In tackling 1000 A.D., (McTiernan)'s suddenly an unwieldy, clunky filmmaker.

Overstays its welcome until the jokes curdle and the satire becomes a blunt instrument, but not before Busch throws some priceless one-liners.

This is middling Woody, at best: For every funny line or sequence, there's at least one misfire.

Reinforcing the chasm between movie magic and wishful thinking.

Maybe there's a real use for Carrie 2 after all. Stand it up against the original, and you have a pretty good lesson in what's happened to the movies in the last couple of decades.

I wouldn't say this movie is actually harmful, but skipping it is probably the wisest policy.

Trash is trash, even if it used to be in French.

De Bont's effects-riddled remake of the '63 spook-out adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel is not nearly as creepy as either its cinematic or its literary precedents. But it's a hokey, hokey entertainment and a $100 million Lili Taylor movie.

The plot twist is clever, but it's way too little, too late, and too implausible (whence comes this doggie amnesia?) to redeem this maudlin tale.

In a sense, Sandler is damned if he develops, damned if he devolves. But he needn't apologize for being who he is by turning a goldmine sitcom into a tame "Baby Boom" for guys.

This is the most-off-the-mark adaptation of a novel since Brian DePalma's what-was-that "Bonfire of the Vanities."

A counterfeit of a Woo movie, even though Woo himself co-produced it.

The absence of substance, or its banishment, and the director's reliance on allure (in the film's casting and in its look and sound, which features haunting music by Beethoven and Chopin), leave Innocence with the quasi-profound, giggly overreach of a magazine layout come to shameless, shallow life.

It is a traffic jam of broken hearts, fluxing racial identities and deplorable outfits that has everything but a salsa overhaul of "I Will Survive."

The punch line isn't that funny.

A complete misfire.

It's a movie drenched in narcissism and wish-fulfillment, almost a textbook on how to make a formulaic, romantic film.

Often grating in its presentation.

The result is a thrill ride with enough plunges and turns and loop-the-loops to make it worth a spin. What the picture lacks is the magic and resonance you feel in the best of popular entertainments.

Not the sweaty midnight stroll through the garden of carnal delights that its title wants you to believe.

This sure beats "Major League II." In fact, this movie is a lot more entertaining than the Michelle Pfeiffer showcase "Dangerous Minds." That was a big hit. Using Hollywood logic, I have to assume that this one won't be.

In another universe - though it is difficult to imagine which one - Garry Shandling might be sexy.

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

Entertainment made well enough that you can overlook its absurdities.

One long offensive treatise on just how vile two human beings can be.

With more sophisticated writing, one suspects they could really soar: Even here, slowed by clunky, character-establishing lines and an all-devouring plot, they hit more often than they miss.

A lot of noise and nothing to justify it.

More altruistic would be if Williams stopped torturing us with weepy endearments so he could look for that complex clown who used to mug just for laughs.