Steve Simels

Let's be blunt: Bass can't really act.

An extremely loud and simpleminded cross between TV's "WWF Smackdown!" and "Dumb and Dumber."

It takes perverse genius to make an action film this stupid.

If you accept the film on its own brain-damaged level, there actually are laughs to be had.

Even generally sympathetic adults may eventually find their minds wandering, if only because of the characters' continual, annoying hopping; being vegetables, they have no legs, you see.

To be fair, this could have been worse.

The truth of the matter is that, given the thoroughly manipulative, red-herring plot twists that get her to the happy ending, most audience members will have ceased to care about whether she lives or dies long before the matter is settled onscreen.

Think "The Lion King" redone for horses, with fewer deliberate laughs, more inadvertent ones and stunningly trite songs by Bryan Adams.

This fish-out-of-water buddy/action comedy is aimed squarely at undiscriminating 10-year-olds, and that demographic may well enjoy it.

But by the time the big not-so-surprise ending rolls around -- no, nothing that happened was exactly as it seemed -- most viewers will have long since stopped caring.

This totally sucks.

None of this is any more fun as it sounds -- the cancer ward scenes are truly disturbing -- but to be fair, writer/director Lone Scherfeg (the first woman to make a Dogme 95 film) manages some black-humored laughs.

A creepily unpleasant study of race and class.

The relentlessly self-congratulatory tone is oppressive.

Criticism seems irrelevant at best.

To say that the film is unenjoyable would be an overstatement; a good time can be had counting the number of reassuringly stock characters it offers up.

The fact that this is somebody's real-life story up on there the screen doesn't necessarily guarantee it's an especially fresh story.

A harmless, if ultimately inane, fantasy-comedy vehicle for youngsta-rapper Lil' Bow Wow, a 15-year-old who's already an alarmingly accomplished scene stealer.

The lame and apparently tacked-on ending (which seems to crib footage from 2000's "Gladiator"), suggests the rather terrifying prospect of a Roman-era sequel. Five words: Be afraid, be very afraid.

A self-consciously arty ensemble piece that's alternately exploitative, implausible and cliche ridden.

Along the way, director Brian Robbins indulges Reeves in too many laughable inspirational speeches. He also wastes the terrific Diane Lane in the thankless role of the kids' dedicated teacher.

It's hard to overstate just how awful this movie is, despite the efforts of the appealing cast.

A butt-numbing exercise in tedium, sporadically redeemed by moments of unintentional hilarity.