M. E. Russell

It's a brisk, though laugh-imbalanced, B-comedy with a hard R.

The movie's still quite affecting -- in part because of its simple, old-school earnestness, but mostly because Stolzl does white-knuckle work behind the camera to make you feel the height, pain and awe of the grueling ascent, and the bottomless terror and exhaustion after everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Rockwell is spectacular here, infusing Victor with a charm that makes you root for him despite the essentially sleazy con-man emptiness of his existence.

By film's end, you've enjoyed a middle-of-the-road episode of the series, basically. And as usual, Deputy Trudy and Lt. Dangle are getting the best lines while about one-third of the jokes hit their marks.

Has a shocking anger and force.

Horror fans should still seek the film out for Dren -- one of the most striking abominations to hit the big screen in a while.

Turteltaub has a workmanlike touch and an easy sense of humor here, and he and his team do a better-than-expected job of keeping you interested in the story, despite it being yet another Tale of a Reluctant Young Man With A Supernatural Hero's Calling.

It's fun junk. And it doesn't satisfy. Dot the I is a weird, pretty film with a dumb script, a skilled cast and a good twist, plus one hot sex scene and one brilliant scene-chew by D'Arcy.

While it's focused on the people -- on men who never had mentors struggling to mentor themselves and each other -- the movie works as a smart B film.

The sequel has all the merits and demerits of its predecessor, only with a less-snarly antagonist, a more thoughtful final showdown and broader Holmes/Watson relationship jokes.

Night at the Museum ends up being a pretty fun all-ages comedy -- if you can survive its first 20 minutes.

Taken as a whole -- and it kills me to write this -- it just doesn't add up to much.

Basically "Before Sunrise" for middle-aged people, only with less interesting conversations and a more formulaic construction.

Beautifully acted and accomplishes exactly what writer/director Alan Ball set out to accomplish.

The flashback itself is a romantic dramedy that's far smarter than junk like "27 Dresses." Unfortunately, to enjoy that flashback, you have to ignore two gargantuan idiocies: No sane father would twist his daughter into knots by telling this story. It's full of booze, cigarettes, infidelity and sex with women who aren't Mom.

One doesn't want to oversell the film; you could catch it on DVD and regret nothing. But, frankly, in a marketplace that tends toward cranked-up action thrills, it's just nice to watch a level-headed crime movie aimed at actual grown-ups.

It's got a big heart and high spirits on a low budget and actors who refuse to phone it in.

As idiot car-crash movies go, "Tokyo Drift" is pretty fun, and certainly a more-than-decent entry in this franchise.

Oblivion is Moebius-comic gorgeous and it sounds great, especially the loud, nervewracking honks the drones make when they're weighing whether or not to shoot you. I suppose that's a surface appeal. But it's a nice surface.

While you're in the theater, it's actually -- heaven help me -- pretty fun to watch.

Full of small, weird moments.

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

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

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.

14-year-old girls will dig its amiable energy.

Sadly, director Jaume Serra has taken the Gothic premise of a madman casting his living victims in wax and, no doubt at the behest of copycat-hungry producers, turned House of Wax into yet another teens-versus-hillbillies slasher flick

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.

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

Sets up a situation so weird, it's almost weirder that Rob Reiner directs it as a cookie-cutter romantic comedy.

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

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.

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.

Eraser-dull.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

More solidly crafted and insults its audience quite a bit less than its predecessor, and it sets up several nice emotionally complicated cliffhangers for the next installment. I hope its target audience has a blast.

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

The surfing scenes are gorgeous and overwhelming. But the rest of the film...

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

The bad news? The movie is monumentally stupid. The good news? It's a fun kind of stupid.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Your 12-and-unders will dig it, and it might even serve as a sort of movie-Bookmobile and get them to read a little history, or at least a little Wikipedia. But otherwise it's utterly dispensable.

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).

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

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

With the exception of one long improv riff on a campground basketball court, Williams nicely underplays his role. Unfortunately, Sonnenfeld also underplays his. We should expect more of him.

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.

Succeeds only in fits and starts.

I still kind of find myself admiring the actor, and the film. Love Guru is insane and self-indulgent but also fully committed, and there's a surprising undercurrent of earnestness to its philosophy portions.

For every gag that flies there are at least one-and-a-half that don't.

In the films at least, there's something so naked about the Potter/Percy story parallels that's it's hard not to sit there as a viewer and get distracted playing connect the dots.

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.

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

The dialogue is almost primitive at times, almost every female character is an idiot and McConaughey grossly overplays the bachelor-sleazeball antics at the beginning.

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

When it sticks to its central flirtation, the latest movie based on a Nicholas Sparks romance, The Lucky One, is blandly pleasant enough.

Nicolas Cageologists will be sad to hear that he's entirely too normal in National Treasure -- he's mildly funny but doesn't make any of the kooky dramatic choices (needless accents, ranting about the orifices of Greek gods) that made his other Bruckheimer performances so much fun to watch.

The end result is mediocre, slightly sloppy and a mild waste of a great cast.

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.