Stephen Cole

As for Vaughn, he seems exhausted by his strenuous efforts to bring a few sparks of spontaneity to such an overcalculated Christmas product.

Horror fans anticipating grisly laughs are in for a jolt. Because the new Last House, though terrifying, is never, ever fun.

Yes, The Mysterious Island is everything a 12-year-old boy could want – endless adventure involving a reckless adolescent hero, with a pretty girl in a clinging T-shirt around to watch him struggle.

Barrymore's charm helps make Beverly Hills Chihuahua a congenial family outing.

Who wants to watch any film where Sarandon, the sexiest 60-year-old woman alive, is first prize in a corn-eating contest?

Try not to be in the same room as Jesus Henry Christ. At the very least run when the first fire alarm sounds.

The film has enough laughs to stock a 90-minute entertainment. Unfortunately it throws out enough material to fill five comedies. And most of the jokes die in silence, throwing off a flop-sweat tsunami that carries away Short's best work.

It's an action-comedy. It's in 3-D. There's a video-game tie-in. Throw in a fluorescent Slushie from the candy counter and your eight-year-old will be in heaven.

A farther-fetched fantasy: In addition to asking we believe our loosely packed academic can play Rocky, Here Comes the Boom imagines a world in which butterball Everyman Scott and the fabulously lush Bella (Salma Hayek) might argue and bill and coo and eventually fall in love.

The Virginity Hit is another slice of "American Pie," one more youth comedy that encourages its cast (and audience) to ridicule a fumbling, well-meaning teenager.

Perhaps the young performers are in such a good mood because they're liberated from having to play straight-as-a-ruler teen melodrama.

As for children's entertainment needs, well, having seen both "The Golden Compass" and Alvin and the Chipmunks with a full theatre of four- to 12-year-olds, this reviewer is honour-bound to report that Alvin wins the kids' vote, paws down.

The script is terrible - a confounding mish-mash of action-thriller chases, sci-fi travelogue and phony political intrigue.

There is no energy here. No sense of movie invention or fun.

Trespass is at least a suitable rest stop for his (Cage) anguish. An unapologetic B-movie that comes with lots of flashbacks, gunplay and shouting, it can easily be savoured and forgotten inside 90 minutes.

If 1911 doesn't impress as historical spectacle, neither does it rank high as a Jackie Chan film.

Scott means for his entertainment package to be hip, hysterical fun. But his stylistic embellishments and indiscriminate appetite for sensation crowds his title character right out of the film.

Shutter has the look and feel of a proper J-horror film. Tokyo is seen as a series of gloomy gun metal skies. And the acting is more subdued than in Hollywood horror movies.

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy fails to live up to either its promise or title.

Sorry to disappoint anyone who saw the cast list of this film and presumed Julie Andrews was going to play the horrific serial killer Tooth Fairy from the Hannibal Lecter movies.

A quirkily efficient genre exercise that knows exactly where and when to administer its cattle-prod shivers.

A superior entertainment to both "RE 1" and "Alien vs. Predator."

If all this sounds familiar, it should. Fathers seldom fare very well in family comedies.

All of this is interesting, but not all that entertaining.

If you have kids who are easily frightened, bring them to Alpha and Omega, a 3-D movie with training wheels. Kids may not like it, but they'll never fall off the ride.

There is no narrative tension in the film, however, just a variety of grisly crucifixions. And the morality tales are blood-stained window dressing.

Unfortunately, both Bridges and Anderson are only intermittently in the movie. And when they're not around, How to Lose Friends loses its satirical edge, becoming an alarmingly safe, almost corny romantic comedy.

Formula sequel right down to its zany subtitle -- Armed and Fabulous. Bullock deserves better. We deserve better. Rev up that '57 Chevy.