Robert K. Elder

Might be justified as "mindless fun" if it weren't for the acute lack of fun in its 93 minutes.

Jakes' characters are points to be made, flesh and blood cautionary tales that don't particularly feel human. His dialogue, even in the mouths of Michelle and her troubled mother, sounds as if it comes straight from the pulpit.

Worst of all, though, is the movie's moral maneuvering.

So dark and dirge-like are its first 85 minutes that a few uplifting minutes at the end can't dissipate the somber cloud Noel summons.

Tries hard to be sweet but plays like "Pollyanna" with fleas.

Against "Whale Rider's" well-acted, intimate story, Gordon's film feels like an endless spiral of sub-par soap-opera acting, mired in trite, predictable dialogue.

If "Mean Girls" was Lohan's debutante ball, "Herbie" sits her back at the kiddie table. She's matured, and no longer fits in the Disney mold.

If only they didn't cannibalize their source material so much, then take an extreme rule reversal just before the end credits, they might have achieved something original, rather than just a fan-fiction derivation of George A. Romero's canon.

Evil isn't this boring.

Bad decision after bad decision occurs over 93 minutes.

Even as slapstick, it's a major snoozefest.

Though The Kid & I falters as both a comedy and an After School Special, it works as a rather touching episode of "This is Your Life," with a parade of cameos from Arnold's career that'll coax a sniffle or two from his family.

Knoxville, Jed Rees and Bill Chott act daffy and more impaired than their counterparts, and that never sat right with me. This may not be the equivalent of acting in blackface, but it's awfully close.

Anytime Jaa isn't on screen, The Protector sputters.

It's tempting to call traveling on Juwanna Mann, except it never goes anywhere. This film fouls out.

Amiable Gooding still smiles through it all, weathering the cold, physical abuse and implied racism, doing his best to make his audience believe that Snow Dogs isn't offensive mush. But he can't bring it off.

A pair of decent performances does not a movie make, however, as Mazur and Giovinazzo are surrounded by fourth-tier actors (Ventresca and Steven Bauer) and spotty directing of a mediocre script.

Commits the cardinal sin of all bad IMAX films: It favors visuals over narrative, glitter over substance.

Against the rest of his dramatically flimsy crew, Snipes' sunglasses-at-midnight strut conveys an almost lifelike sheen. Almost. He's more alive than the movie, which is dead on arrival.

Plagued by continuity problems, ham-fisted storytelling and a problematic voiceover by Da Brat, Civil Brand feels less like a prison movie than a prison sentence.

Limps along on a squirm-inducing fish-out-of-water formula that goes nowhere and goes there very, very slowly.

Slow and dragging, Pootie Tang is worse than a below-average sketch-to-screen Saturday Night Live film.

Not only does American Outlaws distort history, but the filmmakers have created a dull, one-dimensional pop icon out of James' complex character and legend.

Worth your time and money? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Jason X conjures up more giggles than scares, assuming you make it through the first 15 minutes.

If "American Beauty" were a bland comedy, it would be Joe Somebody.

As scary and minor-chord heavy as FearDotCom can be, there's no big payoff, no logical resolution.

Offers the most onscreen explosions in recent memory. It's almost pornography for arsonists.

At the end of 83 unmerciful minutes, audiences will be exclaiming, "Dude, I can't believe I sat through that movie!?" Stick to the trailer.

With Clockstoppers, Frakes hobbles along with a high-concept film that doesn't live up to its potential.

Black delivers the best line (“Do you want me to get naked and start the revolution?”), and Lithgow scores a giggle for calling his ex-wife “coyote ugly” to her face, but neither of them can disguise this lemon.

Good performances in bad movies are nothing new, but it's sad that Moore's first major cinematic outing scrapes the bottom of the melodramatic barrel.

Neither drama nor comedy, Summer Catch is a long, slow lob of a movie that never crosses the plate.

Replete with audience-insulting writing and blatantly hateful jokes, storytelling like this makes most video game plots look like "Moby Dick."

Plays like an amateur debut effort written over a weekend during which its writer wasn't entirely sober.

This low-budget comedy will most likely try the patience of a paying audience with its uneven pacing, wavering tone and poor production quality.

Were it not for young star Amanda Bynes' energetic good nature in the face of drab dialogue and wooden stereotypes, What a Girl Wants might have been a career-ending movie violation rather than just an embarrassing fender-bender.

Serves as both an homage to and shameless thief of its influences. The result: a sprawling, deformed, undisciplined piece of cinema that hobbles along on weak, genre-splicing tactics.

When a movie keeps repeating its title, you know it's a stinker.

Like all B-movies (or in this case, pseudo B-movies), "Skeleton" contains sparkling moments of promise and camp performance.

It breaks director Billy Wilder's most important movie commandment: Thou Shall Not Bore. It's just not funny.

99 minutes of excruciating "reality."

Caruso, who showed flair in the Val Kilmer vehicle "The Salton Sea," has a penchant for the dark side. In this case, it's the plodding, predictable ZIP code of the dark side.

Is it a political movie? Yes. A movie with strong ideas and issues? Yes. But propaganda with its heart in the right place is still propaganda, and seldom easy to watch.

In a case study of how to screw up a simple, powerful revenge story, director Jonathan Hensleigh punishes audiences with an unbearably sluggish action movie that requires the word "action" to be placed in quotes.

To call this movie a dog would also be an insult to canines, so let's just say Scooby-Doo 2 is a Scooby-Don't.

Released in theaters five years after its 1999 Sundance Film Festival premiere, Kalem's film is too precious, too self-conscious and far too enamored with itself to ever have any kind of genuine emotional truth.