Tom Russo

Writer-director Boaz Yakin delivers his conflicting elements mostly as intended, and with obvious ambition. But he fails to take care of certain fundamentals - most problematically, coaxing out the emotion he's seeking from Statham and young newcomer Catherine Chan.

After a fast, funny start, the new sequel, Johnny English Reborn, proves to be more of the same.

The Wild Life, while pleasant, is just too flat to meet the challenge.

The script’s messy seams also show in the parade of sidekicks that passes through Kaulder’s door as a new threat develops.

Home “again”? It seems that first-timer Meyers-Shyer isn’t setting so much as a piggy toe beyond familiar territory, and this listless rom-com shows it.

A movie that passably ambles along in generic-melodrama mode before finally insulting audience intelligence one time too many.

Compared with last time, the returning team of director Steve Pink and writer Josh Heald practically doodle the gang’s motivations and worse, their surroundings.

This chronicle of an ’80s high school cross country coach leading a team of Mexican farm laborers’ kids to competitive glory may be based on a true story, but the forced drama doesn’t help it to feel that way.

Alpha and Omega is sweet, if not fresh.

However well-intentioned the movie may be, it spills over with flat cutesy humor, making a slog out of an experience that should be filled with wonder.

Among the ingredients “21” is missing: the infectiously random silliness of a Zach Galifianakis, the smug hunkiness of a Bradley Cooper, and any sort of Vegas-y gloss whatsoever.

All over the map in the details it throws at us, and the level of immaturity it aims for.

There is less eye candy than you would expect, and it’s underwhelming.

It just feels misguided, not clever, when John Waters is dragged out for a cameo. That’s when you know the filmmakers must realize how hopelessly they’re caught in a loop-the-loop of punchless comedy.

It’s only in the late going that the marital drama turns somewhat more authentic, helping to restore a bit of the audience’s, well, faith.

For the sequel, London Has Fallen, Butler and director Babak Najafi (HBO’s “Banshee”) strike a tone that’s more consistent — consistently dumb.

There’s no redeeming this softcore nonsense, which plays like a script that “Storage Wars” stumbled across in Joe Eszterhas’s old locker.

By the time the giant, snarling spider shows up - the most boggling of the movie's various "holy schnitzel" touches - parents of the littlest "Hoodwinked" fans may be feeling hoodwinked themselves.

Quaint and crass get together — or would that be “bump uglies”? — with awkward, thoroughly flat results in The Big Wedding, an ensemble comedy with a tonal cluelessness as surprising as the name cast that signed on for it anyway.

The squirminess stands out here because there's so little going on the rest of the time.

Just one more touch of “realism” in a sexual melodrama played so straight that it’s nuts.

Ultimately, what Fantastic Four delivers is change for change’s sake, rather than change for the better.

In the end, it’s hard to remember another action entry that expends so much energy on frenetic blacktop choreography and attention-deficit editing with so little to show for it.

H.G. Wells's tale of nature's little critters turned steroidal gets cheesy screen treatment from director Bert I. Gordon, a veteran of the ginormous creature genre of the '50s. [09 Sep 2007, p.N32]

Never thought we'd say this about a movie, but Bucky Larson probably doesn't wring as much out of recurring bodily-fluid gags as it could.

This is mythology that’s famously transportive in every sense, but the animators struggle to take us anywhere truly captivating, or even clearly defined.

Fresh or not, creatively merited or not, here it comes: the third installment of Martin Lawrence's big, dopey franchise.

It’s an idea that could make for decent genre viewing, if only its cast had some range, and its indie reach didn’t exceed its mainstream-polished grasp.