Robert K. Elder

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

One of the few video game movies to truly re-create the gaming experience -- from the three-dimensional maps to the structure of encountering increasingly grisly and dangerous foes at higher levels of play.

Knows when to take itself seriously and when to laugh at itself -- even if its audience isn't laughing along at every gag.

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.

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

Ultimately, Stateside ends up a diluted, scattered drama--less than the sum of its parts, but with an impressive cameo list.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

99 minutes of excruciating "reality."

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This otherwise predictable romantic comedy does have several genuinely funny scenes, thanks to Monica Potter's comic delivery and charm.

The cinematic Garfield: The Movie feels like an 82-minute commercial for Garfield, The Brand rather than cinematic dumb fun.

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

The "Showgirls" of superhero movies. This is not a compliment. A vacuous lingerie show posing as feminism, it's the biggest movie hairball this side of "Garfield."

Riddled with comic potholes.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Worth your time and money? Fuhgeddaboutit.

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

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.

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.