Luke Y. Thompson

The “mystery” elements simply aren’t mysterious. Yet without them, the sparse moments of gore and icky bugs aren’t quite enough to pad things out.

The only benefit the soul is likely to get from watching this is the comforting knowledge that you, the viewer, are not any of the people onscreen. Which doesn’t mean you can’t have fun watching them be bad, of course. But it’s a detached kind of fun.

Momoa’s clearly abetting a passion project here, but unfortunately, Camargo hasn’t managed to capture a similar passion from his main cast.

Though the recipe of a feudal setting with fantasy and myth-making elements ought to be strong, the mixture is off, like a handsomely plated sandwich where the ingredients are more bland than anticipated.

Hundreds Of Beavers is one of the most distinctive movies you’ll see all year, and one made for midnight viewings if ever anything was.

If you can get through a rough first act, you’ll see both absurd military superheroics and the greatest grocery run ever.

Writer-director Daniel Taplitz seems to be trying to invoke classic screwball with this convoluted setup, but it plays like mediocre sitcom.

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

Don't go to this movie looking to be actually scared, but as a gothic romp it's surprisingly effective.

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.

Crowe is quite capable of being compelling even when doing banal stuff—the highlight here is a variation on the “falling off the wagon” trope, as he captures the sheer delight of a guy who has literally forgotten how much he loves whiskey. The end point, like the movie’s, feels inevitable, but the journey there contains small joys.

If it weren't for Murray, there'd be nothing at all to the film, which forgets all conventional notions of story or characterization.

50 Cent sounds articulate in his raps, but as a lead actor, he talks like his mouth is filled with food.

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

The whole thing is best enjoyed while really drunk.

Only Kerry Condon, as Freeman's geeky adopted daughter, plays anything approaching a realistic character.

Where are our Tracy/Hepburn screwball combos? Part of the appeal of "Wedding Crashers" was that Isla Fisher truly did have the comedic chops to match Vince Vaughn, and Just Friends suggests that Reynolds and Faris have potential greatness together too. Just not so much in this film.

The film generally looks like a TV special, with low production values and lots of closeups.

Kennedy is funny, but too cartoonish to ever identify with -- Diggs and Anderson are the real stars of the show, and need more screen time.

The Broken Lizard types bring the best out of Paxton, only to abandon him in the second half and focus on themselves. A bit more humility might have served them in better stead.

Feels like two films that aren't closely related enough, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining.

The film is a somewhat disjointed affair that, like the man himself (Green), is occasionally brilliant, frequently repetitive and sometimes merely annoying.

The world of football riots seems rife with potential for the big screen, but Green Street Hooligans only periodically rises to it.

Against all odds, the American Pie movies have actually gotten a little better each time out, though that's certainly not to say that they're, uhhh, "masterpieces."

Jeffrey Greeley's loving photography of the wintry landscapes is beautiful, but lead actor Jacob Lee Hedman is nowhere near as charismatic as he needs to be for a film with this few characters.

Director Rob Connolly may well think he's upping the stakes by plunging his film into borderline horror territory, but in fact he's minimizing them.

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.

It's a skillfully made film, but not especially fun to watch, and the apparent thesis that poverty justifies such acts doesn't quite wash.