Even The Rock, who can usually be counted on to enliven any scenario, seems bored by the laughably feeble script.

Unlike that earlier live action/animation hybrid, however, which had a cheery, almost campy New York fashion-industry setting, The Smurfs 2 is mostly loud and unfunny.

Hugely expensive and extravagantly stupid, Alice Through the Looking Glass is just one more silly Hollywood mashup, an innocent fantasy morphed into a noisy would-be blockbuster.

The blatantly misogynistic treatment of the female characters, who exist solely to service Rob and his best friend (Craig Roberts), would have felt retrograde in a movie made decades ago.

A pretty run-of-the-mill B suspense movie.

By the end of its way-too-long 98 minutes, there are four things audiences will be haunted by: Jovovich's annoying, whispery monotone; silly closeups of owls; Will Patton's Z-movie turn as a grizzled sheriff, and dialogue like "It's too late to forget what you already know." Ain't that the truth.

No one is able to make much of the disposable script, but Hamm is so limited by the period trappings that it seems as if he simply wandered onto the wrong set.

If you’re considering spending your hard-earned money on such bland fare, you should at least know what you’re getting: a rehash of every rom-com cliché imaginable.

It's brain-dead start to finish.

Looks great but tells us little about the subjects.

Veering between black comedy and intense psychological drama, David Moreton's bizarre thriller never manages to get its bearings.

A cheerless sequel to an uninspired remake, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is, at best, well timed to serve as a backup baby-sitter during the hectic days of winter break.

Bill Carey’s uneven first film, centered on an isolated Texas teen named Vallie Sue (AJ Michalka), has some offbeat charms. They are not, however, strong enough to carry such a heavy load of cliches.

The shock of seeing kids talking dirty dries up quick, but the message is one of positivity and communication.

Janssen's affectionate, almost-1970s-style view of innocents-at-large may not be polished, but earns points for being from the heart.

Just not feeling the holiday spirit? Maybe a brainless, extra-bloody B-movie will provide the boost you're looking for.

The actor's directorial debut is a lugubriously poetic homage to the famed Chelsea Hotel, which is to New York's artistic and beatnik past what Ellis Island is to the story of American immigration.

Travolta is the least of the film's problems. With a script by James Vanderbilt, whose first credit was for a movie about the tooth fairy ("Darkness Falls"), and directed by John McTiernan, last seen struggling with "Rollerball," Basic is a fundamental failure.

Intermittently funny.

While ATM does offer a few jolts, we're paired with bland characters and an underrealized premise.

Nothing in the movie rings true, least of all its depiction of gambling, both in casinos and in the bookie world that ultimately drives the story.

If there is a casting agent in hell, ­Martin Lawrence and Tyler Perry will soon put on their fat suits as Big Momma and Madea Simmons and show up as a tag team in a big-screen ­Wrestlemania.

Jessica Goldberg’s sluggish directorial debut feels like a leftover from the 1990s, when dank indie dramas littered film-festival lineups.

10,000 B.C. tries, but never catches fire.

Did you like “Zoolander”? Good, then you’ll like Zoolander 2.

Valentine's Day is sugary, sappy and totally predictable. It's also what a whole lot of women are likely to want.

Chevy Chase looks tired, Pam Grier looks embarrassed, and pop star Iggy Pop gives a performance that -- if you can believe it -- is even sillier than his name.

This pretty trifle is a movie about gorgeous women having an illicit affair -- period.

Atoothless morality play.

Those who need little more than a car chase, gunplay, pretty girls and a solid soundtrack will be entertained. And Ice Cube fans won't be disappointed. Everyone else may want to think twice before shelling out hard-earned dollars.

Mo'Nique, co-star of TV's "The Parkers," gives a loud, brassy performance as Peaches Whitaker.

Though Morrow and Forlani are fine actors, they can't even fake a physical attraction between their characters, let alone orgasms.

This taut but cliched little thriller is like "Wait Until Dark" with neo-Nazis.

How ironic (depressing? predictable?) that the week after we celebrate the best in movies, we are force-fed its very worst. 21 & Over is filmmaking by formula, and evidence of Hollywood’s assumption that appealing to viewers’ basest instincts will always pay off.

Duhamel is goofy and harmless, but unlike Ryan Gosling in “Notebook,” adds no texture or subtlety. Hough (“Footloose”), while photogenic, is similarly bland.

Like the very asteroid that is hurtling toward Earth in the movie, Ice Age: Collision Course is chunky, clunky and bulky. Unlike the asteroid, the film seems to move at a glacial pace.

An uncensored, often hilarious vision of spring break madness that is so perfectly positioned on the big screen, the only question you can ask its creators is, "What took you so long?"

Gore fans will dig the makeup effects and some of the tongue-in-cheek slice-&-dice.

Ken Liotti's script barely earns a C+.

There is really nothing wrong with Peter Chelsom's Town & Country that younger stars would not have solved.

In the expanding genre of quirky comedies, first-time writer-director Michael Clancy's messy, fitfully funny Eulogy is among the quirkiest.

Fashionistas who flock to Whitney Sudler-Smith's documentary should pay heed to the entire title: this isn't simply the biography of an American icon, but the chronicle of a misguided filmmaker.

Most people can only watch the same movie so many times. But Philipp Stölzl is clearly hopeful that when you’re done with “Taken” (and “Taken 2”), you’ll want more of the same. Should that be the case, this undistinguished but decent knockoff is ready to satisfy.

An adequate but none-too-thrilling star vehicle for Jennifer Garner in flame-colored bustier and low-riding pants.

The first half of Scenic Route is basically a filmed play, and not an insightful one. The more surreal second half takes on a moodier edge, but the switcheroo ending is cutesy to the point of annoying. Fogler impresses with some brooding edge, but neither he nor the location photography is enough to recommend you join him on this doomed trip.

Sure it’s got big, blurry action scenes, a plane crash, and an army of dusty, mindless zombies. But I think some of them may have been the screenwriters, because the movie’s practically lifeless.

After a while, Vacation starts to reek like a car when the kids have their shoes off. Really, though, that stench is a studio digging through its old titles, trying to find something fresh to remake.

The Lifeguard is one of those deceptive movies that, to its credit, winds up being about more than just an easy-to-describe tagline. In this case, that line would be: “Woman goes back to hometown, sleeps with high school boy.”

If all you want is a bullets-and-bombs B-movie, you'll get your money's worth: Somehow, Hayward makes 82 minutes feel like hours.

Exploits and trivializes public anxiety for entertainment and commercial gain. They've been doing it for years. But this little piggie didn't get to the market in time.

A depressingly hollow vehicle.

Pleasantly cheesy but undistinguished martial-arts and horror fare.

Has all the appeal of a video game without the joystick. All you can do is watch. It's noisy and moves fast, but if you can't play, why pay?

What is unusual and exciting about the movie is the assemblage of raw talent in the cast.

This would-be satire earns an E for Effort for wanting to be to the advertising world what “Being There” was to television.

Mostly plays like a routine thriller with a classy cast.

If he earns no other accolades for his directorial debut - a distinct likelihood - Lee Daniels deserves some kind of award just for assembling the most bizarrely random cast of this young century.

There’s no explaining the presence of Guy Pearce in Pauline Chan’s sappy, atonal family drama. But it’s easy enough to understand why he looks so uncomfortable throughout.

Let's just get it out of the way right now: Reader, I liked it.

Sam Worthington and Jim Sturgess are solid as two of the four kidnappers, but Swedish director Daniel Alfredson pushes the caper button too many times. More sly wit would have helped things come to a head.

Though this family film is slick and well-intentioned, it comes off as shallow as a prom committee meeting.

Nothing terribly special here, but perfectly played and a spiritual cousin to such early ’90s indies as “Naked in New York” and “Ed’s Next Move.”

There's no drug potent enough to make Grandma's Boy worth 87 minutes of your life.

While The Grudge 2 feels like a second-generation copy - a little faded, with less impact than the first - there are still plenty of moments that will linger in your nightmares.

It's hard to say which is worse: The fact that 20th Century Fox believes this sour, sexist fantasy reflects anyone's actual experience or that Hollywood is so woefully behind the cultural curve.

A muddle of good intentions and bad direction, this amateurish road movie follows a young Brit across Europe as he reconnects with his Jewish roots.

This odd Dickens-meets-Sunday-school movie is as artless as the setup is muddled.

The only thing that's revolting is how dull the series has gotten.

Though technically a werewolf movie, the silly Blood and Chocolate is really just a toothless love story about the bad stuff that can happen when two very different people fall in love.

Schaeffer thickens the general air of narcissism by directing Parker's Lucy essentially as a female version of himself, with the same puckish sense of humor and undertone of self-pity. Stiller's Bwick is an entertaining invention, an art-world variation on The-Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince though he, too, turns out to be mainly a foil to Joe's wonderfulness. Clearly, Eric Schaeffer has at least one really big fan. [8 March 1996, p.40]

Sandler's shambling Yogi Bear-ness will be the big appeal to holiday-vacation audiences.

Sappy and improbable.

It neither mocks nor satirizes, it doesn't touch any social issues, and though it is about an election, there are no losers. For all those reasons, there aren't many laughs, either. Political comedy plays against tension, and there just isn't any.

All we get is the Oedipal nightmare of a mom, the flaky teddy-bear fanatic, the sexual vampire, and on and on.

The movie as a whole falls victim to a dewy kind of Tennessee Williams-itis, as Black plops too many wanna-be, colorful twists - imminent illness, botched robberies, fake pregnancies - into what is at heart a gently heartbreaking rendering.

This thought-provoking but overlong doc wins points for being all-inclusive.

Given that its predecessor hit bottom in the glorification of thug thrills, State Property 2 had nowhere to go but up. Yet, it doesn't.

Most of the action revolves around Ulrich's character, and the center cannot hold our interest.

Cage, adopting an accent that could best be defined as Just British Enough to Sound Serious, adds some welcome weirdness to this otherwise generic production. He doesn’t fit in at all, but then again, who’d want him to?

Shallow and frustratingly misguided drama.

For parents looking to get their preschoolers out of the house, The Hero of Color City will be good enough.

The cast gamely tries to keep up, with the scene-stealing O'Dowd making the strongest impression. Still, it all feels so lazy and familiar that adults may find themselves hoping Black will start to challenge himself again - and the more swiftly the better.

Possibly the worst movie of 2007.

If I were to guess how Hollywood envisions the inside of a teenage boy's brain, it would look exactly like Zack Snyder'sSucker Punch."

Okay, y'all, the never-ending appeal of the Southern-fried crime caper for filmmakers hungry for flavor is back with The Baytown Outlaws. Only here, the drawling accents, screeching tires and sawed-off blasts that rise again don't amount to much.

History can be an equalizer, so director Roland Joffe ("The Killing Fields," "The Mission") makes sure saints and sinners all get painted with the same uninteresting brush in this fact-based drama.

Some may wonder why Jennifer Aniston keeps taking projects about single women unlucky in love. But the bigger question in Love Happens is why, with her pick of scripts, she chose one so utterly uninspired.

Hell is sitting through a movie in which you have no respect for the protagonist and the "surprise" ending is as clearly lit as the exit sign.

A passable, but entirely uninspired "Spy Kids" wanna-be.

At a certain point, the film gains atmosphere and is rescued by the sincerity and sweetness of the young actors. Better, the plot finally hits a groove in the final quarter, and a soaring soundtrack twangs the right emotional notes.

The funny thing about RV - no, it's not the jokes, which mostly bomb - is that the characters are actually pretty likable. It's an odd achievement for a road-trip comedy that wants desperately to be loved for its potty jokes, not its humanity.

So who was the movie really made for? Mostly, it seems, for Cyrus herself, who needed to take the first, hesitant step in another direction.

For all the talent involved, the overall effect is surprisingly flat. Foxx appears disconnected, Byrne is wasted and a painfully hammy Diaz seems to be in another movie altogether.

Why remake a horror film if you can't make it scarier?

It's a pleasure to watch a thinking-man's actor like Sinise adapt so easily to this challenge; he even keeps his dignity when forced to participate in the inevitable martial arts-inflected showdown.

Banderas has some very effective moments, but in his emotional scenes, Cristofer has him screaming his lines into Jolie's face with such a spritzing fury, she might have filed a union grievance.

Frankly, you may prefer the company of cinematic serial killers (Freddy vs. Jason) after you meet the pair at the center of this story.

Surprisingly sweet and smart... LaBeouf does an excellent job, and the talented Beeney is one to watch.