One ticket buys you cowboys, samurais, gangsters, ninjas, spaghetti Westerns, Hong Kong martial artists, knife throwers and even Fellini-esque circus performers. But like kimchi pasta, some things aren't meant to mix.

Noisy, standard-issue cop actioner.

A highly awkward blending of gay porn and political satire, this latest effort from cinematic provocateur Bruce LaBruce ("Hustler White," "Skin Flick") is the sort of film John Waters would make if he were more political, less funny and completely willing to shed all aspirations of mainstream respectability.

For all its aesthetic deficiencies and self-promotional aspects, it at least provides a valuable and important message.

As gratifying as it would be to report that the effortless touch, the livewire rhythms and the sparkling wit remain in evidence, those qualities prevail only intermittently in this strained though mildly enjoyable ensemble comedy.

There's nothing new under the sun, but About Alex is very, very not new. Luckily, most of its capable cast muster the warmth we require, and Zwick's script offers more humor (however mild the laughs are) than sentimentality.

The film, which bows on Max on March 13, is low on genuine scares, but it does boast an appealing cast, whose comic chops elevate the flick slightly above the standard streamer slush.

In a way, the film ultimately gets snagged in its own contraption.

Certainly their musicianship and onstage professionalism are smooth, though maybe a bit too smooth. There is little spontaneity in anything they do.

While it may resonate for some young viewers, anyone whose reality really resembles that of the film’s protagonist should probably look elsewhere.

Rather than being self-indulgent or pretentious, however, the film comes up with many believable details and changes in direction that enrich the bittersweet central relationship of the two leads.

Chasing Mavericks manages to sufficiently overcome the obstacles with admittedly affecting results.

The crime comedy ends not as a fat stack of jokes but a jumble of loose change — not entirely worthless, but not amounting to a whole lot, either.

With its splashy paintbox palette and jaunty pop soundtrack, All Cheerleaders Die just about hangs together as a cheerfully goofy romp.

Enjoyable but as familiar as the old-school routines its magician heroes dish out.

Though it lacks the specific argumentative point of view that might have carried it into the mainstream, its sympathetic approach to subjects offers a compelling human perspective on questions that get too little attention in debates about health care.

At this point, Cage's movies don't have to be reviewed, but rather stamped with official certificates of weirdness. This effort directed by Kevin Lewis certainly qualifies.

Walker's story no doubt is grounded in a very real milieu that reflects the grim existence of countless Americans returning from active duty to a country blighted by economic downturn, shrinking opportunity and substance abuse. But the only reality Cherry reflects with numbing insistence is that of co-directors getting high on their own high style.

A heartfelt but dramatically flat portrait of a couple grappling with one tragedy whose lives are profoundly affected by the outcome of another.

Alas, the film is an inept, ill-made mess — or as my grandmother would call it, a mishegoss, so muddled and misbegotten it’s hard to perform an evidential postmortem, based strictly on one viewing, of where it all goes wrong.

The result is a pleasingly discursive film that depicts Klimt and the ideals and locales of fin de siecle Vienna.

Mildly engaging but never entirely convincing.

The proceedings have a certain haunted quality, thanks to the dramatic setting and the stark black-and-white cinematography by Steve Cosens that fully conveys its bleakness.

If viewers have any remaining doubts as to whether or not the dams are a good idea, the gorgeous shots of the threatened landscapes are bound to erase them.

This stupefying dull mockumentary purports to explore themes of media manipulation and political propaganda, but whatever points it’s attempting to make are buried amidst the ponderous goings-on that will result in a quick exit from theaters.

The film is elevated by the quality of the performances, with Breslin and Henley movingly affecting as the closely bound sisters and Sorvino convincingly conveying her character’s inability to function.

Pretty in a decaying-opulence sort of way and well cast, the film is more superficial than its nods to highbrow culture would suggest.

Postman Pat: The Movie is a mostly charmless and dark affair.

Described by Werner Herzog as “a daydream that doesn’t follow the rules of cinema,” Salt and Fire may be rule-breaking, but the result is one of the director’s least appealing adventures.

Wolf Warrior 2 is even bigger and bolder than its predecessor, which doesn’t always work in its favor. But genre fans will definitely relish the near-constant barrage of elaborate set pieces that are choreographed and filmed for maximum impact.

It's the actors who keep things compelling even when the plotting gets untidy.

Unfortunately, [Robert Duvall's] attempt to create a multigenerational Lone Star-like mystery doesn't gel as John Sayles's film did, leaving so many dramatic moments unresolved that one wonders how many scenes must have been left on the cutting-room floor.

One hell of a date movie. A surgical examination of the male psyche based on David Foster Wallace's book and written and directed by John Krasinski, there is plenty of food for thought and argument.

The inspirational memoir Miracles From Heaven transfers to the big screen as a wholesome, crowd-pleasing drama, one whose subject is faith and gratitude. The tone is frequently more searching than self-satisfied, and the harrowing medical crisis that drives the family story gives it the nonreligious urgency to preach beyond the choir.

An inert and muddled mash-up of romantic comedy and theater of stupid cruelty.

Israelite, building on his experience with teen sci-fi feature Project Almanac, orchestrates a vastly more complex array of characters, action set pieces and technical resources for a combined effect that maintains dramatic tension even while teetering on the brink of excess.

This is, in abstract, a bold and brilliant performance, an act of possession, really, and Smith never personally steps wrong in the film’s 96 minutes. But his work, sadly, is continuously undermined by everything surrounding him, beginning with a script, written by Timoner and Mikko Alanne, that frustratingly sticks to the then-this-happened conventions of a standard biopic.

A miscast James Franco and a lack of charm and humor doom Sam Raimi's prequel to the 1939 Hollywood classic. Oz the Wimpy and Weak would be more like it.

Staggeringly cornball and squeaky-clean even when flirting with such issues as interracial sexual rivalries.

In its third time out of the gate, Rush Hour 3, reuniting Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, hits the ground stalling.

Stocking the supporting cast with top-drawer talent, he gives most of his costars little to do besides attract our attention on movie posters.

Tells a fascinatingly lurid tale.

What distinguishes Bushwick from your standard-issue, boneheaded video game is its cheeky cerebral wit.

Recognizable human behavior is not this film’s forte -- which wouldn’t be a problem if something else would take its place but Punch never finds the right tone for the heterogeneous material, with sweetly melodramatic scenes alternating with high drama, some light action and farce.

Though the screenplay ... ultimately conforms quite plainly to formula and grows less interesting as it proceeds, there’s a gutsiness to Larson’s headlong leap into material that walks a fine line between risky fantasy and feel-good reassurance.

The picture continuously shuffles moods like tunes on an iPod without ever making any lasting commitments.

Although it offers no new angles on the story engines of loyalty and revenge, the French film boasts an intriguing milieu and the off-center, hair-trigger intensity of Samy Naceri as a crime boss.

The movie displays the measured pacing and tautness marking many of Eastwood's films, and Neeson delivers an Eastwood-style performance while also revealing an emotional vulnerability that proves fully relatable. It's easy to see how his distinctive combination of mature rugged masculinity and Irish soulfulness has made him a perfect action hero for these complicated times.

Admittedly, The Jacket is not likely to be everyone's cup of tea, but filmmaker John Maybury has forged a mesmerizing mindblower.

Straining mightily for a mythic quality and reaching a predictably melancholic, violent conclusion, Road to Paloma mainly comes across as a vanity project star vehicle.

This fleet-footed, glibly imaginative international romp stays on its toes and keeps its wits about it most of the time, with entertaining and pointedly U.S.-friendly cast additions.

Fortunately, the terrific lead performances by Jonathan Pryce and newcomer Jerome Holder are enough to help Dough rise above its formulaic ingredients.

Miracle is godawful, even by the standards of sports dramas, where healthy doses of manipulation and hagiography are accepted as part of the inspirational formula.

Director Patrick Lussier and his co-screenwriter Todd Farmer string together smash-up car chases, hyper-violent physical clashes, flying viscera and a dollop of sex and nudity with ludicrous dialogue and only a passing concern for logic in this high-octane trash.

Gratingly unfunny groaner littered with zero-dimensional, unlikable characters and hackneyed, threadbare comic setups.

The lead performers deliver faultless performances, and are certainly not tough on the eyes. But their efforts are not enough to lift this moody erotic thriller above its pretensions.

The structure feels fairly novel for such a B-grade fright-fest — call it Last Year at Amityville — but it’s soon outdone by the litany of torturous scenes that the director piles on one after the other.

DriverX, which has the style but not the substance of a strong '70s indie drama, stalls out quickly and goes nowhere interesting.

Although it features strong performances and some affecting moments, Then Came You suffers from the sort of cutesiness endemic to so many teen-oriented films, not to mention an over-reliance on montages accompanied by a pop music soundtrack that helpfully reminds you exactly what you're supposed to be feeling at any given moment.

The charisma and hard work by his two leads allows Boorman to succeed beyond all expectations.

The Union proves as entertaining as its Netflix algorithms would have predicted, balancing its impressive star wattage with lavish production values to remind viewers of the value of their monthly subscriptions.

Once again, the three young leads give committed performances, with Lautner's character allowed a larger share of the spotlight this time around.

This is a compelling drama with real-world concerns that shouldn't be ignored, and it deserves better than to be the victim of an actor's offscreen sins.

The Legend of Tarzan isn't half-bad; actually, it's pretty good. Beautifully made and smartly set at the beginning of Belgian King Leopold II's rapacious colonization of the Congo in the 1880s, this is certainly the best live-action Tarzan film in many a decade (which, admittedly, isn't saying much) and offers a well-judged balance of vigorous action and engaging-enough drama.

An amusing premise yields few yuks.

The Fabulous Four aims past the formula trappings and, though its misses might be evident, it also hits the bull’s-eye.

As the central character in this musical melodrama about step dancing in black fraternities, Short displays an uncanny dramatic sensibility to go with the eye-catching athleticism of his dance moves.

Spanish filmmaker Luis Prieto, who directed the 2012 remake of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher, adroitly leverages Berry’s familiar face and onscreen persona to consistently escalate tension, as DP Flavio Labiano and editor Avi Youabian construct their shots and action sequences to enable her to totally own the screen.

The biggest hole in this picture is not so much whether an audience will buy its miracles but whether an audience will care about Henry Poole. Wilson hits the same notes in virtually every scene without any change to his physical rhythms or moods.

Ruffalo gives voice to the film's unironic point of view.

Playful, irreverent and unafraid to be politically incorrect, the pair script with assurance and direct with stylish understatement, pairing character and physical comedy to entertaining effect.

It's a fun conceit trapped in a broad and retrograde flick.

Lacking the stylistic flair provided by del Toro in the original, this sequel directed by Steven S. DeKnight (TV's Daredevil and Spartacus) becomes increasingly tiresome in its cliched plotting and characterizations, hackneyed dialogue and numbingly repetitive, visually incoherent action sequences.

It gets the job done and is sure to pull solid numbers. It doesn’t hurt that Gadot has appealing chemistry with co-star Jamie Dornan.

The only real amusement comes from the casual asides delivered by Sandler and Aniston, the latter also providing perfectly calibrated slow-burn reactions that too often become overshadowed by the overproduced mayhem surrounding them.

As a harmless time-waster, Good Trip has its charms, but also its oversold shtick.

Despite the best efforts of the talented lead performers and an overqualified supporting cast, this is a movie for which you should practice social distancing.

Baron Cohen and Strong are both robustly physical performers, and their finest moments are when they’re grappling with each other, producing a great tangle of limbs and teeth. But the script, credited to Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston and Peter Baynham (based on a story by Baron Cohen and Johnston), is not especially generous to the other members of the cast.

The greatest romantic movie to jumble its time structure, Stanley Donen's "Two for the Road," is a touchstone that DiPietro must have had in mind. While this low-budget indie doesn't have the gloss or the depth of that romantic classic, the highest compliment I can pay Peter and Vandy is that it belongs in the same company.

Geopolitical speculation aside, Gross makes a persuasive case for the bravery and sacrifice of Canadian troops serving during the Afghanistan conflict.

This time around, greater attention has been paid to story and character development (while scaling back on all the sight gags) and the substantial results give the ample voice cast and returning director Genndy Tartakovsky more to sink their teeth into, with pleasing results.

How the film wound up in theaters rather than on the Syfy channel is anybody's guess, although the R-rated gore and sex is clearly a major factor. Nonetheless, it has a certain goofy, Troma Films-style charm, and the brief 77-minute running time makes it appropriate for the bottom half of a drive-in double feature

While not exactly original, the premise is certainly effective enough. But Brightburn lacks the visual stylization or wit to elevate it from the realm of the crudely effective B-movie.

While vampirologists at the priciest film schools may someday offer thick tomes on the mythical traditions of Joe and Marie's civic quest, Innocent Blood is, at its story marrow, your basic kill-the-monster-before-it-devours-the-city yarn. Screenwriter Michael Wolk's straightforward scenario is flecked with outrageous snatches of humor, which Landis expertly milks to the hilt. While he demonstrated a splendid ability to blend tones and rhythms in "An American Werewolf in London," Landis goes straight for the jugular here -- Innocent Blood is a horror-comedic onslaught. Even its romance is a rampage. [25 Sept 1992]

The script is not without some perceptive observations about family dynamics, but the problematic tone keeps getting in the way. A little absurdist levity in these instances always helps to prevent things from becoming too maudlin, but in Stockman's hands, the played-for-laughs elements in this tragicomedy feel forced rather than organic, ultimately creating an emotional disconnect with the viewer.

Earns its R but may leave audiences wanting more.

Australian director Jonathan Teplitzky has fashioned a small-scale chamber drama from huge historical events, with a functional script and modest budget that fails to match the grand sweep of its story.

Given a cast of this size, characterizations are predictably thin, though strong character actors like John C. McGinley and Michael Rooker ensure some viewer engagement with Those About to Die.

Pain Hustlers is strongest when it focuses on Liza and maps her complicated web of desire and integrity.

If Hostage looks a lot like a state-of-the-art French "policier" minus the pesky subtitles, the effect is purely intentional.

Pantoliano brings his usual degree of wily, understated humor to his role and is ably supported by the terrific ensemble, but he's unable to elevate a film that is ultimately as directionless as its protagonist.

A ramshackle but likeable story.

The cast acquits itself well, with the Rock evincing a quiet balance between humor and brawn.

It would be hard to find two more contrasting actresses than Otto and Pires, but Barreto plays off their differences in culture and personality.

This nastily efficient horror film delivers genuine chills.

Aiming for charm but instead coming across as hopelessly forced, Swimming With Men barely manages to stay afloat.

Freaks Out seems preoccupied with looking cool and feeling offbeat without considering basic narrative requirements. With such an intense visual language and detailed costume and set design, it’s a shame that the story lacks similar heft.

It's a bust. The characters are bland; the dialogue is lame; and the situational comedy and inevitable dramatics are mediocre at best. The quietly released Warner Bros. film might play well on naval bases and ships at sea, but everyone else will steer clear. [25 Apr 1994]