Ruthe Stein

Has the slapped-together, cheesy look of a porno movie. While this could be distracting, the shoddiness sets the mood for a humorous spin on the European porn industry circa early 1970s.

The movie is unable to achieve lift-off and transcend the formulaic stuff coming out of Hollywood, despite the perfect casting of Uma Thurman.

A sequel arrives for Valentine's Day with the unwieldy title Step Up 2 the Streets. If it performs as well, watch for "Step Up 3: the Sprained Ankle."

Suffers from Resnais' inability to open it up and give it the look and pulse of a film.

It's amusing in a trashy sort of way.

That Pride ultimately gets to you is more of a surprise than the outcome because it's not very well-constructed.

Visually, the film is a stunner, dotted with psychedelic colors and many shades of red -- one battle is fought with red laser-gun sights -- some looking realistically like blood. When gangsters open fire, their falls are choreographed like a ballet. The problem comes when the cast opens its mouth and Elizabethan dialogue tumbles out.

This harmless bit of fluff lacks the element of surprise but is not without random charming moments supplied by its incandescent star.

Well-intentioned but frequently inert.

If you enjoy gross humor -- elevated by an occasional witty line -- and looking at babes, and don't mind a little blood and gore, do I have a date movie for you.

It says something about this movie that Redford is at his most compelling playing opposite a nag.

Perhaps the humor has been lost in translation.

Far from the worst cookie-cutter film to come off the Hollywood assembly line, merely the latest.

Another art film that's more pretentious than it needs to be.

The whole thing is dizzying, like "Moulin Rouge" without songs and dances extolling love.

The movie is shamelessly manipulative.

Although the acting is uneven and the movie's dead spots make it feel far longer than its running time, the twist in Twist' is certainly clever.

You can be 100 percent in favor of rescuing adorable orphans from war-torn zones and still find The Children of Huang Shi a tough haul.

It lives up to its title, flying by in fast motion. Even the first-wave MTV generation may find the pace exhausting, but this piece of fluff wasn't made for them.

Often amusing but lacks the necessary bite.

A needlessly complicated and confusing thriller.

For all the filmmaker's good intentions, Fast Food Nation isn't a particularly good movie. It doesn't hold together or grip you the way a documentary might have.

As moving as some parts are, it's muddled by a script that tries to pack in too much. There's sufficient material for a couple of films and a sitcom.

A peculiar little film -- grim and disturbing yet perversely riveting.

Leaves you feeling buoyed, but you must endure a level of overacting more suitable for the soaps.

A supernatural thriller that keeps your attention while failing to hold you in its grip.

Broken English doesn't break any code or offer original insights on the subject. But there's a spark whenever Posey and Poupaud are together.

Vitus is likable enough and definitely suitable entertainment for young people willing to read subtitles.

This will never be the movie of the month, but you could do a lot worse at the multiplex.

Feels like a personal vendetta.

Much about Living Out Loud is pretty far-fetched, but at least it accurately portrays the dating possibilities for newly divorced women of a certain age.

An unfortunate casting decision, however, comes close to sabotaging a witty script.

The Pillow Book sometimes seems like three different movies, each one an eyeful but together too much of a good thing.

A lumpy concoction.

The film will have to settle for a bogey rather than a par. Still, some hyperbole is warranted, like "Safest Movie to Take the Entire Family To."

Has a certain charm and is sure to appeal to tweens, at least the female variety.

But the jury is still out on Romano's future in movies. Hackman blows him off the screen.

While still trumpeting human ingenuity, the new movie lacks the subtlety, character development and exceptional ensemble acting of the 1965 version.

Lumpy.

Lacks compelling narrative.

To label the parents in Wah-Wah dysfunctional doesn't adequately describe their wildly inappropriate behavior.

This is familiar territory for writer-director Nancy Meyers, Hollywood's queen of the chick flick. Her latest has charming moments and a hopeful message for despondent singles, but it lacks the emotional resonance of Meyers' "Something's Gotta Give" and the zaniness of "What Women Want."

Distressingly predictable and not a tad scary. But as a parody of the genre, it's a scream, like the "Scream'' franchise, only funnier. It's as if all the ingredients for a thriller coagulated into Silly Putty.

Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard are incredibly compelling and hold your attention despite Jordan's deliberately slow pacing.

Unfortunately, Hotel de Love also has all the originality of an all-purpose valentine. First- time filmmaker Craig Rosenberg appears to have seen every relationship movie ever made. To his credit, he borrowed only from the best.

While the documentary does a credible job of pointing out the magnitude of the problem, it skirts the issue of what can be done about it and by whom.

The producers have stated that they're going after an American market that supports Spanish-language TV networks, radio stations and newspapers. This niche audience may well respond to not being required to read subtitles, for once, in a movie geared to them.

A pretty ugly movie in its own right.

An overwrought and ultimately silly thriller.

A noble try that disappoints.

The truly shocking thing about the new version is that it's not bloody awful.

The least appealing of the trilogy.

A potentially great movie winds up buried inside a just OK one.

Superficially entertaining romantic romp.

Doesn't have much to say.

An energetic young cast, consisting of a mix of professional dancers and actors who do convincing imitations of Arthur Murray graduates, is positively inspired in numbers combining traditional ballroom steps with hip-hop.

The movie is one big in-joke. It's watchable, but eventually wears you down with its over-the-top cleverness.

Harris' impressive channeling of Ludwig is diluted by the decision of screenwriters Stephen Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson to put the copyist front and center, possibly to distinguish their feature from "Immortal Beloved."

May be too convincing for its own good.

The attempt to be clever is transparent.

Extremely bleak but occasionally compelling debut feature.

A clever idea, but it's not quite pulled off.

Well-intentioned but lifeless.

Only intermittently funny.

A neo-noir thriller long on atmosphere and short on production values.

The last half is so superior to the first that you wish they'd rethought the whole thing and devised a way to make it more of a one piece.

Another romantic comedy about a career woman who has everything except a man, is Jennifer Aniston's attempt to break out of her TV role. But she doesn't have the magic on the big screen to make us forget where she came from.

Given his built-in appeal, Perry has the opportunity to broaden the subject matter of so-called black movies. He takes a stab at it in "Girls," but he could do so much better.

Despite a clever script and top-notch cast, whose commitment to doing service in the indie branch of the industry is commendable, Unknown falls apart just when it should be coming together.

Something to see and occasionally even to laugh at.

While often cliche ridden and preposterous, it's too busy and loud to put anyone to sleep.

A wildly erratic, often annoying but never boring endeavor.

The material obviously had to be stretched to fill the big screen for almost two hours.

A mostly entertaining movie with built-in appeal to young audiences. The good news for parents is that it won't put them to sleep.

Has to be one of the least charming French romances to find American distribution in recent years.

As a romantic comedy, Cease Fire is more annoying than amusing.

It's hard to get swept away when you're struggling to figure out who's doing what to whom and why.

Amusing performances -- especially from Willis, who takes on a new personality with each new hairstyle -- can't disguise the fact that the film is basically a pastiche of recent movies.

The mystery of Nancy Drew' is how a movie can get so many things right -- particularly the inspired casting of Emma Roberts as the spunky teenage sleuth -- yet ultimately disappoint.

Isn't likely to win Murphy another Oscar nomination, but it allows him to do what he does best - loads of physical comedy.

Art School Confidential exudes confidence as long as it is satirizing a questionable, at least according to Clowes, institution of higher learning. But the film loses its way with multiple subplots, becoming a hodgepodge that isn't particularly hard to follow, but, far worse, provides no compelling reason to bother.

Well intentioned, but only occasionally creepy.

The message is muddled.

The film version is gorgeous to look at and contains amusing performances from Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett in the title roles. But it fails to get inside the minds of gamblers as Peter Carey so admirably did in his Booker Prize-winning novel.

As a sports drama -- a genre that's gotten entirely too much play lately -- "Dreamer" is singularly unexciting.

It works primarily because of the chemistry between Chan and Tucker, which is at its combustible best this time out.

A romantic saga that dares to ask realistic questions.

Wildly uneven, with long stretches as dull as Dickie.

Lacks what could kindly be called coherence.

Harris and particularly Elise give over-the-top performances that bring Diary to the edge of soap opera.

Each time Something New touches on something controversial, it quickly retreats to some silliness.

Pretentious drama.

Every once in a while you catch glimpses of originality and see what Gray Matters might have been if it hadn't gone soft and safe.

The Fountain' never comes together. Like the time traveler at its center, it's all over the map.

Lange seems at a loss to know how to convey Martha's malevolence -- and writer-director Jonathan Darby offers almost no guidance.

It is crystal clear who screwed up this tortuously slow-moving romantic drama.

A mess, and that's really a shame.

The film is a particular disappointment considering its pedigree.

A slow-moving family drama guaranteed to induce a nap if not somnambulism.

The sequel is one big tease.

The movie [Sugarman] made gives little indication that she understands teen girls, dramatic or plain. Much of Confessions seems clueless and -- even worse for moviegoers of any age -- listless.

Recalling the earthiness Broderick Crawford brought to the original, I couldn't help thinking Gandolfini should have been cast as Willie.

The biggest puzzlement about "What'' is what it's doing in major movie theaters around the country when it so clearly belongs on one of those small cable channels given to peculiar programming.

Shoot 'Em Up is not only the title of Hollywood's latest descent into nonsensical mayhem but pretty much sums up the entire inane plot as well.

Muddled, to put it kindly.

A dreary little thriller that irritates more than it thrills.

Poor casting is compounded by a ludicrous script.

A pile of junk.

As bad as its title.

A half-baked script by Jacob Meszaros and Mya Stark admittedly gives Feig little to work with. But his young cast is capable of a lot more than is required of them in this so-called comedy.

Although well intentioned, has the superficial gloss of a TV movie of the week.

It's as if a trumped-up biopic of Andy Warhol were to appear titled "Soup.''

Sharkboy relies almost entirely on 3-D for its kicks. The novelty, however, quickly wears thin with the thinnest of stories to project.

A turkey.

The desperation TV stars must feel to be on the big screen is the only explanation for Edie Falco and Elisha Cuthbert's appearance in The Quiet, a creepy family drama that reeks of pretentiousness.

Sitting through Diggers is so tedious that you might find yourself envying the clam diggers. At least they get to be outdoors.

A Western short on dialogue and long on pomposity, is little more than an extended chase scene down a snow-filled mountaintop to a desert floor.

Although The Reaping' borrows elements from classics of the genre -- rips them off might be more accurate -- it fails to build the psychological tension that made them so creepily good.

A lame pastiche of Hollywood romances.

Mitchell may be another Russ Meyer -- a dubious honor -- but he's no Tony Kushner.

Two guys panting over the same babe leads to tedium, despite a near-record number of overheated sex scenes.

A Christian-themed film about redemption with almost no redeeming qualities as entertainment.

The prologue sets a simpleton tone that, distressingly, continues throughout.

With words streaming out of their mouths instead of into bubbles, Ethan and his gang of past, present and future lovers sound laughingly unbelievable. They're on the road to inanity.

Noirish thrillers live or die by their plot twists and dialogue -- talk literally being cheap compared to action shots. Unfortunately, the script by first-time filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson fails on both counts.

Chock-full of holes.

For all the precision shooting, Autumn is a colossal misfire, a tedious film noir wannabe. It doesn't even qualify as film gris.

This is a movie of excesses that doesn't know when to settle down. It aims to be a slapstick comedy, a romantic comedy and a plain old romance but falls short of each goal.

It would require a near-lethal injection of nitrous oxide to induce laughter.

A disappointing sequel to the far funnier "Diary of a Mad Black Woman."

The dreary teen drama Step Up appears to be cobbled together from bits and pieces of successful movies.

Spending an hour and a half inside a uterus might be more entertaining than this tiresome sequel.

From watching this meandering, stilted movie, anyone unfamiliar with Charles Dickens' novel would be not only disinclined to pick it up but also clueless as to why it's considered great.

A bigger mess than the gas crisis.

Filth & Wisdom is dead in the water, an excruciating bore even at a compact 84 minutes.

The best that can be said of this charmless animated picture is that whether or not it ends happily -- an outcome you're unlikely to give a hoot about -- it does, happily, end.

A comedy so unfunny, it's tragic.

An annoying little film that attempts to be lascivious but is merely ludicrous.

So disturbing it makes you uncomfortable watching it.

Annoying, soporific and singularly humorless.

Save the price of admission to this dull retread and go have your hair done.

This so-called comedy is so not funny, it makes "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo" look like Chaplin.

Hogwash and not even funny hogwash.

Exactly what the title implies: mindless.

Annoyingly simplistic.

The young people in Nowhere spend a lot of time worrying about the world coming to an end. Watching these sour characters abuse themselves and one another, the more immediate concern becomes: When is this movie going to end?