Pete Vonder Haar

I think this one of the first King movies to legitimately give me the creeps.

Say what you want about Mel Gibson, but that sadomasochistic anti-Semite knows how to shoot a movie.

Is Walk Hard” funny? Sure; very much so, in places. At least I think it is. It might just be the “Date Movie” talking.

Doesn’t break any new ground – it actually steals from half a dozen other sci-fi movies – but it’ll make enough at the box office to justify further game flicks.

The movie wastes the talents of its two leads by refusing to take any risks with the material, marching in lockstep to every genre cliché.

As it is, Flightplan is half of a pretty good movie. But to maintain that impression, I recommend you take a nap for the last 40 minutes.

I can't condemn it outright, but damned if I can remember anything (aside from Izzard's performance) that would make me recommend it.

Watchmen is indeed gorgeous, with Gibbons' original work reproduced and – in some cases – improved upon by detailed F/X, but even at a healthy two hours and 41 minutes the story feels truncated. Even abrupt.

Skills Like This is not a movie that asks to be taken seriously.

The film's effectiveness is bolstered by juxtaposed scenes of fat and happy Americans and Europeans slurping up frozen chai lattes and clucking about how big Starbuck's is getting with scenes of children going into "therapeutic feeding centers" in the region where Starbuck's gets its coffee because they can't afford to by corn.

Veers between flaccid slapstick and mean-spirited vulgarity.

Clearly, Gomorrah is supposed to represent the best of today’s European cinema...and if this is the best, I would hate to imagine the worst! Gomorrah is a boring mess focusing on how the mob in today’s Naples has its tentacles stretched far and wide

Let’s not lose sight of what's really been accomplished here. Alex and Marty – just like Batman and Robin, Fred and Barney, and Snagglepuss – are welcome additions to the gay animation pantheon.

300 is a feast for the senses (well, two of them anyway) and an impressive technical achievement. More than that, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

For an origin story about one of the most compelling and important characters in history, The Nativity Story is pretty damn boring.

Whatever the final analysis, Reno 911!: Miami is a welcome breath of fresh air in a year that's already forced audiences to endure the likes of "Norbit."

What, a white woman can’t take an innocent drive through the ghetto without arousing suspicion? What’s this world coming to?

Easily one of the most lackadaisical movies I've seen. Don't get me wrong, the plot is entertaining enough, and there are some genuine laughs, but almost everyone in the movie is half-a--ing it.

While Howl’s Moving Castle is far from perfect, it’s still a very good movie. It’s just not a great one.

Does it herald a renaissance in the action genre? Not really, but it's a welcome throwback to good old-fashioned, '80s-style lunkhead violence, and no one takes a punch, kick, elbow, or bullet quite like John McClane.

The original “Elizabeth” was visually lush and quite engaging, but this is a sprawling mess.

Very little in Reservation Road ultimately rings true, which makes the anguished theatrics on display that much more exasperating.

Murphy doesn't have much of a handle on juggling laughs with pathos, and this makes some of the more touching scenes unintentionally amusing. The film, like Augusten's life, is uneven but not without its charms.

Dark Water isn't a bad horror movie, simply because it isn’t horror at all: a full hour passes before anything remotely scary occurs, and all the suspenseful scenes take place in the final ten minutes (and are all fully shown in the trailer). What's left is tedium and a seemingly endless build-up to nothing much at all, making it a bad movie. Period.

The plot is paper-thin, and the set-up is beyond contrived (a plant waterer?), but there are a surprising number of laughs, and the saccharine content is kept to a minimum. A mostly enjoyable experience, all told.

Burton fans and those eager for a more accurate adaptation of the novel will be happy with this new movie, while nostalgia-addled Gen X-ers and stoners of all ages will always have the original.

Surprisingly good.

A bleak and powerful movie, made all the more sobering by how much of it isn't fiction.

The recreational vehicle has a long and storied tradition in American cinema, from "Damnation Alley" to "Lost in America" to "Stripes." Sadly, RV shares little of its namesake' nationwide appeal.

It's an inferior remake (of a movie that wasn't that great to begin with), it's poorly acted, and it's yet another in an unending string of PG-13 "horror" movies that do nothing to build even the most rudimentary sense of real dread.

A genuinely engrossing film.

Strong performances from Vera Farmiga and Hugh Dillon keep things from becoming overdramatic.

The Wicker Man isn't all that bad a movie; it's visually striking and ambitious in some ways. It just fails to bring enough to the table to fully distance itself from the original.

“Syriana's” dumber, louder cousin.

An arresting and disturbing piece of work that gets its message across without coming off as overly preachy.

The Ringer is astoundingly craptastic not because the handicapped are handled poorly (though if they were paid more than union scale I'd be surprised), but because it's one of the most singularly unfunny films ever made.

As a look at the disenfranchised of America, Explicit Ills could use some work. As a debut, however, it's quite promising. I'm looking forward to seeing what Webber comes up with next.

1408 isn’t great cinema, but does an adequate job in spite of its flaws.

For my money, no movie comes close to capturing the high school experience like "The Substitute."

The original movie One Missed Call is based on was pretty tame, at least by Miike standards. And since it appears studios have no intention of halting this flood of abysmal rehashes, allow me to suggest that they at least have the stones not to pussyfoot around and give us a remake worthy of Hollywood, of America, and of an audience that lacks the willpower to stop buying tickets to half-assed crap.

Even understanding the audience for which Kicking & Screaming is aiming, it's hard not to notice the flaws.

Far and away the best of the Star Wars prequels (tough chore, that) and also holds its own with the hallowed films of the original trilogy.

The biggest loser in all of this is Chan, whose legacy over here won’t be his 20+ years as a martial arts pioneer, but rather his playing straight man to the likes of Tucker and Owen Wilson.

Once you become accustomed to her material and begin to anticipate it, some of the shine comes off the act.

A film about a family billed as "bizarrely dysfunctional" – is a pleasant enough experience. However, it probably could have used a little more of the bizarre or dysfunctional to spice things up.

If nothing else, Into the Wild is a beautiful film. Penn meticulously shot in the actual locations McCandless visited, and Eric Gautier's cinematography is breathtaking, many scenes are framed in such a way as to almost Hirsch entirely, further emphasizing how solitary his trek actually was.

It isn't as if any of the actors do an especially bad job or anything – Fox is capable enough as the lead, and Whitley and Wilson especially carry themselves quite well – but you can't help asking yourself, what's the point? Are there that many more broad topics in need of shallow examination by a Hollywood studio picture?

An almost constant misfire. From its paper-thin plot to the utterly flat script, virtually nothing works.

The only mildly interesting bit of casting comes from bringing Cartwright back (as one of Bennell’s patients).

What Flags of Our Fathers is not, however, is moving, evocative, or very unique.

The release of Fantastic Four marks the beginning of the end for movies based on Marvel Comics' upper tier of characters.

The problem with Sandler’s latest movies is that he now feels the need to inject some sort of dramatic conflict in order to complete his character’s shallow story arc of maturation/redemption. Introducing such mawkish sentimentality causes the humor level in his films, never that elevated to begin with, to sink like America’s credibility overseas.

Casino Royale is quite possibly the best action movie of the year.

Dreamgirls is a better musical than "Chicago" or "Rent," but then, that isn't really saying much.

Ultimately a story about the American mindset post-9/11, Right at Your Door is also a much more personal tale, as it forces all of us to consider what we would do if the chips were down.

The real problem is that Sex and the City is, except for a few laughs, mostly just irritating.

Depressingly inert.

Waiting… is only intermittently funny, but when it is, it's hilarious.

Benjamin Button is pretty much just "Gump" with better cinematography.

It isn't going to set the world on fire, but it's perfectly acceptable for what it is.

Veers back and forth between indigestibly syrupy romance and vulgar "ethnic" comedy, with healthy doses of Christian proselytizing thrown in for good measure.

The festival's audience is as integral a part of the proceedings as the music, and we get a rich portrait of the wide variety of pranksters, iconoclasts, and freaks that descend upon the West Country of England in the hundreds of thousands every year. Glastonbury offers an exhaustive look at what remains the largest event of its kind.

While I could probably spend an entire weekend watching Milla twirl her kukris, it's obvious from the rather lazy pacing that Anderson is growing increasingly self-indulgent with his creation.

I humbly submit that Cedric the Entertainer be required to give up the "Entertainer" portion of his nom de plume until he actually starts entertaining us.

Stunningly animated, cleverly scripted, and genuinely humorous.

Lady is more of an ensemble picture, and truly the Cove is the most ethnically diverse and community-minded apartment complex in the continental United States.

It's a bit of a shaky first screenwriting effort for Coupland, but not without its charms.

It’s not just one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Period.

Watching this movie is like sitting on your couch for two hours to catch a little network prime time: you may be mildly entertained, but damned if you’ll remember any of it five minutes later. On the plus side, you probably won’t care.

Give Harsh Times an "E" for effort, but not much else.

It'll appeal to that segment of the population that goes to movies like this on Valentine's Day, but other than that, Something New feels pretty worn.

That legendary adolescent tolerance for garbage may be severely tested by Supercross.