In the end, the gimmick is too risible and its effects on the characters too forced to sustain either suspense or horror.

The film does not stand up to the current crop of music/concert films like "U2 3D," which brilliantly uses 3-D to show the Irish band in concert so as to encapsulate its relationship to its fans, each other and their own music, and "CSNY: Deja Vu," which hones in on the political connection Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young have to their music.

This movie wants to help make things better. But it also -- fervently, and for a purpose -- holds a grudge.

Will please its core audience but won't enthrall anyone over the age of 16. (Even that might be stretching the point.)

Although he makes an amusing comic foil, Spurlock is ill-equipped to either evaluate or report on Middle East foreign policy. His methodology is disturbingly casual and conclusions woefully simplistic.

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

Jay Lee's grotesque little horror film makes up for in audacity what it might lack in finesse.

This family film is willing to tackle important issues such as burgeoning sexuality, alcoholism and a troubled home life but does so in a bland and unconvincing story.

Lacks the fresh charm that made their first such an unexpected (if guilty) pleasure.

Too narrowly focused.

A hodgepodge of popular kids' elements crammed into a mishmash of a movie.

Attempting to be this generation's "Risky Business," The Babysitters is the sort of ribald morality tale that manages to feel sleazy and decorous at the same time.

Tarsem and his screenwriting collaborators aren't able to come up with enough interesting justifications for their sudden shifts, and soon the shape-shifting yarn just feels like lazy storytelling.

Much of what is shown onscreen is atmospheric filler, while the various characters describe being made outcasts because of their sexuality while holding on to their commitment to their faith.

The film's chief asset is its superbly atmospheric evocation of its period milieu.

The movie seems more like a '50s science fiction film of extreme paranoia or an episode of "The Twilight Zone" that even at a swiftly paced 90 minutes feels padded.

This is a slap-dash effort whose producers threw money and stunts onscreen instead of the satirical gags and one-liners that made the old spy spoof so memorable.

Eddie Murphy's amusingly out of this world in this otherwise tired vehicle.

The sort of quirky independent comedy that strives for hipness but ultimately just feels contrived and derivative.

A light touch keeps the film from being an ordeal, but the story's trajectory is as predictable as the setup is contrived.

Sergei Bodrov's Mongol relates the story of Genghis Khan's early years in a plodding, uninspired fashion that doesn't bode well for the next two entries in a planned trilogy.

It's all a bit bizarre. One soldier tellingly calls it "one big reality TV show," and the movie never makes clear whether such training does any good.

Overall, the film plays like an improbably skewed but comparatively routine criminal procedural that would have served the original show well as an extended season opener or sweeps-week contender.

What it lacks is a villain, and magic without danger is simply a parlor trick, which is what the film becomes.

Lacks sufficient substance to be of more than quickly passing interest for all but the most devoted fans.

The largely uninspired Clone Wars feels landlocked. In the absence of any extensive innovation, the video game-ready results play more like a feature-length promo for the imminent TV series of the same name than a stand-alone event.

By focusing so narrowly on religious fundamentalists and bigots while ignoring any spiritual dimension to religion, the film is not only being disingenuous but limits its audience to non-believers.

It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians.