It's kind of like "Tootsie," only without the drag. Or the class. Or the laughs.

The finished film, while competently acted and staged, has missed the high mark Spacey set for it. It's self-important, tedious and ultimately pointless, with absolutely none of the sardonic wit that remains the most memorable feature of "American Beauty."

The new production is handsome and offers a few riveting moments, but it's basically a botched job that misses all the impact of both the original movie and the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren that inspired it.

Welcome to the tawdry end of paradise, where no melodrama is too obvious and no conflict too contrived.

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

Feels forced every step of the way. Ultimately it's the kind of under-inspired, overblown enterprise that gives Hollywood sequels a bad name.

First-time director Billie Woodruff, a music video veteran, busts his moves in the dance scenes while the movie throbs to the beat of the wall-to-wall soundtrack.

The Last Sin Eater has a specific audience in its sights, one that doesn't mind the film's characters having their problems solved by the healing power of truth and faith.

Most of the publicity for Cold Creek Manor seems to imply that it's an occult thriller, specifically a Stephen King-ish haunted house movie. But no. This is a severe case of mistaken identity: In fact, there's not a supernatural bone in the movie's body.

When, in its eventful final act, Merhige finally reveals what this thing is REALLY all about, it comes not with any blissful storytelling satisfaction but a grinding sense that this strange movie is a structural mess.

This "Moreau" is also a pretty creepy affair - at least through its first two acts. Director John Frankenheimer, who is responsible for some of the most chilling thrillers in American film history ("The Manchurian Candidate," "Seconds") certainly knows a thing or two about building a menacing, suspenseful situation. [23 Aug 1996]

I scratched my head in wonder as to why this pair of one-dimensional characters couldn't find happiness in such a shallow story.

It's the chemistry between the women and the droll scene-stealing wit and wolfish pessimism of Anna Chancellor that makes this "Two Weddings and a Funeral" fun.

Just pretend the acting scenes are commercial breaks, and you'll be fine.

This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.

A movie that plays better if you know nothing about it going in.

The vapid plot line follows the same narrative arc as "Tootsie" but hasn't the heart or purpose of that film.

Unashamedly positive look at the rise of the '60s counterculture.

It's often surprisingly clever, dripping with respect for its model, and done with considerable wit and style.

The result is a film with an identity crisis, a fluffy romantic farce that gets progressively darker, more destructive and finally so downright demented that the featherweight story line is crushed under the weight of brutal, unpleasant truth.

It's an abysmal movie.

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.

The script (by Cheryl Edwards, who wrote "Save the Last Dance") is shallow and dumb, the conflict (success goes to Jackie's head) is especially unconvincing, and director Charles S. Dutton shamelessly allows his own small part (as Jackie's mentor) to hog the camera.

Holmes ably handles the starring role, but the handsome Bratt doesn't have enough material to cement his film career. The supporting cast is strong.

What results is a movie as vacuous as the characters on screen. It's not often a movie makes you yearn for the energy and half-baked artistry of "Freddy vs. Jason," but there you have it.

It lacks, despite the remarkable techno effects by wizard Stan Winston, originality and charisma.

For all the testosterone-driven soap opera, this entertainingly confused coming-of-age story is a seductive fantasy, a rare portrait of urban underworld machismo without the violence and the viciousness.

A B-movie goof on an A-minus budget, Returner is a mini-epic tweaked with computer effects and one blazing gun battle after another and set to an anonymous techno-beat.