The new new new Jason Vorhees, played by Derek Mears in this Michael Bay-produced homage/update of the '80s slasher franchise, is a bit of a fox.

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

A forgettable waste of time.

Mostly it's a series of dream-image clues scribbled out by juvenile seer Fanning, followed by super-powered smackdowns between agents and mercenaries with slangy titles like watchers, stitchers and sniffers.

If only Outlander was as fun as the premise makes it sound on paper.

Its combination of maudlin sincerity, cruel slapstick, exotic romanticism and boogie-down dance sequences may befuddle more than it entertains.

For anyone looking for something as real or engaging as Biggie's music -- or a good introduction to it -- will be disappointed by this mediocre celluloid life-after-death.

The only real difference between this and the handful of other Happy Madison flicks is that James (executive producer, co-writer, star) has made this Sandleresque movie family-friendly, with very little swearing, no nudity and all the edginess of a "King of Queens" rerun.

Director Bill Duke may believe the message but he never invests himself in the characters or their story, which becomes an illustrated lesson with reflective interludes and comic relief.

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

Unfortunately, the life has been sucked out of DiCamillo's story about a brave, unusual little mouse.

Though it's a star vehicle, Carrey seems only marginally interested in rehashing the role of sweet spaz, and so he almost feels miscast.

Director Alfredo De Villa doesn't play it for the kind of knockabout comedy so often seen in these films (like the shrill hit "Four Christmases").

As action movies seem to get more complicated and convoluted with international conspiracies and technological concepts, the "Transporter" franchise is refreshingly simple.

Neither clever nor heartwarming, Four Christmases is the coal in the stocking of holiday movies.

Those who want something to really sink their teeth into should head home on a rainy day, put on some goth anthems and reread the books.

Garity, son of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, gives the kind of performance rarely seen in today's movies.

In this brand of comedy, nothing succeeds like excess, and this film is seriously deficient.

Herman's intentions are admirable, but his results are unsettling in the worst ways.

The movie also qualifies as a kind of low-rent, male version of "Dreamgirls," but -- while many of the numbers are pleasant -- it doesn't have the moxie to work as a musical.

Think of it as a buffet of romantic comedy comfort food: the good old American standbys complemented by bland international dishes.

Campbell fans will get a kick out of it. The rest of the world will likely find this spoof a little too insular and indulgent.

The film strains to achieve the comedic gait of "Wag the Dog" or the improvised, overlapping style that so defined Robert Altman's Hollywood movie, "The Player."

You can feel the debt to Sidney Lumet's '70s studies in police corruption and cop brotherhood, but O'Connor never captures the edge of danger, anger and moral stands being ground up in compromise.

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.

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's a fine moral and an admirable statement, but it's the portrait of an icon rather than the story of the person thrust into that position.

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 result is an initially hilarious picture that grows perplexingly trite as screenwriter Peter Straughan transforms Young's sly observations into assembly-line pap.

It's very slick and small children will enjoy it, but it has little of its model's special magic.

A slow-moving, unashamedly weepy, middle-age love story of the kind big-studio Hollywood doesn't often make anymore.

It's all too much and too little: a history lesson in institutional racism that falls into character cliches, a human drama that gets lost in melodramatic detours, a war movie put together by a fan rather than a filmmaker.

A strangely warm, affectionate look at bad behavior amid emotional damage and a stranglehold of identity issues.

Burger is so respectful of the trio that he never gets under their skin. Apart from the generosity of strangers who pay tribute to the soldiers with little acts of kindness, you get the same generic observations of any road movie.

Not a moment rings true in this sentimental drama.

Too bad Igor didn't jolt the film to life with his Frankenstein shenanigans.

When a film has to blare its racially and incendiary stance as obviously as Lakeview Terrace, you know it's trying too hard.

Feels the scratches of too much time and tinkling and is as disjointed as a dislocated shoulder.

Ball's snide humor and cynical arrogance undercut his message at every turn.

For its intention to promulgate the compatibility of Christianity with homosexuality, Save Me deserves a footnote in the political battle between these traditionally adversarial groups. As a movie, it doesn't amount to much more than an after school-special with sex and profanity.

Pleasant viewing, but the unbalanced script and amateur performances keep it from being much more than a walk in the park.

Director Takashi Miike's dish of sukiyaki spaghetti ala Sergio Corbucci is badly seasoned with scraps of reservoir dogs.

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

Perhaps, like Al Gore's lecture on global warming, the force of its argument will stir some of those who see it to further research the subject.

It might be impressive as a made-for-DVD production, but coming from producer George Lucas, it makes for a cheap excuse for a big-screen spectacle.

Would be totally unexceptional if not for its visual telling of the Apollo 11 flight and the fact that the movie is impressively shot - the first animated feature film in 3-D.

Anyone in the market for an overblown and totally mindless adventure-comedy will certainly get his money's worth.

Does nothing so much as stir up a pining for the show in its prime -- a darkly imaginative and wonderfully weird thing -- though it is always nice to see old friends, however mellowed by age they turn out to be.

The Will Ferrell comedy engine is running on empty in Step Brothers.

The concerts themselves are only exciting when Young is at center stage. Although a balding millionaire in his 60s, he retains the ragged energy of a rock 'n' roll road warrior. Not so with the other members, particularly Stills.

It's a little sloppy and full of convenient coincidences, but at its best roils with edgy character tensions.

There's no real wit or cleverness to the script.

Whether or not Garden Party is an accurate portrait of the shadow L.A. culture where the young, pretty and desperate can find quick rent money, this low-budget production never engages with its characters or stories enough to make you care either way.

Seems like very tame stuff, with little in the way of graphic sex and all the baggage of a run-of-the-mill art-house costume drama.

If you're a Toronto native or a big-time hockey geek, there are enough little in jokes to probably carry you through the leaden pacing and barrel-scraping gross-out humor, but it's an awfully dull ride for the rest of us.

Imagine Warren Beatty in "Shampoo" by way of a Jewish Rambo.

At its best, The Promotion offers a sympathetic view of ordinary people caught on the hamster wheel of corporate politics.

Its comedy too often blunders into meaningless slapstick, with bombs and bloodshed replacing pratfalls and pies in the face.

Sivan makes it all quite beautiful with verdant imagery and tastefully melodramatic direction, but at the cost of emotional and social ambiguities, not to mention living, breathing characters.

Dempsey also needs some fashion advice. As always, he sports his trademark five o'clock shadow in every scene (which in itself is excessive). But with Dempsey at age 42, it's beginning to make his face look more sinister than sexy, less Dr. McDreamy, more Richard Nixon.

Writer/director Michael McCullers sprinkles the film with sight gags and comic characters (the lisping birth coach becomes funny out of sheer doggedness), but his pacing is poor and doesn't know how to showcase the small-screen chemistry of Fey and Poehler on the big screen.

The film's first-time director, the TV-commercial-trained Marcel Langenegger, is out to emulate Hitchcock with dashes of "Vertigo," "Strangers on a Train" and more. But his homage is uninspired and disconnected, and his film is a bore.

The movie is sporadically funny in an anarchistic way. But Cho and Penn don't have the needed personality or comic identity to sustain a franchise and their non-drug humor is so crude and scatological that -- to say the least -- it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

The Life Before Her Eyes is like one of those puzzles. There is something wrong in each scene, and the viewer zeroes in on the elements that don't fit, wondering if there is a purpose behind them.

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.

With a title like Chaos Theory, one might expect a little runaway energy or a dash of wild spirit under the antics, but there's little punchy anarchy in this controlled experiment.

For those whose idea of hilarity is an adult and a kid throwing fireworks at each other, then getting stoned and playing piggyback in the mall, this movie should be a refreshing tonic.

Such an air of dumbness hovers over the movie, and it's all played so broadly that nothing about it is remotely believable.

It lacks the invention of Pegg's comedies with Edgar Wright, which buzz and crackle with ideas and energy. This one simply plods through, just like Dennis. Only Pegg's doggedness gets this effort across the finish line.

A thoroughly ordinary drama of temptation, dubious redemption and easy revenge.

Backseat satisfies itself with small observations and minor breakthroughs of self-awareness. In the scheme of their lives, this journey is just a speed bump, jolting them awake for a brief moment. The rest is up to them.

This thing is a mess.

The script sounds like literal diary transcripts, the camerawork tests the limits of eyestrain, and the soundtrack bleats with mediocre pop songs by unknowns.

For all the clumsy scenes and cloying performances, director Patricia Riggen puts her adults through tough choices and hard consequences.

Bright, bouncy, kooky and comically tone deaf, CJ7 is the most bizarre kids movie I've ever seen.

Paranoid Park is a movie about its teen hero's inability to express his feelings: to himself, to his parents, to his friends and, unfortunately, to the audience.

Semi-Pro is the perfect name for this movie, because it feels like a half-baked comedy made by semi-professionals.

Just another low-budget effort from filmmakers who mistake cleverness for smarts.

Abigail Breslin, the preteen Oscar nominee for "Little Miss Sunshine" and the most effortless actress of her generation, plays the precocious little girl part without overdoing the precociousness.

The best thing -- maybe the only good thing -- about the expensive sci-fi movie, Jumper, is its high-concept premise, which gives its hero the power of teleporting himself anywhere on the globe in the blink of an eye: from the Coliseum of Rome to the North Pole.

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.

The script is fatally stupid, most of the gags fall flat, the secondary characters add little, Hudson fails to make anything interesting out of the exasperated heroine, and the endless references to McConaughey's sexual prowess finally become revolting.

Be warned that what looks to be a family comedy pushes its PG-13 rating to the edge with blatant sexual references and creatively crude sexual metaphors.

A stiff of a supernatural comedy.

A genuinely creepy film, though not in a "No Country for Old Men" kind of way. More in an overzealous-blog-comments kind of way, or a dude-on-the-bus-looking-at-me kind of way. Just ugh.

The results are moderately entertaining, but the humor is broad and shallow; the film has none of the irony, bite or wit of its predecessor; and the script (by Glenn Gers) seems so calculated to appeal to every conceivable female demographic that it always feels contrived.

The film is dominated by computer-generated effects and they're most of its problem -- they don't give us anything to emotionally attach to or invest in.

A mystery that isn't mysterious, a thriller that's barely thrilling.

Definitely deserves points for trying to be something thought-provoking and different, but it doesn't really stand up to analysis and it comes off as a pretentious mess.

Given the possibilities it's not particularly inventive, but it is nice to see a comedy so affectionate with the conventions it spoofs.

The movie's one saving grace is Olyphant ("Live Free and Die Hard," HBO's "Deadwood"), whose sociopathic elegance is gradually winning, and whose dry, monotonic, Eastwood-like delivery of one-liners is frequently, if perhaps unintentionally, very funny.

Not a bad movie, per se. It's just harmless and bland and dull and predictable, and sometimes that's worse than a bad movie.

More mediocre than magical.

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

The minor pleasures of P2 lie in the simple effectiveness of the sleekly unshowy direction and the clean, unadorned script, which pares away extraneous distractions like motivation and complicated back stories to get on with the mechanics of tension and the obligatory jumps and startles (which stand in for genuine scares).

The cozy, lived-in atmosphere created by the ensemble and the unlikely chemistry of Carell and Binoche are so genuine that you wish the rest of the film was just as effortless and authentic.

Jimmy Carter documentary is a smug, self-righteous monologue.

The combined efforts of three novice screenwriters fail to give shape to a life that was, although devoted to a noble cause, unexceptional.