No two ways about it: The screenplay is derivative. But the location adds a little novelty to the standard-issue running and screaming.

The film is hardly profound, but the form perfectly fits the content..

Characteristically stylish and willfully outre, and uncharacteristically watchable.

Macchio, for his part, is an obviously intelligent actor with terrific instincts. Still, this movie leaves a bit to be desired: much of the movie seems recycled, and there is precious little subtlety in the villains' characterizations. The film is also about 15 minutes too long, with far too many convenient plot devices.

Everyone involved obviously had a blast, but in the end this is a one-joke movie, and the joke is stretched too thin.

It's a must-see for horror buffs and anime fans; and while it lacks the haunting thematic underpinnings of "Blood The Last Vampire," -- it's a more satisfying movie-going experience.

It sounds like an overfamiliar brand of Southern Gothic, but British director Terence Davies adds some distinctive touches of visual poetry.

The film's most fully realized performance is Chris Cooper's.

Robles and Hidalgo ring enough changes on a stock situation that you're never sure where it's going.

Music video-trained director Francis Lawrence whips up a witch's brew of gray-on-gray atmosphere, but for all the end-of-the-world mumbo jumbo, nothing much ever seems to be at stake.

Suffers from an excess of material crammed into too little screen time. There's so much story that the characters get short shrift; you have to wonder, for example, what became of Siddalee's three siblings.

A thoroughly respectable affair: Your high school English teacher would approve, and parts are terrifically enjoyable.

For the first hour director Arau and his co-writer and wife, actress Arizmendi, negotiate the story's tricky mix of comedy, social satire and science fiction with surprising aplomb.

There's something inherently funny and surreal about Chinese kids speaking Singlish while trying to be goombahs from Brooklyn.

Feels hokey, generic and dated.

Driven by sheer enthusiam (much of it for the worst excesses of Hollywood filmmaking), which makes it fun to watch in spite of its fundamental ridiculousness.

The situations Carroll devises are perfectly controlled but dramatically void.

The voice-over narration is obvious, but overall the message is integrated into an unusual story that's enhanced by Liberato's and Fulton's appealing performances as the youngsters who see through their elders' lies and help right a terrible wrong.

An utterly formulaic, teen-oriented romance whose greatest asset is charming leads Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas.

This megastar mix of CGI animation and live action is remarkably faithful to the spirit of the original.

Epic, meticulously researched and ultimately disappointing, Martin Scorsese's bloody valentine to the birth of his beloved city is less than the sum of its parts.

Cocaine Angel may be a fine counterpoint to glammy cocaine-scare films like "Less Than Zero" (1987) and "Blow" (2001), but it comes on so strong it risks being dismissed along with the "this is your brain on drugs" school of dope-scare PSAs.

The truly heartbreaking sacrifice of a few extraordinarily heroic men is lost under the ponderous score and a series of even heavier speeches.

And while it was always clear that Lucas cared more about special effects than acting, here his lack of interest has produced phenomenally wooden performances from newcomers and veterans alike: Only the imperious Christopher Lee, as baleful Count Dooku, emerges unscathed.

As star, director and co-producer, Streisand shifts the book's focus from the Wingo past to the Tom-Susan love affair. This could have worked had Streisand directed herself better--if, indeed, she had directed herself at all. Instead of a performance, we get smirks, poses, campy shots that linger on her outrageously long manicured fingernails, and radiant, cloying smiles. Streisand's inadequacies, though, are more than compensated for by Nolte's compelling Tom. He brings conviction and depth to the role, treading a fine line between self-pity and self-respect and exposing his frailties with a rare sensitivity.

The soundtrack, which ranges from Johnny Cash to Serge Gainsbourg to the Wu-Tang Clan, is admirably eclectic but can't be said to pull things together.

CADENCE is watchable while it lasts, with a generous leavening of humor, but the film keeps throwing emotional punches that never quite connect.

Abel Ferrara's gift for getting actors to dredge up the ugliest muck in their souls and bare it onscreen is used to strong effect in this psychological thriller.

The story is slim but the jazz is great, especially when legendary Louis Armstrong gets into the act.

While director John Hough (Twins of Evil) does a fine job with the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night aspects of the material, he fails to breathe any life into Richard Matheson's woefully underdeveloped screenplay, which he adapted from his own novel.

Relentlessly gray and paralyzed by narrative inertia, it collapses under the weight of its stars.

From her speech patterns to her body language, Roberts's performance is wrong for the period.

Ira Levin is an eclectic writer who has done comedy-drama (Sleuth), adventure (The Boys from Brazil), thrillers (Rosemary's Baby), and science fiction such as The Stepford Wives. But Goldman's screenplay and Forbes's ponderous direction slow his exciting novel to a laborious pace.

Ultimately, the material is so familiar that it's hard to work up any enthusiasm for another trip though the seamy underside of glittering gaming life.

As a document of the ever-mutable musician's signature persona, a wraithlike androgyne with a head full of apocalyptic dreams, it's fascinating.

Starts with a bang and ends in a long, protracted whimper.

THE SHADOW is the worst kind of homage, recreating childhood enthusiasms in a manner so clunky and unsophisticated that it's actively off-putting, while entirely missing their essence.

This efficient but soulless funhouse ride eschews suspense in favor of frantic scrambling from disturbing specters, like the naked female ghost who lurks around bloody bathtubs.

Cameron Diaz is the ideal guy's gal and Ashton Kutcher is, well, a guy. Together, they're a zero.

Despite Schnack's half-hearted attempt to divide the film into chapters, his film is too unstructured to hold the interest of non-fans who might have appreciated a somewhat less hagiographic approach.

Though positioned as a female buddy comedy, this uneven and overly busy comedy is more focused on the romantic travails of Vardalos and Duchovny, who's very nearly a carbon copy of her love interest in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

The original seemed to convey more tension and suspense. In the film everything is painfully predictable.

Often funny, though just as often tasteless.

Fresh from being terrorized in Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis stars in this slasher clone set to the wonderful thump of disco music. Prom Night is better than most slasher movies, mainly because it's funnier.

Beneath all of the superficially fierce fighting sequences lies just another routine western plot.

Bruce Surtees' dark, moody cinematography is typically masterful, but its translation to video leaves some scenes a bit murky.

The storytelling is jerky (perhaps in part because the running time was trimmed from 185 to 142 minutes for U.S. release) and character development takes a backseat to a breathless rush through battles, assassinations and dynastic plotting.

For a De Palma film, Obsession has much more suspense than violence, even if much of the premise and motivations are shamelessly culled from Hitchcock's Vertigo, as is composer Bernard Herrmann. The lack of originality, however, doesn't make Obsession any less effective, and the film has been generally overlooked in the spotty De Palma canon.

No matter how deep one's affection for man's best friend, there's something undeniably fatuous about considering the emotional impact 9/11 has had on a dog named Rain.

Entertaining -- if predictable.

Although it's possible to enjoy isolated sequences of LIONHEART, this is not one of martial arts superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme's better kick-ass vehicles. Sleekly produced and densely plotted, it lacks the excitement of the earlier Van Damme flicks which had a less calculated aura about them.

Douglas and Sutherland do crackling hostility with devilish glee, and the fireworks are nothing if not entertaining.

The film's greatest incidental pleasures are its supporting players. From Curry, who plays the loathsome Richelieu with his usual gusto, to De Mornay, who clearly relishes her role as one of history's great femmes fatales, to the dryly menacing Wincott and the luminous Anwar and Delpy, there's always someone or something of interest to watch in this passably entertaining remake.

Shot in gloomy shades of gray, this earnest but banal story about the legacy of bad parenting strands fine actors in a contrived situation and lets them squirm.

This is a fast and funny film that will appeal to viewers of all ages. The kids are particularly good, lacking any cloying cuteness. The Aussies sure have a way with chase films, keeping the moves motivated and logical, with no gratuitous cars flipping over and burning.

Dithery, nattering and a bit long for such a conspicuously airy trifle.

More isn't always better; everything feels slightly forced, and the funny bits -- make no mistake, there are several -- are all but lost in the noise.

There's a thin line between fable and twaddle, and this feel-good trifle veers dangerously close to the latter.

With its brisk pace, breezy dialogue and gently jaundiced view of the rites of filmmaking, this is one of Jaglom's most accessible and genuinely enjoyable films.

Martin's Bilko is a career grifter who comes out on top every time. He's a Bilko for the nasty '90s, oily and smug.

This relentlessly name-dropping comedy lacks the teeth that could have made it really interesting.

For the first time, Allen's trademark shtick sounds less like the anxious kvetching of an endearingly neurotic New Yorker and more like the ramblings of a tired, elderly man fumbling for the right words.

Director Kleiser fails to bring the kind of loopy energy that Pee-Wee's Big Adventure director Burton brought to the first film.

It hurts to see this story reach for a tidy ending... STRANGE DAYS hurtles down the track for two hours, frantically trying to warn us en route to the Big Switchback, only to pull up in a hiss of smoke and hot air.

Has everything one could ask of a true-crime expose.

It's a mixed bag, but successful in a mindless, adolescent way. The spirited, energetic music is contributed by a variety of rock performers, including Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath and Nazareth.

Entertaining in spite its dubious accuracy.

Hit-and-miss.

This is one of the better Norris action films, showcasing his astounding martial-arts skills. But the film loses power toward the end when the action bends reality a little too much.

Most damaging to the film, however, is Costner's dull, listless performance as Earp. He simply lacks the gravity and stature necessary to handle the mythic baggage of this emblematic American role.

The character relationships are solid and there's blessed little in the way of smug, smart talk

Its talky, sluggish script is so bereft of thrills -- intellectual or otherwise -- that even the film's one masterfully staged sequence... falls flat.

If it works at all, THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES functions as a curio for a tube-fed generation nostalgic for the good old days when TV was still a safe place to hide.

Thin story collapses under the leaden star chemistry; capable supporting players can't save this dud.

The film presents its characters in a series of vignettes rather than in a traditional story. While it gives evidence of cinematic skill, it has a tendency to draw attention to its film-school parentage.

POINT OF NO RETURN remains entertaining, mainly thanks to Fonda. One of the sleekest and smartest of the young stars of the 90s, she makes a highly watchable action hero in a genre usually dominated by muscle-bound men.

Handsomely appointed and faultlessly acted, but no more alive than a well-dressed corpse.

Sentimental and predictable, Meily's sweet-natured feature-film debut was hugely popular in the Philippines; its day-to-day details will be exotic to non-Filipino audiences but the characters' dilemmas are couched in the universal language of sitcom complications and fortuitous resolutions.

Voight's performance -- one of the film's pure, trashy delights -- is all leer, sneer and macho swagger, while the rest of the actors feel like the disposable snake-fodder they are.

Its mediocrity guarantees this lavish, soggy retread of futuristic Australian action classic "The Road Warrior" a place in the ranks of forgotten extravaganzas.

Feels more like a 90-minute pilot for a TV series than a feature film.

Both enjoyably lighthearted and proof that even the most stridently purist approach to filmmaking can produce a cliched romantic comedy.

It's not that this is a bad, blackly comic slice-of-lowlife: It's just that you've just seen it all before.

Although superficially an odd couple, the outspoken Barr and the restrained Dench work together surprisingly well and a steady stream of jokes aimed at both adults and kids keeps this genial entertainment galloping along at a brisk pace.

Grateful fans so enamored of traditional Irish folk music that they don't care how they come by it may enjoy John Irvin's folk-filled feature, but while there's lots of great Ceili music on tap, it's wrapped in a story so traditional that it's not especially interesting.

Like most contemporary romantic comedies, the film's plot works only if you accept that everyone behaves like a complete and utter idiot at all times.

Hardcore Bond fans may be dismayed by some of the changes, but no one can deny that the action scenes staged by director John Glen are some of the most spectacular of the entire series and well worth the price of admission.

A sweet-natured ode to rave culture saddled with a ridiculously clichéd plot line.

Unfortunately, the result is little more than a glossy parlor trick, a stripped-to-the-bone "Of Human Bondage" recast with two women.

The Comancheros is not a terrible film; in fact much of it is entertaining. But it is obviously the effort of two talented men far from their peak powers.

When characters aren't quoting Alfred de Musset, they're speaking in aphorisms of their own, and the dialogue is stylized and stilted. Happily, Kaas, one of France's most popular jazz singers, has a sensuous, sonorous voice, and Lelouch uses it as often as possible; in many ways, the film is a musical.

Only Lynch's over-the-top network executive stands out in this otherwise bland film that tries for satire but neglects to be funny.

More music and less melodrama would serve audiences better.

While the cast is uniformly committed, some are able to make more of the material than others.

Milo Forman's Valmont is the weakest version so far, suffering from willfully wrongheaded casting, a comic-strip "free" adaptation by former Luis Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere, and Forman's heavy-handed direction of material that requires the most sophisticated glancing touch.

It comes as a huge disappointment, then, that having cast Witherspoon as Miss Sharp, director Mira Nair and Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) were unable to resist that impulse to find 21st-century prototypes in 19th-century literary characters, fictional creations whose values lie not in the way they reflect our own narcissistic times, but the way they reveal so much about their own.

Where Coffy had an exhilarating sense of fun underlying the mayhem, Foxy Brown is a darker, more mean-spirited picture. Rather than treating Foxy's travails as a setup for the inevitable vengeance, it seems to revel in her degradation.

Most of the plot twists are confusing and haphazardly developed, leaving the movie as little more than an excuse to show off Stan Winston's admittedly effective gore effects.