Rick Kisonak

Wolfgang Petersen's popcorn epic doesn't fail exactly. It just takes on too much. Modern man is at something of a disadvantage-even aided by his trusty muse, the computer-when presuming to bring the stuff of gods, myths and timeless sacred texts to the big screen.

Gratuitously brutal, chronically preposterous, abysmally unoriginal, pretty much pointless and virtually 100% free of credible characters, Derailed represents career lows for its stars while marking an unpromising English language debut for its director.

The truth is About Schmidt offers only the sporadic laugh, the less frequent original cultural insight and, at best, a craftsmanlike performance from its aging headliner. The truth is there are long stretches in the picture that are unequivocally dull.

The movie crosses the line between offering mindless entertainment and insulting our intelligence.

This is a decidedly hit or miss deal which, despite the current outpouring of critical praise, is destined to rank among the Coen's least memorable achievements.

This is one of those "Crash"-style pictures with interwoven narrative strands. The problem here is that most of the strands wind up little more than loose ends.

Who's responsible for this comedy proving such a disappointment- Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler or director Peter Segal? Nope. The correct answer: screenwriter David Dorfman.

Recycles a great many motifs from "Truman" but never comes close to putting on as good a show.

The pacing is brisk-something wacky happens every couple of minutes, the editing crisp and the effects promising. Then disaster strikes: the first act gives way to the relative witlessness of the second and third.

Elegy's last act is a mournful smorgasbord of bathos in which major and supporting characters alike drop like flies. The body count is practically Shakespearean. The same, regrettably, can't be said for Coixet's touch when it comes to tragedy.

If my moviegoing experience was magical in any way, it was only in that I once or twice nodded off for a spell.

A competently calibrated feel-good machine. It's as effective as anything on The Lifetime Channel. Which is likely where this project would have wound up were it not for the involvement of Washington.

Given their lack of training, nearly all the young performers do a commendable job. It's the director who slips up by, among other things, dividing his cast into such predictable phyla.

Long before you buy your ticket to the new Jim Carrey film, you've already been doomed to disappointment. Several parties play a role in this. Interestingly, Jim Carrey isn't one of them.

The first half of Luis (Angel Eyes) Mandoki's new thriller is as whiteknuckle, nerve-wracking as they come. The second is such a mishmash of overblown action and gaping plotholes, it's hard to believe it's the work of the same director.

The plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish and, with the story's outcome a foregone conclusion, the least the director could have done is throw in a bit of cultural enlightenment to keep the audience occupied while he connects the dots.

Watanabe's charismatic performance and a couple of colorful minor characters aside, The Last Samurai has little to recommend it.

The film doesn't have anything but bad news for Spacey fans anxious for the actor to break a stinky streak.

Goes south early and its director never comes close to turning things around.

Despite the cast's capable portrayals, it's difficult to connect with or care about any of these characters as, one by one, each stabs another in the back.

Campion and company may like to think they've made something provocative, moody and new but it's really just "Looking For Mr. Goodbar" with extra nuts.

Aside from a few routine battle scenes, the movie's action consists mostly of people slogging slowly through non-stop rain. This is not interesting, much less exciting. The dialogue is hokey hero blather.

Figgis has spent too many years crafting thoughtful, innovative films to have much of a knack for storytelling this mechanical and many are the moments when he does indeed seem to have been asleep behind the wheel.

Billed as a comedy but it would be every bit as accurate to categorize it as science fiction or a World War II drama. It is simply not a funny film.

There’s something fundamentally unconvincing and contrived about the story. Forget the fact that O’Connor hauls out every cliché in the bad cop handbook and the dialogue is more boilerplate than hard-boiled. The premise itself is just plain preposterous.

Watts is extra-watchable and, as I say, the filmmaker does achieve a style and tone the script never comes close to living up to. Otherwise, Verbinski's adaptation of the 1998 Japanese hit "Ringu" misses the mark almost completely.

The bottom line is the movie's a mess. Friedkin would like one to believe there's more than meets the eye to his tale of two trackers.

Spoof or tongue in cheek update, the movie squanders the lion's share of its time on tired, cartoon-quality sequences choreographed around ho-hum chases and explosions. None possess the satiric zip of Austin Powers-style parody.