Marc Mohan

In the end, as gay people and other marginalized groups throughout history have shown, the only real solution is to learn not to be agonized or ashamed over differences, but to celebrate them with pride.

The cinematic technique of director Tom Hooper tries to replicate the appeal which has drawn millions to stage performances, but comes up more than a little short. This version of Les Misérables simply doesn't sing.

It doesn't take an awareness of the ethnic and cultural differences between the miniskirted siren and the shy Arab youth to see that she might be more than he can handle.

The animation is pretty and clean, reminiscent of other Studio Ghibli films like "Whisper of the Heart," but never achieves wondrous artistry.

Tries to pretend that its premise isn't timeworn, and thanks to charming lead performances, it almost succeeds. But not quite.

Doesn't have much new to offer in either style or substance. It's got the same glossy-gritty urban warfare sheen as "Black Hawk Down" and every other Third-World geopolitical action thriller of the last few years.

Well-crafted as it is, though, The Artist and the Model suffers from the familiarity of its plot, and especially in comparison with "La belle noiseuse," which ran over twice as long as this film but contained ten times as much insight into human nature.

The Manson Family, with its attention to historical detail and chronology, is more effective and disturbing than those grade-Z shockers: It's a genuine look at unmitigated madness and evil. Needless to say, don't bring the kids.

It's neither grounded enough to be genuinely horrifying nor over the top enough to be nastily fun.

The plot, as hinted, goes strictly by the "How April Got Her Groove Back" book, but it must be said that the performances push it a notch above pedestrian.

The ensemble can't bring enough, though, to overcome the unoriginal setup and predictable story arc.

The only problem is that he's been such a shallow, ridiculous figure that exhuming any real sympathy for the guy is a Herculean task.

Moderately amusing.

If the two most gorgeous people in the world alternately bantering and making out isn't enough to compel the attention of the average American moviegoer, then we are truly doomed.

If the title hadn't already been taken by another equally strained recent comedy, the new Kevin Costner vehicle could have been dubbed "Idiocracy."

Whereas Carver writes about alcoholics, this movie is about alcoholism, which is completely different.

A thoroughly mundane experience.

Isn't a complete waste of time. If Kutcher seeks to transition from national joke to lightweight actor, he's made a decent stab at it.

Perhaps the most curious omission from the movie Grassroots is that there's no mention at all of the classic "Simpsons" episode "Marge vs. the Monorail."

Made with a slapdash non-style that doesn't seem quite lame enough to have been intentional, this aptly titled low-budget horror comedy serves up tame amounts of both guts and gut-busters.

Ultimately, the movie takes its characters, and the absurd ethical dilemma it subjects them to, far too seriously.

It's a shame that a movie centered on such a powerful and unique work of art is itself so obviously a corporate product.

There are some attempts at a comic-bookish, film noir vibe, including a hotel where all the crooks and killers stay, forbidden by house rules from "doing business"on the premises. And everywhere Keanu turns, he bumps into a character from HBO.

A rather schizophrenic comedy that gives respected performers Dame Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins a chance to show they don't take themselves too seriously.

The relationship between Trishna and Jay never rings as true as it needs to for the downbeat third act to resonate the way it was presumably intended to do.

Papale's story is more than any fan could dream of, which is why it's frustrating that Invincible feels the need to embellish it. While mentioning he never played football in college, the film ignores that he did play in a semipro league prior to his Eagles tryout.

It's not that Pan isn't entertaining. There's plenty of color and action and some inventive 3-D effects. Jackman's unhinged performance is either gloriously great or gloriously terrible, but captivating either way. There's no magic, though.

Ultimately, ATL is the same old teenager angst in a mildly novel package.

There are plenty of very funny jokes in the movie, but near-fatal lulls whenever it tries to make MacFarlane into a romantic lead or a genuinely inspiring hero — in other words, whenever it tries to make us like him.

Crimson Peak ends up feeling like a bit of make-work, a project to keep the visionary filmmaker busy until something that truly sparks his passion comes along.

It's beautifully photographed, but pretentious, overlong and trite.

Stage magicians often depend on sleight of hand to succeed at their art, but Woody Allen's new movie, Magic in the Moonlight, is just plain slight.

Harris gamely attacks his tortured, cliche-ridden character, but Deschanel, so likably offbeat in "All the Real Girls" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," comes off as just plain annoying and self-centered.

Free Zone is similar to the car-based films of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami but with a more improvised, less-finished feel.

It's not a political film, but it's also not a bland recitation of homilies about the honor of serving one's country. It's a jokey road movie, in which three soldiers heading home from Iraq are forced into a cross-country van ride together.

You never really end up rooting for their happiness, as a couple or individually, so emotionally there's not much at stake.

Exploring the possibilities of low-budget digital filmmaking is a worthy endeavor, but November is a little too in love with the grittiness of it all.

It's a fine idea, but Dominik beats that drum without cease, making his passionately furious message come across anything but softly.

It's not as if empathetic peeks into the lives of America's poor white boys aren't valuable, and Hellion has nothing if not empathy for every one of its characters. But without a more original story or a distinctive visual presence, it's hard for it to rise above a crowded field.

Not content to make his point through sharp-tongued comedy, Hogan ends up beating a dead horse -- or shark, as the case may be.

It's just a shame that the search for the missing formula ends up feeling so formulaic.

Terminator: Genisys isn't so much a sequel or a reboot but a piece of fan fiction come to ludicrous, big-budget life. Even for an unnecessary entry in a series of movies about indestructible time-traveling robots and genocidal computer networks, it's pretty silly.

What could have been a complex portrait of a flawed man dealing with the perils of success ends up far less interesting.

Once all the pieces of the story are assembled, the whole thing turns out to be not that big of a deal.

The movie's conceit grows a bit stale even with a short running time, and ultimately the whole thing feels more like an acting workshop than a full-fledged human story.

It devolves too often into slapstick shenanigans and comedy of embarrassment.

No matter how noble, not everyone's life should be made into a movie.

The oddball cast, by the way, includes Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, who is infinitely more convincing speaking Cantonese than she is in her (presumably native) English.

The increasingly unlikely escapades culminate in a finale that's as narratively lazy as it is morally questionable, lending further credence to the voices that proclaimed Haggis absurdly overpraised for the 2004 Oscar-winner "Crash."

It's also exhausting, despite an engaging premise.

The result is a cast of characters who are little better than automatons themselves. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of the film were as captivating as it was surely meant to be. Instead, the Quays work overtime to make both their story line and images as obscure as possible.

With more discipline and a keener sense of family dysfunction, these ingredients could have gelled into something impressive. As it is, Awful Nice is closer to the former than the latter.

This ode to indie legitimacy proves to be too cartoonish to feel real and not outrageous enough to be memorable.

Although the filmmakers reportedly worked with David Copperfield and other renowned real-life illusionists and tried to minimize the use of CGI, you're still left wondering how much of the magic is merely the kind Hollywood spits out by the terabyte.

Fonda gets some of the movie's best moments as the sexually frank, silicone-enhanced mom who got rich off a best-selling memoir that exposed her children's intimate habits.

Although the primary plot line turns out to be a letdown, there are aspects of The Machinist that redeem it. Bale's performance is one; another is the dull, metallic look of the picture.

Brittain's life and literary output are worthy of celebration, and there's no better time that the centenary of "The War to End All Wars" to commemorate its bloody folly. It's a shame that Testament of Youth does both in such a bloodless way.

Every generation gets the cinematic vampires it deserves...The current decade, judging from the bloodsuckers on display in Twilight, will be remembered as one of guilt, restraint and denial. It's just not that fun to be undead anymore.

Portland's dreary climate is used to good effect, but it's not enough to make up for the director's needlessly convoluted approach.

While it's an effective memoriam for the well-meaning Germans whose lives were ruined by Hitler's mad dream, the refusal of Generation War to focus on any other sort of German makes it both dramatically and historically suspect.

The Bling Ring still feels more like a magazine article overstretched into a feature length film.

In retrospect, and with no disrespect meant, it may have been a mistake to entrust a story this polarizing to Bill Condon, the filmmaker who most recently made “Twilight: Breaking Dawn,” and “Dreamgirls.”

When you have to ask yourself whether this parable is intended as comedic satire or stone-cold-serious moralizing, that's a big sign that you're watching a misfire.

If the plot unfolded in a less formulaic way, this could have been an impressive dark-tinged comedy. But in the end, it's more a case of talented actors trying to find something fresh in a fairly stale tale.

This may have been fertile grounds for satire in 1925, when Noel Coward's drawing-room melodrama Easy Virtue debuted on the stage, but by now this film version feels rather done.

It says a lot about this movie that the most arresting character in it is Mary, whom Morton unsurprisingly endows with a fanatical combination of narcissism and rage.

Lily Tomlin gives the movie a boost as Portia's radical feminist mother, who would hate this movie.

There's a conflict between the film's need for some sort of closure and the messiness of the reality it depicts that leaves The Whistleblower even more unsatisfying than it was meant to be.

So, be warned: You may not learn anything from this mild, unremarkable film, but you might be tempted to order the deluxe, four-volume “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” after watching it. I was, and I don’t regret it a bit.

It's clear that Fidell meant to craft a nonjudgmental, non-exploitative exploration of this taboo situation. And she deserves credit for avoiding both tawdry melodrama and earnest moralizing. But by refusing to judge or exploit, she ultimately ends up without much of interest to say on the topic.

By trying to inflate one remarkable life story into the chronicle of a generation, Daniels fills what could have been an inspirational, personal saga with a lot of hot air.

Perhaps a better moniker would have been "One Flew Over My Left Foot."

Instead of a unique directorial style and a memorable soundtrack, we get a movie that, visually and aurally, pretty much goes by the book.

There's potential here, as well as in Junn's touching relationship with a fellow resident at the home, for real intensity, but Khaou insists on sticking with a glacial pace and lip-trembling emotional repression when a little bit of melodrama might have gone a long way.

The real star of the film is Horton, whose straight-talking ways and supportive circle of friends are a stark contrast to the haughty insults of academia.

Well-intentioned but underdeveloped and self-satisfied, it feels at times like the ultimate movie for the millennial generation, or at least its stereotype.

Politics and art come together in predictable, moderately enjoyable fashion in Paris 36.

Its smallness of scale, and undemonstrative nature, could make it a welcome change of pace from Hollywood bombast, especially for fans of the life aquatic.

The film never gets beyond Chapman's obsession with "Catcher in the Rye" and a few bits of "Taxi Driver" dialogue to show us anything we didn't already know.

Herzog's drive to bring Dengler's story to a wide audience might have paradoxically caused him to do what he seems normally to abhor: compromise.

If the star does his utmost to make a one-dimensional character interesting, his director, Clint Eastwood, adapts Kyle's memoir — a life story rife with moral complexity — by hammering it flat.

If the behavior of the characters had been more recognizably human in its venality, and the film's perspective more ruthless, this custom-made compound might have worked.

Makes good, unobtrusive use of its European locations, and has a couple of well-orchestrated urban chase scenes. But, even in these days of renewed U.S.-Russian tensions, its Cold War demeanor feels anachronistic, and its simple cynicism comes off as recycled and cheap.

Overall, The Pretty One suffers from excessive, unfocused quirk and a predictable sitcom resolution.

Oscar-winner Davis can maintain her dignity in just about anything, and she almost gives Lila enough depth to be a compelling character. Lopez gets points for trying something a bit more challenging than the hot-for-teacher dreck of "The Boy Next Door," but she inevitably struggles to hit more than one note.

First-time director Jeff Baena struggles with framing, editing, tone and casting, leading to an unimpressive entry in the ever-burgeoning zombie comedy genre.

Blumberg tries to split the difference and ends up with a movie that wants us to make us laugh and cry, but fails to do either.

Worst of all, not once does Mulder answer his cell phone to hear those immortal lines: "It's Scully. There's been another death."

As the action moves from Vienna to Paris to London to Denver to Phoenix and then back again, the vignettes blur into one another.

Although 2012 is what they call "critic-proof," it's not immune to analysis. It depicts a world where no one, man or God, has much say in what happens to the planet, and where the survival of one family outweighs the deaths of billions.

The storyline would appear trite and the message muddled even to someone who'd never heard the name Mel Gibson.

The plot is straight off the shelf, the performances are television-caliber and the message of providing solace through deception is a little creepy. Then again, that formula resulted in record-breaking ticket sales for "Greek Wedding."

A recent article in Film Comment magazine praised Saint Laurent for avoiding "banal psychologizing," but Bonello avoids any insight into his subject's state of mind, banal or not.

It's a forgettable series of bullet points barely strung together by charismatic performances.

The performance of Bening (and, quietly, Irons) keeps Being Julia from being too tiresome.

The scenes between Gainsbourg and Skarsgard are fewer and less engaging than in the first volume, and the dichotomy between them is simpler and more obvious. And that doesn't even include an ending that is as impulsive and deranged as anything Joe comes up with during all of her taboo-breaking adventures.

As far as the company Redford keeps, I liked it better when he hung out with Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack, but those days are long gone.

Decent performances aside, the only interesting bits involve Geoffrey Rush as a chemistry professor who enables their self-abuse.

The two stories never come close to meshing the way the filmmaker intended. The result is a well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel.

There's visual poetry here, in small doses, but it doesn't take long for one's patience to run out.

Unfortunately, the precision and presence Hurt brings to the table aren't enough to carry this warmed-over Southern melodrama.

It wallows in misery so much that the two-hour experience ends up being about as much fun as a real divorce.

Unfortunately, neither of these fascinating artistic giants is given much of a personality.

It's probably not a good idea to examine the political content of a film in which the leader of the free world proves that the pen is mightier than the sword by stabbing someone in the neck with one.

If the filmmakers had opted to play things closer to the vest, this could have been the clever "Pineapple Express"-meets-"The Bourne Identity" mashup it wants to be instead of the shallow, gratuitously violent exercise it actually is.

Man of Steel has too many characters and too much plot, resulting in a movie that feels overstuffed and overlong.

Aselton is clearly trying to broaden her reach as both actress and director beyond the rumpled indie comedy of "The Freebie," her directing debut, and the concept is there, but a movie like this needs a much more polished execution that Black Rock gets.

If Schaefer's intent was to provide some sort of insight into Chapman's character, some hint of explanation for this senseless tragedy, he fails, probably because there's none to be found beyond one lonely guy's addled brain chemistry.

Eventually the movie wants to have things both ways: to approvingly entertain mainstream audiences with the glittering spectacle of space battles and to pay lip service to the notion of conscience.

War of the Buttons means well. But ultimately there's only marginally more edge to this treatment of World War II than there is to the average episode of "Hogan's Heroes."

While it's hard to dismiss his intention or effort, Harrelson's one-note performance sinks the film.

The film oddly mirrors "The Passion of the Christ," as a show trial leads inexorably toward an almost sadistically filmed public execution (it doesn't hurt that Jim Caviezel plays the reporter). Like that movie, it gets its point across with all the subtlety, sorry to say, of a rock upside the head.

The Killer Elite is possibly Bloody Sam's worst film, and the martial-arts-themed actioner is must-see material only for the director's completists, despite a cast that includes James Caan and Robert Duvall. [17 Jun 2005, p.43]

Unfortunately, it just doesn't come together. The animation ranges from crude approximations of Terry Gilliam's cutout style to borderline puerility, and the entire enterprise strives far too desperately for the sort of irreverence that Chapman could conjure with a cock of his pipe-clenching head.

That the film rises above that level to the merely mediocre is an accomplishment of almost heroic proportions.

The trouble is, the kids seem to be in one earnest "After School Special"-type of movie, while the adults occupy a retro-futuristic world more like the original TV show.

A good test of a movie like this is whether it would be more or less stimulating to hang out with people you really know for 82 minutes. If Happy Christmas is the time better spent, it might be time to find a new crowd.

Lee is not an action director, and the movie often feels like it was made in the 1940s rather than set then.

Bening and Dillon both play roles they could act in their sleep, though it's still moderately fun to watch them do so.

Ultimately, The Keeping Room feels more like a clumsy melding of "Unforgiven" and "12 Years a Slave" than a unique take on violence, race, and gender.

In a movie that strives to offend with every spat profanity and cruel insult, the most shocking thing about Bad Words is that it expects us to care about its main character at all.

In the quest to purge this Cinderella of anything sly or post-modern, though, the filmmakers have eliminated any wit or distinction, making this a pre-modern disappointment.

It's passable, but in telling the tale of a man known to attempt the risky drive, it's a shame the filmmakers decided to shoot for par.

Aloft reminded me of the work of another Latin American filmmaker, Alejandro González Iñárritu, who made somber, constipated dramas such as "Babel" and "Biutiful" before loosening up and conjuring the lunatic profundity of "Birdman." Llosa has the intelligence and directing chops — Aloft looks fantastic — to do wonders, but she should take a cue from him and warm up by just chilling out.

Langella is solid as always, but his haunted, bitter character is pretty two-dimensional, and having to share all his scenes with Bentley doesn’t allow for much interplay.

The movie is beautifully shot, and some of the scenes have a real exuberance, but it's also a blatantly manipulative piece of smarm.

County Clare holds little of interest, with a generic story line and a cast that's mostly just going through the motions.

The only thing that could make this movie more French would be a guillotine.

The visual design of Mama is effective, at least in small, quick doses. But those are about all the positives for this example of why a solid audition reel doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to churn out a feature.

Aggressively loud, terminally mediocre.

Partridge is a smidgen less abhorrent here than in previous incarnations, but just a smidgen.

It's unfortunate that the lack of originality in plot and character keeps Akeelah and the Bee stuck firmly in "After-School Special" territory.

Could easily be seen as little more than a commercial for his (Jakes) life-changing influence. Call him the first of a new breed: the cinevangelist.

As with so many of his appearances, Franco manages to bring a jolt of energy to the film even while skewering its credibility.

Miller, who's still trying to find her way as an actress, isn't bad, and the Iranian-born Farahani is convincing, but their characters are blandly angelic, in stark contrast to the vast majority of men they encounter.

The authenticity of its setting and its actors make this effort worth a look.

There’s nothing approaching a unique take on the story.

The action scenes and plot points frequently defy logic, the apparent assumption being that it's just comic-book stuff and doesn't really need to make sense.

If you believe that, as one interviewee says, "Science is just another story," then these ideas may ring true. If you're looking for actual solutions to global problems, rather than ways to feel better about them, I Am will be a frustrating experience.

Well-intentioned but overblown environmental agitprop.

The cinematography is crisp but sterile, and no one's clothes ever seem to get muddy or torn -- in short, there's no real sense of the atmosphere of a sticky, buggy, fetid jungle, and no intensity to a story that cries out for a sense of moral outrage.

The movie works reasonably well at this for its first half, but by then we've pretty much figured everything out.

While it's nice to see Reitman try to branch out from the hip, acerbic humor of "Juno" and "Young Adult," his clumsiness with this more earnest material is an unpleasant surprise.

Hardcore genre fans may find some appeal in this warmed-over tale, but most viewers will be squirming in their seats even before the prolonged finale.

Whatever the faults of Goya's Ghosts -- and there are several -- you've got to hand it to director Milos Forman: It takes real chutzpah to cast Randy Quaid as the king of Spain.

Mixed messages are the order of the day in the conflicted British drama Irina Palm. At first blush, it seems like another entry in the saucy-but-safe Brit genre, a la "Calendar Girls," "Saving Grace" or "The Full Monty," but it turns out to be both more ambitious and less successful than those diversions.

Some will win and some will lose their encounters with unbending American bureaucracy, but all deserve better, which should leave viewers eager for an even-handed take on this issue crossing over into disappointment.

Sobol, directing his second feature, should have been able to prod this story to life, especially considering the cast he was provided. But everything proceeds in such an orderly fashion, right through the ostensibly 'twist' ending, that maintaining interest is a serious challenge.

The movie's fast pace, and the three gleeful central performances, keep I'm So Excited! mostly painless. But the rest of it has a whiff of the sort of desperation that can make an exclamation point in a title seem like a good idea.

Goodbye World will remind you more of "Gilligan's Island" than "Lost."

A bloodless film that aims for wry but leaves you merely asking "why?"

The movie's biggest flaw, from a local perspective, is its unconvincing use of Vancouver, B.C., to represent Portland, Oregon.

Very few will remember it in a few months, which is probably just fine with the folks who made it.

The lunacy to which The Equalizer descends is especially disappointing because the movie starts out with some promise.

A facile, feel-good fable that substitutes cliché for reality at nearly every turn.

When the fly trapped in the spider's web is as clueless and selfish as the sap played by Mark Webber in 13 Sins, it's hard to muster much sympathy.

Whether Elia Kazan could have done something memorable with this script will remain an eternally open question. This film, though, is most effective as a reminder that Williams' works emerged from a certain time and place, and to approach them from another is fraught with peril.

Cobbled together from other sources without much thought to originality.

It's almost too bad, then, that MacArthur and Jones take a back seat to the far less interesting Gen. Bonner Fellers in the stolid drama Emperor.

ASM 2 makes too many of the same mistakes that have brought other superhero movies low (including Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3"). It tries to pack in too many characters and plot lines, for one.

Just because it's how they did things in the old country doesn't excuse clinging to these outdated, oppressive traditions, even if Ravi manages to negotiate them with surprising good humor.

The result is a hybrid of "Falling Down" and "Short Cuts" without the iconic central character of the former or the latter's clear-eyed humanism.

An old-fashioned story of courage and self-sacrifice in the face of war and deprivation. It's also sappy, boring and obvious.

The result is a frustrating and disturbing mishmash of vague philosophical noodling, which even the best-chosen cast can't imbue with zip.

The result is an exercise in emoting that features one of the worst Southern accents in recent memory and does about as much to establish the actor's range as "Battlefield Earth."

Closed Circuit ultimately feels like a cynical attempt to capitalize on security-state anxieties while examining them in only the shallowest ways.

Even the show-stopper "Tomorrow" comes off as half-hearted and obligatory. The choreography looks like it was improvised by the young actors who play Wallis' fellow foster kids — all listless jumping and arm-folding, no inventiveness or energy.

The whole thing has the feel of a fact-based dinner-table anecdote absurdly puffed up to feature length.

Fiction can sometimes be used to access a deeper truth than mere fact, but in this case all it does is obscure and confuse a fascinating life story.

Talky, didactic and essentially free of any real narrative, it views Iraq through the lens of Vietnam, which is fair enough, but ends up making the whole polemic seem like a condescending effort from aging baby boomers to get the younger generation to step up to the plate.

The best and creepiest sequence involves a sort of beta test, during which a patchwork chimplike creature is brought to life and rampages about.

Jumping repeatedly and randomly from present-day Shanghai to 1997 to 1829 and periods in between, the film has a pace that seems almost willfully tedious.

The story of the rescue of these priceless artifacts is absolutely worthy of as much attention as Hollywood can provide. But by the final, self-congratulatory, groan-inducing scene, it's more than clear that this telling of it is a monumental mess.

It isn't a lack of realism or philosophical consistency that rankles most, though, but rather the anticlimactic story and uninteresting characters that make this Hereafter not very sweet at all.

The result is a sepia-toned muddle.

To quote Dennis Hopper from the film "Search and Destroy": "Just because it happened to you doesn't make it interesting."

Flat and uninteresting, both visually and dramatically, this is a waste of two appealing actors.

The film looks old-fashioned, too, with cinematography and special effects so reminiscent of old-school, live-action Disney flicks such as "Something Wicked This Way Comes" that you wonder if it was an aesthetic choice or a budgetary concession. Either way, it doesn't work.

Multiplex audiences can choose over the next few weeks between two starkly different views of the future. The remnants of humanity struggle for survival in the brutal world of "Mad Max: Fury Road," while Tomorrowland offers an optimistic retro-future paradise full of jetpacks and robots. Me, I'll take post-apocalyptic desert wasteland over soulless corporate utopia any day of the week.

One of the most lifeless and predictable movies you're likely to see this year.

Neighbors makes "Animal House" look like "Remembrances of Things Past."

It's the sort of movie that would have starred Valerie Bertinelli or Kristy McNichol back in the 1980s, tricked out with PG-13 grittiness and religious wholesomeness. It's the sort of story that ignores unpleasant social implications in favor of programmed sentiment.

One of the great things about international cinema is the way it can remind us of our common humanity. For instance, it's good to know that beautiful, rich people are selfish and miserable the world over. That's one of the few positives a viewer can take away from a film such as La Mujer de Mi Hermano.

Armed with a cliche-ridden script and a gaggle of unconvincing performers, the result comes off more like an Ernest Hemingway letter to the Penthouse Forum than a revival of Hollywood magic.

The Canyons comes across as a desperate gambit for relevance by a group of artists who want to reinvent themselves but don't know how. Fittingly, that's the theme of the film itself.

The problem is the obviousness with which the plot unfolds -- it's as if the filmmakers had a 14th-century audience in mind, one that had never seen a movie.

This final act goes on far too long and devolves into such a miasma of pap that it's clear Stoller had no idea how to wrap things up.

Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are back, as is director Martin Campbell, but the result has the all-too-common feel of an expired equine redundantly abused.

As is, the slapstick humor and mild repartee won't please many with a mindset above that of a 10-year-old, while the level of (admittedly fantastical) violence might be a bit much for the pre-teen set.

For those disappointed in the grim, gritty feel of the latest James Bond movie and who long for the absurdity of the Roger Moore-era entries, Transporter 3, ought to fit the bill.

For children old enough to get the jokes about Vicodin but young enough to innocently fantasize about movie stars, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! will be a perfectly pitched midwinter treat.

The sort of movie that makes you feel like a heel for not liking it: Independently made and heartfelt, it also happens to have been shot in Portland. Nonetheless, the accumulation of cliches big and small manage to erase whatever goodwill its other features have engendered.

As an action spectacular, Exodus is on par with Scott's other forays into ancient times, "Gladiator" and "Kingdom of Heaven." But as a believable human drama, much less a worthy exploration of Judaism's origins, it falls flat.

The potential for an interesting story is high. Unfortunately, Miller's autobiographical tale, as told in Blue Like Jazz, squanders this potential by failing to take place in a recognizably real world.

The plot is simplicity itself, and Jaden's quirk-free character and bland performance don't add anything. It's actually a little sad that M. Night Shyamalan has descended to this sort of vanity-project work-for-hire, but at least he didn't insist on some absurd twist ending.

With a self-plagiarizing premise, lifeless performances and a clunky-to-say-the-least screenplay, this star-studded flop is one of 2010's most egregious wastes of cinematic talent.

There's also something tired and way too familiar to the story of a white guy who acts as the savior of Africa while the only major black character in the movie stands ineptly on the sidelines.

What could have been a biting, darkly comic action flick about capitalistic health care run amok is instead a familiar, gory, post-apocalyptic slog.

Every so often there's a tabloid news story about the Virgin Mary seen in a piece of toast or Mother Teresa on a tortilla, and most of us equate them with Elvis sightings. This film is for the rest.

A Lot Like Love is, well, a lot like many other movies. It's also a lot like having your eyeballs seared by a propane flame -- in a bad way.

It's "Ocean's Eleven" for people who can't count past six.

The only thing Stratton, a former television actor making his first feature, has going for him is the casting of Jessica Lange.

Once goateed, acerbic Kingsley vanishes from the screen, he takes any smidgen of life with him.

All this star power goes for naught in Traeger's film, which tries to blend bucolic sweetness with juvenile let's-make-a-porno jokes.

Sayles has committed the cardinal sin of putting his politics ahead of his characters, and the result is predictably lame.

Nothing shakes this pathetic attempt at humor from its self-satisfied torpor.

The film's structure is a reminder that being Pinteresque isn't the same as being written by Harold Pinter, and its lyrics prove that there's a big difference between something Sondheim-esque and the real deal.

It's a thriller, if the term can be applied to an inept, perfunctory movie with more laughs than thrills — and it only has a couple laughs. Let's call it an attempted thriller and an inadvertent comedy.

Tommy Wiseau's film oozes sincerity, which is then slathered in a thick coating of oblivious narcissism, and sadly serves as an example that not everyone should follow their bliss...It's the emotional earnestness that places The Room squarely within Susan Sontag's famous definition of pure camp.

Everyone on screen looks like they'd rather be anywhere else than under the control of novice director Dustin Marcellino, whose first (and hopefully last) feature this is.

The period details are unconvincing, the cinematography is flat, and the performances are surprisingly one note considering the talent involved.

Worthless, tasteless and unfunny.

The ferociously misguided new rendition of The Lone Ranger has no legitimate reason to exist.

Grating attempt at comedy, the latest failed attempt to capitalize on McCarthy's considerable charm.

Bay seems to have been gunning for something along the lines of "Blood Simple" or "A Simple Plan," but Pain & Gain is just plain simple.

It's shaping up to be a long, dry summer, at least at the multiplex.

If the film had been trimmed to 45 minutes of crazed storm-chasing and storm-fleeing, it might've been worth a matinee ticket. But as is, it's the sort of lazy late-summer idiocy you'd be wise to huddle beneath an overpass to avoid.

Directed as if it were an after-school special, with listless performances and musical numbers (Mary J. Blige shows up as a platinum-wigged congregant), Black Nativity is as simple and condescending as Hughes' work was complex and demanding.

Here's a hint to tracking down an intelligent, discriminating significant other: stand outside the entrance to a theater showing Must Love Dogs. Once the film begins, look for the first person to walk out.

It's often said that actors with distinctive vocal styles could compellingly read the phone book -- in this case, it would absolutely be a more entertaining hour-and-a-half.

Reprehensible.

This is the Fantastic Four. Maybe someday they'll get to act like it.

Confused, morally queasy, self-important mess.

From the evidence presented here, this film's three screenwriters have not only never taken a commercial flight, they've never met any actual human beings. The details of air travel and human behavior are equally foreign to the film.

The story is as predictable as it is saccharine. Apart from the presence of local landmarks, there's no reason the Rose City should be proud of this effort.

It's also a real shame that such a fascinating reminder of how far civil rights have come in the last five decades has been reduced to such a turkey of a film.

Allen's movies, even at their lowest, have usually boasted interesting musical scores, melding jazz, classical, and American standards. Irrational Man, though, uses The Ramsey Lewis Trio's "The 'In' Crowd," an already overexposed riff, so repetitively that I thought I was seeing the film with a temp soundtrack. The real Woody, whatever his flaws, would never have allowed this. I hope he comes back someday.

Making a movie with a sad-sack protagonist this hard to root for is like laying track for the main line express to nowhere. Watching it is like taking a ride so bumpy, with scenery so boring, that you end up hoping for a derailment. Either way, buying a ticket for The D Train is something to regret.

This moronic yuletide time-waster might work as a way to grab a few winks at the mall during last-minute shopping, but it's not going to end up as a highlight on the resume of anyone involved.

The movie is stunningly perfunctory, soul-crushingly oblivious to its own lack of originality, and, to be blunt, just plain dumb.

Clumsily animated feature; probably better as a video game than as a movie.

An atrocious Robin Williams vehicle that might be Hollywood's first anti-romantic comedy.

There are legitimate excuses for going to see Pixels. Losing a bet, perhaps. Having a loved one held for ransom. Maybe a serious blow to the head. But none of those (except maybe the last) would allow you watch and actually enjoy the latest cinematic leavings of Adam Sandler.

As sometimes occurs in unsupervised experiments, the result proves foul-smelling and potentially toxic.