What we get are quirky characters who are such cartoons that they undermine the effectiveness of the scare scenes (Brad Dourif's turn as the weird doctor is an example) and well-composed camera angles that mean nothing.

A way-below-par golfing comedy.

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.

A wildly dull, predictable script whose holes seem to be courtesy of random sniper fire.

My guess is you'll probably have more fun watching a game at the ballpark than you will at The Fan.

Tedious, unfunny.

Ineptly written and shot like a fashion mag, rings hollow throughout. It's a long, long way from "Jules and Jim."

About a moron - oxy and otherwise.

Clooney's stiff cornball delivery and tendency to smile during the most tragic moments bring this as close to the cartoonish Batman television series of the 1960s as any of the movies have come.

Ideological disaster!

It's a tale of two missused Academy Award winners trying to justify their participation in a moribund, noisome redux of any disposable prison movie you care to remember by lobbing Oscar clips at each other.

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

I HATE to whine, but if Michael Douglas is half as tired of playing yuppie scum as I am of watching him do it, then he must be napping on a regular basis by now.

An undernourished exercise in pop critique.

With the exception of a couple of inspired moments, Mary Reilly is merely a curious variation of an often-told story.

It's downright boring.

The big trouble with the movie is that it's difficult to care whether these two get together. Ultimately I did care - when I realized that their union would presumably represent a chance that the movie might end soon.

Stinks from the Earth to the moon.

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.

It's also troublesome that Murphy, a generally charismatic actor, is downright dull here. He and Goldblum are curiously flat in their line readings; they don't seem convinced by the story they're asked to act out, and with good reason.

Even the most vigorous tear-duct manipulation, and a few funny scenes, cannot save Dumbo from its dominant tone of stilted corniness and prefab sentimentality.

Neeson simply has no spark here. He is good and honest and honorable until your face turns blue. He's just no fun.

It's mesmerizing nonetheless for its flagrant disregard for narrative, character, pacing, performance and good lighting.

Most of the movie seems stilted and uncomfortably girdled by efforts to work around the cumbersome Brando, who is shot mostly from above the waist, where the full effects of gravity and avoirdupois do not seem so egregious as they do at belt level.

When a movie is nothing but relentless action, there's little chance for dramatic tension to develop.

It just doesn't work.

Otherwise, the movie, which borrows from a dozen pop sources and improves on none of them, is pretty much a washout.

Underscores everything that was utterly wrong-headed about the original material.