Unfortunately, the movie never really goes anywhere. It's all pleasant enough to watch, but you never feel that Danny and Arthur's craziness (eventually Danny is committed), Sid's stoicism, Selma's selflessness and Steven's despair coalesce to mean anything significant or illuminating.

Be that as it may, the movie offers the uplifting news bulletin that life is not about being happy with how much you weigh but with what kind of person you are. This is where the movie starts getting sloppy.

The title comes from Indian legend in which Lord Rama tests the purity of his wife by a flaming ordeal (which we see enacted in an open-air pageant with comic overtones of Bunuel). This bit of mythology too handily prefigures a major element in the film's conclusion.

As cosmetically sanitized revisions of history go: This is as good as it gets.

Little Nicky is but a meek gross-out cousin of "The Waterboy."

Reinforcing the chasm between movie magic and wishful thinking.

Then there are times when the humor and the pathos of these losers catch you off-guard. Those moments are nearly profound, and elevate the film above the slacker cliches in which it wallows.

An au natural (read: graphic) tryst-a-thon whose fashion sense is outweighed only by its bulky sexual intellectualism.

Neither offensive nor inspired.

But in its own overblown, melodramatic way, complete with hideous and obtrusive music by Michael Kamen, clanging sound effects that will leave your ears ringing and a penchant on the part of director Paul Anderson ( "Mortal Kombat" ) for quick flashes of blood-drenched gore, Event Horizon is kind of a hoot.

The only remarkable feature about this otherwise routine movie is that it vilifies two current icons of American life. One is The Internet and the other is The Mall.

It's scant to the point of irrelevance.

This is a piece of gloriously literary and serious filmmaking, but again it falls prey to misjudgments in pacing and rhythm.

Its finest moments come in sequences such as Alice and Darlene's prison break and the girls' final wrenching plea for freedom.

Call it "Rosemary's Nephew." Or, simply call The Devil's Advocate a muddled metaphysical thriller that takes a small eternity to engage the observer with its flimsy characters and its tired special effects.

The story of a trainer and three of his boxers trying to break away from the confines of a gym in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Each story is strong, gripping in its own way. But you've heard them all before.

This Paramount-DreamWorks collaboration, with Stephen Spielberg credited as executive producer, is competently made, strongly focused on its characters' relationships and surprisingly light on special effects.

Generates very little heat.

This is the kind of story that might have been interesting had it not been populated with dreary characters played by actors who were clearly coached to be as dull as possible.

Most disappointing is the fact that the movie ends so abruptly that you can't help wondering what the whole story amounts to, moving as it is.

The Patriot makes the Revolutionary War look like super-produced studio footage of the L.A. riots.

Determined to be inoffensively tidy and cute above all else.

The particulars of the plot don't make a great deal of sense, but Hartley's films have much more to do with style, or rather a philosophical refusal to show emotional involvement.

Could have been maudlin from start to finish. Instead, more than half the 154-minute film is riveting - filled with funny, touching bits that don't stoop to cheap sentimentality.

It's all quite inspiring, but despite the fact that this is based on someone's actual experiences, the whole thing has an unfortunate Hollywood ring to it.

One of the most blithely, giddily ridiculous movies to come along in ages.

There isn't much to hold onto with this movie. If anything, Cry trivializes the plight of the South Africans in its breezy treatment of apartheid.

Spiritually it's a John Woo-George Romero-Jim Thompson picture, outrageously bloody and weird.