M. E. Russell

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.

The Ringer is appalling.

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

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.

I'd argue that a very good movie could have been great if it had kept to subtler psychological tones.

A gorgeous, life-affirming movie. On paper, it sounds lurid bordering on ridiculous.

Waitress is strange and sexy and personal and wonderful -- a weird little slice of pure feeling -- and it's horrible that Shelly never got the chance to see it delight a mass audience.

A sweet, intelligent little movie.

We end up with a piece of B-grade junk in which Elektra exchanges "banter" with the unexceptional Prout between fight scenes so badly shot that even Garner looks like a stunt double.

Raimi as a filmmaker is clearly having more fun than he's had in years. So will his fans.

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.

It's a waste of classic material. Rent "The Incredibles" and see what should have been.

Despite the hot-button pedophilic story hook (I'm surprised Jeff and Hayley didn't meet on MySpace.com), Hard Candy ultimately beats with the heart of a stagier, more complicated psychological revenge picture along the lines of Roman Polanski's "Death and the Maiden."

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.

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 script is just all kinds of terrible. The characters are hollow mannequins telling a thin, depressing story that's less of a noir and more of a simple-minded bummer full of barely connected scenes and stunningly empty dialogue.

To be fair, Rudd and Bell are cute and funny in their scenes together, and Rudd salvages a few laughs with his deadpan line readings.

Shrill, unfunny third installment.

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.

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

Full of small, weird moments.

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.

By the film's end, you feel like you've spent two hours rapidly changing channels between a WB sitcom, the gospel-choir segments of the "Ladykillers" remake, an episode of "Law & Order" and a Mexican soap opera.

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

You see, in "Jesus Is Magic," Sarah Silverman plays "Sarah," a self-absorbed Jewish American Princess who also happens to be casually, cluelessly racist.