M. E. Russell

What damage could Michael Bay inflict on Jason Voorhees that earlier producers hadn't already inflicted on everyone's favorite hockey-masked serial killer? Well, Bay could make Jason Voorhees ... boring.

That cast is precisely what makes the new Arthur so frustrating.

Yet another mediocre-to-lame thriller shot in Portland.

The film is flat and false in the exact same way that director Anne Fletcher's last rom-com, "27 Dresses," was flat and false.

I just wish the movie wasn't also so monologue-choked, muted to a fault and fond of oversimplifying financial lingo to the point of meaninglessness.

The film is competent without being spectacular or thrilling.

Eat Pray Love is magazine-spread self-help bullcorn with the highest possible production values, and I wasn't having any of it.

Imaginary Heroes feels like an endless series of wakes, awkward cocktail conversations and teen house parties, which would be fine if Harris wrote less cartoony dialogue.

Despite some fast-paced direction by Wes Craven, Red Eye finally gets so silly, it's practically popping its wing-rivets.

After the initial charm wears off, the whole thing gets check-your-text-messages dull.

Our Idiot Brother lives in a sort of relaxed in-between place where it doesn't really bite as drama or comedy, but the movie's world-class cast and big heart push it over.

As pointless suspense exercises go, The Strangers at least gets off to a good start.

Dramatizes and occasionally overdramatizes Albert's 24-year career. For a while, it's a study of a decent man who puts his life into compartments so he can do terrible deeds.

The story of Dito escaping and then facing his demons is meaningful. But that story is so buried in actorly noise that it feels false.

Modest in every sense but one: Its cast is huge.

Unsurprisingly, the formulaic "Breakfast Club" casting yields a formulaic narrative.

King is good enough that you can't help but root for her. But frankly, I can't imagine paying full ticket price plus concessions for that privilege.

Maybe the real Ernie Davis really was this perfect, but the movie plays as if the filmmakers didn't want to offend his family.

Carrey fearlessly gives it his best shot, but this fundamental schizophrenia strong-armed me out of the film, and left me feeling like McGregor's more grounded performance existed in another movie entirely.

It's a shame The Matador isn't a better movie, because this semi-dark comedy contains one great, cackling, self-loathing performance by Pierce Brosnan.

Its easy to see why Don Cheadle wanted to play Samir Horn, the hero of the post-9/11 thriller Traitor. Cheadles face is basically a perfect delivery system for woe, sadness and internal conflict. And Samir a deep-cover operative trying to infiltrate a terrorist outfit has to make brutal Sophies Choices roughly three times a day.

Dolphin Tale is inoffensive enough -- little kids will probably dig it -- and I'm not suggesting that family-friendly docudramas should tightly conform to real life. But when they do embellish, they should distill the story into something more compelling, rather than watering it down with pleasant-but-utterly-forgettable inspirational boilerplate.

An extremely weird and frustrating viewing experience. I think it's that way because Eastwood, 78, can't be bothered to wrangle the vast material into a tighter shape.

By gilding the lily so shamelessly, Ewing and Grady guarantee they'll preach only to the converted.

Seraphim isn't totally satisfying, even if you're prepared for an arty Western. It's pokey and odd in a distant, slightly self-conscious way.

Ends up being one of those heartbreaking movies that gets off to a promising start but never quite creaks to life, despite everyone's obvious best efforts.

To my thinking, this splendid low-key bummer of a ghost story was eventually undermined by the film's increasing reliance on shock-scares, in which something suddenly and noisily jumps into the frame, over and over and over.

Unfortunately, the film loses its merciless rage toward the end, devolving into a stock and broadly comic thriller about unpleasant people you never quite get to know.

There's a potentially innovative teen comedy in here somewhere, but it's surrounded by one that's much duller.

Good intentions and strong thespians aside, Seidelman's writing and filmmaking are bland, obvious and uninvolving.

This is a perfectly serviceable thriller. It's just not the New York family crime saga it clearly wants to be.

Starts well, builds drama and then proceeds to fly sort of crazily off the rails.

Surprisingly dull.

The movie never recovers from its cheesy center.

The fun thing about Eclipse is watching Lautner emerge as the Han Solo of this series, getting all the laughs and calling Edward and Bella on their preciousness.

A modestly charming family crowd-pleaser despite too-broad characterizations by many in the supporting cast.

Minkoff lets the fight scenes go on for a while, which is nice, and all the best bits are in the middle, when Jackie and Jet spend a lot of time playing off each other.

Bees is a movie in which a bunch of powerful African American women get their lives upended and in some cases destroyed so a little white girl can feel better about herself.

It's inoffensive and shiny and competent and kids will dig it, and I can already barely remember a single thing that happened.

The characters devolve into boring narcissists. And the movie devolves into a broad-brush dark satire of emergency bureaucracy that feels a lot sillier than the post-9/11 panic attack of the first half-hour.

The movie's anchored by a strong lead performance and a steady sense of humor.

Almost totally emotionally bankrupt. But it's a very specific form of total emotional bankruptcy, one that feels honest and even uplifting at the time, because the actors are great and the direction's well intentioned and just-so.

Grint's role is larger and more "mature" than we've seen from him. During his adventures, Ben is seduced by a Scottish lit-festival flack (Michelle Duncan). But in some ways, his work is more limited here than it is in the "Potter" films. I have no idea why so many people consider Ben worth fighting for, or over.

In drama, tone, character and examination of the social issues tormenting these kids, Wassup Rockers is . . . taxing.

Feels like a movie that wants to bare its fangs, but only manages a mild gumming.

Keaton offers glimpses of a directorial gift, but this odd little piece feels like a warm-up for something more compelling.

Serious Acting Opportunities abound! Unfortunately, sharp dialogue and characters who keep you riveted do not.

Are Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay getting tired of their own shtick?

Three stories in one. This might be two stories too many.

As a chronicle of an extreme surfing subculture, Bra Boys is semi-fascinating. As a chronicle of rough-and-tumble street life, it's appallingly biased and self-glorifying.

Sporadically funny, bland, talent-wasting junk.

Succeeds only in fits and starts.

It gives me no pleasure to report that Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters is fairly excruciating to sit through -- because I'm writing this as a fan of the TV series that spawned the movie.

I'm not sure if parents will be counting out each of Shorts 89 minutes or not, begging for it to end, but I'm guessing 8-year-olds will absolutely love it, because Rodriguez isn't talking down to them or using pop-culture references in place of actual gags; he's making what might be called eye-level children's entertainment.

It gives me no pleasure to report that the Pimentel biopic Music Within plays like a well-intentioned TV movie.

Eraser-dull.

This makes "Eli" sort of wonderfully silly toward the end, as if the Hughes brothers set out to make the first-ever faith-based "Mad Max" movie.

Other than its overwrought Herod-Antipas scenes, The Nativity Story sticks so closely to the text that it's a total snooze.

Feels less like a movie and more like a Tony Robbins motivational seminar.

The Rock charms you through the worst of it, but the effects are cheap, the dialogue is about as challenging as a "Hannah Montana" episode, and the pace manages to be both brisk and numbing.

There are several things to enjoy here. The use of motel service-industry code words by the safe-house staff is dryly funny.

Still, this feels like minor Phillips to me -- something in the neighborhood of 2006's "School for Scoundrels," quality-wise, though with a much grimmer heart.

This is a totally predictable exercise if you're not in the target market.

It's almost like you're watching a 100-minute trailer for a much better six-hour miniseries.

At one point during the big race, the kids get passed at close range by a team of pros so seasoned, they wrote the navigation software the kids use. I was begging the camera crew to follow them.

The romance is boring. Everything is blandly good-looking. The emotional beats are so programmed, you can predict the entrance of every single note of the Philip Glass dirge of a score. And the title means nothing beyond its double-entendre.

Super Ex does have a certain low-key, adult-contemporary charm. It's almost entirely because of Luke Wilson.

Poseidon '06 is spectacularly noisy, uninteresting and character-free.

The verdict? Could have been worse. Yes, it's a slightly hollow endorsement, but Guess Who is probably worth your matinee/pub-theater dollar.

If anyone could take a movie about a bunch of jerks who play poker and make it interesting, it should be Curtis Hanson. Or rather, it should have been.

There's pleasure to be found in the resolute offbeatness of Henry's Crime. It's nearly as concerned with the play as it is with the heist (and with drawing parallels between the two).

Fans of Franken's wittier print and broadcast work might smile. But I haven't seen this much smug, awkward laughter and bathos since, well, "Man of the Year."

Quality-wise, the crime drama Broken City lives in a frustrating mid-range area: It's too complex and competently crafted to dismiss as junk -- but it's also nowhere near sharp enough to work as the serious grown-up detective movie it clearly wants to be.

It's not a disaster: Branagh is an actor's director, and there are biting moments throughout and solid performances from Caine and Law.

Chris Rock probably has a solid writer/director effort in him. This isn't it.

The actors are mostly charming; Bettany in particular is broody and cool.

The humor tends toward the mildly crass -- bare buttocks and inappropriate scratching are Schwimmer's go-to comedy staples -- and the story is ridiculous. But Pegg, who co-wrote the script, plays to his strengths. You can't help but root for the loser.

Director R.W. Goodwin (an "X-Files" vet) makes a fatal mistake: He never takes a clear stance on the material he's spoofing.

At the end of Martian Child, we're told the movie is "inspired by actual events." But the movie isn't even fully inspired by David Gerrold's source novel that was inspired by actual events.

Suffers from the problem that plagues too many romantic comedies: The supporting characters are roughly 1,000 percent more interesting than the main characters.

Performances are for the most part strong, especially Seyfried's, and Kusama uses Fox well, making the most of the actress' blank-eyed arrogance. It's not a performance that suggests a lot of range, but it's fun to watch.

The drama is telegraphed and glossy and un-fascinating; the edges have been belt-sanded until any camp value is lost. And it's filmed in that "Moulin Rouge"/"Chicago" style where you see half a dance move before the shot cuts -- which somehow makes a lot of difficult, sexy work seem simultaneously frenetic and boring.

The only bright spot is Marsden, a great actor who's always stuck playing the less-desirable romantic rival (see: "The Notebook," "X-Men," "Superman Returns"). He finally gets the fun-guy role for a change and does everything he can to rip it up. He can only do so much.

Jaa's performance as Tien is mostly wordless and humorless.

After getting off to a decent, somewhat muted start, Skeleton Key just gets sillier and sillier and sillier until it's yet another one of those stupid, noisy thrillers where everyone's running around in a house, yelling and falling down, and you're mostly wondering why nobody bothered to call the cops.

Grabs a fistful of hot-button story elements -- race, sex, politics -- and promptly mixes them into the thriller equivalent of tapioca.

The leads are just too good to commit fully to something this baldly formulaic. It's sad.

A comedy that's only kind of funny some of the time.

This will personally go down as the flick that really made me realize how much I hate CGI stunts.

I'm all for hearty theological debate. But this is intellectual suicide. Even worse, it's boring intellectual suicide.

Lopez can't decide if she's playing Lavoe's victim or enabler -- the movie sort of half blames her -- and neither of her characters is likable. The music's lovely, though.

The uneven filmmaking renders Minot's ideas impossibly trite.

As satire, it doesn't add up -- but it's an admirable, if dull, experiment.

The new footage adds almost nothing and feels like a lame, double-dipping cash-grab.

Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig are adequate leads, but no great actor will be more squandered this year than Jeffrey Wright, who does nothing but speak in vast paragraph blocks of exposition while looking haggard and bored.

Firewall does more to destroy my desire to see a new Indiana Jones movie than anything the aging process could conjure.

The movie's not good, strictly speaking, but it is kind of fun.

Competently done and harmless enough to entertain the tots. It's just that the movie's kind of . . . sparse.