Bekmambetov introduces too many elements, losing interest in them or using them inadequately.

The Fords give us old-fashioned predators: Zombies shuffle slowly, silently, patiently forward, as implacably destructive as Time itself. Meanwhile, the Fords play off our memories from books, TV news and other movies.

His (LaBute) observation of human nature is keener than before, his dialogue more attuned to ambiguities.

Emphasizes the best element of the first one -- the half-kidding, insult-filled conversations around the shop -- and doesn't need to spend time introducing us to the characters.

A summer action movie that has a brain and doesn't let it atrophy? Fan me, I'm fainting!

The film is a straight concert appearance: No backstage material after a brief introduction, no footage of him in any other context. He's certainly smooth, engaging and likeable onstage, but you won't learn anything about him you didn't already know.

One thing the movie does well is skewer Bill Clinton. Though Hayes works for him and nominally defends him to detractors, we see old sins rehashed: Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, his impeachment.

I was not disappointed by Dreamer, the most dishonest movie I've seen in a while. Nobody gets a fatal disease before the end credits, but every other clich? is exploited in this fabric of impossibilities, nonsense, stereotypes and shameless tear-jerking.

The planets aligned favorably, and this "Music" is sweet without cloying the appetite. It follows the meetcute-kissyface-breakup-reunion pattern of most of its kind, but the behavior seems more genuine and the situations less forced.

The movie that's meant to be his (Apatow) most personal turns out to be his most dully generic.

There's nothing outstandingly good or bad about the film.

The movie Night Watch is - oh hell, I don't know what it is. Imaginative. A mess. A small miracle, if really filmed for $5 million. (Although in rubles, that's probably a huge budget.) The first Russian horror movie I've seen. The first horror movie I've seen of any kind with subtitles.

Affleck has two expressions, a smirk and a scowl. Bardem never changes expression at all: Whatever he’s saying comes out with a dispassionate, hangdog glumness. Perhaps he watched the daily rushes once too often.

Multiple lobotomies. That's the only way to explain what happens in the middle of Hitch, whose first hour sets up one of the brightest romantic comedies in months and whose second hour tears it down.

At its best, The Mist just wants to make you jump.

Director Brett Ratner can't make chicken a la king out of chicken droppings, and that's what writers Simon Kinberg ("XXX: State of the Union") and Zak Penn ("Elektra") supply.

It's a unique vision of war from the point of view of a Marine who never pulled a trigger against a foe.

This stale, redundant story goes round in the same tight circles, revealing one piddling new secret and containing one unconvincing change of character.

This coming-of-age portion is the less interesting half, though it has the more interesting Michael. We have seen Fiennes play an emotionally detached introvert so often that he brings nothing new to the role, apt though he is.

The film was reputedly inspired by Japanese teens who trolled chat rooms to find predators, made assignments, then ganged up to beat offending adults.

All are watchable, attractive people who haven't worn out their welcomes. But if they continue to go round and round like this, they may. Aren't more African -American actors waiting in the wings to play romantic leads?

There’s nothing much wrong with the film’s pacing or characterizations. We’ve just seen it all in fresher and funnier forms, from Donkey’s sassy backtalk to Puss in Boots’ eye-widening charm.

Solace is especially frustrating when it moves down interesting paths, then stops.

The lead actors come from America, Ireland, Iceland, England and South Africa. Who decided they should attempt Russian accents? Neeson forgets his, Ford wavers in and out, and real Russians in the cast make the others sound inauthentic.

Uproarious imbecility.

It's a brisk but restful breeze blowing through our heads, requiring no thought whatsoever – in fact, thoughts are an impediment to enjoying it – and touching us just a bit in unexpected ways.

Like virtually all fish stories, it's discursive, funny, full of boasting, a suspect mix of truth and lies with an emphasis on the latter.

Foggy allegories and misty metaphors.

Jackson imposes a sense of grandeur but mostly loses Tolkien's sense of fun.

Reason to make Shrek the Third: Probable earnings of $400 million worldwide. Reasons not to make Shrek the Third: Played-out characters. Bland villain. Novice directors. Slipshod plotting. No compelling story or emotional depth.

From the first gentle meeting of its hero and heroine to the last line of dialogue, The Finest Hours executes all the traditional moves beautifully.

An unassuming, brief and cheaply entertaining boxing movie. It's long on punching and short on character, but you wouldn't go to a Hill movie to see "Raging Bull."

The story was primitive, the characters unmemorable, the direction unsophisticated, the writing cliched, the photography and music drab, the pacing uneven, the acting varying from adroitly funny to exaggerated.

This loose, slightly lazy sequel is both funnier than the original and more bizarre.

Fading Gigolo, a movie as slight and tender as its leading character, leaves you feeling you’ve just seen one of the few Woody Allen movies Allen didn’t write or direct.

Won't startle or surprise you but will satisfy your need to see good actors at work.

Flawless never begins to live up to its title.

Daybreakers is more serious, from its A-list cast to its political commentary, with blood as a metaphor for oil. Like the best genre films, it has something on its mind.

Wrestles with big questions, gets the upper hand during the first hour, then loses its grip. By the end, it's flat on its back on the mat.

When we're outside Frank's body, Osmosis Jones drags. When we're inside him, it zooms.

If your senses haven't been dulled by slasher films and gorefests, if you're a connoisseur of psychological horror, this is your ticket.

Fair, overlong James Bond from the second shelf.

His (Branagh) Thor has more complex characters than the usual "Transformers"-style melee; though that may not be what the readers of Marvel comics now want, it satisfied me most of the time.

The romance seems tacked on as a way to humanize this character; there's no reason the nurse would take up with a brash, secretive American.

If you want the cold, honest truth about "Space Jam," prepare yourself for the shock: It's average. It's broadly funny in spots, but without any edge. It'll make kids giggle, but it makes a minuscule effort to appeal to adults. Special effects are sometimes imaginative, sometimes just the same explosions and pratfalls Warners Bros. has done for half a century. [15 Nov 1996, p.1E]

Garner bounces around gleefully as the young spirit enveloped by this adult body. She's young enough herself to remember what it was like to be that age, and she has the vulnerability, zest and slightly over-the-top reactions of a seventh-grader.

The movie should come with the tag line “Don't try this at home,” because the method has near-fatal pitfalls. Yet the characters' clumsy emotional growth shows us there's hope even for a stumbling father and two sons groping toward peace.

I once said I'd watch Chiwetel Ejiofor act in any piece of disposable fluff, and now I have.

Most movies about people passing themselves off as the opposite sex can't sustain the illusion, but "Nobbs" does.

It warms the heart in the hands of such sensitive storytellers.

When the movie shifts gears, coming forward almost 30 years, Maurice becomes less interesting – and so does the picture.

The animals' personalities have been carefully calibrated: They have sufficient edge to amuse us as characters, yet they're cuddly enough to market as plush toys or action figures.

The film goes from stylish to ghoulish to foolish.

It can devote itself entirely to bodily functions or, having established its grossness quotient, take the high road toward satire like its 2004 predecessor, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." It fails mainly because it does neither.

Most of the time the movie limps amiably toward its feeble conclusion.

The sequel doesn't develop the characters, interject any warmth into its frenetic story or take us anywhere we haven't been.

So the science in this film of Jules Verne's science fiction classic is ludicrous. Well, how's the fiction? Not terrible.

The movie satisfies a basic need to see pageantry, pomp and pennants flying over the Cornish countryside. But if you're expecting a story that sticks to the Arthurian legend, this is Scam-a-lot. [07 Jul 1995, p.1F]

Heartwarming drama.

A sweet, innocent look at an impossibly idealized high school world.

Well, this is the best adaptation of Block – in fact, the only decent one.

The acting is so exact and the timing so crisp that it delivers precisely the satisfaction you'd anticipate.

The characters are so conventional that the movie has nowhere interesting to go, even when a corpse complicates affairs.

Markowitz, Daley and Goldstein sounds like a New York firm that delivers financial advice, but they're asking you to invest only $9 of your cash and 100 minutes of your time. They have written the funniest movie I've seen this year in Horrible Bosses.

Muschietti does an excellent job of revealing just enough about Mama as we go along (and just enough of Mama herself) to show he's in control of this genre.

It's hardly a balanced biography: There's no mention of Jordan's gambling problems or connections with Nike, whose factories overseas were criticized for underpaying workers and treating them badly.

Dark Blue proves again what a remarkable actor Denzel Washington is. Too bad he's not in it.

Miller gives the film's one genuine, focused, committed performance, and you can see why she might even reform a rake of Casanova's standing.

Denzel Washington doesn’t demonstrate how great he is with first-rate scripts such as “Flight.” He does it by elevating sophisticated pulp like The Equalizer to a higher level.

The picture shatters all genre conventions.

I have never seen elementary schoolers more passionate about education than the ones I met at a school in rural Kenya, not far from the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Director Peter Berg and first-time writer Matthew Michael Carnahan do a smooth, efficient job of storytelling most of the way.

It's not the dark comedy it wants to be - that would be "M*A*S*H" with a more modern setting and more gruesome consequences - but it's worth a look.

Most horror movies try to show us the man inside the monster, so we'll empathize with his moral dilemmas or feel his suffering. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer shows us a man who is all monster, whose colossal amorality makes him a potential Messiah or menace to humanity.

The picture should satisfy both diehard fans, who liked the plotting and interaction of early Bond films, and "Die Hard" fans, who prefer Bond shaken and stirred by massive explosions, vehicular crashes and gunplay befitting a Central American revolution.

Cowardice and cliché - not a tasty combination.

The picture's consistently entertaining and, though it has few brilliant comic peaks, it never plunges into boring valleys.

Performances keep the film afloat and focused whenever it threatens to drift. Deschanel, Harris and Warner are ideally cast. You might not think Ferrell would be, but he gives a different performance than I've seen from him.

Harsh Times contains exactly 30 seconds of novelty.

Feeble, vapid picture.

I just saw The Transporter 2 on the way home from the lobotomy clinic, and boy, is it enjoyable. What a difference a simple operation makes!

If this story has a moral -- though unlike many horror films, it doesn't seem to -- it's that humans are likelier to destroy themselves than help each other.

Watchmen is a fitting tribute to Alan Moore's fascinating graphic novel, even if he refused to let his name be used in the credits.

The new film, superficial and chaotic, delivers a rough sense of place, a reasonable number of skateboard thrills and very little character development or story.

Focus begins so elegantly, wittily and quickly that it sets up expectations it can’t quite fulfill. Yet if not every coincidence can be explained, if not every improbability gets addressed, it’s a satisfying diversion in a winter which, as usual, has too few of them.

In the end, Leatherheads recalls the gloriously dated sentiments of Grantland Rice, one of that era's beloved sportswriters, expressed 17 years earlier in the poem "Alumnus Football."

Once The Quest begins, the movie collapses. The ending turns coincidental, preachy and stupid.

It is a gimmick, rather than an idea worth exploring.

Once you accept that he (Neeson) has the badge and gun, you’re in for an exciting trip.

John Bailey's cinematography goes beyond the norm: Darkened rooms full of conspirators are as unsettling as Luthan's descent into an unlit subway tunnel. Danny Elfman, a mainstream film composer now that his alternative rock career is over, adds an apt score; he's angling for the late Bernard Herrmann's spot on Hollywood's scare scale. [27 Sept 1996, p.6E]

It's slickly executed, handsomely acted for the most part and utterly easy to forget.

Foster and Yun-Fat each show about three-quarters of their characters.

You can also see Sylvia without realizing she could be witty and bemused, qualities apparent in her posthumously published novel, "The Bell Jar." This book, which spoke to sensitive girls of the 1960s like few others, is mentioned once in passing in the film. We never see her writing it or learn what it means to her.

Romance has its place in movies - there's too little of it these days - but this remake of the 1954 film leaves an odd taste in the mouth. It has the trappings of a grand affair: tuxedoed men pursuing elegantly gowned women, helicopter flights to Martha's Vineyard, croissants and coffee in Paris. Yet it carries a mercenary message. In most fairy tales, riches are a reward for sacrifice or hard work; in the new "Sabrina," they're proof you have value as a human being. [15 Dec 1995, p.3E]

Director Guy Ritchie, who wasn’t born when the TV show debuted in 1964, cleverly captures the elements that made it a success.

The new team thinks that if mayhem is funny, five times the mayhem will be five times as hilarious. That’s not how movie math works, and too many scenes spin out of control.

The film's as chaotic and heavy-handed as "Summer of Sam" without the same sense of harsh reality.

Damon, trapped in an inert character, shows little inner turmoil.