Crippled by lame storytelling.

This absurdist patchwork of a film, already a hit in the Czech Republic, features a number of amusing set pieces.

Gets pinned down in a barrage of schmaltz, cliché, stereotype and racial condescension - not to mention a historically dubious premise.

You don't have to be gay or Italian or live in Canada to enjoy Mambo Italiano, but a tolerance for ethnic mugging helps.

Aside from a nifty new way to avoid surveillance in the middle of the desert, there's nothing here we haven't seen in many other movies - including "Spy Game," directed by Scott's brother Tony before 9/11.

Really belongs on Lifetime rather than in theaters.

Never rises above the level of a soap opera, although the steamy sex and Lo's abundant nudity might make it worthwhile for some viewers.

Draggy and contrived.

The 3-D effects are among the most effective ever shot.

Flat dialogue and stiff performances (especially by the street kids, like Ballesteros, turned into actors by Schroeder) don't help.

A sizzling soundtrack and Jennifer Lopez's best performance since "Out of Sight" go only so far in El Cantante, a downer of a musical biopic that leaves no cliché unturned.

When I go to a Mummy movie, I don't want ninjas and yetis and men turned to stone. I want embalmed corpses and hieroglyphics. I want pharaoh. I want pyramids and sphinxes and Ace bandages. Did "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" take place on the Nile?

The premise has potential, but there's no follow- through. And there's no actual zombie mayhem; we learn everything secondhand -- from phone calls to the station.

“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.

Despite the title, there is no nudity in the Chinese rom-com Love in the Buff, although there is a lot of risqué language.

This is Ebiri's first feature after directing four shorts. He shows talent, but shouldn't give up his day job just yet.

Steve Taylor's direction is unexciting but solid, relying on the beauty of Portland and his spirited young cast for most of the visual interest.

Szumowska provides lurid scenes of perverted sex, but she offers no new insight into the sordid world of prostitution and the dangers sex workers face. Nor does she flesh out Charlotte and Alicja. The result is a superficial and voyeuristic film.

Of course, nobody watches a Jackie Chan movie for the sophisticated plots or deep characters. They come for the martial arts. But those, too, settle for being not much more than a kick in the park.

Strictly remainder-bin material.

The movies of prolific and popular Japanese director Takashi Miike evoke many emotions -- nausea, excitement, awe, amazement, shock. One emotion they don't often evoke is boredom. Sad to say,Dead or Alive: Final is boring.

When an 80-year-old director turns his attention to death, you hope for some insight, or gravitas, or even whimsy or anger. Hereafter has none of that.

May be the first movie that effectively erases virtually its entire story line by the very last scene.

Has its share of laughs.

Limitless may please a few looking for a shallow fantasy thriller, but won't fire up the synapses of the intellectually demanding.

Beautifully photographed and fitfully amusing, Gaudi Afternoon would be an impressive film from a first-timer, but Seidelman is experienced enough to know she should have told the actors not to camp things up so excessively.

A soufflé of a romantic and family comedy that stubbornly refuses to rise.

Not surprisingly in this tale of desperate men, the only women are top-heavy cartoon characters — literally, animated sequences illustrate Frank’s stories — or live-action betrayers, like Dakota Fanning’s Annie, Frank’s ex-girlfriend. I found the cartoons more interesting.