It strains to be funny where the original's gags were efficiently deadpan, yet it's also so unbearably lazy, stooping to cliché and caricature when it backs itself into the shower.

Like most films of its type, Something New is not tough to sit through, but the thought of paying full price to see it isn't especially desirable.

The fights are mostly cool, save the final one with too many quick cuts, and the morphing graffiti and tattoos are nifty. If only the rest of it weren't so stupid.

The ideas behind the story are intriguing and could prompt endless hours of lively discussion, but the film proves surprisingly drab.

Unfortunately, it's also pretty banal -- translating the songs into English reveals just how dull their lyrics and sentiments really are. The colors are pretty though.

Satisfying in its setup and execution, and the Catholic guilt streaked through its dank, rainy atmosphere serves it well. Nonetheless, the story's subtleties in this version are often outweighed by melodrama, sometimes verging on sap.

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

A mildly amusing romp.

It is, as his films usually are, dense, complex, and challenging. It is also, sad to say, ponderous, often inscrutable, and ultimately not much fun.

Trite and silly, but, blast it, the movie has a good heart.

In Eastwood's hands, Berendt's characters--ranging from a narcissistic merry widow to a bon vivant who entertains in vacant mansions--register with all the subtlety of the orangutan in "Any Which Way You Can."

Snappily directed and edited, and there are moments of funny acting...but the script is all homiletic commonplaces, in quip form, and the wisdom is both stale and dubious.

The movie's not without moments of genuine humor--no comedy starring Steve Martin could be--but sad to say, his Oscar-hosting gig two years ago was funnier.

Tea With Mussolini doesn't come close to John Boorman's captivating "Hope and Glory," which managed to address the terrible destructiveness and misery of the war as well as the magical adventure it offered its young protagonist.

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

Moore invested his characters with flaws, with a tangible humanity; God knows they never felt the need to explain themselves, as the film does, rendering it something akin to one long footnote.

The screenplay does enough sabotage on its own; the nose, perhaps, is there to give us something to focus on lest our minds wander and wonder just how we chose to kill an hour and 48 minutes giving this crime caper access to our pocketbooks. (Might be good on video, though. Or cable.)

For anyone who believes in the gorgeously messy truth of French social drama, it's a grave disappointment.

Where "Silverado" swaggered, Open Range sulks; it's no fun at all.

There's no kick to its bag of tricks...It's a mild one among biker pics, a tricycle only pretending to be a Hog.

It's stunning, really, to consider how much time and expense went into something so chintzy and dull--a script full of non sequiturs shouted by a screen full of chum.

It's not a terrible premise -- It is, however, terribly executed.

It's too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn't find the devil carrying around a hairy-backed midget anywhere in the text I read.

For adults, the film does, at least, offer up most of the lovely, schmaltzy Rodgers and Hammerstein score. Even here, though, the pleasure comes with a wearying price tag.

A lack of fire is ultimately the problem of the entire film. Six Days tries hard to recall Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn riding the rapids in "The African Queen," but the film falls short even of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in "Romancing the Stone."

Unspools slowly and erratically without ever hitting an emotional or comedic stride.

Lestat, like all vampires, is a bad boy frozen in time; because the role is emotionally static and one-note, it can't hold our attention unless it's played by an actor with deep reserves of mystery, elegance, and sexual power. Cruise has no such qualities.

Tethered to screenwriter Gail Parent's adaptation of Dyan Sheldon's novel, plus the demands of bigwig producers, it's a testament to Sugarman's artistry that she sustains her funky playfulness--a hallmark of her earlier work--throughout most of this film.