Luke Y. Thompson

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.

Definitely merits its R rating with a fearless approach that will earn genuine laughs as it turns a few stomachs. Yes, a Rob Schneider movie that's funny. Strange but true.

Lee, who played the retro groove thang broadly in "Undercover Brother," dives so wholeheartedly and unironically into this movie about, yes, roller disco, that any faults seem minor.

It's all fairly brilliantly twisted, but it seems that series creator Don Mancini has utterly given up on scares -- there's only one decent shock toward the very end.

Doesn't quite scale the heights it could and should, often because of its inappropriate humor, which could be blamed on cultural mistranslation.

Particularly unsuitable for cinematic adaptation, but when has that ever stopped anyone.

The movie does find fresh ways to tweak the formula, making it more than the sum of its broad strokes.

To call it a conservative or Republican film would be inaccurate: For one thing, it celebrates (gasp!) multiculturalism and diversity. For another, the closest it ever comes to expressing a political viewpoint is when a metal sculptor advocates more art education in schools.

Paradoxically, this technique both keeps you from getting to know the soldiers better and puts you completely in their boots, understanding directly that (as one character puts it) war is boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

A film worth your time, and if you know going into it that there's no closure, it'll give you all the more freedom to enjoy what IS there.

Sometimes it bounces along, other times it feels forced. Kids and hardcore fans will love it regardless, and those who don't will nonetheless be talking about it for the next three years.

Kaena resembles the Jim Henson fantasy in many ways, from its visual imagination and creature design to the hideousness of its more humanoid characters (except Kaena, who's a babe) and the general mediocrity of the voice acting.

A waste of a decent premise.

It's composed of really long scenes that are mostly dialogue, with transition action imagined or implied only. Couldn't we go outside for at least one scene?

A surprisingly efficient B-grade revenge pic.

Levin's on-camera presence is warm, wry and even-tempered, and he never feels the need to rub anything in.

Isn't as funny as it should be. Cedric's speech impediment only goes so far -- he's actually funnier in Serving Sara, without having to rely on a big wig to do his acting for him.

Many of the dilemmas that are established never pay off, and there is no clear protagonist or antagonist. To make matters even murkier, the movie is poorly shot in visually uninteresting locations with constant soft focus. That said, it's also damn funny.

Deserves an A for ambition, but the final product is a pastiche of too many predecessors.

The problem with Spartan isn't so much that it's mediocre, but that it could be a whole lot better.

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

Either a bit more humor or a bit more heart could exponentially improve things.

As a date-night movie for women of 50 or thereabouts, chances are it'll do the trick.

Simmons plays it understated, conveying a sad-sack quality that's more relatable than Charley's irrational catatonia. The movie should have been about him instead.

Fright fans could do a lot worse than The Eye; the Pangs have talent, but when they realize that a film isn't the same thing as a feature-length commercial, perhaps they'll provide us with some more original visions.

If you're not in the mood for explicit discussions (and occasional depictions) of the sex life of French adolescents, close your eyes.

Certainly delivers violence and heroics, but not in a way everyone is going to enjoy -- it's brutal and harrowing.

When the entire theme is about misdirection, then yes, assessing how enjoyable the swerves and bluffs are, both narratively and conceptually, feels entirely appropriate. And they all too often feel like letdowns.