Luke Y. Thompson

If Alfred Hitchcock were retarded, lobotomized, and freshly dug up, he might possibly c--- out a movie like this one.

Its most redeeming quality is that it's so inoffensive parents can feel OK about taking kids.

Generally speaking, the best kinds of story surprises illuminate the material; the worst simply laugh at you for falling for red herrings. Much of what happens in The Twin bounces back and forth between those ends of the spectrum.

It's hard to see why her audience seems so much more rabid than that of other, funnier comics. The secret seems to be in her appeal to the gay community.

For folks who like a genuinely tense suspense film with heavy doses of black humor, however, this ought to do it.

The co-director/co-writer team of Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro are none too subtle, and their reliance on hallucination sequences suggests a (misguided) lack of faith in Hammer to pull this off by himself.

Saw II, despite the swift turnaround time, improves on all of the first film's problem areas, while leaving intact everything that was good about the concept.

There's nothing particularly wrong with this whole setup; it's just very by-the-numbers.

Director Dwight Little, who has made many mediocre films as well as the gleefully gory Robert Englund version of "The Phantom of the Opera," gets at least one thing right -- he really does take time to establish the characters.

James does a decent job with what he’s been given, but it’s never clear exactly what the movie hopes to do with his character. Is this just another crime and punishment retread? Or is it meant to serve as a metaphor for dealing with grief while disabled? It’s too broad to work as the latter, and too unhurried for the former.

A unique and striking film for at least the first two-thirds of its running time, after which it turns, all too sadly, predictable and mundane

Not just another disposable romantic comedy, but an ambitious, overreaching mess.

The movie's not without moments of genuine humor--no comedy starring Steve Martin could be--but sad to say, his Oscar-hosting gig two years ago was funnier.

This movie is every bit the mess its title makes it sound.

One hopes the entire process made for great couples therapy, because watching it certainly doesn’t.

It's unfortunate that, nudity and all, this is one of Toback's absolute worst efforts.

What this Reagan movie really needed was . . . more Reagan. None of his admirers have his charisma, and none of the footage here is surprising. Fox News could easily produce a better film.

A waste of a decent premise.

This was a better movie back when it was called "Gossip" . . . oh, wait, no -- that one sucked too.

Far be it from us to actively reveal what scuttles Zemeckis’ film, but let’s just say that it seems like the people who made its biggest creative choices have more wood for brains than the character they brought to life.

Adding R. Lee Ermey to the Leatherface clan was a masterful move.

The film's finale is truly egregious, a laugh-out-loud combination of ludicrousness and sadism that someone somewhere probably found scary, assuming they never saw a thriller before.

It's fun stuff, but nowhere near as cool as it should be.

In general, Bad Boys II is Bay unleashed. This is a good thing when it comes to action sequences--fans of excessive spectacle will definitely dig the car chases that involve flying cadavers. It's a bit less of a good thing between said moments of spectacle.

The film has a gritty, grainy look that matches the book's raw texture, and keeps the violence and drug abuse from ever looking slick or appealing.

A surprisingly efficient B-grade revenge pic.

The animation looks good, especially when CG-enhanced, but the Rugrats babies' constant snot jokes, bug-eating and "cute" mispronunciations grate after a while.

Watching it feels like attending a Halloween party and never striking up a conversation with anyone; you can only look at the decorations for so long before getting bored.

King's decision to co-write the script and turn it into a CliffsNotes version of The Stand only makes things worse.

Delivers genuine scares.

Robert Rodriguez and his kids conjure up a charming 3-D fantasy.

This reboot smartly doesn't try to escalate the material to bigger and better status, keeping things small and scrappy and relying on the fighters to be the best special effects.

To the fan of ’80s slashers, this return to glorious excess is a beautiful thing.

Imagine a feature-length version of the "Large Marge" sequence from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and you won't be too far off, only that was scarier.

Actually boasts a decent script with character development, a sense of pace and some well-drawn supporting roles.

Sure, it's amusing, but it isn't much more.

Everyone seems more relaxed this time around, including director Harold Ramis, who was presumably less intimidated now that he knows De Niro can be really funny and draw a large audience to a comedy.

If you miss the slasher icons of old and have little patience for the reboot attempts they get periodically, it's nice to see at least a worthy attempt to add to that pantheon.

Hamill, however, is the MVP, continuing to deliver some of his best work as an older man. When he leaves the action for a spell, the energy leaves the movie.

This film is just too damn weird to pass up, and for the blacklight crowd, way cheaper (and better) than Pink Floyd tickets.

As Bundy, Michael Reilly Burke (Octopus 2: River of Fear) has just the right amount of charisma and menace. It's his performance that makes the movie, giving a relatively shallow script more depth and character nuances than likely existed on the page.

Rebound isn't funny.

Kusama offers moments of inspiration, but it frustrates like hell that she couldn't nail it completely.

Mandel Holland's direction is uninspired, and his scripting unsurprising, but the performances by Phifer and Black are ultimately winning.

Salva directs cheap thrills effectively, but his own apparent desires come off more frightening than any winged demon.

Standard revenge shenanigans ensue, with more boo-hoo numbers from Vin, who ain't up to it -- he hasn't been this lame since, uh, ever.

Several visual nods to the game are amusing, but it's tough to recommend the movie to anyone who doesn't already own a PlayStation.

Part female revenge flick, part Saturday Night Live skit, part courtroom drama, and part religious tent revival, this movie never congeals into anything worth watching.

What it lacks are solid performances, save Slater's game attempt to take everything seriously.

One of those genially paced, character-driven indies, and succeeds as such very well.

For better or worse -- plenty of both, in fact --it's a movie that has a coherent vision. It's a shame that vision just doesn't happen to be very interesting.

Jovovich isn't at her best, but that's mainly because her character is required to be in shock most of the movie, except when she remembers that she's a Charlie's Angel, or happily sheds clothing to maintain that R-rating. Frankly, most of us can live with that.

Too bad very few of these high jinks are actually funny -- the outtakes at the end of the film suggest a more relaxed ensemble vibe that the film proper was unable to retain.

It's not a movie one feels like hating, but the Hindi musical numbers aren't enough to elevate this over, say, "Pretty Woman."

May steal from the best, but it does it so badly and obviously that it has to depend upon gratuitous shock-cuts and soundtrack stings to elicit any kind of reflex-action fright from the viewer.

It's not a terrible premise -- It is, however, terribly executed.

The movie gets bogged down in dull dialogue, despite some truly impressive special effects and a hilariously silly CG devil who closely resembles his counterpart from the PlayStation game Tekken 2.

The heist itself is quite nicely filmed herein, but unfortunately, getting to it requires sitting through a bunch of noisy, fussy crap, from the overly busy soundtrack to the irritating narration of stoned guy Leonardo Nam.

Director Marcus Raboy hasn't made a bad movie, exactly -- just one that seems to have forgotten its own jokes, much as those who watch it will forget everything about it a week later, stoned or not.

While the specifics of the plot are often as fragile as an actual glass house, those looking for a good night of disposable entertainment will find it here.

This Mansion should satisfy, at least until the disappointing climax.

There’s a funny notion in Chris Evans effectively playing a damsel in distress, but like everything else in Ghosted, the filmmakers have no idea how to play it.

If you peel away the surface of this movie, one is left with not much at all.

Like its predecessor, this cartoon adaptation is a bit too all over the place for its own good, never entirely clear on whether to play as parody or homage.

The movie ultimately cops out by culminating in a fistfight between two humans, with nary a cyborg missile-throwing devil in sight.

For a character-driven “mistaken identity” comedy that lives or dies based on the humorous interactions between two A-list leads, its lousy script barely constitutes life support.

Nothing worse than a silly movie that takes itself seriously, that bores us to death while we wait for the finale that comes too late.

It's a bad sign when you're rooting for the film to hurry up and get to its subjects' deaths just so the documentary will be over, but it's indicative of how uncompelling the movie is unless it happens to cover your particular area of interest.

Lansdown has a pretty good score by Atli Orvarsson... Nope, nothing else nice to say.

Plays like a knockoff of Michael Bay's already derivative and much more fun "Bad Boys," only with even less plot. It also recalls the worst qualities of John Singleton's mean-spirited "Shaft."

Initially artsy, then campy, then tense, it would have worked better if writer-directors Peter and Michael Spierig had kept everything serious and let the inherent absurdism of zombie attacks speak for itself without additional ironic comment.

The fights are mostly cool, save the final one with too many quick cuts, and the morphing graffiti and tattoos are nifty. If only the rest of it weren't so stupid.

Even if the characters on screen didn’t become better artists during the pandemic, then Apatow at least should have. With The Bubble, he seems to have mistaken jokes about moviemaking for moviemaking that shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Feels dated in the post-9/11 world. But it would have felt passé and unnecessary regardless; it's the sort of film Michael Dudikoff, Chuck Norris and their ilk cranked out on a near-monthly basis when Reagan was president.

As by-the-numbers as VCR instructions. And, inexplicably, it's also a blast.

No doubt Fox wants to tap into those Latina dollars, but you've got to spend money to make money, and this shoddily cheap-looking product ain't gonna do it.

Yes, there are kills, but they’re often as comical as they are scary, and deliberately so. It’s a fun gateway horror movie for kids—and the easily scared who want to test their limits lightly.

Utilizing lots of complicated, well-choreographed steadicam shots, La Salle directs with confidence -- this may yet be his true calling.

Lackadaisical feel of the film; Freundlich is unable to generate much suspense.

Yes, there are more cheap shocks this time around, and they're fun to watch, but you'll have forgotten most of them by the time you make it out to your car.

LaBeouf's got the beef, and his inevitably bright future may be the only reason anyone will ever look back on The Battle of Shaker Heights.

The score sucks and the acting is weak, but there are times when certain moviegoers just feel the need to stare far-fetched, blood-drenched death in the eye and laugh. It's here, so have at it.

If Big Momma's House isn't as bad as you imagined, then you've no imagination at all.

Think "My Best Friend's Wedding," subtract gay best friend, dorky karaoke scene, charm, and any hint of malice or conflict, and you've got it.

A scattershot "urban" take on "Airplane!," Soul Plane misfires with its jokes at least as often as it hits (and less often than Snoop Dogg hits a joint), but when it works, laughs are generated.

It seems like a slam-dunk pitch -- "Pretty Woman" with the genders reversed -- but there's one major problem: The whole hooker-fantasy bit is much more of a guy thing.

Only Quaid, as a semiretarded horny robot, and Cleese as a fussy chauffeur hologram seem to get it. Even Murphy, as the titular nightclub big shot in outer space, forgets to be actually funny until the climax.

It's not a bad film, exactly, just a confused one, too violent to be a straight romance and too focused on aid relief to be an ass-kicking action flick.

If you like stuff breaking in THX, Swordfish delivers like no other this year. Bring earplugs.

Horror fans will have a blast, though it's unlikely anyone else will be won over.

Rent a porno instead; it'll be less exploitative. God help us, two more of these things are planned.

Director Stephen T. Kay (The Last Time I Committed Suicide) busts off some cool shots, and Eric Kripke's story is pretty sound until the finale. Worth a look for horror fans, but nothing classic.

All of the plot developments seem half-hearted -- which is a shame, because the star has the charm to succeed if given a better movie.

No less amusing than an average sitcom, but that's certainly not reason enough to buy a ticket.

It's a mess, but it isn't as bad as you think.

If your expectations aren't too high, there's lots of cool shit on-screen.

Cut God Is A Bullet down to a tight 90 minutes, and it might at least consistently deliver the cheap thrills and nihilistic kick it only occasionally achieves.

Why don't we see this kind of thing on the news every night? Undoubtedly military censorship comes into play, but probably more so it's the prevailing notion that talking-head shoutfests stacked with pundits bring in the ratings, while actual field reporting costs more money.