Robert K. Elder

Riddled with comic potholes.

Shackles its characters with stale dialogue straight out of decades-old Sgt. Rock comic books.

Sizzles for a half-hour, then fizzles.

The beautifully shot but dramatically strained I Am David falls prey to the defect of all poor road movies: In gluing together unbelievable but convenient episodes with sugary sentimentality, it loses most of its credibility.

Seems a little lightweight, even for a kids' movie.

Takes us to familiar lands but without any of the original's magic.

Whatever is lost in translation can't keep Appleseed from feeling a decade late--and its animation from looking like a relic on arrival.

A sweetly benign comedy that allows the actor (Jones) to lampoon his tough guy image honed in "The Fugitive" and "U.S. Marshals."

Though Katsuhiro Otomo's animated Victorian-era adventure Steamboy stars British characters, it's a Japanese film through and through.

Action films can't be this consistently absurd, can't paint their heroes into such dangerous corners, from which only cocktails of luck and divine intervention can save them, over and over. It's a bad-faith bargain with the audience and bad storytelling.

Gratuitous gore and young, nubile flesh bind together a cardboard plot.

Ultimately, it's Paul Giamatti ("Sideways"), playing Braddock's manager Joe Gould, who shines. In another actor's hands, Gould would be a secondary character lost in Crowe's shadow, but Giamatti outshines his co-stars at times with his everyman looks and delivery.

Exploits the epidemic of kidnapping in Venezuela without offering solutions or insight--only sophomoric platitudes. Jakubowicz's talents as a filmmaker are many, but crafting an articulate, well-examined social theory isn't among them.

There is a good movie here--Strait actually sings the songs that stand on their own, and he's appealing, despite the rock movie cliches.

Both Jackson and Levy are better than director Les Mayfield's ("Blue Streak") meandering comedy.

About overcoming adversity and one's innermost fears. On this count, Paxton hits the ball squarely in capturing the psychology of his characters, but hooks it into the sand trap of effects and thematic overselling.

Doom, the film, aspires to be more than just a gory shoot em' up--though it'd still be a stretch to call it a thinking man's action movie.

By forcing definition on Flux, the filmmakers rob her of any allure. What do they offer instead? Clumsy exposition, bland PG-13 gunfights and subpar computer animation.

Compared with Martin's first "Dozen" and the recent mega-family movie "Yours, Mine and Ours," this sequel is Academy Award material.

He's endearing and affable when finding humor and even introspective life lessons after arrests, drug use and a near-death experience.

Diamond Men's potential as a diamond in the rough turn out to be more "rough" than "diamond."

Spears delivers a performance with the same sincerity she invests into a Pepsi commercial, only this film contains twice the sugary calories.

Oscillates between pragmatist genius and B-movie mediocrity.

Splashes its drama all over the screen, subjecting its audience and characters to action that feels not only manufactured, but also so false you can see the filmmakers' puppet strings.

It's one thing for a script to set the framework for an action film -- it's quite another when the script gets in the way.

If you can simply get lost in the crushing splendor of the waves themselves, the script might not leave you so seasick.

The director's lack of restraint and overabundance of ambition makes "Altar Boys" not boring, but troubled.

First-time director Paul Hunter delivers a quick-cut, loud movie that betrays his MTV roots -- but then again, the script never demands that he do much more than exactly that.

Unfortunately, the home-run performances of Cube and Epps are handicapped by inept and illogical action sequences.

Like too many sports-related movies, this one falls back on that One Big Game, the final score that will set everything right.

A magic-meets-macho cop movie that's more gimmick than actual movie.

Muddles through as a film so uninterested in character, it doesn't bother assigning names to them.

Sonnenfeld mishandles the broad part of the comedic formula, preferring repetition to thematic development.

While Reyes seeks his own ambitious style, he can't quite step out from under De Palma's shadow and thematic choices. Everything from the voiceover narration to the final frame in Empire looks and feels like a low-budget hybrid of "Scarface" or "Carlito's Way."

Suit #3: But what will we call the sequel? Suit #1: "XXXX"? Suit #2: Brilliant!

Like Ice Cube's "Friday," How High probably will survive as an underground classic, until it's pushed further underground and forgotten by the next disposable "cult classic" to hit video.

Plays so flat, so to close its "movie message" formula, that it seems as if we've seen this movie before.

Leaves us puzzled as to why the term "damned" applies at all, when vampirism is depicted as so cool, fashion-savvy and glamorous.

Hotel might be best described as the art-house version of "Cannonball Run."

Sacrificing content for style, Caruso gives us a lot to look at but little to ponder.

It's an event film, all about flash and spectacle, even though the movie itself is void of any real substance.

When Serving Sara reaches beyond its grasp and dreams big, Perry and Hurley float the movie on aplomb and wit. When the film gears down for slower-paced set pieces and disposable villains, its stars find themselves knee-deep in a giant comedy cow pie.

Faces the same problem of all sex-themed films, in that cinematic sex is often unsexy.

Scary Movie 2 had seven writers. Seven. That's one writer for every big laugh in its stealthy 82 minutes. More frightening: these jokes are worth waiting for.

It can't help but fall prey itself to a final deadly genre cliché: Its soundtrack outsparkles the movie.

This sophomoric little gimmick picture -- although at times, serving as no more than a showcase for daredevil snowboarding -- provides enough powder power to keep the audience laughing, even over the rocky parts.

An old-fashioned comedy. And in this case, "old-fashioned" means tired, out of date and so abominably blah that you'll fall asleep in your popcorn.

Although his is not a perfect film, Tollin employs his soap-opera dialogue and aim-for-the-solar-plexus message quite unapologetically.

Plot doesn't matter much here, as Scary Movie 3 exists solely to reference and lampoon other movies, in this case "The Ring," "Signs " and "8 Mile."

The words "Welcome foolish mortals" open Walt Disney Pictures' The Haunted Mansion, a movie based on Disneyland and Walt Disney World's classic theme park attractions. The foolish mortals, of course, would be those who pay $9 a ticket at the door.

Has the shelf life of a dented milk carton. Pop-culture movies in general age rapidly due to ever-changing slang and fashions.

In his thoughtfully paced, well-acted film, Hoge doesn't set out to solve the "why" of Leland's ghastly crime. He's more interested in examining the reason why society needs to create and interpret a reason for horror.

Downright scary in some places, Godsend might be more potent if it wasn't watered down by religious trope predictability.