Maitland McDonagh

(Griffith's) appearance often verges on the grotesque. Which, come to think of it, could be said of the movie as well.

The film's major draws are R-rated gore and some nice physical effects, proof that a man in a top-of-the-line monster suit can still be more effective than CGI.

Lame, derivative comedy.

Proof that the US has no monopoly on white-trash humor.

It's all mean-spirited, foulmouthed sniping.

So consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start.

A crudely executed affair that doesn't play well to Western sensibilities.

Lazy, superficially au courant and utterly forgettable.

So awash in tired ethnic clichés that the story drowns.

This stage-bound farce could easily be an American sitcom: It's all slamming doors, eavesdropping and stupid miscommunications, garnished with a heavy-handed helping of comedy of humiliation.

Tedious and obscure where it was apparently meant to be atmospheric and tantalizing.

Why would anyone who wanted his or her film to be taken seriously saddle it with a cutesy title like this?

Its misogyny, homophobia and overall grossness undermine the tired gags, and its relentless portrayal of African-American women as money-grubbing hootchie mamas (the sole exception is, of course, Dre's mom) would be wholly unacceptable if a white filmmaker had been at the helm.

The films of writer/director Francis Veber are a bracing reminder that French comedies can be every bit as broad, unsophisticated and cliched as their American counterparts.

It's all terribly schematic, thematically obvious and not in the least bit funny.

There's less than meets the eye to writer-director Flowers' time-hopping narrative, and what could have been a routine but entertaining crime story gets hopelessly muddled in its telling, despite the efforts of a generally strong cast.

This amateurish picture was built around surfing footage that Mikelson shot for a Compaq computer ad and developed with an eye for accommodating a series of lush tropical locations: It's no wonder the plot and characters feel like afterthoughts.

Though once capable of writing distinct characters, Toback now populates his pictures with one-dimensional conceits who all talk like undereducated hustlers, from college professors to bottom feeders and international lions of business.

Insipid, formulaic and suitable for the dumbed-down sensibilities of lowest-common-denominator couch potatoes.

Toback quickly reveals himself as an insufferable, opinionated blowhard who pontificates shamelessly about the art of the cinema while indulging his own obsessions on film.

Played for Maverick-like comedy, the film might have coasted on Harris and Mortensen's dialogue. But played straight it's both dull and preposterous.

If it were half an hour shorter, China Salesman (released overseas as Deadly Contract, the epitome of generic titling) might be a candidate for “so bad it’s good (or at least kind of fun)” status. But it’s not.

The loose, rambling conversations that substitute for action might be more interesting if any of the characters were capable of real introspection. But they're so shallow and distracted they can't even manage sustained navel-gazing, which makes their so-called relationships profoundly uninteresting.

There's never a dull moment and seldom one that isn't sublimely ridiculous.

The willowy Danes' rich, melancholy characterization is sown in a barren field of snippy attitude and too-cool posturing, and the film's disingenuous air of bittersweet chic becomes deeply tiresome long before it's over.

Its real problem is that Matilda Dixon, apparently conceived as a cross between the Blair Witch and Freddy Krueger, is an oddly characterless bogeyman, perhaps because she's 100 percent special effects technology with no actor underneath.

This limp, forgettable fluff is as preachy and heavy-handed as the "Goofus and Gallant" cartoons that a generation of children far less media-savvy than today's recognized as ham-fisted lessons in good behavior masquerading as funny strips.

A leaden, tone-deaf remake of the 1955 Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness, the Coen brothers' painfully unfunny rehash hinges on the duel of wits between five larcenous oddballs and one sweet but strong-willed old lady.