluggishly paced.

Exploitation curiosity.

Manages to create a creepy atmosphere, even if the plot itself is somewhat unfocused and the scares scarce.

Heavy on slapstick and may appeal to very young viewers who won't need to bother much with the subtitles.

There are precious few laughs in this poorly written and directed "unromantic comedy" - the sort of dire date movie you'd take somebody to if you wanted it to be a LAST date.

A clever and big- hearted gay screwball comedy.

It would also help if they were given some dialogue that was actually funny, or at least more clever than the lines provided to Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl in the distressingly similar "Killers" from earlier this month.

Even in an underwritten role, the delightful Madsen shines in her best performance since her comeback role in "Sideways."

This windy courtroom drama is punctuated by cheesy flashbacks.

This movie is never more than a one-liner away from sitcom, yet it goes down like ice cream.

What's cutting- edge comedy for one generation can become generic filler for the next - that's the lesson to be learned from The In-Laws, a strenuous attempt to recycle a vastly funnier minor classic.

Ranges from exquisitely sensitive to crass, but overall, it's an interesting effort.

Indulges in some of the crudest Jewish stereotypes seen in a recent movie, right down to the crack about every Jewish girl having a nose job.

It's not uninteresting, but so much footage is given over to earnest discussion of sexual politics that the overall effect is like sitting through a semester's worth of transgender studies.

While this slow-starting update of "Private Lives" has plenty of laughs, the incredibly expressive (and too-seldom seen) Stevenson turns Julia's romantic dilemma into something genuinely moving. She makes A Previous Engagement something special.

A sizzling soundtrack and Jennifer Lopez's best performance since "Out of Sight" go only so far in El Cantante, a downer of a musical biopic that leaves no cliché unturned.

Entertaining and heartwarming -- especially when Mirren sweeps into scenes with acid observations that fail to disguise a heart of gold.

I laughed harder at Pumpkin than at any other film I've seen this year -- but be warned: This dark campus comedy is not for all tastes, or probably even most tastes.

Essentially a more awkward Afghan version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

A bizarre and campily amusing "tribute" to the late dance legend starring drag queen Richard Move.

None of this is remotely funny or interesting.

Dashing, handsome and self-deprecating, Kevin Kline was born to play Errol Flynn.

Thanks to a winning cast, all of this is funnier than you would expect considering the erratic script.

Interesting enough that you wish it were better.

Despite excellent performances by Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer and other cast members, Mike Binder’s racially tinged custody battle drama Black or White never achieves much in the way of dramatic credibility.

Risks trivializing history and pandering to feminist fantasies, but it may be the year's most fearless movie.

A truly repulsive piece of trash that says far more about the absence of values from contemporary filmmaking than the waywardness of teens.

A sometimes eye-opening, if overlong, German-Swiss documentary on a holistic health system that's been practiced, mostly in India, for more than 500 years.

Entertaining but terminally dopey.

You could make a worse choice for a late- summer popcorn movie than Takers, a Michael Mann-ish heist thriller with a pulse-pounding foot chase and some terrific stunt work offsetting its hackneyed plot and dialogue.

So exploitative and misogynistic that its last-minute dramatic turns and pleas for tolerance and understanding come off as manipulative as its heroine.

It isn't the laugh riot of the year.

A sincere but underwhelming dramatization of one of the biggest news stories of 1956.

Zippily written and directed by the team of Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech, Hoodwinked just wants the audience to have fun - something that's been in sparse supply in theaters of late.

Basically “Lorenzo’s Oil” without the earlier film’s visual flair.

The two lead actresses rise to the occasion when they're finally forced to confront each other at the climax.

There are far, far worse ways to spend two hours than watching Jessica Alba in a skimpy bikini - as well as other natural wonders photographed in the Bahamas - in the airheaded underwater adventure Into the Blue.

Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock achieves an amazing feat: It turns the fabled music festival, a key cultural moment of the late 20th century, into an exceedingly lame, heavily clichéd, thumb-sucking bore.

The leaden pacing, somnambulant performances and incessant symbolism in nearly every shot will soon have you thinking that The Three Marias is three too many.

A moribund attempt to exhume the Jack Ryan techno-thriller franchise with a severely miscast Ben Affleck, is truly the 20-megaton bomb among this summer's blockbusters.

Horror-movie vets Harrington ("Wrong Turn") and Sagemiller ("Soul Survivors") struggle unsuccessfully with characters who are frequently more plastic than Nikki.

Disappointingly routine kidnapping thriller with soap-opera trimmings.

In the fourth and by far the worst screen version of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Nicole Kidman's character struggles to stay awake - as will the audience.

One of my critical brethren opined that this sort of dumbing-down and low comedy may be the only way to sell the public a movie about the Iraq war. If that's true, God help us.

A crowd-pleasing comedy that isn't going to win any awards for originality.

The erstwhile crack dealer born Curtis Jackson may be a prot‚g‚ of Eminem, but this shapeless and derivative gangsta saga is no "8 Mile."

The kind of thriller whose ridiculous climax hinges on a hitherto undisclosed GPS tracking device in a dog's collar - an appropriate touch in a movie that's more than a little flea-ridden itself.

Coincidences and plot contrivances pile up. What starts out as a delightful black comedy and social commentary ends up, at best, as a guilty pleasure where I had a hard time sorting out the intentional from the unintentional laughs.

A guaranteed crowd-pleaser for the whole family.

As an actress, Lopez is a bit stiff, as she has been in all of her movies save "Out of Sight." It really doesn't matter much here, given the sparks between her and Fiennes and the fact that the role is pretty much form-fitted to her public persona.

An overwrought, ramshackle weepie that really doesn't deserve Kline's Oscar-caliber work.

A glossy gay soap opera that graphically illustrates new meanings for the term "missionary position."

A cartoonish, unfocused and mostly unfunny satire.

Unremarkable and none-too-scary horror movie.

A decade later, these tabloid hall-of-famers are finally back to share the screen in By the Sea — glumly emoting in a pretentiously arty, humorless vanity production that drags along for two hours that feel like at least four.

Rarely have I wanted to fast-forward through a movie as much as Click, a treacly and not-funny-enough Adam Sandler comedy.

Expect a fast-paced, beautifully mounted and well-acted soap opera with overripe dialogue that plays fast and loose with history - just like they did in the '30s, '40s and '50s - and you won't come away disappointed.

Shot on ugly digital video with Troma-grade special effects, campy humor and frighteningly bad acting, Zombie Strippers should provide many laughs for stoners watching it on video.

When Neeson engages in bare-knuckle fisticuffs at the climax of the cartoonish Taken 2, I honestly couldn't figure out if the 60-year-old actor was actually present at all except for the close-ups.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders looks great and has a promising opening, but this atmospheric Spanish psychological thriller is otherwise pretty underwhelming.

If you go, be sure to stick around through the closing credits. By far the funniest part of the movie is a blackly humorous fantasy sequence starring Merchant.

Rambling, schmaltzy romantic comedy.

The fresh-faced Noonan tries very hard to rise above the material, but it defeats her and her fellow cast members.

Rogers gives a brave performance, but there isn't much chemistry between Bridges and Basinger, who were teamed to better effect in 1987's "Nadine."

A lame comic tribute to the dwindling band of "Star Wars" aficionados, is one of those be nighted projects whose back story turns out to be significantly more compelling than the movie itself.

Martin's most adventurous film in many years, may be next best thing to a quick shot of nitrous oxide.

You can't get much more perverse than asking Julia Roberts to wear fright wigs, do her own frumpy makeup and costumes -- and then shoot her scenes in eyeball-gougingly ugly digital video.

In the hands of the formerly promising director Joe Carnahan, this stylish, nihilistic, hugely derivative mash-up of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie (before wife Madonna ruined his career) is fun for roughly half an hour.

Accomplishes a near miracle -- this British import makes you yearn for Burt Reynolds, who appeared in a vastly more entertaining version of the same story.

This version, flatly directed and risibly written by Billy Ray, is saddled with endless coincidences, questionably motivated characters and an utterly laughable climax.

Incoherent, inept, testosterone-drenched mess, which is very much the brain-dead male equivalent of "Sex and the City 2."

It's Willis who delivers the goods in scene after scene, triumphing over a thin script, often bland direction.

A screwball farce that pulls off a pitifully low percentage of its gags, even with a star-crammed cast.

Dicey entertainment, indeed.