For all of its minor pleasures, this encore lacks the depth of its conviction.

The kids have good chemistry, there's some fun oddball humor stuck in around the slapstick, and the gorgeous photography of the Gulf Coast beaches, waterways and wildlife brings their mission to life.

Rambling and easygoing, Nico and Dani is a modest but frank look at adolescent lust, both heterosexual and homosexual.

Outside of its star power, it reeks of indie film and doesn't hold much mainstream steam.

In some ways, De Niro does a competent job in his second directorial effort but his characterizations are clumsy, and his members of the Power Elite always seem less real people than stick figures in a propaganda movie.

The characters are uniformly repulsive, the cliche-ridden script builds no real tension or psychological interest, and the bottom line is that Lee's innovative but ultimately tedious and even ludicrous MTV-style visuals add absolutely nothing to the story dynamics.

Despite Clement's best efforts to make Jarrod a deadpan oddball nerd, it becomes apparent early on that excessive teenage eccentricity and terminal self-delusion isn't quite as cute in the adult male and absent father.

It never generates much interest in its story or affection for its characters, and it's simply not half as funny as it needs to be.

The cruel simplicity of the atrocity is made needlessly chaotic by artless camerawork that swishes rapidly back and forth across the action, to the accompaniment of a syrupy soundtrack.

What remains is a sumptuous-looking film that sniffs at but ignores deeper Freudian implications.

It's a movie brimming with good intentions, solid production values and searing performances. However, it never quite clicks into place with any real satisfaction.

It's in English, but the actors speak it with tortuous accents that are a constant struggle to understand and make them seem like foreigners in their own land. Spanish with English subtitles would have served this story much, much better.

Lacks the driving unity that gave "Gettysburg" its focus, dramatic arc, climax and catharsis.

Despite the scenic appeal of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, the film may prove too nerve-racking for casual viewers. It is a racing movie for the inside track.

When the film suddenly turns into "Rocky" -- as all boxing films of the past two decades invariably do -- it invalidates its theme.

There's also a terrific performance from Collette, who, in only a handful of scenes, wonderfully communicates the unusual resourcefulness of a demented woman who has spent her life assuming a succession of physical handicaps as a survival technique.

The supporting cast, peppered with seasoned pros like Levy, Smart, Betty White and a hilarious Joan Plowright, milk underwritten roles with gusto.

Full of sharp ideas and wry moments awaiting the inspired ingenuity of a screwball comedy to pull it all together. It never comes.

Sadly, it's a disappointment. Nicole Kidman could hardly be more enchanting in the lead, but the script is one of writer-director Nora Ephron's weakest.

Without the saving grace of comedy, Martin's natural abrasiveness is off-putting, and he just doesn't have the stuff of a romantic lead.

To be fair, Aronofsky has a knack for stylistic overkill, and his hammering onslaught is undeniably riveting, at first anyway.

Somehow the elements do not add up to by anything especially memorable.

Unfortunately, the goofiness never quite finds its groove. The romantic chemistry is tepid, the comedy misses as often as it hits, the picaresque plot keeps dogging down and even actors as skilled as Platt, Irons and Lena Olin fail to register strongly in their roles.

A rather dull movie.

In fact, when not kicking butt, (Li)'s kind of a blank spot in the center of the screen.

The script's labored efforts to push the proceedings into a thought-provoking military drama -- and draw some clear moral issue -- are, at best, flimsy.

Its animation is simply glorious, but its story and characters are trite.

Whether Mann's film will make a difference, however, is another question. He devotes little time to really exploring the issues, leaving the film a patchwork of assertions that, while they may be true, have to be taken on faith.

Evening is so distanced from the emotions of the story that it never breathes on its own.

It's overblown and greedy and feels like more of a merchandizing scheme than a movie.

Maybe it's fantasy fatigue, but for all the pretty effects and breathless chases and goblin war battles, the sense of wonder and magic is lost in the shuffle.

Along the way the film loses sight of the joy of music that supposedly pushes them all.

A modest but amiable comedy.

Ultimately a primer. Without actually putting it in direct terms, it proposes a revolutionary solution, not just in Argentina but everywhere that the corporate culture has failed its workers and their communities.

A bland Bond.

Momentum, motivation and story are all swallowed by simple sensation, and the film finally exhausts itself for lack of stylistic imagination.

No spoilers here, but there are enough hints that the incoming class of happy-go-lucky theater folk will have plenty to do in the already-in-the-works fourth installment.

Clearly not Zhang's forte, his directorial touch is neither light nor magical enough to bring off this kind of whimsy, his characters often seem contrived and unbelievable, and his movie comes off as slightly forced and naggingly unsatisfying.

It's a violent, R-rated action piece, but well directed, rather lavishly produced, filled with imaginative stunts, and it doesn't have a dull moment in it. [17 May 1991]

It's so affected and arch it flops into self parody.

Little Nicky will please Sandler's fans and likely won't win any converts.

Adults will quickly tire of the dragon antics; kids will be bored by all the moralizing and faux metaphysics. [31 May 1996]

Easily the least passionate romantic comedy I've seen in years.

Presents itself as tragedy with the insensitive Joe as its tragic hero, but Joe's fantasies of artistic rebellion and individualism have rotted into simple, solipsistic selfishness.

Strikes a universal chord, no matter what rung of the popularity ladder we were on in high school.

Romance has little to do with the bizarre tale, part true crime and part lonely-hearts drama, of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss. While the now elderly pair may have found some happiness, that absence is heartbreaking.

The result is a great-looking movie with an awkward balance of pulp noir and campy self-awareness.

This bloodless, nuanced little thriller carries small weight save for Huppert's enigmatic, thrifty performance.

Certainly kept the toddlers (including mine) at an advance screening engrossed, but for parents and reviewers, it was more of a struggle.

This journey is clunkily rendered, clouded by an avalanche of murky symbolism.

If you can forgive some woeful casting and a plot that is as creakingly thin as an old staircase, you can enjoy director Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.

It's just never as gripping as it needs to be.

The movie depends on one of those big surprise endings for its effectiveness, but the script gives itself away in the first act.

The Beautiful Country has an epic bearing, but a trite and troubled script makes it more a visual tirade than an engaging odyssey.

It's an ambitious film, but that doesn't mean it's good.

The first half-hour of this movie is super-worse, with only some sub-"American Pie" gags fleshing out the lame-brain plot, but once it gets on the road, there's pleasure to be had.

It all comes together to be a remarkably dull movie.

Never quite rises above its one-joke situation.

The film is inoffensive, and Baldwin is fun and engaging.

Next to "Bad Santa" or "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat," it's a paragon of sophistication.

This is one family reunion where you need someone to act up or pick a fight, anything to bring a little life to the party.

It's hard to recall another time when the cross-purposes of two collaborating filmmakers of a major film has been quite so evident, or when the theme of the movie itself has been so totally schizophrenic -- half populist outrage, half Nazi.

A sweet if bland film.

Amateur, the fourth film of American independent filmmaker Hal Hartley, is by far his best - though, in the wake of "The Unbelievable Truth," "Trust" and "Simple Men," that is, admittedly, not saying much. [05 May 1995]

Witherspoon shines. She's never looked better, and she carries herself with both her usual comedic flair and a surprising elegance.

At 86 minutes, Sleuth '07 plays like a Cliffs Notes version of the original (which was skillfully adapted by Anthony Shaffer from his own hit play) with far too much of its pacing and delicious texture ruthlessly cut.

Lawrence uses the stand-up forum less as a weapon to blast us with his incisive, razor sharp insights into life, sex and ethnicity than as a pulpit or confessional to chronicle his rehabilitation and reformation.

The futuristic thriller is overly familiar and never especially gripping -- and too somber and cerebral for the young action crowd -- but it looks terrific and is in no way an embarrassment.

Cult-favorite director Victor Salva ("Jeepers Creepers" I & II) is a competent visual storyteller and the film believes in itself so strongly (and with such a straight face) that it's hard not to halfway enjoy it.

The film is thrown off balance by the weight of Norton's compassion for this troubled soul.

For all its pronouncements, it's a frothy romantic lark.

It wants to be both an art-film homage and a rollicking, outrageous sex farce, and it's not really enough of either to make an impression.

Only Carol Kane, hilarious in roller curls and wide tortoiseshell glasses, gets to sink her teeth into her role. At least for Lohan, "Confessions" is her stepping-off point. Now she has to find a film to be her "real" stage.

Competently directed by Christian music producer Steve Taylor, it's a sincerely (if not exactly subtly) performed spiritual drama with a faith-based lesson in humility and the practical charity of offering a helping hand.

It would be very possible for a reasonably intelligent person to sit through its tidal wave of imagery and not get this vision at all.

Imparts its fair share of laughs but bogs down after a solid start and never makes anything special out of its premise.

Diaz is quite believable in the part, and gets solid support from Brewster, who is even more appealing as the adoring, wounded and somewhat vacuous younger sister.

Ford tries very hard to be eccentrically funny -- to the point of forced, slapsticky mugging -- but he looks terrible, his timing is way off and his character is so uptight, abrasive and unappealing that he makes miserable company.

The movie is never engaging on anything but a superficial level, and it gradually gets decidedly tiresome.

Conceptually, the film is unique - it's a kind of nostalgia movie within a nostalgia movie. [16 Apr 1999]

It's funny. Dumb, yes, but funny.

The story is pure gobbledygook.

To call the haphazard string of gags a story is to give it far too much credit, but it is funny in a blunt, profane frat boy way, thanks to the bulldozing energy of Ferrell, the smarmy manipulations of Vaughn and the anything-for-a-laugh excess of Phillips.

Fans of figuring skating will enjoy much of the silliness, however, because its better moments have fun lampooning all the hoopla that surrounds the sport and there are cameos from the likes of Dorothy Hamill, Nancy Kerrigan, Brian Boitano, Peggy Fleming and Sasha Cohen.

But the movie doesn't quite work. In fact, despite some funny moments, "Honeymoon" has so many blown scenes and missed opportunities that it makes one suspect that Bergman may not be the best interpreter of his own material. [28 Aug 1992]

The film is so truncated, so obsessed with style and composed of so many self-contained episodes that it fails to say anything new.

There's an enjoyably literate style here and some humorous moments.

Ledger mumbles his entire performance (some of it barely legible) as a fuzzy, friendly, happily passive heroin addict and sometime poet, as if he's too blissed out to even open his mouth as he simply drifts along with his addiction.

Cliched, mostly routine and never especially satisfying.

The film wants to be "The English Patient" but doesn't have the elements that made that film a classic: sensitivity, perfect casting, a unique visual style and, underlying its grand action romance, a stubborn sense of honesty.

Kilner's light touch keeps the romantic pair dancing around their romance without tripping, but as the film reaches the inevitable happy ending, the steps look all too familiar.

At times it gets lost in the backwaters, but the eccentric characters and offbeat humor make it an entertaining detour.

For all of the credibility of the performances (or at least the teens), it all feels like recycled social commentary.

Works best when it devotes itself to the small group of main characters featured on the show.

A mildly amusing but forgettable and way-too-scatological black farce.

The mock trailers are for impossibly schlocky Z-movies with titles like "Machete," "Don't Scream," "Thanksgiving" and "Werewolf Women of the S.S." They're by far the funniest part of the program, possibly because they're mercifully brief.

The script starts repeating its best gags about halfway through, and the direction gets ever broader as it goes along until the film finally loses all effectiveness as satire.

It's not sleepy, it's comatose, and writer/director Josh Sternfeld never wakes it up with anything as crass as a plot.