This perfectly dreadful romantic action comedy manages to embarrass its three eminently attractive leading players in every scene, making this an automatic candidate for whatever raspberries or golden turkeys or other dubious awards may be given in future for the films of 2012.

With enough wedding-related shenanigans to pull in the date crowd, the guffaw-to-gag ratio remains relatively respectable, though there's nothing here that hasn't been attempted many times over.

While Kramer's well-conceived screenplay features much amusing dialogue, there's a forced quality to the proceedings that makes the comic premise seem more artificial than it needs to be.

Fails both as historical re-enactment and as action-flick thrill ride.

The whole thing reeks of fiction being used to process missteps in its makers' own lives. This story isn't nearly ready to leave the shrink's couch.

Eli Roth and screenwriter Joe Carnahan could have done the same thing, manifesting the rages and fears that afflict the country we live in right now. Instead they offer a cheap and dishonest Death Wish that (references to social media notwithstanding) is interchangeable with get-tough knockoffs that have flooded cinemas for decades.

As jumbled as all this is, the film never achieves the kind of sweaty intensity of the original.

It's just lousy. Bloated, vastly less funny than it aims to be and misguided in key design choices even when it scores with less important decisions, the film does make bold choices that might've paid off under other circumstances. But these aren't those circumstances.

A coming-of-age tale and a JFK assassination conspiracy movie. The first half of that equation works nicely...But the assassination story line is absurd.

Co-scripted by a slumming Bret Easton Ellis, The Curse of Downers Grove is all over the place in tone, never managing to decide what kind of film it wants to be.

In spite of a few missteps, the cumulative impact of the film is undeniable.

The laughs tend to come in fits and starts, built around individual set pieces rather than being generated organically out of the storytelling.

Thanks to Jon Cryer’s likable-schlemiel shtick, a lost-cause rom-com is more watchable than it has any right to be. But that’s not enough to make Hit by Lightning remotely involving.

A deeply dispiriting movie, not just because it is grindingly bad but because Jane Fonda actually chose this for her comeback after a 15-year absence from the screen. But it's worse than that. Fonda, one of the best actors of her generation, is downright awful in a role she could have -- and probably should have -- sleepwalked through.

Bringing good old-fashioned Mediterranean emotion to a screenplay that feels oh so familiar, this modern-day weepie unapologetically plays to the crowd rather than the critics.

The cast handles the sometimes ludicrous plot shifts with relative equanimity, although Cavill seems like he’s trying way too hard to embrace his role as a conflicted cop and father attempting to protect his teen daughter while pursuing a killer ruthlessly targeting innocent young women.

Despite his extensive action movie experience, director Johnny Martin (Vengeance: A Love Story) fails to invest the violence with much suspense. He also doesn't elicit the best work from his performers, with Urban and Snow unable to overcome their characters' stereotypical aspects.

If ever there was a lusty, lowbrow genre film destined for a life on video, this is it.

With a predictable trajectory and cringeworthy metaphors, The Starling is so slushily sentimental it makes the typical tearjerker look like a noir. Despite the lived-in performances from its three high-profile stars, this attempt at heartfelt drama is hopelessly by-the-numbers.

This version is unlikely to strike a similar chord with young audiences while severely disappointing older fans of the original.

A bland, formulaic picture where romance and comedy are noticeably absent. A more wooden and uninspired effort from talented people behind and in front of the camera is difficult to imagine.

Why Hugh Jackman was so excited by Mark Bomback's script to star and produce the film is as big a mystery as why such talents-on-a-roll as Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams joined the cast.

It's all an earnest effort, three decades too late.

Writer-director David Kittredge clearly has serious things on his mind about such subjects as voyeurism, the thin line between fantasy and reality, the link between sex and violence, etc., but whatever points he is trying to make are lost in the general muddle.

Embodying the same wholesomeness that has informed most of his screen work, gross-out comedies included, it feels like a tentative next step in Sandler’s evolving screen persona, one that has gone from good-hearted dolt to bumbling man-child to middle-aged father.

The starry chemistry of leads Ansel Elgort and Chloë Grace Moretz injects a modicum of energy into the coming-of-age drama, whose elements of romance, crime and smart-kid angst never coalesce.

The idea of a literal crypt of living family secrets has a movie-ready, over-the-top absurdity, but in this smoothed-over telling, there's no dramatic juice, no impact — just pieces on a chess board, waiting to be maneuvered.

A visually imaginative but narratively incoherent exercise that provides viewers the unwelcome opportunity to feel what it’s like to watch a video game being played by someone else.

A sloshy swill fermented in the hacked-up viscera of superior fantasy features — including Labyrinth, Hocus Pocus, Monster's Inc., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Adventures in Babysitting — the film often sinks beneath the weight of its viscous plot. However, it burbles and thrives in moments that rely on aesthetics over story, director Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl) infusing genuine creepy tension with an à la mode witchy/techy visual motif.

A Christmas comedy of numbing tedium and tackiness.

Unlike the restrained 1974 film which cleverly relied mainly on suggestion, this version piles on the graphic, often CGI-enhanced gore.

The film is essentially nothing but little and ineffectual bits of recycled shtick with no sense of freshness of invention. And the women never bond in even the most rote or superficial way that's expected in this sort of claptrap.

Definitely has its amusing moments, but ultimately all that improvised shtick gets mighty tired without any real break in the nonaction.

Despite an intriguing setup, sharply drawn central characters and a lead performance from the luminous Jennifer Lawrence that elevates the material a few notches, House at the End of the Street is a by-the-book horror thriller that's low on scares and suspense.

An ineffective indie variation on the sort of generic romantic comedy that should be starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

The preposterousness of Gregg Hurwitz's screenplay isn't enough to throw star Naomi Watts off her game, and the actor's sincere performance may suffice to keep a segment of the family-film demographic on board, barely.

Caruso’s direction is slick and fluid enough, and gifted cinematographer Rogier Stoffers (Quills, School of Rock) makes the most of the house’s dark, eerie corners. But the performances are highly variable. Beckinsale delivers the goods, but Mel Raido as her impatient husband David never generates much sympathy.

A film as soul-sucking as any of the fang-baring bores who populate it.

The only thing missing from God Bless the Broken Road is compelling or believable drama.

From the very first scene, the rhythm is off, the staging and editing graceless, and the dialogue (the screenplay is by Kyle Pennekamp and Scott Turpel) alternates between trying too hard and not hard enough.

Too much of the proceedings are silly rather than horrifying, with the nadir being the appearance of some particularly athletic Yetis who briefly pitch in to lend a hand.

Making the most of its low budget with its necessarily claustrophobic setting, the film displays a technical competence at least. But the rote performances and uninspired screenplay by Mike Le will inevitably consign Dark Summer to VOD viewing by undiscriminating consumers.

The movie, which opened last week in Seattle and opens Friday in Los Angeles, isn't so much getting a release as an escape. The movie is directed, shot, acted and outfitted with special effects -- such as that guy (Michael Deak) in the monster suit -- so as to make American International horror films of the late '50s and '60s look like sophisticated gems.

Interweaving clumsily staged action sequences with endless pontificating about evil mega-corporations privatizing public resources, the mediocre environmental-themed thriller A Dark Truth wears its good intentions on its sleeve.

At various moments throughout the movie, Turner and McDermott suggest something far more complicated and messy than the noir-tinged exercise that unfolds.

Absolutely Anything is a flabby misfire full of labored slapstick, broad caricatures and groaningly absurd plot twists.

Veteran comic actors make the most of the not very original (though well-timed) one-liners the script gives them. But the movie's last act drags almost as slowly for viewers as for the gang in the cave, and the story's resolution is no better.

Aspiring transcendent love stories don't come much more claptrappy and unconvincing than Winter's Tale.

Lacks the finesse to attract significant attention beyond its target audience.

There’s a terrific central idea at the core of the film, but it’s lost amid the endlessly repeated nightmare episodes, the banal subplot concerning the couple’s domestic problems and the clunky exposition and visuals.

Many Christians yearning for faith-based entertainment will be moved by this film, and that crowd may well ensure a profit for the production. But more picky viewers will admit that even taken solely as an exploration of the trials of being a Christian teen, it's awfully weak tea as a movie, instantly disposable if not for the tragic backdrop.

Although visually stylish and imaginative — the short bits of animation on display wouldn’t be out of place in a Tim Burton film — Friend Request gets less interesting the more it goes on.

Josh Gad takes a valiant stab at landing some mostly groan-worthy humor, and Judi Dench has clearly put in a lot of hours scowling at green screens while wearing pointy ears and eye-catching emerald-green leprechaun army regalia (hey, at least it's not a cat suit). But this big-budget fantasy adventure from Disney is busy and exhausting.

Provocative without being especially thoughtful or credible, Harry and Max registers as a severe disappointment coming from this talented filmmaker.

Film noir is combined with horror to zero effect in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.

A limp piece of fan fiction about a fictional rock band's heyday and decline.

Eden Marryshow (Jessica Jones) makes an arduous attempt in his feature directorial debut, in which he plays the title role of an unemployed actor who gets by thanks to the good graces of family and friends. But his character ultimately proves far more grating than endearing, making Bruce!!! a slog to endure.

The Crow is a sluggish, overly self-serious gloomfest that never takes wing.

If anything, the movie offers up the guilty pleasure of seeing Bridges and Moore duel it out in front of countless green screens and a few stunning Canadian backdrops – two great actors clawing at each other with magic staffs and fake fire, trying to survive in the netherworld of heroic kitsch.

Plenty of salient points to make in this satirical cautionary tale, there's still not enough to sustain the expanded running time.

A bottomless pit of lame characters, horror-film cliches and improbable monsters.

You almost feel sorry for Tyler Perry, stepping out of his own universe for the first time to try to expand his range and finding himself in something as thoroughly dismal as Alex Cross.

The new gimmick here is that all the flying body parts and absurd impalements come in 3D. And that's about as inspired as anything gets in this edition. Story and character get chucked to the sidelines as the arena has room for only death scenes.

Well intentioned in the extreme, Sgt. Will Gardner is more effective as PSA than drama.

For all its high style and aestheticized visuals, this is a work of self-conscious posturing with nothing to say.

So unrelentingly violent that all but teen boys might as well stay home.

A complete wipeout.

So bloated that it's forever on the verge of bursting – a sentiment reflected by the film's overindulgence in ear-splitting pyrotechnics.

Alan Rickman's lead performance highlights a sincere but insubstantial rock pic.

Overlong, over-the-top dirge.

It is truly a mess.

Merging standard gangster movie clichés of both the Japanese and American variety, The Outsider only manages to be ultra-violent and ultra-dull simultaneously.

It might well be time for a creative rebooting; the freshness, if not the viscera, has begun to strongly diminish.

The kind of bad movie that makes you wonder, "How did so many good actors decide to take this job?," this one comes with an easy answer: First-time director Greg Kinnear presumably used a career's worth of goodwill to enlist co-stars Emily Mortimer, Luke Wilson and others.

Rudd is an underappreciated comic actor, and his line readings are the best thing in the film, but the bland role barely taps his talent. Amid the rest of the cast's one-note posing, his scenes with a parrot have a spontaneity and wit otherwise in short supply.

Goldberg has made a commendably adventurous and mostly enjoyable meta-comedy that recalls both the best and worst of 1970s Hollywood.

Young viewers looking for unbridled raunch will be sadly disappointed, and so will other moviegoers expecting more than a few wan chuckles. This picture is like a brightly colored balloon with all the comic air seeping out.

Vin Diesel is out of his element in this lame family comedy.

Nothing anchors the lighter-than-air story as it drifts away under the direction of Stephen Norrington ("Blade") into an FX stratosphere where wit, character and vigorous storytelling cease to matter.

This derivative smoothie appears to have been made by putting Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and the Coen Brothers into a blender along with Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths. The brash result squanders a talented cast, sharp visuals and spectacular locations on a grisly trail of mayhem that rarely yields much mirth.

Ultimately feels as shallow as the lives of most of its principal characters.

As banal as its title, USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage lacks even the impact of the monologue about the subject delivered by Robert Shaw in Jaws.

What makes it intermittently palatable even to non-believers is that it acknowledges some of the darker truths of the era.

It offers January moviegoers some guilty-pleasure thrills and laughs, while falling way short of its potential on both the dramatic and the camp fronts.

While this actor-filmmaker has delivered such worthy films as "A Rage in Harlem" and "Deep Cover" in the past, this misbegotten effort would be instantly forgettable if not for its potential as future camp classic.

Doesn't serve up enough laughs to build a theatrical following but could find life on video as a takeout item.

Expend4bles — the number is in the middle of the word, get it? — represents a nadir for a series that began as an entertainingly nostalgic throwback to old-school action movies and the square-jawed muscle men who starred in them.

Boasting the canny use of suitably atmospheric, futuristic-looking locations, Narcopolis is far more impressive visually than narratively, with its tangled film noir plot making Raymond Chandler seem straightforward by comparison.

The buddy comedy does a better job of betraying its filmmakers’ lack of imagination than it does conjuring any real laughs.

Geoffrey Sax, a British television director making his theatrical debut, lavishes enough craft on the paranormal thriller to send more than a few chills down the spine.

The scariest thing about this film is how desperate the makers are to earn a scream.

The whole fear-of-obese-hillbillies device is starting to smell as stale as Leatherface's playroom. Does this horror trend simply reflect a national fear, as giant radioactive ants personified the Bomb in the 1950s? If so, maybe it's time for us all to go on a diet; America needs fresh fodder for its boogeymen.

The actors are all game for anything, but this is thankless work, in which the mix of live action and animatronics has no magic. The same goes for the talented voice cast, which also includes Colman Domingo and Hank Azaria in small roles.

Shot before Brie Larson appeared in her breakout film Room, this fish-out-of-water musical set largely in India is the sort of unmitigated disaster that the actress would no doubt have preferred to stay under wraps.

Although there's a long cinematic tradition of mixing comedy with scares to excellent effect — Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein being a prime example — this lackluster effort manages to be neither funny nor scary.

One thing Marmaduke does have in common with the earlier Disney titles is a blessed scarcity of crass bodily-function gags that often pass as family comedy.

Only the writer's most ardent fans — and they are legion, judging by his book sales of over 190 million copies — will find anything of interest here.

This isn't so much that the story and characters are weak -- though they very much are -- but that animatronics and computer animation so anthropomorphize these critters that they bear more resemblance to cartoons than actual flesh-and-fur animals.