The entire movie is about as sexy as a root canal.

This is an oddball tale that is well worth telling, but Mr. Carrey simply cannot resist turning it into a Three Stooges routine in drag.

Too small and dark to appeal to a large audience, it's not a movie to cherish.

The result is a well-intentioned but ultimately torpid film, one that feels much more concerned with saying something important than it is the far more noble task of conveying a compelling story worth telling.

Because it’s written and directed by slick slasher king Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel), expect some genuine, well-executed thrills that keep the adrenaline going. This is a good thing, because Keanu Reeves has the adrenaline rush of road kill.

It's a fatiguing, low-key character study that drags along annoyingly and pleads for patience, but stick with it and you'll find the engrossing centerpiece performance by Ms. Theron a captivating reward that is well worth the effort.

There are moments here and there with potentially eloquent points of departure, but they dissolve in the mists of the director's ultimately aimless estheticism. [21 May 1999]

It’s so sincere and admirable that it seems churlish to voice objections, but the fact remains that it isn’t very good.

Believer is a film wherein everyone’s effort — effort to underline a message, effort to deliver a nuanced performance, effort to be visually interesting, effort to shock the audience — is all a little too visible on screen. Intellectually, I can get behind almost all of it, but on a gut level, the level where horror lives and breathes, it does very little for me.

A well-meaning but desultory descent into darkness based on a memoir of the same name by Amy-Jo Albany, daughter of Joe Albany, the great jazz pianist who died in 1988 at age 63. The book, published in 2003, was subtitled Junk, Jazz and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood, and that just about covers it.

This dumb movie turns from dubious to preposterous.

The best thing here is the muted cinematography, which caresses the wet leaves and cloudy purple Tuscan skies like an old Italian master oil painting that comes to life. In the desultory Voice From the Stone, it’s the only thing that does.

James Gray’s Armageddon Time is the kind of movie you get when a talented filmmaker thinks back upon the painful moments of his childhood and then, after close reflection, decides to remake The 400 Blows.

One thing that defies debate: Zac Efron is going places as an actor of value. But he deserves better movies than Charlie St. Cloud.

The movie, which has all the freshness and insight of a Movie of the Week on the Hallmark channel, is a first for the writer-director, which probably accounts for its lack of any definitive style or focus.

My boy Viggo is always fascinating, but the movie is a concept searching for a story.

The point finally arrives when you realize an initially interesting plot ceases to make much sense, the screenplay by Christopher Salmanpour is nothing more than a series of elaborate red herrings, and director Nimród Antal has nothing to do but increase the noise level and blow up as much of downtown Berlin as legally possible.

As the narrative builds, the movie shows how the harassed and impatient Chinese-American finds tolerance, acceptance of others, inner salvation and love. A lot for one movie to negotiate, not always successfully, but the enjoyment factor is obvious.

It’s one damned thing after another in Suncoast, a leaden, melodramatic soap opera with forced comedic elements inserted to drag out the playing time.

With her sweet face, alert eyes, and a tail that forever waves in the air like a maestro’s baton, this is a dog worth following, no matter the breed.

Trevorrow does not add one fresh idea to this franchise. We are simply too far along in this technological revolution to think that the computer generated creatures themselves are enough, no matter how artfully they are arranged.

Oldroyd has found a terrific lead actress on which to hitch his wagon.

The theme is racism, insanity and savage brutality in Texas. Some things never change. I guess it’s a new-fangled old-fashioned western.

The movie doesn’t know if it’s a teen fantasy-romance or a more sophisticated satire that the material can’t support.

It shouldn’t happen to a dog — or to an audience of dog lovers.

All of this furious, empty noise keeps reminding you that you’re watching a cheesy horror film that is not confident enough in the story it’s telling to avoid succumbing to old tricks.

So Breath is not without its pleasures, but it takes longer for the boys to grow up than it does to master Big Smokey. It needs a push, an edge, a reason to care about what happens next.

The sum of Ticket To Paradise is less than its parts, which is a difficult feat when you have two major A-list stars at the helm. That doesn’t diminish the film’s general likability and possibility of becoming a Sunday afternoon comfort watch. If you’re nostalgic for a great rom-com, though, this isn’t it.