A sloppy, often goofy chiller, the film is full of references to (and outright rip-offs from) other movies, especially those of New Line Cinema, Craven's erstwhile producer.

Edward Asner is good as the tough cop who takes over the besieged precinct, Aiello is appropriately sleazy, but Newman is still left to carry this rather predictable film wholly on his shoulders. The script is sharp and witty, but there's no central theme to hold it all together.

The music is generally undistinguished, with the exception of the searing "Every Six Minutes."

Young Tamimi is a terrific rider but a lackluster screen presence, and the film's brevity ensures that her trials have a perfunctory quality that keeps them from being truly compelling.

A blackly comic, neo-noir heist picture, Australian screenwriter Scott Roberts's directing debut fairly oozes strenuous eccentricity.

In a perfect world, screenwriters would be forbidden from using cute pre-teens to make up for creaky plots; Clint Eastwood would stop churning out his patented over-the-hill-but-still-tough routine; and there would be an injunction against Kevin Costner doing death scenes, especially ones as long and meandering as a cross-Texas road trip.

Essentially a romantic comedy with a heavier-than-usual dramatic component.

Casting a film set in Latin America with Spanish-and Italian-speaking performers acting in English misfires; the actors' diverse accents clash, some are clearly more fluent than others and the sense of relief when anyone speaks a rare line in Spanish is palpable.

Overall this is an assured piece of genre filmmaking that delivers the goods so stylishly it hardly matters that they aren't fresh.

Striking lack of originality.

The strong cast keeps the material from descending into sheer smutty tripe, but it's an uphill battle and in the end, not really worth their considerable efforts.

The script is often obvious and much of the acting is amateurish (Rakesh's comic sidekicks are just dismal), though Purva Bedi is a shining exception — she's got star quality to burn.

The bad news is that the racing scenes are repetitive and it takes some serious concentration to figure out which character belongs to what club.

Clumsy and amateurish. But it's also occasionally quite charming, and ultimately more commendable for what it ISN'T than worthy of censure for being nothing more than an inconsequential comedy.

Avildsen, however, is hardly a comedy director. Best known for his Oscar-winning ROCKY, he shows little sense of comic set-up and delivery. The result peters out about halfway through the film, with only touches of bizarre flavor in the rest. A ridiculous, cartoonlike score by Conti doesn't help much.

This moody film is ravishingly beautiful to look at -- but the story's fairy tale atmosphere doesn't entirely mesh with its psychological underpinnings.

This slow, derivative chiller (which lifts liberally from "Ghost Story," "Rear Window" and "A Stir of Echoes") wastes far too much time on red herrings and telegraphs its plot points with painfully obvious dialogue.

It's the movie equivalent of fast food -- nobody needs this to be good, just adequate. And Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is nothing if not thoroughly adequate.

1941 is loaded with slam-bang sight gags and action, but comedy isn't director Steven Spielberg's forte and the movie isn't nearly as funny as it might have been.

Huppert's performance leans a bit heavily on the moist-in-the-eyes motif, but it's terrific none-the-less.

Director Kevin Reynolds has no flair for action: the climactic battle is so ineptly shot and edited that it is difficult to tell who is smiting whom. While Costner is lifeless and speaks strangely (he was said to have attempted a British accent, then abandoned it during shooting), Mastrantonio is an acceptably vivacious Marian.

Though the story eventually runs out of steam and it's never clear why the night-crawlers torment certain children and then come back to get them, fledgling screenwriter Brendan William Hood and director Robert Harmon -- whip up some effective suspense sequences.

Israel Horowitz's script fails to develop sympathetic adult characters, leaving the children to give the film whatever charm it may have.

An old man's movie, filled with regret over things lost, corrupted and spoiled.

Ethan and Lenny's story is silly, good-natured and full of unlikely moves, just like the titular twister.

Even the excellent supporting cast could not help this exploitative picture, a lame attempt at replicating the classic film noir pieces of the 1930s and 1940s.

An occasionally brutal, but generally plodding western from Lancaster (his first as a director), who fails to pump much life into the anemic script, giving the cast little to do.

Filmed in Vancouver (which looks like nobody's idea of the Bronx), the film is a throwback to the hoary chop-socky conventions that gave Hong Kong cinema its shabby reputation.

Despite its failings, Wind Chill represents a road rarely taken by 21st-century American horror films: Original (in the non-remake sense of the term), subtle and restrained.

Director/writer Andrew Bergman has a proven flair for screwball humor, and you can still discern traces of the lighthanded romp Striptease might have been if Moore hadn't reshaped the project to accommodate the formidable dimensions of her ego.

Crams more subplots, minor characters and comic situations into 100 minutes than most sitcoms burn through in an entire season. And that's not necessarily a good thing.

Even Stevenson, a singularly accomplished and versatile actress, can't do much with Julia's early scenes, in which she's forced to dither around like a complete idiot.

LEAN ON ME's manipulations justify Clark's drastic methods only superficially, by trivializing legitimate questions regarding Clark's actions.

Viewers who remember Max Baer may, however, take issue with the way the film treats this charismatic fighter. In 1933, Baer became an important symbol of Jewish strength when he faced off against Hitler's favored fighter, Max Schmeling, and while reducing Baer to a bloodthirsty villain makes it easier to root for Braddock, it's an unfair bit of character assassination.

But one can only imagine how different the film might have been with, say, Parker Posey or Catherine Keener -- truly funky actresses with some real edge -- in the lead.

An enjoyable, ultimately inconsequential crowd-pleaser.

Richards and Eisenmann are a pair of orphaned children with psychic powers who suffer from amnesia and cannot remember where they came from.

Points for an interesting concept; demerits for the dull execution.

The Country Music Channel's first foray into feature filmmaking is sickly sweet and thoroughly predictable, and woefully underuses veterans Harper and Reynolds, but it features some stirring performances, including BeBe Winans and Willie Nelson dueting on "The Uncloudy Day."

A far cry from such sneakily subversive werewolf-sex tales as "The Company of Wolves" (1984) or "Ginver Snaps" (2000), this pallid little picture is all "Lost Boys" (1987) posturing by way of the sublimely ridiculous "Covenant" (2006).

Shock-rocker Rob Zombie's loving homage to flat-out nasty horror films of the 1970s will leave many post-"Scream" (1996) horror fans cold because of what it's not. It's not slick or glossy. It's not funny or self-referential.

As played by the classically trained Robert Englund, Freddy is a vital killer who brings a sense of creepy fun to his demented work — moviegoers actually like the guy. The nightmares themselves are another reason for the series' success. Seldom have films explored the nightmare world with such effect, style, and panache.

FREDDY'S DEAD is one of the weaker entries, with overt violence downplayed, perhaps because Freddy has become something of an institution, star of the silver screen as well as a short-lived TV series and innumerable merchandizing ploys.

Brooks, hardly a great director, doesn't quite pull off this adaptation of the Rossner novel.

More admirable as a sheer technical feat of filmmaking than as a sustained dramatic narrative. It still makes worthwhile viewing.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from the weak script's predictable situations and underdeveloped characters, and the pathos and cliches become hard to take, making Honkytonk Man more of a curiosity piece for followers of Eastwood than a truly compelling story.

Though something less than a masterpiece of the genre, this good-natured skirmish in the war between men and women benefits from Hudson's thoroughly charming performance.

The film is rich with period flavor, and Phillips is superb as Valens, but the rags-to-riches story (even if true) is maudlin and overfamiliar.

Well acted (notably by newcomer Brown), warm hearted and utterly predictable, this film is aimed squarely at everyone who loved "Good Will Hunting."

A thoroughly disappointing and overproduced picture, A Bridge Too Far is nevertheless technically impressive and its sheer scope may interest hardcore warmongers.

This formulaic comedy is a real kid-pleaser, full of spitballs and slapstick mayhem. Most adults will be squirming long before the heartwarming finale -- what a drag it is getting old.

First-time filmmaker Ben Younger makes not a single false move when delineating the merciless, high-testosterone world of boiler-room brokerages.

There's just not enough good material, however, to sustain the comic pace.

An enjoyable, light-hearted romantic comedy with some cute incestuous undertones, CHANCES ARE is among the best of the body-switch films that cluttered movie screens in the late 1980s.

An efficient but shallow fright show.

Between Magruder's oily schmoozing and the camera-ready combo of Spanish moss and constant rain, he and cinematographer Changwei Gu whip up some amazing atmosphere.

Lack of chemistry between Richard Gere and Julia Roberts sinks this souffle.

Director Hyams tries desperately to evoke the feel of the best of the 1940s wartime romantic dramas but, despite solid performances from the leads, his screenplay is predictable and trite, leaving the audience little to look forward to.

Ultimately, the film feels unfocused and attenuated, despite its brief running time.

The climactic revelation is a real disappointment, humdrum rather than chilling.

Days of Thunder delivers only the bare essentials. Boys, the reasoning seems to go, will be lured into the theater by the siren call of gasoline and super-charged engines, while their girl friends will tag along to get a look at Cruise in tight jeans.

Ritt and Field seem to have been trying to capitalize on the southern backwoods setting that served them so well in Norma Rae, but this time around they didn't have nearly as engaging a story with which to work.

Mindless fun, though, if you don't look too hard at the effects and are willing to accept the wooden Urich as Errol Flynn or Louis Hayward.

It's a good thing that Cummings and Leigh have such talented friends: They may overstay their welcome, but it's the entertaining guests who end up saving this poorly planned party.

The obvious product of a corporate search for the next great fantasy franchise, this adaptation of the first in a series of popular children's books by the writer-illustrator team of Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi is a lump of leaden whimsy.

The film founders during a series of uncomfortable scenes involving Biggs and DeVito, whose performance verges on painful caricature, but Ricci is adorable and delivers Allen's sharp dialogue with real flare.

It's just plain exhausting to watch the admirably game cast members running around like headless chickens in chic period clothes, surrendering their dignity to the task of navigating the plot's frenetic contrivances.

King's stories are nothing special, and with the exception of the final entry, nothing in the film is particulary scary.

Elvira fans could hardly ask for more.

Characters' eccentricities feel contrived and the wackiness seems forced, though the film's amiable ambling does keep the viewer intrigued, if not charmed.

Much could have been done to enliven this film if the script provided more satire instead of parading the same inanities with a smirk this time around. It's harmless but in need of a transfusion.

The plot is simply an excuse for a string of good-natured dope jokes (come on -- you have to love that their hookah is called Billy Bong Thornton) and goofy sight gags inspired by everything from Jerry Garcia to Jerry Maguire, most of which are undoubtedly funniest if you're eight miles high.

Zsigmond's superb photography conveys much of the lyrical quality of the story but the screenplay by Sharp ("Night Moves") falls short by comparison.

Poison Ivy doesn't exactly keep one at the edge of one's seat throughout, but it certainly holds the interest.

Like most anthology films, this thematically linked trio of shorts is a mixed bag.

While certainly not as interesting or accomplished as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Funhouse is a cut above the average slasher film.

The problem is, some of the truly horrifying moments slip through the censorship cracks, scaring little kids (and their parents), leaving POLTERGEIST a very disjointed, uneven movie.

In the grand tradition of "Beerfest" and "Bladels of Glory," this insistently ludicrous -- and not entirely unfunny -- two-joke comedy satirizes an old Hollywood standby: the big-comeback sports movie.

The result is unfortunate: Pinter can't find emotional depths that just aren't there, but dispenses with most of what made the original entertaining in the search for them.

Ho-hum country-music saga stars Quaid as an aspiring singer and McNichol as his pesky, ambitious younger sister, who drags him kicking and screaming (for what seems interminably longer than 110 minutes) to fame and fortune in Nashville.

Christine just boils down to another average adaptation of one of the increasingly weak Stephen King novels that hit Hollywood like a bad rash in 1983.

This intermittently charming look at East-meets-West culture shock in contemporary Beijing seriously overreaches its grasp.

While the dizzying array of design elements and magnificent vocal performances is impressive, 138 minutes is just too long to keep the interest of any but the pure opera devotee.

For all the complicated backstory, weighty themes, action set pieces and fanciful production design, the film is oddly unengaging.

Aimed at youngsters, this odd mix of fantasy and disease-of-the-week conventions doesn't really gel, though its ambitions are laudable.

A free-wheeling, uninhibited all-star romp, Ocean's Eleven set the pace for the "caper" films of the 1960s and 1970s.

The film ends before Franken can actually take the step from commentator to participant, which adds to its overall unfinished and unfocused air.

Reynolds' attempt to emulate Cary Grant (or Tony Curtis doing Cary Grant, as he says in the picture) falls flat, though the picture is entertaining in spots, especially those with Niven.

Slightly better than average Presley fare, Roustabout boasts a better cast than most of the King's films--with Stanwyck's presence lending the production status.

Though it occasionally goes over the top with its melodrama and lacks some technical credibility, On The Beach remains a powerful, well-acted, deftly photographed film

The rockabilly killer is probably the most entertaining slasher ever to grace the screen--sort of like Elvis Presley playing Norman Bates, complete with musical numbers. Usually it's no mystery why some films go straight to video without theatrical release, but this movie is far above the caliber of most straight-to-video releases.

Despite strong acting (the slapstick energy between Ford and Connery is wasted), obligatory chases and stunts and splendid art direction, the virtuoso technique evident in every frame remains formulaic--unaccompanied by revelation, epiphany or surprise.

Sax keeps things moving, but the best thing about the film is the British cast.

While the film delivers some sharp dialogue, overall it's soft and slightly unfocused.

The prodigiously talented Allen, Bates and Lange give it their all, but there's a limit to what even they can do with platitudes and prefabricated homilies.

Kutcher's performance isn't terrible, but the brilliant, bewildered, increasingly desperate Evan is the film's center, and grounding its flights of fantasy in rock-solid emotional reality is more than Kutcher can manage.

In fact it ends, as all good romantic comedies do, with a wedding, though the identities of the newly married couple might be the least predictable thing about this cheerfully ham-fisted celebration of love and family in modern-day Madrid.

By the time the film winds itself up, the sophisticated fizz of its first 45 minutes has been smothered by explosive bombast.