The plus-size personality of comic actress Mo'Nique fills the screen in Phat Girlz, a sweet, if thinly plotted tale.

The Canyons has more in common with Schrader’s opulent immoral tableaux “The Comfort of Strangers,” “Auto Focus” and “The Walker” than with his other work (including the script for “Taxi Driver”). It’s weaker than those, though, and less biting.

The movie's strongest draw is its kitsch value -- along with a wisecracking Bruce Vilanch, the cast includes '80s TV refugees Jm J. Bullock ("Too Close for Comfort") and the Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt.

Has the stilted, slightly surreal feel of a stage piece. Sometimes it works, but too often it doesn't.

There are lame comedies, and then there is Big Fat Liar, which is so lame that it merits its own reserved parking space.

There's definitely room for a female Woody Allen, an accolade garnered by a previous film. However, Amy's Orgasm is chirpy, shrill and coarse, more in the vein of one of Allen's more depressed periods.

Not only achingly dull, it has no respect for its origins.

This un-terrifying film tries to find an interesting twist on the classic Frankenstein tale, but horrifically fails.

Witt, who cut his teeth as a second unit director on action thrillers "Speed," "XXX" and "The Bourne Identity," instead pours all his energy into stylized, blood-spattered fight scenes that come at a breakneck pace and should please the target audience, who grew up blasting the walking undead on Nintendos.

Apocalyptic visions are no longer enough to shock us. By this point, if you want to imagine the end of the world, you really need to say something new about it.

Quick, what do you call it when a movie takes both of the year’s biggest breakout action stars and wastes them in a bad Kevin Costner movie? Criminal.

As an allegory of religious conflict, the '73 film is brilliantly constructed and ends with a punctuation mark that was shocking in its day. LaBute's movie attempts to shock, as well, and does: Given the names involved and the casting of Cage, it is shockingly bad.

An absolute mess with no coherent tone, story or point of view.

After allowing sadistic violence and whining children to invade his movie like a horde of termites, Carr tries to put one over on us by tacking on a sentimental ending. But as any homeowner could have told him, you can't disguise a weak foundation with a cheap finish.

And then there is the most annoying animated sidekick in a long time: a bulb-headed, trying-to-be-cute glow creature called Kilowatt (Kristen Chenoweth), who sings an ear-piercing, high-pitched note when it's scared, which is often.

The esteemed actor Derek Jacobi goes slumming as someone who pulls that metal badge from the chest of a cadaver. Shakespeare it's not.

Well-meaning but dreadfully executed movie.

For a movie about purpose, Captive never finds its own.

How could a movie that offers Jason Segel riffing on sex and Cameron Diaz regularly disrobing be so dull?

Blunt, alternately prurient, funny and depressing.

Filmmaker Josell Ramos has his heart in the right place, but his camera is usually in the wrong place, complete with bad lighting and all-around lousy tech credits.

Crystal and Midler are such confident pros that their crack timing elevates even substandard material.

At this late date, filmmakers who draw inspiration from the Mafia had better have a whole new angle to offer. Otherwise, they'll end up with a movie like 10th & Wolf.

Of the supporting performances, Gugino, Leguizamo and Wahlberg offer solid turns, but are let down by dialogue.

Overall the tone is dark and nasty, exemplified by the inelegant signature kung-fu move of the good guys -- a backward kick to the groin.

Given the lousy singing of Kirsten Dunst in "Spider-Man" and Drew Barrymore in "Lucky You," it's nice to report that Fisk - Sissy Spacek's daughter - shows real talent performing two songs here.

Forgive us for being demanding, but shouldn't an animated kids movie like this one be, at the very least, fun? Cute? Watchable?

Willing as Campbell is to Shatner-ize himself, his movie will appeal only to true believers.

Felines, too often maligned as conniving and sly, get no love in The Wild Life, a tale that's inspired by Robinson Crusoe and perpetuates dangerous kitty stereotypes. And that's the best part of the movie.

The acting offers little relief. Fassbender gives a super serious performance in a movie that needed his natural sense of humor. Playing his Abstergo doctor, Cotillard's accent is so bizarre and disconcerting, it's impossible to believe she’s the same actress who’s been so amazing in everything else she's done. As for Jeremy Irons, who plays her scientist father, it's hard to imagine this is anything more than a payday.

With style to spare, Hype Williams' gangsta rap epic Belly applies a wide range of MTV techniques slow motion, strobe effects, seemingly more fish-eye shots than there are fish in the sea to tell a confusing, fundamentally undramatic story about two holdup men from Queens (played by rappers DMX and Nas) who graduate to dealing a new kind of superpowered heroin. [06 Nov 1998, p.56]

With the most growling and grunting of any movie this summer - and that includes those apes perched atop the box office - Conan the Barbarian seems at times to have actually been made by barbarians.

Some viewers may be surprised by how good Bana is doing comedy. Same with Farmiga, but that allows Gervais to leave some of the heavier lifting as far as acting to his co-stars. Gervais has again done a solid job writing and directing his own material.

The FBI once again calls upon Anthony Hopkins to help them find a serial killer in Solace. Even though he isn't playing Hannibal Lecter this time, he's still the best thing going for this mostly dull film.

Lady, like all of Shyamalan's movies, is a slick production with consistently interesting visuals... But the story is so convoluted and ultimately preposterous that you're almost embarrassed by the earnestness of the actors trying to carry it off.

That Awkward Moment is eminently forgettable — but worth remembering as Poots’ moment.

Bacon's performance in "Saw" creator James Wan's laughably extreme revenge thriller Death Sentence is six degrees of ham.

The atmosphere surrounding them both is enveloping. While the story falls a bit into melodrama, that can’t chop away at the solid drama the stars and director build beautifully.

If you want pretentious and unsavory, check out Buddy Boy.

Cantor seems to have noticed how dull the actual footage is, since he relies heavily on "arty" shots and black-and-white inserts.

Macaulay Culkin still can't act, and it's no longer cute. His performance in Party Monster is so embarrassing one doesn't know where to look.

Grand passion, secrecy, world politics and mortal danger provide a heady mix for this spectacularly beautiful movie. If only the accents were as reliable as the azure of the sea.

It all makes the head spin -- in the direction of the exit sign.

This is the kind of movie that, in order to puff itself up, quotes Meyer Lansky, Napoleon and Native American sayings. But according to Hoyle — as poker players would say — the film really just does boilerplate Hollywood drama.

It’s a lazy, by-the-numbers bore.

The movie's a botch, but at least it'll make you feel good about your own daily drudgery.

A ghost-busting drama set in a world of mystics, mind-benders and various and sundry fake-psychic gobbledygook. But the weirdest thing is how all the fun gets lost in a bottom-drawer "X Files" story.

As usual, Thomson steers right into the heart of vulnerability, with a painfully true performance as a guarded, confused soul.

After a smart start, it sinks into sentimental goo that traps even the aggressively snarky Spade.

With little dialogue, a murky night setting and the slowest of plots, this Portuguese fantasy only comes alive when it conforms to its true nature as arthouse pornography.

Every summer needs a super-turkey. So barring anything in the next 30 days that's the second coming of "Howard the Duck," the witless, completely terrible "comedy" now called The Watch should win hands-down.

The plot is contrived, the performances are all over the board, and Chomski's camera ogles his actresses just a little too much.

As irritating as an ideological college student, this earnest debut from Zak Tucker is determined to teach us a lesson about right and wrong.

As much as I love swing, all I got out of Martin Guigui's murky, incomprehensible grade B romantic fantasy was a few twitches of nostalgia for the music.

As the latest in a never-ending chain of thrillers about young people lost and dying in a hostile land, John Stockwell's Turistas at least offers the visual benefits of exotic settings and a cast of barely clad hardbodies.

It's also suffocatingly stagy, especially when the husband's new love (Kristen Bell) and a violent thief (Justin Long) show up.

If, on the other hand, your driver's license is still a distant dream, consider this a path to pure hilarity.

Surely an Oscar-nominated filmmaker like Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”) can do better than this nasty and unconvincing thriller.

The script, which is rarely smart and barely scary, offers little more than a checklist of panic-inducing plagues, from locusts to boils to bad Southern accents.

From junky production values to the parade of unfunny supporting characters to its lazy energy, Dumb and Dumber To falls on its face.

I Am Number Four, with its gangly title, seems like a dimwitted cousin to those hipper properties - a Superman-come-lately tale of puppy love, extraordinary powers and puberty that's duller than a chalkboard and less powerful than an extraneous Jonas brother.

While Diaz and Kutcher make their clichéd characters as likable as possible, you can bet on this: Any movie named after an already-stale ad campaign isn't likely to gamble on the unexpected.

Martin starts at the outrageous accent and spins out from there, and that's fine for this. And there are a few snicker-worthy scenes.

Even if you've got a soft spot for silly rom-coms, know that this one is as empty-headed as it gets.

What might work as a narrative device in a novel - the spirit guiding readers through Nick's revelations - is just plain ridiculous in a movie.

Ryan’s debut as a director is a sketchy and starchy film. The memorable thing about the movie is that Hanks, still one of the biggest stars on the planet, stepped up for his “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail” partner.

A romantic triangle featuring Rebecca Hall, Alan Rickman and “Game of Thrones” costar Richard Madden has no business being this dull.

Kevin Spacey works heroically to overcome the flaws in Father of Invention, but Trent Cooper's flaky indie does depressingly little to earn its star's commitment.

The local angle offers a degree of flavor, but this is a dull tale, reminiscent of a hundred others. The dialogue is ludicrous, the video stock looks cheap.

The film's pace is just plain wacky, moving with the haste of a receding glacier most of the time, but then jumping ahead as if Hartley hit the gas on a time machine.

Weintrob's shallow analysis of virtual reality might have been more resonant in the mid-'90s, but he seems well aware that some things are timeless: By the end of his film, he has firmly shifted focus, concentrating far less on the cyber than on the sex.

Say a little prayer and save your money.

Crisply directed but inescapably pious and, worse, narratively poky.

The danger in writing, directing, producing and casting yourself in the same movie is that there’s no one to pull you back from the cliff. Simon Helberg (“The Big Bang Theory”) did co-direct this grating vanity affair with his wife, Jocelyn Towne, but neither seems to realize how misguided it is at every step.

If an hour and a half of so-called "torture porn" sounds like fun, you'll find Saw IV situated somewhere between the first in the cycle (a solid original with plenty of energy in it) and the last (a gasping copycat willing to do anything to stay alive).

Fanning's watcher is watchable, yet the kid-actress extraordinaire is so polished it kind of makes your head explode.

This comic drama tries too hard to serve up a slice of manic life, but Eisenberg, along with Tracy Morgan and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as the affable druggies, provides some spark.

The leaden bits do bring the proceedings to a screeching halt too many times, but the costumes are breathtaking, and the details (like color-coordinated martinis) are dazzling.

The film borrows plenty, but it brings nothing new.

A director who really wanted to honor these actors’ legendary roles, rather than simply use them as a marketing hook, might have found a way to make this concept palatable. Segal (“Get Smart”) is not that director.

Problem is, this movie is all surface - to quote one character, it has hidden shallows.

The dialogue is nothing to speak of, but the movie has a dynamite opening sequence in which the corporation turns on its workers, leaving them, if not dead, then with "virtually no intelligence," like office workers everywhere.

Very much a freshman effort, lacking focus, edge.

Flimsy and forgettable, but it does have a few worthy action and special-effects sequences.

A jumbled composite of blurred images, poetic yearnings and metaphoric dialogue.

Self-indulgent in the extreme, Julián Hernández's laconic ode to heartbreak feels like the work of a lovelorn teenager.

The latest indignity.

The actor (Garcia), whose banked anger has been a secret weapon since "The Untouchables" 25 years ago, paints a fascinating portrait of a man moved by fate.

Brad Leong’s “quirky” romantic comedy retreads ground that is already so well worn, everyone just slides right through.

Dream House is the full magilla, with imaginary images, sanity questions, peek-a-boo startles and the usual are-they-real-or-not? characters.

Deep into Hollywood's Dumb Season comes one of its dumbest offerings.

A lump of coal, sculpted from the kind of high-concept idea screenwriters find scribbled on bar napkins after nights of heavy drinking.

Loosely adapting Larry Beinhart's darker novel, Ratliff and co-writer Douglas Stone indulge in so many cheap shots and caricatures, their disdain drips off the screen.

Director Juan Feldman trusts his actors to charm us, which they do — up to a point. But there’s only so much that can be wrung out of this spinster-meets-exotic stud, “Summertime”-lite affair.

Hey, Michael: It's the robots, stupid. Despite all the mechanical mayhem, none of the Transformers stand out.

Aside from the shamelessly promoted corporate sponsors, nobody emerges from this game a winner. But the biggest losers are the ones who paid good money to watch it.

The movie is so shiny, bright and noisy, the under-10 set ought to be sufficiently entertained.

Aside from its relentless exploitation of a child, this minor thriller features an intriguing beginning, a middling middle and an increasingly silly end, with a multitude of red herrings going squoosh underfoot.