The double crosses are so intricate and the cynicism so enveloping that it becomes increasingly difficult to care about the characters

This isn't at all scary, but the rough images can be weirdly compelling, the movie's conspiratorial jive enhanced by the fact that the lunar surface looks like someone's backyard.

The result is an exploitation movie that seems like it's about something -- though what exactly I couldn't say.

As an "Animal House" romp about consumer slackers in a New Jersey mall, it's harmless enough--just don't expect any sort of edge. Smith has left the working class to become just as boring as everybody else.

It's all corny and contrived and usually sensitive. The filmmakers even dare to show the effects of illness--a subject frequently glamorized to the point of being insulting--in a love scene of rare honesty.

Amaro is so lacking in gravitas that there's no opportunity to explore the intense emotionality of the church in Latin America --which is the source of its temporal power.

Z doesn't communicate anything—except for the doubtful propositions that pacifists are more threatening to right-wingers than communists and that fascist terrorism and homosexuality go hand in hand.

First-time director Mona Achache mixes feel-good platitudes with quirky conceits (including animated interludes and narration by an 11-year old girl) to put across some hoary old notions about bourgeois neuroticism and hypocrisy.

Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen") bend over so far backward to make Weaver's and Ryder's roles beefy that they end up mocking the characters' bravura.

With all her (Bullock) grotesque disguises, this often suggests a sequel to "Mrs. Doubtfire."

There must be some excuse for this but I can't imagine what it is.

I didn't buy half of the movie's scattershot gags, but the leads are sharp and the supporting cast sturdy.

Taylor Hackford directed, with occasional sharp, manic bursts, but the film is sluggish and sloppy overall, burdened with a dismally redundant plot line.

This big-budget adventure is based on a recent Michael Crichton thriller, though its premise is too stale to instill the sense of wonder critical to great sci-fi.

Even a good performance by Tom Hanks and noble intentions can't save this mainstream look at AIDS from the worst effects of nervous committeethink.

The movie is essentially a pastiche, as musty as a flea market.

Ultimately this is a sharp-focus issue movie, decrying intolerance as it explores the effects of labeling, the complexity of fetishizing, and the differences between business and crime.

Characters remain stuck in their cliche profiles, and the direction -- by music video specialist Michel Gondry -- doesn't improve matters.

The plot of this 1995 romantic comedy, directed by Jon Turteltaub ("Cool Runnings") from a script by Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric Lebow, is pretty stupid throughout, and the filmmakers show no compunction in shaking its silliness in your face, but the film's casual warmth may make you tolerate some of the shortcomings.

Apart from the welcome grace and pluck of Asian action star Michelle Yeoh--who all but steals the movie away from Pierce Brosnan's Bond and single-handedly makes this a better wedding of Hong Kong and Hollywood than either Rumble in the Bronx or Face/Off--this film has no personality whatsoever.

This incredibly odd Japanese horror feature (1977) is like a Hello Kitty backpack stuffed with bloody human viscera.

The insipid gags fail to exploit Murphy's gift for physical humor, Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union are merely decorative, and Ed Helms (The Office), playing a character called #2, looks appropriately constipated.

The sex, fart, and pot jokes come so fast and furious that a white flag seems the most appropriate response.

Halfhearted food movie that's also a romantic comedy crammed with issues.

The slapstick is funnier for the nifty CGI, and the script gets in some sly digs at racist cops and multitasking soccer moms.

Half the film passes while Pierson fumbles with the exposition—setting up an intricate internecine war for control of a Gypsy clan—and then he fumbles the action. Pointless, messy, rambling; no atmosphere and no energy.

But despite a compelling opening, as a movie it loses focus and purpose as it proceeds.

Not bad to look at, but consistently unedifying.