Lively remains impressive throughout, but with plot-driven fare like this, such lapses are a let-down.

This film’s greatest accomplishment is that its theatrical gestures manage to feel preposterous, pretentious and routine at the same time.

Like the vampires that cavort throughout it, this horror-comedy doesn’t have much chance of surviving the harsh light of scrutiny--but as a loopy, antiserious lark, it should prove plenty alive on the midnight-movie circuit.

Streep's tentative foray into comedy is deliberately mannered, but the breathy delivery and constant fluttering of hands are nevertheless excessive. And in her film debut, Barr just isn't imposing enough to inspire notions of devilish vengeance. The film-makers have opted for frothy satire, but as comedies go this is lamentably short on laughs.

That T.J. and his family willingly allow this headbanging psycho(analyst) to move into their cluttered, dankly lit abode-the emotional damage is palpable, yo!-is just one of the film's many eyebrow-raising contrivances.

A movie that knows exactly what its audience wants and dishes it out in big ectoplasmic dollops, Ghostbusters: Afterlife manages to be full of surprises and completely unsurprising all at once.

Director Sam Garbarski’s focus occasionally skews narrow, but he does evoke the anxiety of reconciling a strict faith with secular times.

Director Jacob Rosenberg's approach is heavy with archival footage and interviews, yet oddly features almost nothing from Way himself; his puzzling absence for most of the film turns the project into less of a biography than a one-note hagiography.

While the original movie persuaded us that the military dictatorship in 1970s Argentina could inspire jaw-dropping behavior, its equivalent here feels extremely bogus.

Not a patch on Cocoon; what merit this sequel has comes entirely from the superb cast of veterans, with very little help from a script which seems to have been ghosted by Justice Shallow. The story is so badly recapitulated that anyone not familiar with the situation will wonder why some of the cast seem fitter than others.

Three witlessly routine tales (adapted from stories by Chetwynd-Hayes), drearily executed and graced not at all by such luminaries as Pleasence, Magee and Whitman.

This was a beautiful new kind of madness, terrifying, exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.

It’s frenetic, brashly executed and so full of shooting, you’ll stagger away with tinnitus.

Robert Getchell's script milks the story for maximum tears, but wrestles unsuccessfully with the inherent absurdity of Stella's predicament, delivering clichéd situations and dialogue. And Midler's larger-than-life performance is daunting against the subtler approaches of Alvarado and Mason.

Feste's ode to showbiz clichés is closer to contemporary Nashville pop: twangy enough to qualify as Southern-fried, but too slick and disposable to be truly deep.

Morgan's performance is a gem of comic timing and audience-directed winks. He elevates a movie that’s mostly about watching stuff get stomped down.

Lightly likeable, but the kids at whom it's aimed would probably rather be leaping in the aisles to Duran Duran, while their parents would opt for a rerun of Rebel Without a Cause.

The thought behind this body-splattering nostalgia trip is unformed and stagnant.

Someone surely thought to call this knowingly ridiculous genre mash-up "Cowboys vs. Ninjas," though even that title wouldn't hint at all the you-gotta-be-kidding-me craziness on display.

A gonzo, if somewhat gimmicky, approach to advocating healthy living; it's like Super Size Me in reverse.

While it never hits the gritty heights of you-are-there junky journalism à la Larry Clark's "Tulsa," you still feel as if you've personally toured the abyss.

The ensemble cast is excellent: Rhys Ifans lays it thick on as a spiteful thespian who’s chasing Arnold’s wife, while Jennifer Aniston plays the world’s angriest therapist (Bitchy Is Beautiful is her new book). As a comedy of errors, this is fluffy fun, packed with in-jokes for the film lovers already in line.

Unlike O'Bannon's film, this is merely repetitive and dull, the tedium relieved only by the graphic brain-eating and Philip Bruns' deliciously OTT performance as the mad Doctor Mandel.

Any notion that a topical social issue will be taken as seriously as it deserves is decisively scotched long before the thoroughly predictable romantic ending; but Paternity is difficult to actually dislike, largely because of its engaging duo of stars.

Unsatisfactory as a whole, the film is hilarious and tense in bits.

Writer/director Hanson has created a plausible thriller with several neat twists; but the last half-hour, while never quite losing its grip, degenerates into pure flapdoodle.

It’s a dud.

An hour and half of comparable barbarity follows-all of it monotonous, none of it enlightening.