While My First Mister has considerable charm, it suffers somewhat from comparison with "Ghost World."

An uninspired recycling of themes that were far more gripping in "The Lion King" and countless other earlier Mouse House classics.

One of the better political documentaries flooding into theaters after "Fahrenheit 9/11" and before the election.

Fine for fans? Sure. This stuff is crack for fans. Crack is really bad!

Ted 2 has so many mo–ments of crazy brilliance that I laughed a lot, if infrequently. Is a ballplayer who whiffs four balls but knocks the fifth one 500 feet worth watching? I say yes.

Greengrass' direction is uninspired, but there is powerful chemistry between a workmanlike Branagh and (real-life girlfriend) Bonham Carter. And her original, seductive and always believable turn as the difficult-but-lovable Jane raises the movie above all its flaws. [23 Dec. 1998, p.44]

Divergent is a clumsy, humorless and shamelessly derivative sci-fi thriller set in a generically dystopian future.

The preachy “Showman” argues that Barnum should be celebrated for bringing “freaks” like the bearded lady and others out of the shadows and into his shows, but those characters are sketchily drawn.

Gorgeous location filming on Italy’s Amalfi Coast and a voice-only performance by the great Claire Bloom as an elderly woman remembering World War II are the main attractions in Kat Coiro’s familiarly snoozy romantic drama.

The film at least achieves the level of mediocrity thanks to the professionalism of two slightly younger participants — Kline and Mary Steenburgen, who also have Oscars on their mantels but go well beyond phoning it in here.

Politics aside, Trudell plays like an infomercial for its subject rather than a serious examination of the man and his beliefs.

Seldom does The Bang Bang Club show much interest in the big picture of South Africa. When moral issues do come to the forefront, the big worry seems to be not questionable behavior but bad publicity.

Whatever message Brooks was trying to put across with Spanglish, it clearly got lost in translaaaaaaaaaaation.

Pleasant and has not a few laughs.

An odd, unexpectedly interesting little movie.

Tried to turn this into a replay of its 2000 military-rescue hitBlack Hawk Down -- though, in the end, it's almost totally lacking in the serious hardware and viscerally paced action that propelled Ridley Scott's movie to the top of the box office.

It makes not just the "Thief of Baghdad" and the junky Ray Harryhausen movies of the '60s and '70s but even Disney's recent "Aladdin" seem positively multicultural by comparison.

It's a shame, because the actors are so much better than the threadbare material.

Michael Moore makes many of the same points, with far more impact, in "Bowling for Columbine."

The film repeatedly disappoints because Sandler and his director...have so little faith in focusing on the two characters' plight that they interrupts the romance repeatedly for vulgar, Farrelly brothers-style sexual and ethnic jokes that are so relentlessly unfunny they may not even rouse Sandler's core constituency of 12-year-old males.

Frey's harrowing depiction of this milieu transcends the indifferent acting and contrived plot.

Many of Kampmeier's characters are either ill-defined or clichéd.

The story is told in fractured time. This might not be a problem if his visuals were more fear-inducing.

A 42-minute TV soap has more story than this limp and familiar tale of domestic woe.

Like “Traffic’’ on a massive dose of downers, Ridley Scott’s The Counselor is a great-looking and star-filled but lethally pretentious, talky, lethargic drama.

It’s not quite “Once,” but Song One, featuring original music by Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice, captures a similar, unselfconscious beauty in the way music can make sense of big, ungainly emotions — as James puts it, “for three to five whole minutes.”

Not an easy movie to watch, and it's far from perfect - but it does have an artsy integrity and a fascinatingly intense performance by Paul Giamatti.

Formerly a maker of bad, but at least angry, movies, Spike Lee now seems to be trying to be the world's oldest student filmmaker. Take out the rookie mistakes from Red Hook Summer, and there'd be nothing left.

Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane is been there, done that.

Despite this seemingly surefire premise and cast of veteran comedians - there's even a cameo by Liza Minnelli as a masturbation coach - The OH in Ohio just lies there, without a single laugh.

It's perfectly entertaining (and well-executed) in its cute, undemanding way.

You might be tempted to walk out. Don't.

The gleeful teen-horror spoof that proves that the Farrelly brothers have no monopoly on outrageous, politically incorrect comedy.

The contrast between Chan's charm and physical prowess and Tucker's lack of same is even more dramatic in this tiresome, leaden sequel.

Becomes almost laughably melodramatic and wields just about every rock-movie cliché in the book.

Might have worked as a 10-minute sketch.

Argento keeps the suspense level high while throwing in trademark cringe-inducing moments.

Incoherent, laugh-free comedy.

An extremely awkward cross between "Ocean's Eleven" and "Rain Man."

This Disney sequel to 2013’s “Planes” is a lot like flying coach: serviceable, but not trying that hard.

It's not asking much that a thriller be scary or shocking. This one waffles between being predictable and absurd.

“Let’s show ’em some good old-fashioned American swagger,’’ MacArthur says on his arrival in Tokyo. It’s too bad director Webber and the screenwriters, David Klass and Vera Blasi, didn’t take his advice to heart instead of largely wasting Jones and some very nice period details.

A film so rife with plot holes that it would make a decent pasta strainer.

Heavy on celebrity voices, pop culture references and rock tunes and low on memorable characters or imagination, Chicken Little is on a par with such mediocre but popular CGI films as "Madagascar" and "Shark Tale."

This re-imagining of Chucky’s origins manages to be both crazier and more level-headed than the original, in which the doll strolled around Chicago talking like a gangster from “Guys and Dolls.”

A slick, shallow and thoroughly generic caper flick.

Exploring pain in novel ways in film is a good thing. Next time, though, pick a different novel.

Peter Krause, the fine actor from "Six Feet Under," gives a one-note performance that seriously undermines Civic Duty, a thriller mining minimal dramatic payoff from the potentially potent subject of post-9/11 paranoia.

One of the most thrilling - and authentic - mountain-climbing films in recent memory. Unfortunately, it's also burdened by one of those every-line-a-wretched-cliché Hollywood screenplays.

There's not a moment in it that feels fresh or authentic or inspired. But neither is it offensive.

At 52, Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) still looks a treat and, more important, effortlessly wields her double entendres like a Romanian Mae West.

Morrow fares less well with the script, which he also produced and collaborated on.

No one's going to confuse The Core with art -- or even a good film -- but it's 25 minutes longer than "The Hours" and I had at least 25 times as much fun.

In any case, the presence of O'Hara, Kline, Ramis, Black, Tomlin and John Lithgow (who plays Shaun's father) serve mainly to underline the feebleness of the screenplay and the slackness of the direction.

Laugh-out-loud comedies are so rare that you shouldn't casually pass up Super Troopers, which is essentially a smarter and much funnier version of the old "Police Academy" flicks.

A shame that this indie's willingness to trade in stereotype leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Are Some Girl(s) like this? Yes. But I left this movie with no additional insight on why.

Green rules the picture with her nutty stare and her willingness to get nasty in a hot sex scene, but the movie’s main weak point is the Greek general Themistokles.

Despite the film’s wispiness, though, there is always something compelling about Waterston, who is usually the best part of any film she’s in (see also: “Inherent Vice,” “Alien: Covenant”).

Besson co-wrote and produced this cheesy mash-up of elements from James Bond and "Battlestar Galactica."

The ever-excitable Martin Scorsese, who is listed as a producer and who pops up, bizarrely, to talk about how he decided to stage the last shot of "The Departed," concludes things by saying, "Cubism was not a style. It was a revolution!" Yep. And not in any way a fad.

A documentary hardly anybody has been waiting for.

An entertaining if nonsensical variation on Hill's greatest hit from that bygone era, "48 Hrs.''

Despite strong performances by Gerard Jugnot as the crime-busting prosecutor and Veronica D'Agostino as the adult Rita, The Sicilian Girl never lives up to its potential.

Andy Lau and Siu Fai Mak, the men behind the successful Hong Kong police thriller trio "Infernal Affairs," should be arrested for directing Initial D.

The sex is the main thing that makes Kiss of the Damned worthwhile.

When I'm Still Here reached its climactic moment -- Joaquin Phoenix puking into a toilet -- I had never before felt quite so much like a toilet.

Even without the laughable new material, the addictive quality of the short story is lost in adaptation from the get-go.

Lacking either the narrative shiftiness or the trashy thrills of “Gone Girl,” this one is the kind of flick few will watch twice: It has about as many twists and turns as an L. The third act of a movie shouldn’t make you feel as though the first two acts were a waste of time.

It's terribly predictable and often risible stuff.

A brave but ultimately futile attempt at adapting a piece that is so quintessentially theatrical that it defies translation to another medium.

Black, who all but stole "High Fidelity," is disappointingly bland and one-note in his first starring role.

What could have been a biting dark comedy is, instead, uninspired and generic. The contrived, everybody's-happy finale just makes things worse.

Pleasant but lifeless love story.

It's got enough going on to sustain five blockbuster thrillers. That is its blessing and its curse.

"The Waterboy" was funny because Sandler doesn't look like a football player. When he swaggers around The Longest Yard starting fights and taking beatings without flinching, he only reminds us how little Steve McQueen and how much Woody Allen there is in him.

Sadly, laughs are sparse in this labor of love, a self-conscious spoof by longtime "X-Files" producer R.W. Goodwin.

I might be able to get past that if Hathaway and Sturgess had any chemistry. There are no sparks whatsoever, and that's always a deal-breaker for me in romantic films.

What is missing is any sort of psychological insight. Just what made Renato run? You won't find out here.

Even smut can be dull.

Beginning as an adorable romcom, Hungry Hearts morphs into a disturbing but not particularly illuminating story of mental illness.

Would it have been tacky to visually play up the connection between Tolkien’s harrowing experiences on the WWI battlefield and his depiction of Mordor in the books? Perhaps. Beyond the briefest of allusions, Karukoski tastefully leaves that to the imagination. But this — like much of the film — is a tastefulness that induces sleepiness. Tolkien’s estate was not supportive of this film, understandably: The legendary author’s work is memorial enough.

You can't fault the film's elegant look. But you have to wonder why Shakhnazarov, one of Russian's most experienced filmmakers, didn't take more care with the script.

It turns out the stories don't unite at all. Instead, we get a series of dramatic vignettes, most of them decently executed but all of them rooted in the weepy sensibility of TV movies.

Matthew Broderick graduates from "boyish" and lurches straight into "curmudgeonly" in the would-be indie heartwarmer Wonderful World.

There isn't anything terribly exciting or original on offer in the somewhat poky directing debut of screenwriter Zach Helm.

Ultimately breaks down under the weight of too many characters and unbelievable twists.

The teen dance drama Step Up seems like it was not only inspired by a Janet Jackson video but entirely written during one.

The tone is good-natured enough to make a simple movie semi-watchable.

Under Mark Palansky's uninspired direction, magic eludes Penelope in scene after scene.

She’s (Fey) so good that — up to a point — you can ignore Paul Weitz’ erratic direction and a patchy script, both of which clumsily handle shifts between comedy and drama.

You are unlikely to see a movie about incest made as sensitively and tastefully as Womb. And although the characters speak English, the film is firmly anchored in European sensibilities, thanks to its Hungarian director, Benedek Fliegauf.

Khouri seems never to have met a "chick flick" cliché she didn't like, from the ubiquity of emotional telephone conversations to the lachrymose (but entirely predictable and dramatically flabby) reconciliation at the end.

One of those painfully earnest -- and pretentious -- little indies in which a pair of emotional cripples neatly resolve all of their problems within 48 hours of meeting each other.

Sorry to Raid on your parade, “Ant-Man” fans, but the third chapter is a pile of dirt.

There is also a fair amount of boy-on-boy sex, which would be the main reason for seeing No Regret, no matter what your sexual orientation might be.

You never believe Buck is the genuine article, so moments of danger and even cute mannerisms don’t land. Even the best-trained contestant at Westminster has some unpredictability.

Pugh, a sensational actress, keeps our interest as she grows increasingly suspicious and sees disturbing visions in mirrors and on windows. She brings class and gravitas to a movie that would otherwise be kinda trashy.