Rick Kisonak

Identity steams my broccoli big time and not just because its surprise twist is an insult to the intelligence of every audience member.

The role is ill-suited for Kinnear's talents. Abraham's pacing is glacial, the cinematography is flat, the score by Jill Savitt is suited better to a supermarket and then there's the fact that the climax can be seen coming a mile away. Maybe the biggest, though, is its failure to play fair with the audience.

The film has brief flashes of believability and humor. By and large, though, the script is uninspired, the picture's characters are stick figures, its dialogue is lackluster and the star's performance seldom rises above the adequate.

To put it in the best light possible, I recommend thinking of Four Christmases not so much as a really short movie but as a very special holiday episode of a sitcom.

Bottom line: the spectacle he was preparing may well have provided Jackson with the appropriate note on which to close his long, controversial career. This, however, I think even die hard fans will concur, isn't it.

The best they were able to manage, apparently, was a grabbag of spectral sights and spooky touches grabbed from better horror films and a final act that raises more questions than it answers.

While it fails to shed significant new light on its subject, Gibson's film and the all-Jesus-all-the-time attention from the media it's attracted do tell us something somewhat disconcerting about the state of American culture: That the way to make a religion based on love and forgiveness relevant today is to turn it into violent entertainment.

The men in this movie are little more than beer ad cliches going through Ford tough motions as though trapped in a bad country music video. There's not a realistic moment or character or performance in the picture.

I feel guilty and somehow unclean. And all I did was watch it.

Godawful mess.

It's such a dumb movie, it's hard to believe it wasn't an SNL sketch first.

Even by Hollywood sequel standards, this is lazily conceived, cynically recycled stuff.

By far the most appallingly cretinous picture in which Keaton has ever appeared.

This is shtick that’s minimally a generation past its expiration date.

This is a movie that should have a medical warning in its trailer. Caution: viewing may be hazardous to your filmgoing fun; side effects can include drowsiness, irritation and difficulty swallowing.