Marjorie Baumgarten

Fist Fight is not a complete dud, but it does grasp at the lowest hanging fruit for its humor.

Reeks of a filmmaker who latched on to sure-fire subject matter, but then became lost once his character morphed into a person.

Whether their goal is to nourish the faithful or lure the heathens is not always clear. The only thing that's clear is that The Last Sin Eater serves neither of these higher purposes.

Instead of building suspense and tension, Suspect Zero devotes its efforts to creating a weird and creepy milieu that will leave fans of police procedurals wanting and avant-garde enthusiasts scratching their heads.

Long after Only God Forgives concludes, only its scuzziness remains. This artistic misfire will forever be knocking on heaven’s door.

Merry witticisms collide with empty clichés, leaving these characters with little trace of realism.

The kind of movie that gives "chick flicks" a bad reputation.

Arthur overextends its welcome and relies too much on prop comedy.

A dish of empty calories.

Cruelty, church redemption, miraculous healings of limbs and junkie relatives – all have their moments onscreen.

Nothing is very funny in this movie, and everything is predictable.

Tom Arnold and Anthony Anderson become an official comedy duo as they deliver an extraneous (and questionably funny) comedy riff, as they did in "Exit Wounds" over the film’s closing credits.

(Greenaway) is often described as a director whose movies "are not for everyone." The obvious retort is that neither are the Three Stooges, but at least everyone understands them.

The rap stars-turned-actors who populate this film exude a real presence, if not a wealth of acting chops. Williams' script is a real muddle, however, reinforcing the worst clichés about video directors who make the leap to feature filmmaking.

One well-staged sequence in a parking garage is the film's only memorable moment

The movie's not bad in the action department, especially if you're a perennial fan of the gun shots and verbal quips combo. But it's so cynical, so brazen about its cardboard iconography, so calculatedly cool, that you just start longing for that crystal dream -- any dream but this one.

If you want to see a good comedy about a couple’s marital problems getting worked out through the course of a home invasion, check out "The Ref."

Even this sequel, released 20 years after the original, had to up the number of poop jokes from the first film’s doozies in order to keep up with public taste.

This mash-up of family drama and science fiction is a pleasant but unconvincing adventure with strong adolescent appeal and music by Mogwai.

The effect is weird but it, actually, kind of works, illuminating both Shakespeare and the artifice of musicals.

Only Ruben Blades as President Calles and Bruce Greenwood as American Ambassador Dwight Morrow get out of this film with their acting dignity intact.

Overstays its welcome by at least a half hour. But, assuming that cute Camaro stays in the picture, I expect we’ll all be back for the planned round three.

Even though Stardust is not coated in gossamer, the film still has some glittery moments.

Silly and implausible.

This frothy little comedy is a pleasant enough amusement. It's not a big belly-laugh of a comedy, but it's quickly paced, fun and entertaining.

What the movie ultimately demonstrates is that the sum total is less than the individual parts when you add together Rocky, the Terminator, Indiana Jones, Mad Max, Blade, Zorro, Hercules, and the Transporter.

Spotlessly dull.

The film, however, is short on genuine scares and ingenuity.

An effective sound design enhances several of the film's sudden frights, and Sutherland, who appears in almost every scene, is a predictably solid presence.

Unbearable.

There is a new definition of the term, "critic-proof movie," and it goes by the name Pokémon: The First Movie.

Just as you begin settling into these science-fiction parameters and start pondering the wisdom of humanity’s vain quest for immortality, Self/less switches gears, much to its detriment, and becomes a frenzied chase thriller and shoot-‘em-up.

Without better material, Bullock’s talents will remain undercover.

All ends happily for everyone in the movie, but for those in the audience, the experience is so hackneyed that they'll come out feeling like they're wearing shirts that say, "I went to the Acropolis, but all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

Aloft’s characters exude a certain impregnability, and the story’s structure only further distances us from them.

Sleepless is a passable thriller, but it won’t keep you up for nights.

Learn from the Evers family: The Haunted Mansion is not worth the detour.

Scenes rarely exploit their full potential and, frequently, it's clear that the slightest bit of effort might have made the shots work more smoothly. Movies like this could start giving sports a bad name.

This return to Wonderland is a dull outing, about which it can be said that Alice doesn’t live here anymore.

A frustrating exercise in diverted expectations.

Although there’s a strong likability quotient for everyone onscreen here, which ought to keep the movie minimally afloat among its target audience of black viewers starved for a new Tyler Perry offering, Baggage Claim should be left behind at the carousel.

Still, you find yourself rooting for these women, even if their adventures aren’t always up to snuff.

It begins in a muddle and ends in confusion.

Kings is a confusing and far-fetched story in which good intentions outweigh good storytelling.

It's a shame to once again witness Martin Lawrence squander his considerable comic talents under a fat suit and fake breasts in this shoddy sequel.

Plot and character development are scarce; the film is more an abstraction than an absorption.

Shoddy craftsmanship and uninteresting subjects (it's amazing how tedious some conversations can be when there's no one to put words in the subjects' mouths) sink this spring-break movie faster than an outbreak of Leginnaires’ disease on a vacation cruise liner.

The original was indeed ludicrous, but it exuded warmth, vitality, and belief in itself. The 2.0 update splashes up on shore DOA.

Neither ditzy enough as comedy nor realistic enough as human drama to live a long life.

One of the unfunniest comedies it’s ever been my misfortune to see.

Frankly, one's sympathy sides more with the class bitch who thinks she has the better voice and deserves the choral solo instead of Terri. In your heart you know she's right.

Ultimately sinks under the weight of its good intentions. It’s like watching Univision or Telemundo on the big screen.

A mildly diverting comedy but has little of real substance to recommend it.

As is, Welcome to Mooseport is clunkily earthbound as its characters and the situations plod forward while never getting anywhere.

When this stereotype masquerades as a storyline, it needs to have a unique spin or radical narrative disruption for it to stand out from all the other self-made movies about white male artists with girl problems and self-worth issues. In Stereo is not the movie that stands out from the rest.

Listless, dull, and totally lacking in spectacle.

Certain things must be answered, like Seagal's environmental lip service that is utterly mocked by the movie's need to blow things up and destroy property.

There's an interesting story here, but Joffe never firmly wraps his arms around it.

There is a certain sweetness to this teen romance and Gardner’s naive fascination in the newly discovered wonders of Earth. But there is so much that is dopey, on both a scientific and emotional level, that The Space Between Us strikes with the impact of a crash landing.

The title, The Last Song, may be wishful thinking for some, but the best they can probably hope for is the close of the era of Hannah Montana movies.

Images seem to be grafted into the film that have little to do with the actual story.

None of it is handled with any emotional believability or grace. Well-worn phrases and plot developments are repeated here as though the world had never heard of "Cinderella."

Another unthrilling Renny Harlin thriller.

There are moments here in which Shore actually behaves like a recognizable human being with some semblance of feelings, emotions and conscience. Happily, his acting skills are adequate to the task.

Kidman is the only refreshing thing in the movie. Otherwise, Just Go With It is an exercise in stagnation.

Coprophiliacs looking for a movie that really rings their chimes will be positively tintinnabulating from this arthouse horror number.

Lovitz is occasionally amusing, especially in his creative attempts to get through to his pupils, although his style of slow-take humor is a grave mismatch for this kind of frenzied comedy.

"Avatar’s" Worthington is adept at playing a tortured soul, but his American accent and dramatic range are both wanting in this movie.

October Baby earns points for the originality of its protagonist but it has no chance of preaching to anyone but the choir.

Although the plot is pretty bare-bones, it’s propped up by plenty of gratuitous dialogue and imagery that do nothing to further the story.

Does not live up to its name. It's more like White Men Can't Box, Either.

As witless and simpleminded as the irradiated humanoids that serve as the franchise’s bad guys.

G.I. Joe was not screened for critics, but that’s not because of its mindless action and nonsensical plot. It’s because G.I. Joe is the kind of movie that bludgeons the viewer into submission with its loud and constant barrage of sound and fury.

In terms of execution this movie is careless and unfocused.

Bob Dylan might have been wrong when he sang that "there’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all." His new movie, although a complete narrative mess, is a thoroughly Dylanesque escapade.

Everything about Agent Cody Banks 2 reeks of hurry-up and make this movie before its kid star Frankie Munoz loses his pubescent looks (it’s already borderline).

This is a bad movie, but one that awakens your senses every so often with flashes of originality and abundant self-belief.

You watch and wait for this underachieving film to ignite, then grow more and more exasperated as you witness its many misfires.

I’ve seen sick kids exploited for all sorts of reasons – usually as easy ploys to manipulate emotions but sometimes to sell things or encourage philanthropic outpourings – but Letters to God takes the cake (make that the holy wafer).

Never a filmmaker known for his subtlety, The Single Moms Club turns out to be one of Perry’s most distinctive efforts.

But let's face it. This whole movie is based on stereotypes.

If you expect That's My Boy to be the Bad Dad equivalent of Bad Santa, you'll be sorely disappointed. Sandler can't quite adopt that same cynical edge, instead favoring corny and sentimental resolutions to untenable predicaments.

Most unforgivable, however, is the film's coda in which real Georgian victims pose for the camera with pictures of their loved ones lost in the five days of war. Using real people to impart the emotions that the entire film was unable to evince is simply cheap exploitation.

The new Death Wish is unlikely to spark similar controversy, simply because the filmmaking is not as compelling as in the original film.

Instead of putting the high in high school, this film is the kind of drug movie that gives pot smokers a bad name.

Ridiculous plot, dumb characters, foolish dilemmas. The only point to this movie is to make Macaulay a millionaire.

Although the original Red Dawn was far-fetched, the remake offers little but vicarious thrills.

The laziness is what irks me most about Blended. Everything from the re-teaming of the two stars and their "Wedding Singer" director, Frank Coraci, reeks of moviemaking by checklist.

In the final analysis though, the only real thing being smuggled in National Security is unwitting patrons' admission fees.

Stick around through the credits for an extra closing scene that leaves the door of Heather's new home wide open for a sequel.

There’s no pacing to the narrative, and the images are perfunctory. I’m Not Ashamed will draw the same audience that has turned Rachel’s journals into popular reading matter, but the film is not likely to lure any converts.

A listless family comedy and bland morality primer.

Its narrative conceit will entertain for a while, but eventually you will long to disappear with the rest of the Mexicans.

The blood and gore quotients of Punisher: War Zone are extremely high and are sure to sop the appetites of the series' fans and virtual bloodlusters.

Badland's only commercial potential lies in the possibility that people may confuse it for Terrence Malick's incomparable "Badlands."

It comes off like so much poppycock -– to use the vernacular of the day.

The Art of War must ultimately be chalked up as a strategic defeat.

Maybe Stonewall will have more value to younger viewers for whom the riots and gay marginalization in general are distant history and might be vivified by watching the film. Yet even though the film’s heart seems genuine, its structure is buttressed by falsies.

Even though everything about this project probably looked good on paper, upon completion The House comes up snake eyes.

What the kids at my screening seemed to like best was the wizard's cat, whose mouth is computer-manipulated to utter pithy asides.

Despite flashes of originality, is a formulaic quagmire that traps bits and pieces from all these genres without really satisfying any of their true aims.

Tries hard but never makes the leap.

Linda Blair finds herself locked-up in this women-in-prison cheez fest. The warden has a hot tub in his office and Stella Stevens cracks the whip.

Aiming to be this year's Basic Instinct, Body of Evidence never raises a discernible pulse.

Director Brill makes no stylistic advances from his recent work with Adam Sandler (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds), and shows no signs of seeking growth or improvement.

It's likely there's going to be some “viewer disturbance” going on after audiences catch a whiff of this routine and thrill-less suspenser.

As arduous to watch as your neighbor’s poorly focused vacation slides.

One might expect that with such low goals the film might have at least hit its target more often than it does. Schneider's mugging is relentless and his constant need to suddenly transpose himself into another character undermines the story's continuity and progression.

Oh, for a time machine that would give me back the hour and a half I spent watching this movie.

Meets the required minimum dosage of feature-film attributes, and then nods out when it comes to going any further.

The whole thing reeks of sequelitis, with an emphasis on the rude and crude.

This Red Riding Hood loses sight of the forest for the trees on its way to Grandma's house.

Not even this sprightly cast can buck the privileged sense of entitlement that bedevils this movie. Don’t count on the impish humor that Simon Pegg has unleashed so successfully in other movies to save the day.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the movie does not work, though it's difficult to sort out the “what is” from the “what was” and “what might have been.”

Moore succeeds, even though the film as a whole does not fare as well.

A hackneyed police story, rife with clichés, implausibilities, and weak performances.

If someone had spent half as much time thinking about the characters in Airborne as thinking about what filters to apply to the camera, then there might have been a semi-decent teen action movie here.

The storylines are as confusing (or as simple?) to the uninitiated as they were before, but that doesn't stop them from making sense to the kids.

The Christian faith-based film genre takes a dramatic leap forward with 90 Minutes in Heaven, a well-appointed work based on Don Piper’s bestseller, that, for a change, doesn’t look and sound as though it was written, performed, and recorded in some church basement.

Forgotten or subject to overkill as they are here, veterans still get the shaft.

Adults may respond with a laugh every once in a while, but they’re unlikely to find Fifty Shades of Black a nonstop titter fest.

Taken as a whole, The Ugly Truth is much like its orgasms: phony and unsatisfying.

White is cast in this film as a “guardian angel” and adds another level of painful homosexual confusion and stereotyping to the film. Ultimately, all the chafing caused by Gentlemen Broncos is likely to leave you saddlesore.

Even though it’s fair to say that Pixels is on steadier ground than most of Sandler’s recent comedies, the film is nevertheless flat-footed and grows tedious after the first hour.

Have we such short memories that we have already forgotten last year's feeble "Johnson Family Vacation?"

The problem lies with the unimaginative story premise and the quip/reverse quip dialogue that just may be better-suited to half-hour television shows than this nearly 2½-hour movie feature.

A forgettable and lackluster fish-out-of-water rom-com.

Functions mainly as a big-screen showcase for America's No. 1 teen tease, with the story and other characters serving mainly as accessories.

Her mortal story seems one of sadness rather than inspiration.

The interfacing of the two-dimensional and three-dimensional characters is so shabbily accomplished that it makes you start noticing all the other technical glitches in the work.

A wildly inventive, unrelenting thrill that amazes us with its visual and intellectual treats and dazzles us with its ongoing ingenuity.

Apart from the smutty giggles that derive from the mere mention of the Focker family surname, this third entry in the now 10-year-old comedy franchise falls flat.

Apart from its dramatic predictability, Temptation is a snooze because of its languid pacing and rudimentary camerawork.

Ultimately, this is a movie that’s more about the Ottoman Lieutenant’s Woman than The Ottoman Lieutenant himself – another example of the film’s epic misdirection.

Not one of these new-fangled Christian movies that camouflages its proselytizing with decent storytelling and filmmaking technique. Time Changer is clunky, repetitive, and ham-handed.

Shameless E.T. knockoff.

Audiences may find this pap brimming with heart and sympathy for the little guy, but as prescriptions go, Patch Adams is pure placebo.

Atlas won't be the only one to shrug off this tiresome load.

With Filth and Wisdom, the Material Girl has now spliced the title of film writer and director into her list of accomplishments, but the result is, well, immaterial.

I'd use the term science fiction to describe Skyline but the movie decidedly lacks both science and fiction.

Muddled, sloppy, and obfuscating.

Never rings true. It's a dramedy whose blend of melodrama and humor is awkward and incongruous, leaping between the two modes like a fat frog jumping lilypads.

Each of the characters is dull and boorish instead of witty and urbane.

The logic of it all will be Greek to anyone not predisposed to the movie's rude and crude humor.

Somewhere between conception and execution the movie turned sour and most of the cuteness was replaced with venom and malice.

R.I.P.D. never creates a believable universe, interesting action sequences, or dynamic characters. It’s a paint-by-numbers approach in which the film’s comedy and drama both fall flat.

The film may seem a bit undercooked until it gets to the staging of the ultimate battle, but Obsessed is swinging from the chandeliers by the end.

The story is so shabbily built that it can make no valid claim to motives other than the filmmakers' mercenary desires to cash in on the public's prurient interests. And even on this bottom-feeder level, Showgirls fails to deliver the goods.

Molina and Weaver, who, most of the time, perform brilliantly, move through Abduction as if on autopilot.

In an inspired bit of casting, Lyle Lovett plays the dad of the goofy-looking Diz/Gil. That these two could be related might be the only believable touch in this whole misfired thing.

Nothing about this movie works.

It's full of special effects that are big on smoke and noise, but short on logic and payoff.

I really think the entire payoff to the Chipmunks' gambit comes in those inevitable moments when Dave bellows in exasperation, "Alvin." Maybe if we all bellow in unison it will be forceful enough to put an end to this painful film franchise.

Furry Vengeance would be innocuous enough if only it didn't look as though no effort was made to expand the images past the storyboard phase.

Collateral Beauty is ultimately as mushy a movie as the phrase itself, whose definition is never fully explained by the script. It’s another example of something sounding good but meaning little.

Intelligence is insulted at every turn in this new date movie.

I'm sorry. I laughed...There's something pleasurable about a comedy that has no pretensions about where it's coming from.

It's only February but I can already name the year's winner of Most Thoughtless Gay Stereotype in Film award. The dubious honor goes to The Roommate.

Certain to be distasteful to children and adults alike, Eight Crazy Nights is a total misfire.

There's no getting around how dreadful Twelve is – how tone deaf it is to its young protagonists and how vapid its ersatz production design seems.

What can you say about a movie that includes its outtake bloopers reel before the closing credits?

A dreadfully misguided movie.

The loosely scripted story is further burdened with clunky dialogue and performances, shoddy continuity.

Told in a chaotic fashion, the movie jumps from scene to scene without a lot of continuity.

Only the underplaying Selleck gets out of this with any dignity, while O’Hara is totally wasted as Jen’s one-note tippling mom.

Bratz is way too long.

Michael Moore has nothing to fear from David Zucker.

The only entities hoodwinked by this animated sequel are paying customers.

The top-line talent, particularly Thornton and Rourke, do manage to hold our attention with idiosyncratic performances, but most of the others are a jumble of fair-haired, disaffected boys.

With a surprising lack of verve, humor, and narrative tension, Shyamalan's live-action foundation film is unlikely to woo new fans to the tale.

Not so much bad as it is witless and predictable.

A well-meaning but ineptly made message movie.

The Land of Lazy can crown a new king because with Grown Ups 2 Adam Sandler has officially nabbed the throne.

Again. Via Red’s experiences as a young man and wildcatter, Jason learns that money cannot buy happiness. What the viewers learn is that money can’t buy a good movie either.

Cynical yet mildly amusing Yuletide-season comedy.

Maybe everyone involved was hoping that no one would see this movie, but Madsen is the only one who should fear anyone seeing his work.

Must be counted as a forfeit.

The plot in Mr. Nanny is flimsy, mostly tenuous excuses for making Hogan kiss a doll or sing a lullaby or dress in purple leotards and pink tutu while whomping on the bad guys. But so many things in the story make so little sense that you have to ask yourself why the people involved in the project weren't asking themselves more questions from the get-go.

Mother’s Day, the movie, feels as contrived and inauthentic as the holiday itself.

Any just God would likely recoil from the ham-fisted and spurious defense put forth in this film.

Would have been smart to fold before it let its hand go this far.

Beverly Hills Cop III is made with so little spark, humor, and internal logic that it makes me better appreciate these other recent Murphy movies where the actor/comedian at least stretched his persona and attempted something apart from the action comedy mold.

Nothing about the movie makes much sense.

Despite cute kids, tough dads, and problems controlling bed-wetting and farts, Daddy Day Camp should just limp off to the nurse's tent and call it quits.

A gimmick in search of a movie: how to get Carvey into as many silly costumes and deliver as many silly voices as possible, plot mechanics be damned.

The comic equivalent of a lump of coal.

Reeks as badly as it sounds.

The movie is nothing more than a perpetual chain of elaborately choreographed (by returning star Robin Shou) fight sequences that mix live-action foregrounds with complexly layered digital effects and are linked together by the most flimsy and laughable of plot elements.

This is a movie that should have bypassed the theatres and gone straight to DVD. It is offensive on so many levels.

Is That a Gun resorts to smutty humor and moralistic speeches to confront the issue of American gun violence in the wake of Newtown, Conn. This movie uses those murdered babies’ name in vain.

This crude live-action takeoff on the Cabbage Patch phenomenon ought to have had star Anthony Newley humming "Stop the Movie, I Want to Get Off."

The bulk of the documentary observes Pipkin as he traverses the world showing us a score of examples of solutions that are presently working.

Christian filmmaking has entered a new phase in which its creators have discovered how to soft-pedal their message under wraps of a conventional story.

A fine example of advocacy filmmaking.

The film’s historical pageantry is fascinating to observe, even though the story is mostly conjecture. Competently directed, the real pleasure in this high-grossing South Korean film lies in its performances, which lighten the regal solemnity with comic warmth.

In films by the likes of Michael Bay, Paul Verhoeven, and Guillermo del Toro, machines are shown to be the nightmarish enemies of human beings, so it’s refreshing to find the machines in Trash Dance working in harmony with their human operators.

A certain amount of honest, down-home flavor mixes with an excess of melodramatic schmaltz in this Texas-made movie.

Perhaps viewers of the TV show will find more depth in The Snitch Cartel than newcomers to the drama. But without character definition, the film feels like a constant swish pan from one violent event to the next.

A la Mala coasts on its style and charm, and that may be enough for this kind of romp. Mala’s roommates Kika (Aurora) and Pablo (Arrieta) provide enjoyable interludes as something of a Greek chorus to Mala’s dilemma. Nevertheless, a bit more originality in the script by Issa López and Ari Rosen would be a welcome diversion.

Even if some of its history and buckles are askew, the film is still an original take on a Christian redemption story.

Much more a comedy than a heist film (think Ocean’s 11 rather than Casino or Rififi), Ladrones moves at a pretty entertaining pace and maintains a good sense of humor about itself.

A quicker overall pace and trimmed dialogue might have lent the film more sparkle and zest, but it still makes it to the finish line with its decency intact.

Writer/director Damien Lay’s screenplay has some head-scratchers in addition to its flat dialogue, but it’s clear that the airplanes rather than the characters are his real passion. Unfortunately, his film never takes flight.

Headlining a less-than-mediocre kids’ movie taints one’s brand rather than enhancing it. Just ask Shaq.

Filmed in luscious black and white, Mustang Island is a millennial comedy of manners that also doubles as a superlative acting showcase for real-life couple Macon Blair and Lee Eddy.