By offering up the feel-good, MGM-styled musical version, a movie you can hum along to, his biopic serves only as a giant question mark; why bother if you're going to excise the interesting and naughty bits.

These guys are laugh-out-loud funny, not because they're being belittled, but because they're finally getting a chance to show a sense of humor onscreen.

If only the sum of this thunderously self-important "true story" outweighed its often fabulous parts, but it resorts to throwing up hollow icons in that most ignoble of losses, the expensive mediocrity.

This is fun for a while, but the ending is so ridiculous, and obvious, as to sully all the small joys that come before it.

Your individual tolerance for Jimmy Buffett music will determine how well all the scenes set to his music go down.

All in all, a respectable and predictable adaptation.

Kalvert and Goluboff overcome predictability by developing the film's characters and atmosphere instead. The result is a turbocharged ode to the lithe bodies and swaggering souls of boys who believe they're invincible - a glorious love song of youthful self-destructiveness.

The scenes involving just him (Carrey) are funny and full of life. All the other scenes are not.

Bruce Nolan is one deeply disgruntled barrel of laughs--the emotional kin of Bill Murray's cynical weatherman in "Groundhog Day."

It's brutal horror, where anyone can die at any time, and gorehounds will love it. Average folks may find it too intense.

Is The Break-Up worth your time? Let's put it this way: Whenever Vaughn is onscreen, it is. When he's not, it ain't. The movie's a comedy, but it's also about a breakup, so it gets a bit maudlin toward the end.

Whatever your orientation, these bosom buddies are bound to charm you, and perhaps by joining them, the very talented MacLachlan may continue to find work.

It has but one thing going for it: a cast filled with Oscar nominees.

The movie does find fresh ways to tweak the formula, making it more than the sum of its broad strokes.

It's sweet and well intentioned, with occasional amusing moments.

It winds up like all Hollywood comedies these days--merely resembling something funny.

A movie that leaves you wondering what the fuss was all about when its end credits appear; it's a mish-mash of a dozen other, better films ground up and watered down--Seven, Silence of the Lambs, and Manhunter, to name a few of the usual suspects.

Nothing happens. At all. Ever. Remember when Steve Martin was funny? Apparently, neither does he.

While the idea may be good, its execution is awful.

Moore's likable and Goode's good. But . . . so what?

Ambitious in scope and humble in execution.

Actually, that shift in moral perspective is the freshest thing in the movie--it keeps the action absorbing even when the script keeps hammering us with lessons about the commercial exploitation of the news and TV audiences' craziness and gullibility.

Feels like two films that aren't closely related enough, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining.

Try to forget about Michael Gambon in Potter's original BBC miniseries; Keith Gordon's film is its own thing, full of Brechtian artifice and oddball humor -- Mel Gibson's old man act in particular.

You will leave Mona Lisa Smile with only the slightest hint of the grin every slick studio movie gives you--the grin of reassurance and superiority. But you will not be changed, only out about eight bucks.

The Broken Lizard types bring the best out of Paxton, only to abandon him in the second half and focus on themselves. A bit more humility might have served them in better stead.

As an actress, Madonna has to work on her vulnerability more.

If you happen to be seeking a fairly cute film concerning occultism, torture, and murder, here ya go.

A film that aspires to join the company of its predecessors--smart, funny satires that skewered the hypocrisy and cruelty of high school life. But it won't. For starters, Pretty Persuasion commits a fatal error: It forgets to side with the students.

A little too loud, and a lot too boring.

Into the Blue drowns before it even surfaces.

Proof of Life kidnaps the audience, then tortures it to a slow death

Means to be heavy in terms of psychology, provocation and the examination of emotion, but it sinks like a stone the minute it hits the surface.

Competently if unremarkably directed by Englishwoman Clare Kilner, should prove compelling enough to Moore's huge legion of fans.

However you slice it, Bleep remains a work of naive invention and wannabe spirituality.

50 Cent sounds articulate in his raps, but as a lead actor, he talks like his mouth is filled with food.

Its execution is stultifying, laughable and ultimately a little offensive.

Although the movie doesn't go in for quick fixes, it's not particularly revelatory or insightful. It's a textbook paradigm of grief, loss, and regrouping laid out in three acts.

Plays like something Dr. Phil and "Sex and the City's" Carrie Bradshaw might have written during a commercial break, a feel-good fantasy that sounds deep but has no more depth than a kiddie pool drained for winter.

Doesn't even play fairly by its own rules. What emerges isn't a romantic comedy at all, but rather--very much like "The War of the Roses" a few years back--a cleverly disguised monster movie.

The actors are capable, but the direction feels stilted, the pacing sluggish, and the story obvious. The film plays like an ABC after-school special.

The voice acting is adequate, but it fails to convey the diversity or personality of "Chicken Run" or "Shrek."

Not everything jells, but Click is funnier and more elaborately clever than anything Sandler's done in years.

Overloaded with oddities but a bit short on horse sense, this is one of those stubbornly defiant, attitude-driven movies that's so busy scrambling genres, breaking rules, and dashing expectations on the road to becoming art that it slips off into the ditch.

It's a mess, absolutely, more a collage than a narrative.

The skeleton's a hoot, and the score, credited to the solo-monikered Valentino, is pitch-perfect. Some judicious editing would make a huge improvement, however, because even at 90 minutes, it feels like Blamire's stretching the joke a bit thin.

Deserves more than just a look.

The opening credits -- animated sequences that spoof airline safety cards -- are a high point, but if you're not a prude, the rest of the flick ain't bad either.

What a shame to squander the dramatic riches of Jones's life on third-rate caricature and paint-by-numbers storytelling.

This might be the most predictable movie of the year, but at least it delivers everything you expect it to.

You will regret paying money to see something that unfolds rather like something you'd watch on TV when you're ill and bedridden and confronted with nothing else but daytime soaps.

This is quintessential "family entertainment."

A thoroughly unremarkable police action movie starring the magnetic Samuel L. Jackson.

All in all, the only lesson here is how to irritate. This is a stupid movie for stupid people. If you're a stupid person, knock yourself out. Please

Nobody can convey more while doing nothing than Thornton. And while his minimalist style is appropriate for the ironically named Levity, what is conveyed never quite generates the emotional charge of "Monster's Ball."

Taylor and Pearce just aren't believable.

The whole thing seems to meander aimlessly, rarely creating a chill.

The latest entry in the "next 'Full Monty'" sweepstakes.

The first great film of 2005.

A clunky, obvious film, it makes the mistake of asking drama to do what documentary should.

Certainly delivers violence and heroics, but not in a way everyone is going to enjoy -- it's brutal and harrowing.

Unlike the original, there's no R-rated grit and no familial executions -- gotta get the young-skewing WWE fan base in there.

In short, the film is emotional, perhaps even sentimental, but it strenuously avoids the sort of blatant manipulation that marks cheap sentimentality.

Its greatest flaw is the casting of Miller ("Trainspotting," "Hackers"), who continues to have virtually no screen presence...For all that, Plunkett & Macleane is fun.

Chris Rock gets to direct himself, and as a result is finally starring in a laugh-out-loud funny movie.

Hamburg's smartypants banter is a bit spotty, but the bathroom humor, of all things, hits the mark, and Stiller's trademark wide-eyed bafflement wins the day again.

The movie works while you watch it, with plenty of scares both sudden and psychological.

Deserves an A for ambition, but the final product is a pastiche of too many predecessors.

Connie and Carla doesn't just do violence to the memory of Wilder's brilliant sex farce (Some Like It Hot); it's so clumsy, it might give cross-dressing itself a bad name.

The result is his (Shyamalan's) most meditative and lovingly rendered offering thus far, if also his least fun.

Has all the charm of a canceled CBS sitcom.

An interesting film, and a good one, with a harrowing performance by Depp, whose apparent enjoyment of the role seems only to increase as his character deteriorates.

At first glance, Schizopolis may seem like no more than a grab-bag of tricks and gimmicks, but repeat viewings reveal a more coherent pattern.

This badly muddled adaptation of a complex novel chases after Guterson's many skeins and themes with no unifying principle in mind.

Isn't great; it doesn't come within a Yukon mile of its TV namesake. But it's agreeably bizarre.

Ninety percent of this thriller is absolutely terrific; but the 10 percent that fails is so troubling that it threatens to undermine all that is wonderful in the rest.

Kennedy is funny, but too cartoonish to ever identify with -- Diggs and Anderson are the real stars of the show, and need more screen time.

It's been said that a thriller is only as good as its chief villain, and, in the same way, most noirs are only as good as their suckers. Palmetto has a good sucker but not much else.

The digital computer work is smooth and convincing; the animals look as if they are talking. But their voices are either devoid of personality or grating and annoying.

There's a fascinating movie buried inside this story, but it's not the one the filmmakers decided to make. This Omen is simply too big for its britches.

A dismaying dearth of romantic chemistry -- during their brief scenes together, the two (Pitt, Roberts) actually seem afraid to touch each other -- and we end up with a Frankenstein's monster of a movie: lots of interesting pieces cobbled together with all the stitches showing.

Smith used to make movies to make fun of movies like Jersey Girl; now he's just another guy working the assembly line, which won't make you a sell-out if no one buys it.

This movie is, essentially, porn, and whether it's a turn-on is likely to be subjective to each viewer. Those who find traditional porn too artificial should be pleased.

The real find-- is Rosario Dawson, who has appeared to good effect in previous smaller roles ("Kids," "He Got Game") and just about walks off with the movie.

The theme (social breakdown in isolation) is strong, but the plot meanders, and the motivations are decidedly hazy, so its popularity probably stems from its seamless blending of naive wonder and soul-mining horror.

Disappointingly mediocre.

The long hours Davis says she spent training with knives and guns can't rescue her character from drowning in the story's hokiness. Fans will be aghast at what they see--a movie so garish and silly, even Geena Davis can't save it.

Paycheck is a terribly muddled mess, a Hitchcock homage (with generous, obvious nods to The Birds, Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest) by a great filmmaker trying to say a great deal with so very little.

Hope Floats comes lumbering along, scourging all in its path with saccharine sentimentality and bogus emotions.

Freedomland manages a seemingly impossible feat: It's both turgid AND overwrought, eliciting the shriek that fades into a yawn without anyone ever noticing. It's a wholly dreary piece of work.

It makes it clearer than ever before that these films are comedy. Granted, the sick kind of comedy that involves laughing at stupid people being ripped in half, but we know there are plenty of you out there.

Meet Joe Black takes an interesting idea--Death assumes human form and comes to earth to learn about human existence--and reduces it to a flat, uninspired, interminably slow movie.

The game is cool to watch, and the love story is assertive enough to hook even the stodgiest ESPN man.

Against all odds, the American Pie movies have actually gotten a little better each time out, though that's certainly not to say that they're, uhhh, "masterpieces."

As good as all the actors are, the scuzzy characters are so one-dimensional that the film falls flat.

Instinct offers gorillas in the midst of one mediocre movie.

Ultimately only Moore, with her eyes always half-damp and voice half-cracked and body language half-mad, keeps the movie on the ground, when it too often threatens to fly into the thin air, where the audience would laugh it off the screen.

Eternal promises kink and delivers next to nothing.