The snow and haze that Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) keeps pumping into the street scenes seem to have drifted into the script as well.

The mechanical possibilities are worked out with precision and relish, but [the director] is careful not to allow the comedy to linger too long in the realm of real feelings. A platitudinous ending restores a safe and sane emotional order.”

If you've seen any of these, you know that the hero is always killed for her trouble, a final stroke of mordant wit.

As in the directors' earlier work, the humor is rooted in humiliation, but the execution here is tepid and indecisive, possibly because the big-name stars need to seem charming no matter how loathsome or idiotic their behavior.

In essence this is a celebrity revenge fantasy, something few of us can relate to, but director Paul Abascal has the sense to keep the homilies short and the pacing fast.

Tends toward the generic, and Jim Caviezel is hopelessly bland in the lead. Among the bright spots are Mary McCormack as the hero's wife and Bruce Dern as the wise old motorboat guru.

There's a lot of self-conscious talk about the importance of timing, but the tony sense of entitlement tends to dampen any laughs. The movie functions best as a middle-class Euro-postcard along the lines of "Chocolat" or "Under the Tuscan Sun."

Baseball fans might find this marginally absorbing; for anyone else it's as conscientious and stylistically pedestrian as director John Sayles's other films, and a mite overlong to boot.

I'm not sure how much has been gained in the updating.

On the one hand, the action stuff is surprisingly imaginative and well filmed; on the other, the characters are the usual bunch of self-parodic dodoes that the post-Spielberg action cinema has accustomed us to, so it's impossible to believe in the situations anyway.

It's ultimately hamstrung by storytelling that seems both underdeveloped and overdetermined.

The script for this action vehicle is like something you'd find under the cushions of Steven Seagal's couch, but Diesel, to his credit, digs into his role as if it were Hamlet.

This sprawling and ambitious three-part Canadian film traces the spread of AIDS on three continents, but it gets off to a confusing start… By the time the movie returned to Africa, it had lost me despite its talented cast and its noble intentions.

The physical stunts by Maggie Q as a lethal martial arts expert and Cyril Raffaelli as a Eurotrash sniper who rappels buildings are more thrilling than the over-the-top chase sequences, so contrived as to verge on self-parody.

This takes place in the same sort of pathologically sports-obsessed hamlet as "Friday Night Lights," though in contrast to that movie's grim honesty there's enough heartland schmaltz here to embarrass John Mellencamp. Remarkably, the movie rights itself once the actual season begins, focusing on game strategy more than the usual heart-stopping pep talks.

Arch yet earnest.

It did give me plenty of jolts and surprises.

The direction is lively and often overinventive, as was frequently the case during the early, experimental phase of his career.

Director Shawn Levy delivers his usual middle-of-the-road product.

The audience is subjected to a series of emotional contortions, encouraged to experience them voyeuristically, and then scolded for doing so. The bathetic music Kim favors is profoundly at odds with his chilly attitude toward the characters.

Despite the fascinating topic, director Yan-ting Yuen offers relatively little history or criticism of the works themselves, squandering screen time on such gimmicks as mock voice-over and scenes of young people performing hard-rock and hip-hop versions of vintage songs. It's enough to make you pine for the good old days when irony was illegal.

The Spielbergian attempt at sweetness--heralded by references in Danny Elfman's score to the Nutcracker Suite--never fully convinces.

Fails to replicate Carpenter's blue-collar humor or carefully modulated suspense.

As a director Ball amplifies the flaws in his own writing; his supporting characters are too broadly pitched to take seriously, and he tends to smack you in the face with the point of every scene.

Hampered by the kind of overacting that the cast seems to enjoy more than the audience.

While competent, it's too routine to generate much interest. Leigh is effective as always, but has little to chew on; Patric has even less.

Never recovers from a jarring and improbable act of ritualized violence that occurs halfway through the film.

Of some interest for promoting rapprochement between India and China, this is still awfully silly.