Pete Vonder Haar

The Calling breathes new life into a moribund genre by touching oft-ignored themes and offering a bit of introspection to go along with the obligatory slashed throats and biblical portents.

Hunky Dory isn't blazing any trails, but if you're not wholly burned out by the genre and/or look back fondly on the Glam era, you'll find musicals haven't yet completely gone to the (diamond) dogs.

Fails to satisfy.

As it is, you'd get the same level of excitement watching "T.J. Hooker" reruns.

Granted, you'e going to enjoy it a lot more if you spent a healthy chunk of your late teens/early 20s playing Bullshit and doing keg stands, but it's far from the worst comedy of the year.

While The Break-Up fancies itself the heir apparent to other vindictive failed relationship movies like "Modern Romance" and "War of the Roses," its lead actors lack the comparable appeal to hold our interest

Could have been both a gripping courtroom drama and a chilling "is she or isn’t she?" horror tale. What we have instead is a movie that drifts, almost unmanned, from plot point to plot point.

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.

Better than I expected, but since I expected it to be a horrific failure, that isn’t saying much.

Sommers's script relies on rapid-fire banter between Odd, girlfriend Stormy Llewellyn (Addison Timlin) — yes, that's her real name — and Chief Porter (Dafoe), but occasionally feels forced.

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

A better-quality sequel, but that wasn't really too difficult. The original was one of the worst movies of 2005, and while "Rise" won't win any awards, it's (mostly) less offensive than its predecessor. Faint praise, but I'll be damned if I go any further than that.

Too much of the time, Jackson is a complete blank, like he's bored with his own story.

Firewall’s predictable second half betrays the film's early promise.

What this movie needed was a leaner narrative focusing on Earl and Marshall while keeping Moore’s character in the background. What we end up with is a goofy and occasionally enjoyable mix of horror, comedy, and action that can’t entirely shed its excess narrative flab.

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.

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

The biggest problem with Elizabethtown isn't in its shopworn theme, but that it's perhaps the first of Crowe's movies (though "Jerry Maguire"comes very close) that really feels forced.

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

Spends too much time straddling the line between exuberant carnage and serious plotline when it should've gleefully backflipped into the former. Grudgingly recommended, but only if you've put your cerebral cortex in neutral for the evening.

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.