When the military brass warns that "we're about to be colonized," you wonder if they mean to shut down the borders. It's probably not coincidental that the film is replete with Latino actors, or that one of the prime subplots involves a Hispanic father trapped behind enemy lines with his young son.

Figgis brings strong visual imagination to the first hour, but he can't rescue Richard Jefferies's screenplay from plot holes bigger than the manor itself.

Audiences may want their own speedy divorce from this irritating collection of stale jokes, pointless vulgarities, and warmed-over clichés.

The last scenes etch one of the most revealing depictions of capital punishment ever put on the wide screen.

So hyperfrenetic that, in the end, you wonder if the Wachowskis aren't trying to pull off an elaborate hoax – a deranged techno fantasia posing as retro-ish family fare.

Seven Pounds, coming after "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "I Am Legend," seems like the third in a trilogy of inspirational bummers.

This superficial treatment makes so many dubious decisions - oversimplifying issues, for instance, so there'll be more time for high-flying emotion - that 1960s veterans may be moved to protest rather than praise.

Crammed with show-biz jokes that younger kids won't fathom, but the action is so quick and colorful that they probably won't mind.

A spicy critique of tabloid TV is buried in romantic-comedy material that strains too hard for cuteness. Ditto for Murphy's acting.

You thought brawny Bruce Willis couldn't play a brainy psychologist? You were right. Or maybe it's the idiocy of the movie surrounding him that sinks his performance long before the halfway mark.

It seems a bit cruel to cast Garner, who exudes charm, in such a charmless role.

Like the recent "Mona Lisa Smile," this tale could have been an effective feminist fable if it weren't so calculated.

Hovering between "Last Action Hero" and "E.T.," this sci-fi extravaganza is bookended with violence but has some gentle moments in between.

It will be interesting to see whether audiences embrace Mr. Diesel's barely controlled vigilante as warmly as they embraced Clint Eastwood's swaggering "Dirty Harry" and Charles Bronson's nasty "Death Wish" characters a few decades ago.

The drama makes up in intellectual weight what it sometimes lacks in psychological interest and cinematic realism.

Salomon directed the silly but diverting action yarn, which benefits from the talents of Freeman, Quaid, Driver, and White.

The action is snappy and quick, but why does this youth-targeted adventure pit white male heroes against a trio of villains comprising a black man, an Asian man, and an ugly woman?

Plenty of mad moviegoers will put this in their diaries as one of the worst pictures in ages.

Why would you take your kids to see Space Chimps, an uninspired animated feature about chimp astronauts, when you could take them instead to see "Wall-E"? And if they've already seen "Wall-E," you're really lowering the bar by venturing into this one.

Muddled cop thriller The Son of No One has a top-drawer cast and a bottom-drawer script.

This visually intricate fantasia combines his (Greenaway's) extraordinary cinematic imagination with a story and characters less compelling than those in his best works.

I suspect audiences will see Shyamalan's portentous doodle for what it is - the height of arrogance and a bad night out at the movies.

Director Susanne Bier and screenwriter Christopher Kyle (no, not the man depicted in “American Sniper”) aim for a tragic monumentality but hit very wide of the mark.

The plot is sordid and predictable -- indiscriminate nightclubbing leads to escalating drugs, promiscuity, and violence. Things perk up cinematically in the last few scenes, but by then it's almost too late.

The only aspect that emerges a winner is the gorgeous Mediterranean scenery.

Four chuckles and a lively final-credits sequence are a mighty poor score for 99 minutes of alleged comedy, and the sentimental stuff is even worse.

It's a mash-up of blah buddy comedy and gross-out CGI monster splatter, with nary a laugh to be had.

Having written a book about being fired, Annabelle Gurwitch has now made a documentary as well, and it's something of a mess.

What may have started out as a comedy devolves into quasi-Stephen King territory.

A country singer wagers that she can teach her trade to a New York cabbie, with predictable results. Directed by Bob Clark, who mostly exploits the presold personalities of stars Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone.

The satire is intermittently amusing, but Arcand adds little to the arsenal of standard mockumentary tricks, and the interesting cast doesn't get many interesting things to do.

Darkly elegant cinematography helps compensate for awful dialogue and lackluster acting.

What Happens in Vegas is not only annoying, it's also incompetent – a bad mix.

The bloom is decidedly off the pinkish rose. Martin has a few inspired moments but in order to get to them you have to wade through a mosh pit of unfunny gags.

It's a pity that such vital, thought-provoking material has been rendered so lifeless and inauthentic on the screen.

Less an American product than an international escapade, it's the kind of pigeonhole-resisting romp that Hollywood too rarely provides.

It's all very colorful, but the movie's diverse elements clash as often as they cooperate.

Steve Martin is amusing as a gangster transplanted to the suburbs, but the movie is a mess, and too jammed with ethnic stereotypes for "just kidding" to be an excuse. [5 Oct 1990, p.12]

The animated characters in "Clone Wars" are about as lively as the actors in the live-action movies, so I guess Lucas has achieved his goal of eliminating humans from his movies altogether.

I'll say this much for Jumper – it's got a great premise. Or at least the beginnings of a premise.

Draggy pastiche of tired gags and half-baked homilies.

An impossibly, incomprehensibly overlong and cacophonous bore.

The comedy is appealing as Hollywood's umpteenth variation on the Cinderella story, but think about its patrician views of upper-class privilege and you might find it too simplistic for comfort.

How did a dignified pro like Duvall get stuck in this fender-bender?

Based on a novel by French provocateur Georges Bataille, an important thinker whose fiction rarely translates into good cinema.

The settings and visual effects are imaginatively done, but the dialogue is silly and the plot is a mishmash, with echoes of everything from the "Aliens" movies to Michael Crichton's novel "Sphere," which pushes similar buttons a little more intelligently.

In sum, Van Helsing is yet another video game disguised as a wide-screen epic. Here's hoping the box office drives a firm wooden stake through its hokey Hollywood heart.

Carpenter pulls out all the action-adventure stops, but he and coscripter Larry Sulkis forgot to write dialogue the audience could listen to without howling in disbelief.

I squirmed in my seat throughout Identity Thief, a colossally unfunny and misguided comedy.

This low-budget drama tries very hard to convey messages of tolerance and compassion, but it's too weakly acted and directed to have much impact.

Mildly entertaining for a while; think "Stand by Me" meets "Alien," with a soupçon of "Starship Troopers" tossed in.

David Chappelle's performance as a cabbie is amusing, but the film should have been packaged with a Surgeon General's Warning - "Cigarettes is bad for you."

The picture is intriguing and obnoxious in equal measure; even Berkowitz gets tired of the game before it's over, but there are some laughs and surprises along the way.

This is the kind of movie where life lessons are posted every quarter-hour. (I timed it.)

The result is a run-of-the-mill fantasy, competently produced but disappointingly familiar, from its "Forbidden Planet" premise to the digital-clock countdown near the end.

It's rare for an Egyptian movie to look so closely and unflinchingly at class conflict and other forms of social disarray, but lively acting keeps the story engaging even when it wanders and meanders.

So sloppily made that it's barely coherent.

Edwards's mess isn't so fine. In trying to revive the great tradition of rough-and-tumble farce, he strains so hard for vigorous slapstick and wild gags that he forgets to be funny...In the end, there's something basically askew when a movie gives its heroes a valuable piano to move -- a classic Laurel and Hardy situation -- and then makes it an easy job, without a single teetering bridge to carry it across! Stan and Ollie, where are you when we need you?

Thomas Harris adapted his own bestseller and Peter Webber, who previously directed "Girl with a Pearl Earring," had the unenviable task of trying to give this glop, which is too gruesome to be campy, a high gloss. It should be called Man With a Severed Head.

The picture is equally long on eye-dazzling camera work and New Age sentimentality.

Crash-lands as disastrously as the heroes and never quite recovers its wits.

A romantic comedy that's pleasant, if not exactly spellbinding.

I guarantee you, if Charles Dickens were alive today, he might well be writing movies but he sure as shootin' wouldn't have written "Ghosts."

While the story and acting are the opposite of subtle, young moviegoers may enjoy the action and suspense.

Very broad, very brash ''film noir'' satire...The action is fast, flashy, sometimes funny, always loud. [13 June 1986, p.25]

As a laughing-through-tears jokester tourist, Richard Dreyfuss provides the only moments of real acting, as opposed to overacting, mugging, and scenery chomping.

Even in a misfire like The Happening, Shyamalan has a fine feeling for dread. He knows how to creep you out. But he has a tin ear for acting.

The direction is fairly formulaic, the special effects are nothing special, and except for Elba and McConaughey, who square off against each other in a series of ho-hum set pieces, the cast is forgettable. So is the movie.

The premise is promising, but Herzfeld cares more about sensationalism than substance, and portions of the picture are far nastier than they had to be.

While it may supply giggles and shivers to preteens, grownups should think twice before entering this all-too-haunted house.

The people who made Year One seem to think that all you have to do to make a hit comedy is get a bunch of jokesters together. But where are the jokes?

Uma Thurman looks frumpy in Motherhood. This is the only pressing reason to see it.

Wants to appear bold and liberated, but it seems awfully solemn about the subculture it explores.

Chapman coaxes good performances from his cast, especially Wilson, who makes Joe's immense conflicts a matter of empathy as much as abhorrence.

The only heartfelt moment of this movie for me came in the end credits, with its dedication to the late Alan Rickman, who provided the voice for the blue butterfly (and former caterpillar) Absolem. What a voice, what an actor, what a loss.

Too bad (Arnold) can't save the movie from it's superstitious clap-trap, sadistic violence, and sheer silliness.

Dull despite its suspense-driven story.

Starts quirky, grows steadily darker, doesn't build much excitement.

It's picaresque, all right, but full of ethnic stereotypes, and filmed much too blandly to compete with the superb ''Black Stallion'' of a few years ago.

Travolta and Jackson have some effective scenes, but Nielsen is lacking in charisma, and James Vanderbilt's screenplay ought to be court-martialed.

Unexpectedly entertaining, if you're willing to put up with the picture's stagy look, over-the-top moods, and heavy doses of vulgarity.

As the gambler who needs his basketball phenom brother to shave points, Whitaker has some expressive scenes, and Roth knows how to make malice gleam. But almost nothing else in this movie does.

The adventure is vulgar and violent, although the special effects are impressive.

This is the kind of movie where a character can't just say "the fire's not out yet," they have to say "the fire still lives in these stones." It made me yearn to see "Caveman" again. At least that was INTENTIONALLY funny.

It pales beside the best down-and-dirty political movies (ranging from "The Candidate" to "The Manchurian Candidate") because, finally, it lacks the courage of its own lowdown convictions.

The comedy isn't quite as crude as it sounds, but there's not much of value here beyond a little lively acting.

The plot isn't very original, but the acting and dialogue have a low-key realism that packs more emotional punch than a dozen of the standard-issue romantic dramas crowding the independent-film scene.

Safe Haven is a species of Gothic chick flick.

Rarely do the well-financed wizards at Walt Disney Pictures cook up a movie this badly written, acted, and directed.

Actually, it's hard to have any thoughts while watching Jonah Hex – the cranium-crushing soundtrack takes care of that.

There's nothing special about this movie -- it's just business as usual for today's debased action-movie genre.

House of D, arrives in theaters this week, after debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. I'm sorry to report it's the opposite of impressive.

Romano tries hard, but it takes real big-screen talent to draw laughs and emotions from material as flimsy and formulaic as the script.

A movie of such stupendous uninspiration that, watching it, I didn't know whether to be affronted or hornswoggled. Movies this monumentally dreadful, after all, don't come along every day.

"The idea evolved and expanded," he (Snyder) says, "and took on a life of its own." Unfortunately, all of that life must have dribbled away as the project developed, because the resulting nonsense has none.

The flashback sequences sometimes come across like "'For Whom the Bell Tolls' for Dummies."

There's a little humor, a little suspense, and not a hint of reality. You'll tune out quickly, unless you're 11.

Although it has more clever ideas than actual laughs, the screenplay by Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman packs more on-target social satire than any film in recent memory, and zesty performances keep it clicking along at a rapid pace.