The script drowns out its ideas with arch melodramatic devices and ridiculous twists while Babbitt smothers even the daylight scenes in an oppressive gloom.

The cast is perfect, but the script is like a low ceiling, keeping a lid on what should have been a confluence of riotous misadventures.

Nothing at all special. It's one more cheesy, broadly played, poorly paced, instantly forgettable August action movie.

Has neither the raucous energy and impudence of "Animal House," the defiance of "If ...," nor the grace and wit of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle."

The movie also is designed to be an actor's showcase for Norton and Giamatti, two of the best movie actors of their generation. Each has his moments of fire, but some element is missing from the script that would make this duel of the titans riveting.

Wry and dry.

The cast tries hard and a sprinkling of laughs results, but the project is defeated by a concept that is not very novel, a script that is not especially witty, direction that is neither sharp nor insightful and one-note characters that are simply not very interesting.

The entire film is shot in split screen. Each of the unnamed characters is photographed separately in their own slice of space, the images sutured together with a purposeful imperfection, with occasional overlap and rare moments of union. It gives them the appearance of dancing around one another, almost touching but never getting past the years of emotional scar tissue, even as they work their way to her hotel room.

Step Up never quite does fly: its dance routines are low-voltage, the star chemistry is weak, the characters are clichés and the movie is practically an instant remake of Dewan's other '06 dance musical, "Take the Lead," which told the story better.

Just in time for back-to-school, this smart film about a troubled teacher and student upends most movie images, both romantic and negatively stereotyped, of the urban classroom.

The story plays out in the sensuous textures and hypnotic rhythms as the rebellious youth Torres embodies eases into a serenity and acceptance that Montenegro brings so gently to her performance.

The lack of stellar performances gradually becomes a virtue of the movie as we forget we're watching actors in roles, and Stone builds a documentarylike veracity that gives the saga of the trapped cops and their loved ones a riveting immediacy.

The film is imaginative but ugly, with bodily functions an unending source for grotesque and revolting imagery.

It's the most intense, unpredictable and thrilling cinematic experience I've had the pleasure to squirm through in ages.

It's bright, colorful and udder-ly unmemorable.

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.

It is Ferrell's best movie and the summer's funniest comedy so far.

Chabrol's deliberate and drawn-out observations often work against the dramatic tension, but his gift is making the audience believe that emotion and obsession trump logic for these deluded characters.

When Riyadh's family jokes about the purple stain that marks them as resistance targets after they vote, the black humor speaks volumes about them as individuals, as Sunnis and as Iraqis with a dream of a better way.

What Quinceañera does offer is charm, sensitivity and intelligence.

The movie is funny without disrespecting its characters. But there is a sadness at its heart, because, although the possibilities for romantic happiness diminish after the age of 65, the dynamics of sexual attraction and coupling never change.

As it turns out, the movie is still very much about two well-dressed undercover cops who strike sexy poses, express plenty of attitude and drive expensive cars and fast boats as pop music plays on the soundtrack and palm trees sway gently in the tropical night.

It's far from his (Allen) career best, but it's funny and he comes off well.

The film lacks the nerve for any genuinely nasty fun or comic bite.

It may be too intense at times for wee ones, but kids of 5 and up testing the limits of their independence in the big world should relate to Lucas, dig the crazy insect world and embrace the imagination behind the colorful adventure.

The language and the landscape is French, but the sensibility and style is unmistakably Eastern European.

The film, despite the occasional gross-out joke, can't disguise the fact that it's a sweet old sappy -- even dated -- love story. Only Molly Ringwald is missing.

It's pretty weird stuff, and filmmakers Keith Fulton and Luis Pepe embrace it with a layer of cinematic gauze that builds a pounding energy to this hypnotic twisting of rock legend.

In remarkably compact and quietly concise vignettes, we're introduced to each member, and immediately understand what they're all about.

Movies about gurus generally fail to capture the charisma of their subjects. French director Jan Kounen's documentary on Amma, India's hugging saint, who allegedly has given restorative embraces to more than 45 million supplicants, is no exception.

This is a film about brave women who left home as teenagers and have been on their own ever since. Now, nearing the end of that road, they face their inevitable decline with a cheerful vivacity.

The attitude is older, maybe a tad sentimental, and as adolescent and reckless as ever. Whether that's a good thing depends on your appreciation for dead-end conversations, geek debates and the Smithspeak sandbox of creative vulgarity.

It comes off as tedious, pretentious, self-indulgent, talky and so garbled it might have been improvised by the actors.

The most imaginative and delightful computer-animated movie of recent years outside of the Pixar brand, Monster House is a Halloween ghost story by way of monster-movie adventure.

It's not terrible, but it's mediocre and not much more than a string of cheesy sex gags.

Jacque's satiric comic take on swashbucklers extends to war in general and particularly to the men who lead their armies.

Yes, in this day and age, a tall man can pretend to be a very short man pretending to be a baby who uses his innocent disguise to molest women and whack men in the nuts. Isn't that funny? No, actually, not so much.

Sporadically enjoyable but instantly forgettable comedy.

The Groomsmen, while as corny as a Staten Island marriage proposal, rings true on many levels.

Disastrously unfunny sex farce.

Another worthy performance comes from Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

Verbinski, Depp and company just want to make it the best ride you've had all summer. If that's all you demand of a frothy summer blockbuster, then this delivers the goods.

The film is weirdly fascinating in its own maverick way.

The film's near-fatal flaw is its dialogue, which had to be invented wholesale from the Old English text. It alternates between sounding stagy and anachronistically hip -- with more overuse of the F-word than any two Samuel L. Jackson movies. It's a big mistake.

Rampling is fascinating as Ellen, the aging romantic who hardens her vulnerability with a materialist philosophy regarding the buying and selling of sex. The other two actresses give more superficial performances, with Young totally unconvincing as a Southern neurotic.

The bad news in this kinder, gentler, more subtle performance is that, by playing the woman (Streep) as less of a devil, the dynamic that propels the story loses much of its drive and energy, and what's left is a kind of high-class "Gidget" movie.

The film is magnificently mounted, it moves like a speeding bullet and it's so respectful of Superman traditions that even the pickiest of die-hard fans should love it. After a lapse of two decades, it revitalizes the franchise and makes it seem fresh and alive.

It's Kang's first feature and it suffers from rocky moments and an unsure eye, but his sense of detail is rich with prickly contradictions and he resists tidying up the story.

The "guest cast" includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Allison Janney and Sarah Jessica Parker, but all are upstaged by Greg Hollimon's cheerfully corrupt Principal Blackman and Sedaris.

There is an element of murder mystery and an edge of conspiracy thriller to Chris Paine's documentary about the rise and fall of General Motors' EV1 (Electric Vehicle 1).

Throughout the film, music is used to define character and place. Two metal bands, Moral Decay and South Central Riot Squad, dominate the soundtrack whenever the gang is on the move.

It's an unimaginative, mean-spirited affair that makes you hate yourself for laughing at it, and it's so devoid of anything close to wit, subtlety or sophistication that it stands as damning evidence that Hollywood has surrendered wholesale to stupidity and crassness.

By most of the ways movies are usually judged, pretty much of a mess. The camerawork is jerky and distracting, the dialogue is cliched and the story makes so little sense that the script seems to have been improvised by the actors as they went along.

The restrained drama both punctures the mythic ideal of the samurai culture (trained as fighters, they mostly serve as clan bureaucrats) and spins a romantic portrait of one man who values principle over protocol despite the cost to his reputation.

A harrowing, frustrating view of paranoia and ineptitude that may seem a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but evolves more into a mystery.

The film comes to life when Cohen is on screen.

At least Lin's local color make the idiocy fun to watch.

Bullock has abandoned all her usual cutesy mannerisms, and Reeves is as low-key and convincing as he's been in a role. Whatever else the film is, it's a competent and enjoyable star vehicle.

It's weird, clean, good-natured fun, and it's far too subdued for its madcap milieu.

In trying for realism, Machado only achieves dramatic inertness.

Mostly unfabulous.

Don't expect a meaningful resolution, just a bouncy comedy with some hilarious moments in the stray ricochets.

In Creadon's most effective and inspired sequence, he gets Reagle to create a puzzle using the film's title as its theme. It's during the sequence that we learn the lofty rules of creating crosswords, including lateral symmetry and a maximum ratio of black to white space.

All told, Cars is a knockout.

A beautiful angel of death (Virginia Madsen) meanders through the final broadcast, gracing beatitudes over the backstage romances and egg-salad sandwiches.

With adventurous forays into questionable neighborhoods and stimulating tours through street markets, "Crossing the Bridge" is about the city as much as its music.

The curiously stylized piece, shot in a muted palette with performances to match (the cast is perhaps too restrained given the theatrical framework), is dramatically colorless, but the moods and moments are crafted with kinky grace.

New director John Moore just doesn't have original director Richard Donner's filmmaking flair, so the same scenes done the same way on phony-looking Prague locations without the benefit of Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar-winning score just seem terminally slow and flat.

The filmmakers have wildly miscalculated the chemistry these real-life lovers generate on film.

An inspirational portrait of an unwanted kid who brought culture to a world that had known only violence.

It's great to see action stars cast for their moves -- their grace in motion is thrilling -- but they also have the charisma to pull off the characters.

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.

In the latest of what is getting to be a booming genre of Iraq war documentaries, director Deborah Scranton gives digital video cameras to five members of the New Hampshire Army National Guard so they can intimately record their year of service in the Middle East.

Ripe with characters and events reflecting the psychic travails of today's young adults.

The humorless and self-important execution attempts an operatic scale but only succeeds in sinking the remnants of the story's integrity. By the time it makes landfall, this incoherent production has blown itself out.

The messy emotions and illogic of human nature defines this drama.

Love it or hate it, X-III packs more action and razzle-dazzle visuals into its 104-minute running time than "Mission: Impossible III," "Poseidon" and "The Da Vinci Code" combined.

A thrilling and scary ride.

Absolutely riveting.

Elegant and enjoyably disorienting.

The film has an exciting visual texture that gives body to Brown's bestseller-ese prose, and uniformly strong performances that give dimension, depth and interest to characters that the author never entirely brought to life. In this sense, I found it much more entertaining and satisfying than the novel.

The story is slim but the script is snappy and the film moves with a fluid rhythm that charges up to a rollercoaster pace.

Behind the sad and vulnerable eyes of Bernal's damaged Elvis is both a fierce rage and a desperate need for his father's recognition, but he's more enigma than person. Hurt is more nuanced as the sincerely spiritual man faced with a past that threatens his family and his future.

Low-production values, including glaring inconsistencies in the makeup department, add to the bargain-basement atmosphere of this kidsploitation quickie.

As clumsy as the movie is in many ways, it strings together maybe a dozen situations in which we are absolutely, excruciatingly, on the edge of our seats -- which is to say that the new Poseidon essentially does its job.

The whole affair comes off as thin and artificial as a super model after a botox party.

Goal seems destined to be an ongoing soccer-themed soap opera, but it's one that only the game's biggest enthusiasts likely will find compelling.

There is potential for laughs in a satire of rich people spending big money on religious galas, but that is not even the real subject of the picture.

The film is so well acted -- by Byrne, who makes Harry's internalized agonies and continuously carried torch for his ex-wife touching, and by Watson and Hoult -- that its more cloying moments, including a staged version of the musical "Camelot" (which is too long), are a moot point.

The camera drinks in the angles, curves and textures, and the way it all shapes the light as if it's yet another of Gehry's non-traditional materials, and Pollack creates his own video sketchbook of Gehry impressions.

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

While all the "Mission" plots are convoluted and slightly preposterous -- the keyword in the title is "Impossible" -- the latest is just this side of insultingly stupid. The longer you think about it, the less sense it all makes.

There's simply nobody beneath the derisive attitude worth caring about.

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.

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

In the end, this is a film about retribution and justice within unjust circumstances. Each character has a personal code of honor -- Arthur, Charlie and Capt. Stanley are all given their dignity -- and it's that code that sets the film apart.

For all of its admirable intentions, the awkward melding of movie-of-the-week tragedy, non-denominational salvation drama and teen sex comedy mistakes banality for conviction.

A sports empowerment fantasy of the best kind.