Shaft scores by lacing ba-da-boom action with social pertinence.

Hunt's flat delivery is mercilessly cruel to Wilde's delicious epigrams. That sound you hear is Oscar spinning madly in his grave.

Winkler's script creaks with melodrama, especially in the scenes with Merrill and his ex-wife, Ruth (Annette Bening), though Bening gives the role spine. Director Winkler fails to modulate the performances.

The problem for Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who also co-directed Beauty and the Beast, is turning a tale of violent love and death into a family film with a happy ending.

Turns into a bogus drivel courtesy of a sitcom monster.

Madden directed Paltrow in the play on the London stage, but he does his "Shakespeare in Love" goddess no favors by filling the screen with big close-ups that betray the theatrical origins of the piece and drain the movie of life and urgency. Proof hasn't been filmed at all -- it's been embalmed.

Horns has style to burn, but there's no there there.

Ferrell makes the damn thing work. Even though he can't get naked or use naughty words, there's a devil of comedy in Ferrell, and he lets it out to play. Director Jon Favreau has the good sense to just stand out of his way.

A cheerless exercise.

It's all a blur, except for the music. That's workin'.

Screenwriter Robert Towne has certainly not challenged his gifts -- the script is loaded with stock cars and stock characters -- but he does deliver what's necessary: a workable setup for exciting NASCAR racing footage shot on sixteen Winston Cup tracks from Daytona to Watkins Glen.

Dalton has training in classical theater; he has pedigree, looks, class. But as Bond he is – face it – dull as dirt. Too much spoofing is bad (see Moore), none is deadly (see Dalton).

This is Williams’ spotlight, and it’s worth slogging through some of the soapier-to-sludgier aspects to watch her ply her craft

Only Vince Vaughn registers hilariously as John's boss.

I fully expect Paranormal Activity 3 to be box office gold. But it's barely worth two stars, let alone two cents. As for future followups, I offer this plea: STOP!

Tepid.

This is a passable substitute for the real thing. It could have burrowed so much deeper.

Say this for Emmerich, he's not stuffy. And he lucks out big-time with his cast.

It's stale, like something you wrap in yesterday's newspaper.

Maybe our expectations were too high. Maybe we should have said his name — Burton Burton Burton — three times, and the filmmaker who did that beloved original would reappear, grinning maniacally and giving us something a bit less undead and a bit more alive.

There's not enough here to sustain a half-hour sitcom, but Reese Witherspoon shoulders the burden with star shine to spare.

A shock ending may be the best hope for this film, a convoluted mystery that thinks it's way smarter than it is.

In not knowing who it needs to please, I Want to Believe pleases no one.

If you're like me, diluted Smith is still better than no Smith at all.

An otherwise mild-mannered diversion from the American indie hinterland, Swan Song is the rare film to give this cult actor the center-stage spotlight, and a mirrorball-refracted spotlight at that. The fact that he’s in every scene of Todd Stephens’ sentimental queer comedy is, it turns out, the boldest decision in a film that doesn’t always honor its professed credo to live life out loud.

It's a one-joke premise that ultimately wears thin, but Krueger works some playful variations on a theme.

The action and jokes pile up with exhausting repetitiveness. But Theroux and Franco make a truly hilarious team.

In his screenwriting debut, Glee's gifted Chris Colfer, 22, proves he can lace a line with sass and soul. The downside of Struck by Lightning, besides the fact that Colfer's character, Carson Phillips, is struck dead in the first scene, is that Colfer hands himself all the best lines.