It's a work that preaches to the choir, and the song has been more subtly sung in better movies.

An innocuously smutty road comedy.

Your body's sitting there in the theater, but it feels as if your head is someplace else.

But moving across this tableau is Frodo and his gang, and here the trouble lies...Not a one seems believable as conveyed by Wood, who forever looks to be on the brink of a good sob. Likewise, his hobbit sidekick Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) is a real wuss.

Mediogre at best.

The meaning - and irony - of Kaboom's title doesn't become clear until a beat or two before the end credits roll, and even then it's hard to say what exactly Araki is getting at.

If you can tolerate the redneck-versus-blueblood cliches that the film trades in, Sweet Home Alabama is diverting in the manner of Jeff Foxworthy's stand-up act.

This is an A-list cast toiling on a C-list screenplay.

The movie's too long - and the violence and mayhem are unexpectedly harsh and heavy - but Franco's inspired, looped performance is right up there in the annals of reefer filmdom with Jeff Bridges' the Dude in "The Big Lebowski."

The Ghost and the Darkness is beautifuly photographed and produced with an immaculate sense of period. Stephen Hopkins directs the action with a sure hand, but he is understandably at a loss in the film's subtext, which is as dense and often as impenetrable as jungle undergrowth. [11 Oct 1996, p.14]

Cats Don't Dance is pleasant middle-tier animation that will not cause anyone to lose sleep over at Disney. [26 Mar 1997, p.D07]

What's up in The Duke of Burgundy is a straight-faced homage to 1970s European erotica, full of soft-focus nudity and soft-core kink.

In its juxtaposition of voluptuous nudity with the horrors of war, in its evocation of idealized beauty draped like gods and goddesses of Grecian art, the film invokes classical ideas about how the life force asserts itself most aggressively in the face of death.

As a thriller, In the Cut, with its red herring characters and plot twists, turns dopey and predictable. As a portrait of a single woman, burned by love and wary of what's in store, Campion's movie has its trenchant, telling passages.

This sophomoric mix of the supernatural and screwball from Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) is diverting, cheesy fun, with Thurman's G-Girl as a droll combination of Superwoman and Uber Shrew.

Despite its terrific performances and its great use of locations, Shelter doesn't have enough substance to hold your attention or linger in the mind for long.

Isn't the whole handheld "real-video" thing kind of old by now? Isn't the Shyamalanian-twist thing kind of old by now, too?

Loaded with cartoon violence (exploding mail-bombs, children hanging perilously from rooftops), numerous groin-kicks and a few mild expletives, Jingle All the Way isn't exactly heartwarming, egg-noggy holiday fare. [22 Nov 1996, p.04]

Offers a primal vision of the primate order turned topsy-turvy. It is provocative. It is frightening. It is a mess.

Now in his late 40s and hairier than ever, Jeremy seems a simple enough, likable guy, and he has no pretensions about what he does. And no apologies either.

Riddled with romantic and political cliches but is often redeemed by the charismatic performances of Braun and Sullivan.

Brought to the screen with a mix of jaunty humor and jagged violence that should have worked more effectively than it does.

One of the problems with The Dark World is that its monsters and angry armies and visual effects are interchangeable with Peter Jackson's Tolkien pics, with Clash of the Titans, with The Avengers, with Man of Steel, and on and on. These superhero movies. These Middle Earth movies. These mythic god movies. It's getting hard to tell them apart.

Starts having the same effect as one too many tequilas: the Hong Kong-style stunts, the goofy wisecracks, the foxy presence of Eva Mendes -- all of it becomes blurry and numbing.

Too long, too busy, too loud, and too reliant on slam-bang stunt work, Red's glib dialogue and sinister government scenarios begin to wear.

The best in the latest crop of slasher remakes. Admittedly, that is faint praise.

This remake is about half of a very likable film. But in movies (as in auto races) it isn't how you start, it's how you finish. And Herbie should have kept something in the tank for the late going.

Not an entertainment but an experience. And a kind of cinematic sensitivity training.

If there's a psych ward for motion pictures, It's Kind of a Funny Story should check itself in. Boden and Fleck's film suffers from bipolar disorder: manic and silly one minute, moody and muted the next.

An extremely delicate, quiet, and stunningly understated chamber piece.

It's grown-up, deadly serious, and free of the ham-handed romantic subplots that mire so many films from the region in ick stew.

Not up to the freshness and inventiveness of its predecessors.

The romanticized image of the tortured artist - never mind how warranted his or her angst might be - is the stuff of stereotype unless it's leavened with humor, or limned in art. In Fugitive Pieces, neither element appears in sufficient quantity.

Has an empty, soulless feel.

After toiling for the likes of Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, and Peter Weir all these years, Crowe takes command of his own camera crews and castmates, mounting an ambitious and sentimental period drama.

It's the magic of movies, not a movie that comes close to achieving real magic.

One admires Wallace's intentions while despairing at his execution. Yet as clumsily directed as his film is, it inspires compassion for Moore, his men and their foes. And in that, there is merit.

A small, dreamy romance.

The thing's a behemoth. And as the franchise thunders on, it's also becoming more and more a bore.

Succeeds because the action is supercharged in a style that recalls Mel Gibson's apocalyptic classic, "The Road Warrior." The characters are more than cartoonish, and the plot grips the road. But it's Diesel who provides the nitro injection

Binder has written himself a scene-stealing supporting role as Shep, sleazeball producer.

Franco, the hollow-cheeked, pouty-lipped actor best known as Spider-Man's nemesis Harry Osborn, plays Tristan like a biker boy with a broadsword.

Despite its formulaic structure, The Abandoned has a lot going for it. It eschews cheap scares, bloodletting, and gore. Instead, it works the audience with good, old-fashioned suspense. And it has heart.

An appealing, low-budget musical.

The homoerotic subtext of the whole buddy movie oeuvre has never received quite the explicit lampooning it gets in this quirky, crash-and-burn action-comedy. [6 Sept 1996, p.8]

This profanely hilarious and tonally erratic spoof of buddy movies is funny as it begins in "Miss Congeniality 2" territory, funnier still as it zooms into "Lethal Weapon" climes. But it stops dead, and I mean that literally, when it takes a U-turn into a "Pulp Fiction" sinkhole of slapstick violence.

The film's atmosphere is incendiary. It has style to burn. But for the most part, the performances are all wet.

The movie is a snapshot collage of flyover America, but also, perhaps, an homage to the soon-to-be-lost world of brick-and-mortar gambling.

This In-Laws feels, in the end, formulaic and unnecessary, especially when the original is yours for the renting at the video store.

Suicide Squad does have quite a few tremendously entertaining sequences of high action and low comedy. It's a shame it never rises beyond that.

Thanks to director Roger Kumble's breathless pacing, Just Friends manages to outrun most of its flaws. And its likable leads - the coolly clownish Reynolds and the feline-faced Smart - fill this empty Christmas stocking with glee.

Too freewheeling for its own good, like a Robert Altman ensemble piece without a gravitational core. But Hawke's actors are a talented troupe, and even when things get self-indulgent and fuzzy-headed (and boy, do they!), interesting stuff is going on.

Quite possibly the biggest ego trip ever to play Cannes, or anywhere else, at any time.

It is not unforgettable, like the original Love Affair. It is not An Affair to Remember, like the remake. It is not laden with ironic humor, like Sleepless in Seattle. This Love Affair is . . . fair. [21 Oct 1994, p.03]

Amalric's performance is comically moving in the manner of silent actors, and the film is beautifully wrought with moments of enchantment. Alas, Chicken is a movie that begins with a crescendo and doesn't sustain its lyricism.

The perfect film for anyone who likes their headbutting and kickboxing dressed up in gold brocade, frilly collars, and tri-cornered caps. And isn't that all of us?

There's no adroitness, no grace in the handling of the pitching emotions - funny, sad, icky - that such a story presents.

A boldly sappy melodrama that plays on - and off - racial stereotypes.

Directed by veteran stuntman Ric Roman Waugh, Snitch is shot with a mix of nervous close-ups and weirdly vertiginous angles.

This bracing adaptation of the Nurse Matilda books by Christianna Brand is the acidic antidote to Mary Poppins sweetness.

The question for moviegoers: Would you rather get your dose of existenz-philosophie from Dostoyevsky or a slasher flick?

Breslin, so memorable in "Little Miss Sunshine," suffers the most. Skilled and reactive with humans, she doesn't quite muster the same engagement with her finned and flippered costars here.

As Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands reminded us, Burton always has been more absorbed by what his audience sees than by what his movies say. It's part of his unique talent as a filmmaker, but it leads him to ignore the flaws in the structure of what is, after all, supposed to be an exciting adventure film.

Both consoling and confounding.

The good news is that this daddy/daughter reconciliation story connects with the ball. The not-so-good: It's a blooper.

Dumb with a capital D, Blades of Glory takes its (almost) fleshed-out sketch-comedy idea as far as an ice-skating buddy movie with we're-not-gay jokes and a psycho stalker can go.

Their exhaustive tribute to hungry zombies, fast girls and faster cars is . . . exhausting, if intermittently entertaining.

Song One burns with genuine sentiment, charismatic actors, and good music. One wishes it were held together by something more than a series of moods.

It can be argued that Adam uses Asperger's as a kind of metaphor for the barriers that people erect to fend off strangers, to guard against intimacy. It can also be argued that writer/director Mayer is shamelessly manipulative.

Tennessee is drenched in melancholy, a trip through a tunnel of pain illuminated by a lone ray of light at the end.

There's a loose, vérité vibe here, and times when both Williams and Gosling root down deep to deliver something resonant and true. But this modern-day kitchen sink drama is ultimately too painful, too labored, to care much about at all.

Less like "The Waterboy" and more like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," only funny.

As The Cable Guy progresses, its psycho-comedic tone gets sicker and its plot more predictable, until, by the end, we may as well be watching Ray Liotta as The Cop From Hell or Marky Mark as The Boyfriend From Hell. It's strictly generic, by the book, and downright exhausting. [14 June 1996, p.03]

This is a complicated story, but it's efficiently laid out by Poitras in this smartly edited project. She has posed Citizenfour as the final piece of a post-9/11 trilogy that began with "My Country, My Country" (about the 2006 elections in Iran) and "The Oath" (about Guantanamo).

Perfectly cast, if insufficiently dramatized.

A smart aleck-y kidnapping caper that whooshes around to a thumping electronic beat.

Central Intelligence is actually funny.

Arnold has a gem for the third millennium in End of Days.

Heartfelt and artfully shot, the movie - with little Rodrigo Noya, wearing big eyeglasses, in the title role - is too sweet for its own good, even as some of its characters do things that aren't terribly sweet at all.

Follows its heroines' rise and wising-up with a giddy, "Hard Day's Night" enthusiasm.

Well-written, gorgeously shot, and expertly edited, the film is also an exasperating exercise in good intentions gone wrong. For all its strengths, Genius often trades in tiresome clichés.

The tradecraft is there, the film craft is there, but the craftiness of a great concept is gone. Any way Bourne can go through Treadstone again?

Working from a story by Antwone Fisher, screenwriter Tina Gordon Chism is tender toward characters balancing where they come from with where they'd like to go. Fisher was the subject of an inspirational biography by Denzel Washington.

Like "Man on Fire," the previous collaboration between Washington and Scott, Déjà Vu is stunning but poorly paced, a film that manages to be both captivating and frustrating.

No one should be expected to endure 115 minutes of this nonsense.

Araki's films have never been known for their subtlety. Think Douglas-Sirk-meets-Johnny-Rotten. He tries to rein in his tendency for the baroque in White Bird in a Blizzard, but he pushes the story too far in the direction of the grotesque.

The second-best film parody (after The Brady Bunch Movie) of a '70s TV phenom that unaccountably looks better the further you get from it.

What is lacking in this version, with its hasty third act and abrupt denouement, is the surprise that their union may be the deepest love either will ever know.

A loving, dopey documentary about the bird man of a place with a view of Alcatraz.

Feels somehow incomplete. It may be that its visual metaphor is more effective in literature than in film.

There's more voyeurism going on here, and less insight into a certain culture (the young and the wasted), than the filmmakers would probably admit to, but the performances are scarily real, and the outcome, well, is just scary.

This is the slightest and slimmest of sex comedies.

Yes, it's stupid. But sometimes it's stupid with a capital S, and it's in those moments of transcendent idiocy that you can't help liking Saving Silverman. At least, a little bit.

Shannon is flawless.

My guess is that The Dreamers will have a certain resonance for those of us who discovered movies and sex at the same time during the '60s. For the rest of you, the film is a curiosity about cinegenic youths baring their bodies while thinking they are baring their souls.

Stuber and Shaft are the kind of movies Hollywood made every month back in the ’80s and ’90s, until audiences — after a half dozen or so Lethal Weapons — grew tired of them. Stuber serves to remind us of why we liked them, and also that they wore out their welcome.

Ultimately, it's the romance that feels forced and phony, not the group meetings, the confessions, the anguished moments alone.

Tomorrow Never Dies sticks to the Bond formula without bringing anything new, or particularly inspired, to the proceedings. (Besides a lot of shameless product placement, that is.)