Whatever brownie points Tillman scored with "Notorious", Faster is that wake-up call that he's no John Woo.

It's a modestly effective but jaw-droppingly violent picture.

Tedious time-killer of a kiddie comedy.

Hallstrom and his low-heat stars can’t find the pulse of this corpse.

The characters in The Perfect Game speak old school “Hollywood Mexican.” In other words, they speak English with accents that we haven’t heard since the golden Age of Speedy Gonzalez.

It's all very messy and entirely too obvious at the same time. Montiel makes the most of his settings, but the story keeps staggering into dead ends.

Off the wall? Friend, you don’t know off the wall until you’ve seen five twelve-year-old girl singer-dancers cover the Tina Turner/Phil Spector epic “River Deep, Mountain High” in the screwball kiddie dance comedy, Standing Ovation.

Whatever merits the production values have, the cheap frights don't deliver, the performers bring no pathos and the gimmick behind Apollo 18 flat out does not work.

Good looking (it was filmed in Winter Garden) but slow and bland, this faith-based tear-jerker is a depressingly unemotional affair, with writing and some of the acting so flat that even its emotionally loaded situations can’t inspire waterworks.

On the sliding critter-comedy scale, Furry Vengeance falls somewhere between the Chipmunks and the Chihuahua (the one from Beverly Hills).

It's a rarely amusing movie overwhelmed by grating kids, unfunny sidekicks, half-hearted Sandler funny voices and a co-star who seems more fearful of smiling with each passing year.

Give it points on setting and a couple of the performances, but the joke-starved All's Faire in Love only rarely rises to the level of fair to middling.

The villains are weak and the narrative has little drive to it.

A little like modern country music - odd moments of sincerity, heart and authenticity peek through the plastic, the hype and the manufactured hokum.

"English Reborn" isn't terrible and is certainly seriously harmless.

This is not a bad cast, but whatever wit the script aims for is lost in the queasy details director Miguel Sapochnik found more fascinating.

Well, Green Lantern isn't "Jonah Hex" bad. But it's silly enough to be part of the same "silliest Warner Brothers comic book summer movies of all time" conversation.

The polished production sometimes touches and amuses despite its naïve “love conquers all” script.

A violent, clumsy, jokey, badly-plotted and miscast mess.

A genre mash-up that never quite achieves "So very bad it's good" status.

The message delivered isn't subtle, with Kendrick delivering toss-away lines that suggest he doesn't even tolerate "the option" of divorce. But the bigger message might be that the Kendricks haven't sold out, "gone Hollywood" or watered down their Baptist beliefs based on efforts to reach an audience beyond the faithful.

This isn't the worst of the bunch, not by far. But my premonition is this won't be the finale this series has screamed out for these past few years. This decapitation train never seems to reach its destination.

Far more grim than "Grimm," and not nearly as much fun as it should have been.

Aniston doesn’t bring her old A-game to this. But at least she’s not quiet and reserved and no-energy, her approach to too many roles of late. Butler makes the most of his Neanderthal rut.

A slick one hour and 50 minute version of those political convention hagiographies ("A Man From Hope"), so it's not exactly an objective take on its subject, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Daybreakers is a stylish but unavoidably silly sci-fi vampire thriller.

Glibly put, this challenging time-skipping rumination is the big screen equivalent of watching that "Tree" grow.

The sex sequences are revealingly awkward - with their "Don't try this at home" message. But without characters we can invest in, this "Hangover Meets Zack & Miri Make a Porno" is just the "porno," and entirely too tame for that, too.

A mirthless, joyless comedy with nary a hint of romance, mystery or justification for its existence.

It's the same movie as the earlier "gotta dance" over-choreographed crunk-and-breakdance epics. Exactly the same.

This Arthur is on the rocks long before Last Call.

The Double is barely half the movie it had the potential of becoming.

A ten-years-too-late comedy.

A dull but harmless big-screen comedy aimed at the youngest movie goers.

A crowded cast of some of the finest actors in the cinema act the hell out of a gimmicky, episodic, hit-or-miss script in Brooklyn’s Finest, Antoine Fuqua’s latest attempt to relive the glories of "Training Day."

This Herefter, despite the odd engaging moment, is a terrible letdown, like investing in a belief system and discovering there's no "here" that you've been after all your life.

It's only a movie, and not a remotely effective one. And for Zellweger, whose "Miss Potter" and "Appaloosa" were barely seen, with "Leatherheads" and "New in Town" further deflating her A-list clout, that's the real shame here.

A mad mash-up of sci-fi, Western, sacrilegious silliness and vampire movie. What lifts it to "I've seen worse" status is the previous teaming of star and director Scott Stewart, who last gave us the archangel fighting off other angels fiasco "Legion."

A screen romance that echoes its title. It gets by. Barely.

Overlong and entirely too ambitious in the number of “issues” it tries to cover, To Save a Life wanders all over the place before reaching its very predictable conclusions.

It's a fitfully amusing, not remotely scary slasher picture.

It's all tiresome, muddied and artlessly made.

That Disney touch (which even Disney has trouble replicating) is missing. Even the hockey is unconvincing.

Director Michael W. Watkins, whose decades of TV credits go back to "Quantum Leap," manages one clever visual gag - a bus wreck, observed from the far side of a cornfield. We hear a crunch, see a telephone pole wobble and a little puff of smoke. Then Watkins blows the moment with a fiery overkill.

Nobody has much that's funny to say or cool to do. Even the spy gadgets are lame.

Disney's effort to turn Kristen Bell into America's Sweetheart reaches its tipping point with You Again, a flat romantic comedy that packages her in a funny setup and surrounds her with funny people.

Bell, a petite, pretty blonde, may or may not have the Meg Ryan-Julia Roberts-Sandra Bullock goods. When in Rome, a leaden variation on that rom-com recipe, fails utterly to make her case.

It’s an American "Love Actually" without the warmth that writer-director Richard Curtis stuffs into his all-star confections, without the wit, without much love, actually.

It's light in tone, feather-weight. But there aren't many laughs in it.

Thank heavens Krasinski, at least, had the screenwriter's ear. He makes every one-liner land. "The Hamptons are like a zombie movie directed by Ralph Lauren."

Anna Faris and Chris Evans don't have enough scenes together, don't have enough funny lines and aren't surrounded by enough funny people to give this "Bridesmaids-lite" a shot.

It's an infuriatingly static picture - actors walking around when they should be running, ruminating when they should be panicking, generally failing to convey fear and pick up the pace.

There’s nobody delivering the laughs in this arid action comedy.

A generally joyless pastiche of sorcery history, imitation Potter "chosen one" Messianics and mirthless silliness, it's another in a string of recent black marks against Cage's Oscar-owning reputation.

It's not a bad looking movie, with Deco design touches that remind me of the earlier Rand film adaptation, "The Fountainhead." But the acting's flat and the script is absurdly cluttered with characters whose purpose may only truly become clear if they ever are allowed to make the other two films they have planned.

It's not as scary as it needs to be or as clever as it thinks it is, but the new 3D version of "Piranha" is at least as gimmicky as those fabled 3D films of yore. With all the pointless 3D cartoons and joyless 3D ""Clash of the Titans" conversions, at last here's a picture that tosses its cookies, its coffee cups and its D-cups right in your lap.

At long last, The Twilight Saga sinks utterly into camp with Breaking Dawn: Part 1.

As straight exploitation, it's amusing, in fits and starts. It's just that Colombiana lacks the kinetic energy of "The Transporter" and the pathos of "La Femme Nikita."

A rude and seriously crude riff on taking a vacation from marriage.

Then there's Pacino, out-of-place and yet somehow right at home. You want big? Al does BIG. And since is as close as we're likely to get to "Don Corleone Does Don Quixote," that alone is worth the price of admission.

The film manages one grand "300″ moment, Cavill rallying troops for battle, doing his best Gerard Butler. But the lack of humor, the confusing, stumbling story and limited color palette blunt the film's 3D slo-mo shots of heads exploding and torsos torn asunder by the sword.

This isn't satire, it isn't that funny and the only bits that work are the titillating ones.

The slapstick is mild-mannered, there's no romance, not a hint of emotion.

The charm has aged right out of this silly stoner franchise.

Somewhere is a triumph of tedium, banality passing for depth, a vacuous embrace of nothing.

So much is just so…obvious.

A broad and formulaic culture-clash comedy built on fill-in-the-blank wedding comedy clichés.

The script, by actor turned writer John Posey, has structural problems and motivational issues in between the cliches. And Cena, a few movies into his career, is still all presence and no acting.

These guys set out to make a movie where they could crack each other up. At this late date, they can't even manage that.

"Evil" fails to triumph. Utterly.

Despite the locations and the informative narrative, almost every scene is missing that spark that would bring the characters to life and immediacy to the story.

Those Jackasses from "Jackass" aren't getting better, they're getting older.

Hobo hits the screen as a grim, visually ugly, intermittently funny-occasionally preachy piece with only the estimable Mr. Hauer to recommend it.

Paul Weitz ("Cirque du Freak," "American Dreamz") takes over as director, and the film shows all the signs of re-shoots and re-edits designed to bring in more characters and perhaps find a few more laughs.

As with any movie, this kids' film is only as good as its writing - the jokes, the cute bits, the heart. And that's where Alpha and Omega comes up short.

This script, this leaden direction ensures that even as the teen wish-fulfillment fantasy, complete with young women playing dress-up, Monte Carlo fails.

Cop Out is still funnier than the dreadful later Eddie Murphy cop pictures. But it feels like an homage to a period best forgotten.

Young Guns II shoots blanks. [02 Aug 1990, p.E1]

Nominally a romantic action-comedy, this Goldie Hawn-Mel Gibson picture is actually a mind-numbingly raucous exploitation flick with occasional bad jokes and mild sex scenes. [18 May 1990, p.21]

For the most part, Life Stinks is about as far from art - or even simple entertainment - as you can get. And if I may be forgiven a small joke that's as true as it is obvious, most of the time Life Stinks stinks. [30 July 1991, p.E1]

Goldberg's performance does have its moments, especially once she gets past the frenzy of the movie's first half. But like such accomplished fellow cast members as Maggie Smith and Harvey Keitel, Whoopi is wasted in this godawful nunsense. [29 May 1992, p.17]

How many times can Michael J. Fox ask his fans to sit through junk before they stop being his fans? [1 Oct 1993, p.22]

It's a fairly intriguing (and, surprisingly non-exploitative) premise, but director/co-writer Ernest R. Dickerson is lost when it comes to devising situations that would suggest what goes on inside his characters' heads. These people are all exactly what they appear to be on the surface, which isn't very involving. [17 Jan 1992, p.20]

The biggest fault of Jagged Edge is that whatever suspense it manages to generate in its climactic scenes is achieved artificially, through tricky editing and manipulative "danger" music. The mystery of the murder -- which should be generating the suspense -- is so transparent that I wasn't anywhere near the edge of my seat.

Although the picture's biggest problems are the lame writing and limp direction, it doesn't help that the main role requires a comedian, which Arnold just is not. [22 Nov 1996, p.20]

But even with Dudley Moore, this movie would probably have fallen flat. At best, Skin Deep is a VCR movie. Rent it when it comes out on tape, fast forward to the best part, and replay the condom scene until you stop laughing.

The main difference between Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Hot Shots! is that almost half the jokes in Naked Gun 2 1/2 were at least slightly funny while in Hot Shots! less than a fifth are any good at all. [2 Aug 1991, p.C5]

Represents a new low for the form. Watching this one, you may be tempted to throw the baby movie out with the bath water.

There are theme park attractions with stronger plots and more compelling characters. [26 May 1995, p.17]

The earlier film (and much of the television program) worked for adults by creating a youngster's fantasy world with an eerie fidelity. It got us to laugh by reminding us of the child within ourselves. Watching the new film, however, all we're reminded of is that we outgrew kiddie movies a long time ago.

Noisy and (nearly) awful, Noises Off is the sort of movie that gives filmed theater a bad name. Based on Michael Frayn's popular, Tony-nominated play, the screen version is so lame that even without having seen a stage production of the material I can tell that the film doesn't do it justice.

A dull-witted variation on the themes of the original Blue Lagoon, in which two young people (played by Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins) were stranded on a tropical island.

The Exorcist III isn't crudely exploitative so much as it's just unendurably pretentious. [24 Aug 1990, p.4]

Instead of displaying the grim wit of RoboCop, RoboCop 2 is crude and punishing. [23 June 1990, p.E1]

Children will undoubtedly enjoy the ninja flick a lot more than their parents will, and it probably won't even give most kids nightmares. But couldn't a steady diet of this sort of thing help to desensitize very young children to real violence? If so, that's awful - not awesome - dudes.

The action is wan, the laughs hard to come by.

Superman IV is cinematic kryptonite. Not only could it kill the Superman series, it might also leave filmgoers feeling weak.

The worst movie of the summer, arriving on the last weekend of the summer.