Even by the standard of a fourth-in-a-series summer blockbuster, Wolverine, the first X-Men movie directed by Gavin Hood ( Rendition), is remarkably lame.

Even by the standards of the current run of mediocre comic-book movies, this one stands out for its egregious shoddiness.

To call The Change-Up misogynistic would be to shortchange the equal-opportunity disgust this anal-regressive film demonstrates toward men, babies, old people, and corporeal existence in general.

Clash seems to be deliberately steering clear of camp, when in fact it should have steered straight into camp and stepped on the gas.

Sadly, these small bursts of beauty seemed so at odds with the movie's general crushing mediocrity that they were like quickly squelched protests against it.

The Nutcracker’s onslaught of wholesomeness also lays waste to anything that might stand in its way, leaving it crushed under the boot heels of its tin soldiers.

Once the premise had been established and the leads began to interact, I stopped totting up the inanities and had a good time.

So sniggeringly one-sided that the picture has no tension.

The playful energy between McCarthy and her completely game co-star, Susan Sarandon is more than enough to keep the movie humming along.

I found Dead Men Tell No Tales to be passably fun and certainly no harder to watch than any of the better-pedigreed blockbusters this year.

Caruso is a much more resourceful director than this material deserves, but I resented being two steps ahead of the genius profiler and the genius serial-killer.

Smith, to his credit, comes closest to selling the screenplay’s grandiose nonsense — that is, after all, a movie star’s job, and the movie works best, to the extent it works at all, as a reflection on his 30-year career.

This is a well-packaged film that arrives like a nicely wrapped Christmas present, full of promise and potential. Then you unwrap it and discover that it's just another electric gravy boat and, worse, it's still got the price tag attached.

Overstuffed and far from spry.

If you spin out the unintended analogy of Confessions of a Shopaholic to the current financial crisis, the film starts to mutate from a not-that-funny comedy into a tragic allegory.

One magnificent piece of agitprop.

True to the rom-com tradition, the film ends in apologies, tears, and redemptive hugs, but the sour taste it leaves behind feels less like victory than like morning sickness.

2 Fast 2 Furious is just 2 lame, 2 tame, and 2 much like a video game.

I Don't Know How She Does It feels like a relic from the "Sex and the City" boom times. If there were even a passing nod to economic reality - for example, an acknowledgement that not all stay-at-home mothers are pampered trophy wives who live at the gym - this self-satisfied domestic comedy might not leave behind such a tinny taste.

The movie is at its best when it can revel in inventiveness, scrappiness, and camaraderie, and you feel the “We’re coming together! We’re beating the Big Bad!” vibes run through you.

The movie is a big, noisy mess, with a howler at its center: Overrouged psychiatrist Michael Douglas.

DiVito turns actors like Robin Williams, Edward Norton, and Catherine Keener into nothing less horrific than giant Danny DeVitos.

This movie leaves us with the stale whiff of fake nostalgia and something even more odoriferous: the smell of money.

All of its plot threads are equally dreadworthy.

Unfolds like the slow-motion dismantling of the world's most boring matryoshka.

The picture is an empty parlor trick, but it's carried out with a master's concentration.

It's enough to make you wish someone would make a movie about her.

Baywatch is surprisingly without sexism or condescension: It’s equal-opportunity stupid.