Paul Malcolm

The editing looks like it was done in a blender, and the images of death and grief are so genre-primal that the Pangs hardly bother with dialogue.

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.

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.

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

The film's larger, surprisingly mature emotional rhythms are strong enough to pull it through.

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

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

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

More of the same -- only less so.

For the most part it delivers the goods.

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

Even when the film does strike some genuinely heart-tugging notes, they’re invariably shattered by such ham-fisted lines as “You really are blind.” At times, it’s enough to make you wish you were deaf.

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.

The freak show of druggy squalor and the wired sexuality of hardcore kink and flaccid cocks float by solely for our carnivalesque amusement.

It's all such a spectacular show.

A movie with a lot on its plate, but nothing interesting on its mind.

The old hands still seem to be having a good time, so why the hell shouldnít we?

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).

Bounces through the bush in search of good will and comes up with recycled charm as it reintroduces most of the original's major characters.

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

Despite the lack of zing in Hogan's frequently self-deprecating zingers, director Simon Wincer repeatedly lets scenes dribble on until an awkward silence engulfs everyone onscreen.

Comes off as a desperate attempt to breathe life into dull proceedings.

Callahan's feature debut is a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

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.

It's supposed to be post-feminist breezy but ends up as tedious as the chatter of parrots raised on Oprah.

It's cheap thrills all the way, served up with the kind of situational purity that only Carpenter seems to care for these days. It's that simple and that much fun.

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.

Between spy training and sensitivity training, the two (Murphy/Wilson) prove nicely matched comic foils.

Lamely engineered and thoroughly exploited tragedy.

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

Seems stuck in reverse.

Ultimately, Jolie's efforts to establish a character are dashed against the film's increasingly inane dialogue.

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

Director Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers, Club Dread) does a fine job with the car jumps. Just try to wake up whenever you hear "Yee-haw."

The film seems to argue that Rock's real-life manipulation of the race card is little more than exploitation, rather than the essence of his incendiary comic critique.

A satirist such as Shearer should need a license to go hunting on terrain so rich with easy targets; he tries to bag them all, and it leaves the film to founder in aimlessness.

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

"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.

The film stinks from start to finish, like a wet burlap sack of gloom.

The film at times feels less than objective, in part due to Douglas' often breathless narration.

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

The film's failings are only highlighted by the fact that while, occasionally, we're granted real glimpses of interior lives, largely emanating from de Leon, Davao and Picache, those lives are never given the chance to take shape.

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

Racing flick results in a wreck as horrifying as the film itself.

A better title for this flick might have been Astigmatism: Nothing ever comes into focus long enough ... to deliver even the faintest sense of fright.

Nothing comes together after the first ten minutes.

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

A betrayal of all things Buffy, not to mention a complete waste of Gellar’s strengths as a young actress. Even the most hardcore of her fans would do well to give it a miss.

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.

So many romantic cliches it's laughable.

If only they had the courage of their crassness.

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

Mechanical revenge fantasy that skirts every serious issue it raises along a slick, cynical trajectory.

So what in this high-concept lame-a-thon makes screenwriter Bradley Allenstein think he can diss the Clippers?

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

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

If you're above the target age of 5, Thomas may coax you into a naplike stupor.

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.

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

Highly reductive and deathly dull slasher flick.

Opens the floodgates of cartoonish villainy and pitiful sentiment.

A pretty miserable time at the movies.

Wears its lack of originality in a crowded slasher marketplace like a red badge of desperation.

Rollerball pushes the Hollywood action movie to stratospheric new levels of incoherence; pounding at the senses, it's mashed story, character, time and space into a chunky hash.

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

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

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

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

Director Olli Saarela, who co-wrote the script with Antti Tuuri, offers up a trembling romanticism that gradually hardens -- like Eero's consciousness -- with exposure to the horrors of war.

Screams straight-to-video.

It's a nice try, but the film remains a pinhead's idea of softcore fetish material.