Paul Malcolm

Ironically, for all the paranoia, York's Defiler and his henchman, an always game Udo Kier, are an oasis of wit in an otherwise parched, self-serious script.

Shadow Magic is rich with detail.

A hodgepodge of psychosexual horror gimmicks, from the virginal psychic artist to the impotent psychotic actor.

A pretty miserable time at the movies.

He (Berlanti) shoots for bland entertainment and scores.

These live performances and classic music videos drive home the point that part of the Giants' longevity flows from the fact that they can't be explained, only experienced.

Whatever the cause, everyone involved takes this blend of slick Verhoeven sleaze and Deliverance-brand musk way too seriously.

A brutish affair replete with sliced bodies, a diced storyline and enough clanky dialogue to wake the dead.

Thai director Kaos (a.k.a. Wych Kaosayananda), making his inauspicious Hollywood debut, still can't breathe any life into it. You'll just want to get back to your Game Boy.

Kessler frames it all with an ironic eye (Stiller's misfit mogul holds court in cheap motels and burger joints) and with enough big-hearted tenderness to keep the humor from going sour.

The film lapses too often into sugary sentiment and withholds delivery on the pell-mell pyrotechnics its punchy style promises.

It almost appears like a little thought went into this otherwise grim exercise in soullessness.

Chop Suey really captivates with surfaces; look away for an instant, and the spell is broken.

Sabu takes an already wildly original concept and launches it toward brilliance.

Bowman and production designer Wolf Kroeger do an excellent job of evoking a twice-baked England, while writers Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka and Matt Greenberg keep the script devilishly pitched just shy of preposterous (it's McConaughey who stumbles beyond).

A film that plays like warmed-over "Cold Mountain."

A cheap "Star Wars" rip-off with swords instead of light sabers.

Director Ernest -- doesn't skimp on style in a film that bluntly exploits social conscience to pump up its taste for gore.

It is, however, Tortilla Soup's cultural transposition that feels most phony. Where Lee brings depth and subtle observation to his middle-class ensemble piece, Ripoll has simply added a thin Latino glaze.

Why Crop Circles now, if not to ride the hype of M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" to some quick cash? The movie’s rambling, slapdash, repetitious nature suggests as much.

While the film is well-paced, visually it is deathly dull.

A soulless affair.

The rough, watercolor washes of its city backdrops mark the film with nostalgia while its story carries us along at an amiable, buoyant pace.

While Stiller and De Niro can play hilariously off one another, the film -- despite its happy ending -- feels unresolved.

Temple doesn't just highlight the contemporary relevance of Coleridge's liberated words and themes, he shows us how high they still soar.

It's whiz-bang, techno fun, with a touch of Latino flavor.

Slight but charming comedy.

Hyams ("End of Days," "Timecop"), who is his own cinematographer, has no idea how to shoot or compose Xiong's wired choreography.

Hartnett's pitch-perfect sexual panic can be hilariously funny.

Nemesis never feels true to itself, its energy never fully engaged. Even with Earth on the line in its climactic space battle, the film seems embarrassed that it couldn't have found a better way to work through its issues.

While Slums of Beverly Hills may sound like a downer, Jenkins tempers the family's downbeat circumstances with sympathetic humor, a quirky camera style and lo-fi retro flavor.

Kazantzidis struggles for the flavor of classic romance, with a string of standards on the soundtrack to little avail.

Consistently undermined by a script that swings between the duller side of quirky and facile sentiment.

Maquiling offers us the unexpected pleasures of taking the side streets in a film about how even minor-key adventures can make a life stuck in low gear something to look back on.

It's finally a hilarious and cuddly flashback from the dog's point of view, to his training as a pup, that marks the moment when the film finds its sweetly moronic legs.

Sympathy is disturbingly cast aside so we can wallow in the pathetic. It’s a bad trip, man.

Performances that are natural yet weighted with history and frequently heart-wrenching.

Both funny and furious -- on why black people are different from white people.

Its tone is as disjointed as if this were a first effort.

At times, both swans and humans appear oddly out of sync with their flat backgrounds, while the film's few musical flights of fancy never achieve visual liftoff.

With a brisk pace and satiric blend of nostalgia and violence, it's the sharpest, funniest comedy so far this year.

It's a refreshing change from the self-interest and paranoia that shape most American representations of Castro. At the same time, Bravo anticipates that such a view will drive some nuts.

Written by a team of three, the script is more plagued by groupthink than is the film's future Earth.

Torem drifts into formula and his initially promising film goes unbearably soft.

More of the same -- only less so.

It's abundantly clear that Lozano and company have been re-watching "Pulp Fiction" for the last decade, pausing long enough to pick up the fluid rhythms of "Y Tu Mamá También" and "Amores Perros" while completely missing those films' social and political edges.

What makes the film compelling is the filmmakers' ability to blend a studied (occasionally academic) dissection of cultural and sexual decadence with a potboiler plot.

Manipulative filmmaking at its most gently persuasive.

Within a few minutes of the film's frenetic opening set piece, however, it's obvious that director David Kellogg and screenwriters Kerry Ehrin and Zak Penn have no idea how to capture the spirit of the source material.

Railsback and Snodgrass struggle against caricature in their own fine performances.

Unfortunately, none of the characters -- despite the film's strong cast -- ever seems worthy of the attention.

A mind-numbing exercise in high body counts and big tits.

There’s a lot to like in writer-director Ray Yeung’s low-key romantic comedy, once you get past its overly enunciated identity issues, which were, according to Yeung, the film’s raison d’être.

Baldwin's perfectly impacted performance as a tough-love provider (the actor gets some of the best lines in the movie).

"It's no longer funny, but he refuses to give up the joke." That just about sums it up except for the film's shopworn plot -- and its wretchedly cheap production design.

If, as it appears, Rosenthal is competing with the knife-wielding Myers for the title of biggest hack, he wins by unanimous decision.

(Lawrence)'s not just unfunny, he's coarsely anti-funny. The film just lurches from one dull skit to the next without bite or much of a point.

Grisman's warm, loving home movie in the guise of a documentary.

It does, however, fairly bubble with speed-freak energy and a dry, laddish wit that keeps the jokes coming.

The sharpness of Eyre's opening, however, ebbs away when he takes up the story of Rudy (Eric Schweig) and Mogie (Graham Greene), two brothers with neatly opposed responses to the reservation grind.

Despite their appeal to patriotic horror fans, the makers of An American Haunting end up doing more harm than good to domestic fright production.

It's an amusing scenario, until even Miike seems to lose his taste for the oddly sweet concoction and allows the film to drift aimlessly to a rainbow-hued finale.

What at first seems emotionally charged, ultimately comes off as contrived.

Remarkable exploration of sexuality and the Jewish faith.

Murphy slogs his way through this dismally dull sci-fi comedy.

Writer-director Avi Nesher and co-screenwriter Roger Berger -- upon whose real-life investigations the film is based -- deliver on the hard-boiled promise of this low-key thriller with plenty of gritty twists and turns.

An ostensible action-comedy that can't seem to get either side of its genre equation right.

While there are scenes of wrenching emotional openness and spontaneous charm -- largely due to the irresistible allure and impeccable craft of its ensemble cast -- the degree of calculation apparent in its plot and images undermines its efforts to move and seduce.

It boasts none of the studio's high-gloss animation. That said, Recess is not without its charms.

Working from a script by David S. Goyer ("Dark City") that lacks any sense of humor or character, Snipes seems unsure if he should vamp it up or play it straight, while Dorff just plain sucks.

Seems stuck in reverse.