Megan Lehmann

A visual treat diminished by lifeless dialogue and self-conscious acting.

Although deft editing provides neat segues, "Safety" suffers from a case of too many dramas, too little time. Characters are given no chance to develop and, too often, their behavior turns on a dime, hurtling off into a parallel universe of extreme acts.

Often so silly, it's surreal.

Only really little tykes will find the surplus of pratfalls and poo and fart jokes a hoot.

This slow-moving Swedish film offers not even a hint of joy, preferring to focus on the humiliation of Martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants at his own birthday party.

The feel-good finale -- an ending even less in doubt than that of the most predictable Hollywood fare -- is as rousing as you'd hope and the fast-paced, on-ice action is satisfyingly authentic.

Without Branagh's pitch-perfect comedic skills the entire movie could have been crushed under the avalanche of quips and wisecracks tumbling from Kalesniko's too-clever-by-half pen.

S.W.A.T. boasts the kernel of a good idea - but it gets buried in the chaff of half-baked plot threads, partly realized characters and unstructured pandemonium.

Twinkles and glows, but all the surface razzle-dazzle fails to mask the emptiness at its core.

From the incessant rain that blurs the joyless Boston setting to the mysterious decision to make a brunette Hudson look as plain as possible, it's an evanescent fancy devoid of sparkle.

The majority of Dickie Roberts winds up looking like a tame episode of the "Brady Bunch" -- spiked with Spade-esque crudity.

Middleton deals with the various male and female perspectives in an even-handed way, concocting a slice of New York life that's frothy as meringue pie.

Has laugh-out-loud moments of inspired idiocy. The problem is that this one-joke skit (done first and better by Britain's Ali G) has been given the Hamburger Helper treatment and stretched to feature length.

Hokey, overstuffed plot and a messily hand-stitched, often illogical script.

Much of the action is strident and cartoonish -- but the romance at the core remains tender and true.

Stevens has a keen sense of the absurd, but the whole thing is too forced - and his use of "rotomation" (last used in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life") to give a Timothy Leary-swirl to key dramatic moments winds up looking incongruous.

A good edit would have allowed the film's worthy, obviously heartfelt, message to shine.

The tiny stage can barely contain Reno's gale-force personality, as she paces and rants a stream-of-conscious monologue.

Another big, dumb action movie in the vein of "XXX," The Transporter is riddled with plot holes big enough for its titular hero to drive his sleek black BMW through.

All the elements are in place for an entertaining murder mystery, but as Bigelow meanders aimlessly back and forth through time, the plot becomes increasingly water-logged.

A likable trio of actors struggles valiantly but ultimately fails to keep this dopey buddy comedy afloat.

What the filmmakers do to the splendid Moore is simply criminal.

The movie is saved by its well-trained four-legged stars and the likable Liam Aiken ("Road to Perdition"), who plays 12-year-old loner Owen Baker.

The trouble with authenticity in a punk rock film is that it comes off as amateurish, and while "Dolls" has a feverish energy -- and some good songs -- it suffers from crude performances and a trite rise-and-fall plot.

A promising film that is dragged down by the weight of its gray morbidity.

They resort too often to infantile flatulence jokes and fairly obvious gags about errant G-strings, with the anorexic plot culminating in the brothers having - yawn - learned to respect women's feelings.

Where Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" radiates freshness and vigor, Man on Fire feels vaguely like something left over from the 1980s, when action heroes were one-note tough guys methodically picking off baddies.

Paints a vivid portrait of a compelling young man but, perhaps inevitably, goes overboard on the deification.

A hit-and-miss affair.

Kidman gives an other stunning performance in Birth, but it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that ultimately reveals . . . not much.

Light, doggedly formulaic romantic comedy that's almost instantly forgettable despite the sunny presence of teen queen Mandy Moore.

Screenwriter Tom Schulman, who won an Oscar for "Dead Poets Society," gives us a narrative reminiscent of a pup chasing its tail, as characters struggle to catch up with inexplicably chopping and changing motives.

Seem to have spliced together two different concepts which, on paper, may have seemed complementary but wind up giving the film a schizophrenic feel.

Basinger appears to be literally phoning in from another movie in the highly improbable, maniacally action-packed thriller-cum-comedy Cellular.

A worthy addition to the cinematic canon, which, at last count, numbered 52 different versions.

Makes its biggest misstep in failing to persuade the viewer the five family members are charming eccentrics rather than irritating weirdos.

This modest little film out of Africa suffers from largely rudderless direction, relying for any sense of profundity on the breathtaking beauty of Abraham Haile Biru's cinematography.

Ultimately, though, the lively whirl of debauched, drug-fueled parties and toffee-nosed exchanges between heiresses and aristocrats fails to mask the essential hollowness of the narrative.

The two leads have strong singing voices, but they're not helped by songs with titles like "It's Time to Disco."

Khouri seems never to have met a "chick flick" cliché she didn't like, from the ubiquity of emotional telephone conversations to the lachrymose (but entirely predictable and dramatically flabby) reconciliation at the end.

The cheerfully inane comedy Connie and Carla all but suffocates beneath a high-stepping, show-stopping, ear-splitting deluge of musical theater staples, from "Cats" to "Oklahoma!," "Jesus Christ Superstar" to "Fiddler on the Roof."

The jaw-droppingly nasty second act is intriguing, but it veers into territory so dark that it sucks the air out of the bouncy chick flick that surrounds it, making for one confused -- and confusing -- comedy.

Purists will probably have a conniption at the mere idea of messing with the form, but the worst thing about Jacquot's post-modern treatment is that its incongruity wrenches you out of the story.

Chases its tail for so long, it morphs from a whodunit into a who-cares.

An earnest undertaking that unfortunately plays like a trite Lifetime movie.

Overripe dialogue and a fevered score fail to inject any real tension, and the accentless English spoken throughout a film set entirely in France is ludicrous and jarring.

An overlong melodrama-by-numbers.

A sporadically amusing curiosity that falls short of effectively satirizing the public's fixation with the minutiae of celebrity lives.

Lizzie McGuire's "Movie" doesn't try to be anything more than a superficial escapist fantasy for fans of the show.

So serious-minded it occasionally teeters on the brink of absurdity.

No light leavens the ashen wash of writer-director Tim Blake Nelson's relentlessly downbeat Holocaust drama The Grey Zone. None.

A thumping soundtrack, including David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel" and Pink Floyd's "Us and Them," fuels this high-energy look at a pack of underdogs who sowed the seeds for today's extreme sports craze.

A throwback to the kind of '80s action flicks that had titles like "Adrenaline Force," is enlivened by a raft of celebrity cameos, including a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Gibson.

A skin-deep examination of a shallow lifestyle that draws a conclusion so logical it's almost superfluous.

Despite his innate appeal and nimble line readings, Grace can't surmount the deficiencies of the underdog character screenwriter Victor Levin ("Mad About You") has saddled him with.

If it weren't for the estrogen-fueled action scenes -- choreographed by director Cory Yuen with wit and style -- So Close would be as disposable as the shampoo ad it all too often resembles.

A postcard-pretty psychological drama that's too moody and enigmatic for its own good.

Unfortunately, the vehicle chosen for the corn-rowed cutie's Hollywood coming-out party is pretty lame.

A cinematic petit four.

Many of Kampmeier's characters are either ill-defined or clichéd.

A harmless celebration of idiocy that is the cinematic equivalent of an overeager, block-headed puppy chasing its tail.

The film is too low-key to be the farcical rock-and-roll jape it sometimes seems to strive for, yet too lighthearted to be affecting.

If you've come to appreciate Hal Hartley's idiosyncratic style through films like "Flirt" and "The Unbelievable Truth," his take on the monster movie genre will intrigue you. But, ultimately, disappoint you.

The film - dimly lit and with an ominous soundtrack that verges on overkill - is largely a showcase for the heavy-lidded Renner.

There's really nothing new here, though, and lacking the drama and humor of "Fahrenheit 9/11," it is even more likely to be preaching to the converted.

An interesting addition to a genre that tends too often to disregard artistic technique.

Too unfocused to make any point worth taking with us into the 2004 presidential campaign.

Boasts a stellar ensemble cast and some priceless one-liners -- but those pearls of acerbic wit have been strung together on a cheap piece of thread which almost inevitably breaks in the third act.

The character of ZigZag is not sufficiently developed to support a film constructed around him.

Startlingly immature.