If ever there's been a martial-arts movie that makes you feel as if you've been kicked in the head, surely it's Kung Pow! Enter the Fist.

It's the sort of visual joke you would wince at in a 1940s movie; to see it nowadays, you're tempted to dismiss it as unintentional.

Unlike Hollywood's starting point of hopelessly beautiful and yet inexplicably unentangled principal characters, Italian For Beginners'raw material is something of a more dirty-fingernail variety.

This is a picture with a perfect sense of proportion: There's a mini-Hanks, a mini-Spacek and a mini-Kasdan in a mini-comedy that's minimally entertaining.

Utterly preposterous but so full of enthusiasm and flashy style that it's entertaining anyway, The Brotherhood of the Wolf is like the platypus of genre films.

A beautiful, probing art documentary.

It's not Smith's fault that the movie can't quite pry apart the man from the myth from the metaphor. The three may well be inseparable by now and, at this point in his history and ours, that's surely the way we prefer it.

Sugary but well-acted little emotional button-presser.

If Apocalypse Now was criticized in the past as a series of impressive sequences that don't quite add up to a tidy story, the new additions put this in perspective. It's a filmed epic, not a filmed drama. [10 Aug 2001, p.R1]

Properly handled, any one of these characters could be made, just barely, believable. But here they simply go off, like rockets, exploding out of nowhere and racing across the screen, one after the other.

In every way but one, A Knight's Tale is a bouncy pop song of a movie, the snappy/happy kind that puts a grin on your face and a tap to your toe, shifting the heart into high and the mind into neutral. [11 May 2001]

Brainless, but enjoyably over-the-top, the retro gang melodrama, Deuces Wild represents fifties teen-gang machismo in a way that borders on rough-trade homo-eroticism.

Men may be gay by nature, but women are lesbians by choice -- for them, it's a simple matter of trading up. Such is the implied message of Kissing Jessica Stein.

At his best, Spike Lee is too brave to be subtle.

The laughter does build. But there's precious little risk in the comedy -- even the rough edges seem calculated. These guys are preaching to the converted, and their careful sermons keep the faith. Skilled they are, but original or kingly they definitely are not -- just solid knights working the round table.

In keeping with the purloining spirit of sequeldom, Woo plunders his own past. [24 May 2000, p.R1]

The upside? Visually polished, credibly acted and competently directed courtesy of Ridley Scott, the film is always likable. The downside? Well, it's never anything more than likable.

Narrative-driven and determinedly unpredictable, The Disappearance of Finbar is true to its mandate as a mystery story to a fault. [18 Jul 1987]

The most disturbing aspect of the movie is not the sex scenes (shot from the waist up) but her face, especially in her porn-star persona: a frozen little smiling mask that suggests a paradoxically intense vacancy.

This is the kind of picture that is faux subtle when it should be bold, and really ham-handed when it should be delicate.

The tuneful melodies of their favourite band grace the soundtrack, but let's not confuse this with a rock 'n' roll movie -- the music is just the blank canvas awaiting the higher art of the gross-out.

There are flashes of excitement in this film, mostly from the verbal play and sulphurous humour of Welsh's perspective, but there's a lot that makes you wonder why you're sitting through it.

This spoof's heart is genuinely warm.

At least tries to disturb us, rather than shock us or gross us out, and that is admirable. But it doesn't pull it off, and the movie is indicative of the trouble Hollywood has these days making that most frightening kind of movie -- the kind that lets the audience frighten itself.

Other than a few gratuitous montage sequences, plus a patently clumsy echo of the shopping scene in "Pretty Woman," Marshall refuses to pull his share of the load, forcing his beleaguered cast to fend for themselves.

One of those stupid movies that are good to relax with.

Inspector Gadget may be a live-action movie, but at its heart it's more cartoonish than most cartoons.

It's not a winner and not quite a loser either. Like many a beauty contestant, it's glib instead of serious, stylish instead of substantial. Miss Universe, it could never be. Homecoming queen, maybe.

Considering that the original story managed to be scarier without people's hair spontaneously restyling itself into dragons, it's worth asking why this kind of film has become the norm. Is it because filmgoers demand it, or is it because filmmakers leaning on technological crutches can't be bothered to learn their craft? More and more, I'm leaning to the latter. [23 July 1999, p.C3]

Tilting between a teen sex comedy and a more sensitive tale about male bonding, The Wood is too anxious to please to quite make up its mind what it is.

Eyes Wide Shut still towers above most of the movies out there, immersing the viewer in a web of emotional complexity, at once raw and personal and, at times, theatrically overcooked.

An ultra-cheap movie, ingeniously promoted through the Internet -- is notable primarily as a model of guerrilla-style niche-marketing.

A formulaic thriller, treated in a style that's just shy of outright parody.

It's a kaleidoscope of ideas that range from exciting to silly and gaudy.

Undoubtedly the rudest and possibly the most inspired comedy of the summer.

It's a long time since I've heard a press screening audience applaud a foreign film, but then it's a long time since a French movie has been as funny as The Dinner Game.

The film lacks the moronic consistency that graces the Sandlerian oeuvre at its most pristine.

Too busy to be boring or deeply engaging, Tarzan is an efficient Disney treatment of a time-tested story. The results aren't bad, just not quite worth a chest-pounding victory yell.

To divulge the plot would spoil the experience -- you'll be shocked to discover, and maybe even surprised to learn, just how lame the damn thing really is.

Fun, fun, fun. Take the title at its word, because this movie is nothing less than a flat-out, lung-pumping, 76-minute sprint.

The plot's larcenous resolution is something of a cheat, tying things up dramatically if unethically.

At this point, the effect of Myers' one-man Sixties love-in already feels less shagadelic than just shagged out.

Pardon my pulling anthropological rank, but Instinct -- a movie about an ape-man savant -- seems a quart low on common sense.

In the slow coast down Notting Hill, we approach the blessed land of Nodding Off.

Well acted and crisply directed, this latest version can at least make a claim to competence.

The Loss of Sexual Innocence is not bad, as in the sense of inept; it's artful enough to show how truly trite it is.

It does the job just fine. That job, as director George Lucas freely admits, is quite simply to thrill the beating hearts and the inquiring minds of 12-year-old boys.

The well chosen cast helps -- no one strikes a false note.

The most sentimental Italian movie about surviving the war since "Life is Beautiful."

Big, lavish and dumb as camel spit -- is proof that sometimes it's better to let sleeping genres lie.

This briefly inspired bit of surreality quickly descends into gratuitous bondage, mayhem and dumb humour, marking the usual progression from mildly absurd premise to gratingly idiotic conclusion.

The film doesn't work, it ain't charming.

The result is a rare treat, a revival of a period piece that doesn't descend into mere quaintness or prettiness, and that manages to capture the spirit of an earlier time without sacrificing the perspective of our own.

EXistenZ, unlike existence, just lacks that certain mystique.

At best, the humour in Election is perceptive, nasty, pointed, and lets no one off its barbed hook, not even the audience. In other words, it's a lovely piece of satire, made all the more relevant by the setting.

A mundane sitcom with feature pretensions, the kind where the comic "situation" is simply a coat-rack for hanging a rag-tag assortment of inflated sight gags and telegraphed punch lines.

An entertaining takeoff and a high-altitude ride eventually runs into some bumpy weather and a clumsy landing in Mike Newell's new comedy.

Though Lillard's excitable tone keeps promising wild comic adventures, the sequences are uniformly flat and humour-free.

The result is a movie that's both odd and mediocre: not as bad as doing hard time, but not a particularly good time, either.

Like circus acrobats who bounce up smiling, the characters end up on their feet, and you realize in retrospect that they survived because somebody, finally, stopped to think. A final thought on Go: Go.

Strictly a middle-aged comedy, which consists of more easy lobs than sharp smacks, but manages to get the job done.

A trifle compared to Robert Altman's great films -- But it's a very assured trifle, and an unusually good-natured Altman film.

With her high forehead, pale eyebrows and solemn face, Stiles could have understudied Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth -- another dignified smart girl surrounded by conniving idiots.

For those who have been waiting for movies to catch up with the graphic possibilities of comic books, wait no longer: The Matrix is among us.

Standing back a step from A Walk on the Moon's dippy charms, the movie delivers less than it initially promises.

EDtv is precisely the kind of brisk, straightforward, amiable and accessible material that shows Howard’s skills to advantage.

A flawed fraud, a youth movie so disjointed, witless and condescending that it's painful to watch.

It's not really serious, not especially funny, and not noticeably scary. Strikeout.

The man (Affleck) is something of a force of nature himself, and it ain't pretty.

On the whole, the film is content to lumber awkwardly between the condemned man on death row and the intrepid reporter on his save-a-life beat -- there's about as much rhythm in the style as there is sense in the plot.

It's doubtful that today's children would have any patience for the stagy 1956 version, so the current animated offering, despite its flaws, at least opens a door to the music.

The verdict is easy: Pfeiffer terrific, movie not.

By the end of Trekkies,you almost feel the best way to bring peace to the Middle East would be to hold a Star Trek convention there.

Dopey.

About as endearing as unanesthetized gum surgery.

It's possible to insult even a teenager's intelligence.

The Corruptor is visually lively and filled with gratuitous destruction. [12 Mar 1999]

The best one can say is that it's a smart cartoon, and a fairly exhausting viewing experience.

But there's no sign of the writerly derring-do that is really essential to daisy-chain storytelling. 200 Cigarettes burns itself out well before midnight.

It doesn't take a foolish romantic to hope that Myles and Elisabeth live happily ever after. The world just isn't ready for 20 More Dates.

This is a great film for those who share the disabused French view of grownup life, but more particularly for those who want to see one of the great actresses of her generation at the height of her powers.

The movie is, however, generous in its condescension: Given enough tolerance, cash and a good sex manual, it says, even the mentally handicapped can be just as middle-class and cute as you or me.

What began as discomfiting satire soon devolves into silly farce. By the time Friends star Jennifer Aniston pops up as a waitress-cum-love-interest (quite a stretch for her), it's a sure sign we're back within the smug confines of the Tinseltown formula flick.

Now if that isn't an inspirational story, it's hard to know what is.

Jawbreaker breaks ground in one way. The movie is notably unpleasant, not just because it's morally offensive, but because it strives for this arch, artificial John Waters tone without any accompanying pay-off in wit.

This hunk of celluloid flotsam will come back sooner rather than later, washed up on the remote shelves of your local video store. My advice: shred the message, recycle the bottle.

The bafflingly unfunny and terrifically irritating new Disney version of My Favorite Martian is so empty that it makes the original TV show look like a lost work from George Bernard Shaw. [12 Feb 1999, p.D2]

Both actors seem too callow and shallow to actually feel all those emotional raptures they are supposedly experiencing. This is a problem exacerbated by the talent of the supporting cast.

In the last third, Payback turns into a joke.

As flicks go, She's All That ain't very much. But as high-school flicks go, this thing is a trite classic. [29 Jan 1999, p.C3]

If the external threat in the plot were a little more credible, this would be an annoying distraction. But in the context of the rest of Gloria, it's a safe strategy: When not watching Sharon Stone act, audiences can fall back on just watching Sharon Stone.

Despite an impressive array of acting talent, nothing quite rings true -- all those sharp pieces fit beautifully together without adding up to much. [22 Jan 1999, p.D6]

Director Irwin Winkler (Night and the City)is rarely better than pedestrian in handling this story. At worst, the dramatic elements are plain clumsy.

Frankly, about 20 minutes into this dud, I was rooting for the alien beasties -- their diagnosis seemed dead-on.

Like no other war movie you've ever seen.

A tormented and tormenting man uses violence to break the historic chain of violence, then bequeaths to his loved ones the most precious gift he can give -- his total silence and perpetual absence.

The wildly ambitious but flawed biographical film about the English cellist Jacqueline du Pré.

A lazy and mediocre movie, a sort of tepid parody blend of "The Breakfast Club" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."