Overall, I Am Legend is a wasted opportunity -- a rickety, weather-beaten framework around an otherwise strong central performance from Smith.

At best, this movie functions as a brief companion piece to Boy George's new Broadway show, “Taboo.”

Alice has all the emotional truth of an America’s Most Wanted reenactment.

What little anti-war critique Peirce presents -- and she has it in her, which makes it all the more dubious -- gets trampled over by jingoistic Rambo porn.

Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) overtly cribs from everyone from Dostoevsky to Kafka.

For a while, it works, until it suddenly decides to abandon the "what you don't see is scarier than what you do see" for a ridiculous and ultimately insulting explanatory ending.

The pretentious title might be trying to make a statement about the new, fast-moving economy. It's also a weak reference to the first Wall Street. But mainly, no, it's just pretentious.

The film is ultimately so repetitive, un-enlightening and lacking in substance, even Drew Carey seems bored by the end when he asks, "When are you guys going to make the 'c*nt' documentary?"

The sheer absurdity of the presented relationship is redeemed by a sort of surprise ending, but by the time it arrives, you wish it had come sooner, as the pain of viewing has already been interminably long.

It's just a spectacularly lazy movie that's content to trod the same well-worn ground as its predecessors.

Lichtenstein's putative switcheroo on the Vagina Dentata trope is to play it as some kind of token of female empowerment, but it's pretty clear that the writer/director didn't think things through on any counts, contenting himself that the putative outrageousness of the concept could see him through.

Dennis Quaid is mostly lost at sea as Lawrence Wetherhold, the Carnegie Mellon lit professor; he apparently saw fit to tinker with his performance as filming went along, greeting us in some scenes as a noticeably swishy highbrow, while at other moments he's channeling the smiling, drunken menace of Nicholson's Jack Torrance.

Its climactic highway shootout, and much else in the picture, is rendered in the best Paul Greengrass manner that Hollywood money can buy. But where Greengrass pictures aim to keep one on the edge of one's seat throughout, the tension here, such as it is, is designed to stoke audience bloodlust. If that's your kind of thing, The Kingdom certainly satisfies.

Director Julie Taymor's gargantuan all-Beatles-songs musical is that rarest of animals, the perfect disaster that fulfills expectations by defying them.

There are certainly some laughs to be had in Holiday (mostly of the "so dumb it’s funny" variety), but not much else.

An exhausting 90 minutes of SNL-centric mediocrity that gives one the nagging feeling that Tina Fey's inability to cut the cord is going to quickly start to cool interest in her upcoming projects.

A thin sprinkling of exuberance and a couple of choice cameos, that's about all this underwritten and overly choreographed spectacle has to tease us with.

To find a comparison for You Don't Mess With the Zohan in Adam Sandler's filmography, you have to go back to 2000's "Little Nicky," a film with a fantasy slant that allowed for jokes of unencumbered silliness.

Smushes together “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (the novel, that is), “True Believer,” and “Eyes Wide Shut,” only it does so without being nearly as good as any of the aforementioned.

A charmless, vandalized version of a classic.

At the end of the movie, the only mystery left unsolved is where your time and money have gone.

Weinstein Co. honchos Bob and Harvey are chasing some of the old "Pulp Fiction" magic--and failing not only miserably, but kind of disgustingly.

The movie suffers from convoluted plots, turgid pacing, and strange disrespect for its source material.

A self-impressed epic with grandiose vistas, flat characters, and a subplot about Native Australians.

It is the overwhelmingly acrid sense of humor that leaves a bad taste in one's mouth at the end of the film.

For the most part, Murphy is pitching somewhere between "American Beauty" and "The Royal Tenenbaums"; indeed, the characters Bening and Gwyneth Paltrow play in Scissors are, in a sense, inversions of their roles in Beauty and Tenenbaums, respectively.

As coincidence would have it, Steve Carell's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" spun comedy gold from a similar idea just last week. Virgin shares not only The Baxter's basic premise, but also two of its key cast members (Paul Rudd and the beautiful Ms. Banks), allowing audiences to see just how much better The Baxter might have been if Showalter had given us some reason to identify with his socially awkward protagonist.

Earle fans might see this film as a satisfying portrayal of a man they know and love, but those unfamiliar with the man and his music will likely leave the theater without much more interest in him than when the movie began.

The reason for all this dull-to-offensive story stuff is, of course, the dancing, which has its moments but overall seems so calculated to impress that it loses all other reason for being.

Suffocatingly boring.

Isn't quite self-aware enough to be really funny, and certainly isn't serious or genuinely exciting enough to be thrilling because of it's action.

Takes a long time to say nothing new, which is a shame because it wastes fine performances across the board (it's a nice reminder that Farrell, can, in fact, act), and, well, a really effective score by Philip Glass.

Tron: Legacy will only be enjoyed by men in their thirties and early forties searching for a Proustian moment.

This is a perhaps even more misbegotten remake than the Farrelly Brothers' update of "The Heartbreak Kid."

The heretofore nothing-but-delightful Simon Pegg stumbles in the long-anticipated feature film directorial debut of -- ta-da! -- David Schwimmer, who takes the sow's ear of a script given him by Pegg and Michael Ian Black and deep-fries it into a burnt pork rind of a movie.

What once was a gifted comic's fluid improvisation is now a doddering old man so embarrassing he's uncomfortable to watch, and the surrogate father-daughter needling he has with Johansson is creepy when you realize Woody the director is shooting her seductively in that skintight bathing suit.

As for me, watching this overripe, ignorant parading of Hollywood privilege an hubris put me in mind of a different song--Neil Young's "Revolution Blues." Specifically the bit about Laurel Canyon being filled with famous stars . . .

Paths collide and allegiances form between the good, bad, and ugly, but under the incoherent direction of Chalerm Wongpim, a clunky dullness sets in whenever the action subsides.

When confronted with real problems--and there's enough melodrama here to top a movie-of-the-week marathon on Lifetime--these otherwise empowered characters seem helpless to defend themselves.

For a movie built around a brightly-colored, magical toy store, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is surprisingly forgettable. In fact, it's most wondrous feat is just how it manages to waste good actors and fine performances.

Filmed in 2005, the first of two Cusack widower flicks this season (the weepier and more indie "Grace is Gone" hits theaters in December) Martian Child is also a Franken-schmaltz monster of cobbled-together Cusack movie parts.

The movie does feature a nice, teasing chemistry between veteran actors Voight and Mirren (who clearly relishes the chance to break out of stuffy melodrama), but this shallow, empty puzzle requires more than playful banter to satisfy audiences willing to pay to play.

Chris Columbus, true to his namesake, has chartered new waters of lazy hackdom with this "Clash of the Titans" remade as a CW tween soap.

Like the equally dull romantic drama "Catch and Release," which was in theaters for a nanosecond back in January, In the Land of Women strains to convince the audience to that it's telling a real story about real people. But with its glossy visuals and photo-shoot ready cast, the movie ends up presenting us with the very opposite of reality.

Not even within earshot of a masterpiece, Man on Fire, based on its ratio of production costs to quality alone, may prove to be the worst movie of 2004.

The studio wimped out, and the result is a lesser production on every level: talent, script, content, and purpose.

From my perspective, the film's anti-Semitism is implicit rather than programmatic, and, in the film's current form, a little sneaky.

The supporting players do a serviceable job in their roles, but no amount of Oscar-nominee nuance from Giamatti or Linney can salvage what amounts to a candy-striped trifle for post-collegiate slacker existentialists.

One of those infuriating films that can't allow this already dramatic situation to fester and develop on its own.

Kevin Spacey is a darn good actor, and he's a pretty good singer to boot. But those traits alone do not excuse the painful experience to be had sitting through Beyond the Sea.

This booming, cartoonish confection is a transparent attempt to take a property Disney owns rights to, and to try and create a Harry Potter-like franchise.

Fails in what amounts to its only distinct purpose: to smugly push the envelope of depravity farther than anyone else.

The potential for real offense is palpable, but Bruce Almighty never gets there; the script is too lazy and incoherent--truly effective blasphemy takes brains and rigor.

It's somehow fitting that this purported romantic comedy about dating is, like most dates, clumsy, endless, and absolutely excruciating.

Ichaso seems far too interested in what led to Lavoe's downfall rather than what made him great.

The whole film, in fact, feels slapped together and unfocused. Though the movie’s too dopey for anyone older than ten, there are scenes where characters drink and go skinny-dipping.

There's enough estrogen gone awry in this bitchy teen comedy to make "Mean Girls" look like a Disney after-school special.

Noisome, fragmented mess of a movie, the fourth film based on Jack Finney's novel "The Body Snatchers" and the worst of them all.

Unstylized, inconsistent, unconvincing, and familiar to a fault.

Clichés are often a big part of what makes suspense films enjoyable. But Firewall goes out of its way to promise something more than business as usual, and then makes no attempt whatsoever to deliver.

We'd really like to crawl into William Hurt's head and experience whatever movie he thought HE was making.

The movie tires itself out setting up the complex plot.

Click is yet another uninspired Adam Sandler goof-fest with a long suffering leading lady, mildly bawdy gags--see Joe Schomo oogle female jogger--and a predictable ending.

It's tough to get through because it's so slow; the beautiful Kristen Bell, who we love in almost everything, doesn't fit in with a bunch of nerds.

The problem is the material itself, with its trite observations and shockingly flat writing.

The premise of the film is serviceable, but the execution is flawed and entirely underwhelming.

There's never any real danger in the movie, which makes The Expendables feel like one of those chummy Rat Pack flicks that were just excuses for a bunch of pals to get together and goof off.

Chan still sounds silly talkin' jive, the action sequences are peppy if not exactly memorable, and the gags have been sitting out long enough to make penicillin.

As bad movies go, The Jacket belongs to a relatively rare but extremely intriguing/irritating genus.

Director Sylvain White, whose last film was the equally unnecessary "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer," manages to take the joy out of a dance movie by jerking the camera around and speeding up the dance moves so much.

Short on story, character, and attempts to win viewers' emotional investment, the film only seems to take a breath when The Rock is making the baddies lose theirs.

For a horror movie to work, it has to be ABOUT something.

There's a lot of "stuff" here, and Kelly's biggest problem -- he's got more than a few -- is that he can't tell his good material from his bad.

Movies in which the same person serves as writer, director, and star should carry a special warning for audiences, even if that individual happens to be an actor as endearing as Luke Wilson.

It's an empty-headed look at a national problem with modern surveillance society, but if everyone acted as stupidly as the incredulous screenplay would have you believe, then it's safe to say the movie inadvertently reflects, rather than critiques, the insanity of our times.

Time doesn't just slow down while you're watching Catch and Release -- it actually comes to a dead stop.

Feels like little more than a stale rehash with a promising cast whose talents haven't been tapped.

The dialogue itself is not interesting or funny. Ostensibly sophisticated remarks--lazy references to Freud or Dostoevsky or whatever--pack no dramatic or intellectual weight.

Each segment introduces new characters and a radically different scenario, which suggests that Hancock's structure may actually be an insecure attempt to deliver a horror movie.

Paycheck is a bogus journey.

What doesn't work at all -- saving the worst for last -- is a ship-sinking performance by John Leguizamo as Lorenzo.

The climax is the only thing for which the rest of this flick exists.

The filmmakers may have wanted to deconstruct any sense of a formal, cohesive narrative; instead, they have merely demolished it.

Trust the Man mainly feels like the work of a New Yorker who hasn't left his trendy neighborhood in ten years.

Threadbare sequel.

By straining to make a respectful war film for everyone, Winkler and Friedman have wound up with a toothless picture that won't satisfy anyone.

Close is the best and worst thing about the film, delivering a performance that upstages even Christopher Walken (!), taking her over-the-top Cruella de Vil turn to its saccharine-sweet opposite.

This terminally ill, terminally awful dramedy marks a sad cinematic milestone: The Bucket List is the first film in history to feature a truly wretched Nicholson performance -- and we're not talking about the character he plays.

Feels like a re-hash.

One of the film's few virtues is Danny Glover as the voice of Miles the mule.

Affable Ted Danson makes few ripples as Bridget's husband Don; while Roger Cross and Adam Rothenberg also glide through the film in their minor "significant other" roles to Nina and Jackie, respectively.

Perfectly harmless but by no means cinematic. It is unapologetically vying for the same moviegoers that "Greek Wedding" connected with last summer.

This one's been sitting on shelves for two years -- never good news -- and you can almost see the dollar signs in the cast's eyes.

Despite the attempts of the Academy Award-winning makeup artist behind Mrs. Doubtfire, these doubtful misfires can't pass as white or as chicks.

A sadistically bland entertainment that oversells its reveals and lets its suspense drip so long that it would be nice if something (anything!) happened.

Swedish director Mikael Håfström's Derailed makes "Fatal Attraction" look positively subtle, while mustering none of the nuance or moral complexity (not to mention the sexual chemistry) of "Unfaithful."

What begins as a pleasantly utilitarian thriller gradually decays into a mediocre suspense drama and ends as an irritatingly feeble love story.

From less a purist's standpoint than a seeker of serviceable junk food, this comprehensive waste of time is too bouncy to be an "Elektra" bummer, but should make Marvel mascot Stan Lee think twice about burning another lucrative bridge with unintentional hilarity.