Though obviously designed for the teenage market, Billie Jean should insult the intelligence of all but the most irredeemable mall rats.

A reasonably entertaining blend of Three Stooges and Bugs Bunny, using gracefully choreographed martial-arts slapstick without any infantile sound effects.

With a wholly derivative concept, confused scripting, and incredibly sloppy direction, THE RUNNING MAN is a frustrating experience.

There's nothing particularly original about art-director-turned-filmmaker Ray Yeung's good-natured look at a pair of aging gay men in London, other than the fact that these men happen to be of Chinese descent. Beyond that, it's pretty much gay business as usual.

Seidelman has succeeded in making a sow's ear out of a silk purse. Weldon's novel is witty, wacky, and wonderfully way out; the film is none of those things. The problem lies with Barr in the pivotal role of Ruth. Once the part was hers, the whole script had to be rewritten around her monotonous delivery and limited acting ability, much to the detriment of the plot.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Ethan Hawke's second feature, an adaptation of his own novel about youthful heartbreak, is hobbled by its singularly unappealing lead characters.

"Make a Wish" (2003) actually beat this film to the gay-themed slasher-picture punch with its story of lesbians on a camping trip being stalked by a killer, but writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' background in art direction serves him well — his movie wins hands-down for style and attitude.

A pitch-perfect parody of poverty row horror/sci-fi pictures of the 1950s, Larry Blamire's meticulous takeoff could easily be taken for the real thing, which is both its genius and its Achilles heel.

Though some individual scenes crackle, overall the film feels unfocussed and flabby, like a series of acting improv exercises strung together.

The mystery is terribly plotted and the satirical elements are limited and not very funny.

Contains some nicely observed moments, but they're buried in an unrepentantly sitcomy script.

The scene transitions are sometimes jarring, but the story unfolds like a particularly juicy bit of small-town gossip, one that's told by a particularly vivid storyteller.

Scene-stealing cameos by Matt Damon and Lucy Lawless and the very catchy pop song that becomes a leitmotif for Scotty's pain are among its less-raunchy (comparatively speaking) highlights.

Ultimately, the more intensely you buy into the notion that golf is a complex metaphor for the human condition, the more susceptible you'll be to the film's insipid blandishments.

The heart of the problem may be that real life youth-sports insanity has far exceeded the bounds of family-friendly comedy.

Too long and its tone is disconcertingly uneven, but Perry never betrays or condescends to his characters.

Too elliptical to be convincing.

For rip-snorting pop entertainment, it's one discomfiting, nasty piece of work, and ain't that a kick in the head.

This amiable picture talks tough, but it's all bluster -- in the end it's as sweet as "Greenfingers."

What really undoes writer-director John Keitel's admirable intentions is the general lack of artistry on virtually every level.

Hopkins possesses a Candide-like equanimity in the face of bizarre happenstance that is thoroughly charming and keeps the story's excesses from becoming exasperating.

Indecent Proposal is as relentlessly entertaining as it is silly--so shamelessly over the top that you watch in a mixture of horror and delight as the drama unfolds toward a climax that is truly mind-boggling.

Each character weighs the dilemma, and each has at least one breast-beating soliloquy on the subject, as COCOON II goes for poignancy in attempting to deal with the weighty issues raised in its funnier, more-upbeat predecessor. It's a commendable effort, but the result is a pretty dreary movie.

Although the two veteran performers present themselves well, the concept of a monster disco is merely silly, and the terribly cheap masks on the various creatures make the whole thing look like a home-movie shot in his basement by 12-year-old with a camera.

While Lynch ladles on the random weirdness around the edges, it is Lee who keeps the film centered, with a harrowing but poignantly sympathetic portrait of a woman's descent into horror and madness.

A mindless comedy that's about as funny as a life sentence in solitary confinement.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers here seem to lack any notion of how to create a well-crafted vehicle, and the whole thing comes off as an uncertain, shoddy attempt to wring box-office dollars from sniffling audiences.

The charismatic Dillon is a believable delinquent and gets solid support from a cast that went on to populate some of the better youth pictures in years to come. [Review of re-release]

Manipulative but fitfully entertaining "Twilight Zone"-ish comedy of redemption.

Actor-turned-director Clark Johnson uses the flashy, up-to-the-minute editing and camera stunts action fans expect, but keeps the mayhem on a recognizably human scale — it's big, but not insanely overblown.

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.

If Jean-Luc Godard at his most Maoist had felt compelled to make adult movies, he might have cooked up something like pop-art punk-porn auteur Bruce LaBruce's slab of revolutionary raunch.

Director Ken Wiederhorn is a competent, if unremarkable, talent who handles the action scenes in a professional manner. His writing talent, however, is not equal to that of the first film's writer-director, Dan O'Bannon, and the sequel lacks its predecessor's snappy, biting dialog and O'Bannon's satiric edge.

This light comedy suffers from a weak script, and although Reynolds manages to hold his own against the brainlessness of the material, he can't rise above it.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON is idiotic at times, cute at others. Cameron shows a lot of charm, and the movie is a pleasant diversion.

A funny, successful, and very derivative crime-comedy.

Writer-director Curtis Hanson is to be credited for procuring a clever story and offering nail-biting action sequences that build solid suspense. Guttenberg's boyish appearance initially seems wrong for his increasingly forceful role here, but it is exactly that quality that proves to make his unjudicious actions believable. The marvelous French actress Huppert is a standout as the cool, European beauty.

It's earnest, well-intentioned and scrupulously even-handed, in the style of made-for-TV problem movies.

A slam-bang action film with some stunning scenes of mayhem and violence.

It's a deftly executed crowd-pleaser, but it's dishonest to the core.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the high-profile cast, obviously working for brownie points in heaven -- they're so good, yet nothing they do can make the movie fly.

The film never escapes the constraints of its genre, but it's a hell of a ride.

It's impossible to overstate how deeply dumb all of this is, but it skims along at a brisk clip and manages not to overdo the nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor.

Clichés negate bona fides; hence, the movie feels like a corny Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland vehicle with cussing. That said, the tapping is fabulous.

While NECESSARY ROUGHNESS admittedly traverses highly familiar territory, with few surprises, it does deserve to be appreciated as a genuinely entertaining, albeit old-fashioned, college football yarn that's great fun to watch.

The golden shadows of the waning Old West are thrown across the big screen with full reverential treatment in this solid, unsurprising rendition of Jim Harrison's widely praised novella.

The best you can say is that it's all pretty harmless and pretty stupid.

The film rings so consistently false that it's more likely to induce snickers and eye-rolling.

Raoul Ruiz's absurdly overwrought phantasmagoria tries to recast the notorious Viennese artist's life as a kind of Divine Comedy: Inferno.

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.

While not as poetic or haunting as Edgar Ulmer's The Black Cat, The Raven is a remarkable tale of revenge, and memorable in its own right.

Amusing if slightly bland comedy in which Colbert and MacMurray uproot themselves from city living after MacMurray decides he can't stand the brokerage business.

The plot has lots of holes, but veteran TV director Rod Daniel keeps the proceedings light and lively, and Belushi does a fine job of relating to a dog as a multidimensional character. Jerry Lee--while no Benji in the acting department--is likable and receives ample help from the film's editors.

Though neither subtle nor particularly original, Gens' spin on the meat-movie classic has both nightmarish energy to spare.

For all its crudeness, Phillips' tale of men behaving badly is remarkably toothless.

Norton's screenplay is predictable and the film suffers from its fragmented narrative. Some interest is provided by an unusual visual approach: the various segments employ separate film processes and aspect ratios in an attempt to supply visual analogues for the characters' situations.

Once it settles down, it becomes a star-making vehicle for Jackman, and a supremely polished example of the sort of swoony love story cherished by women who secretly hope that some day their prince will come.

Professionally produced and surprisingly tame.

Pearce can sing, but Drum's trademark "speaking out" -- free-associative ramblings that recall Jim Morrison of the Doors at his most embarrassingly pretentious -- falls far short of the hypnotic effect Tyler describes.

Strangest of all, Roman Polanski shows up to torture our heroes with a Paris phone book, then subject them to a full-cavity search. A gratuitous nod to "Chinatown"? Who knows? Who cares?

Without any deeper consideration of the matter, the film is a grueling experience, and 90 minutes is simply far too long to spend in the company of Jesse Power.

An engaging French comedy about three bachelors who find an abandoned baby at their door.

Directed by Steve Miner, who got his start working on the Friday the 13th films, Warlock aspires to more than many genre movies, though it actually achieves very little.

Just because it was written and directed by a woman doesn't mean the title isn't exactly the vulgar double entendre you think.

An apparently unintentional parody of the he-man school of filmmaking, in which gunfire replaces dialogue and escalating violence passes for story development.

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.

Overall it's a colorful, diverting cautionary tale.

This tale may well weave a more compelling spell on the page; onscreen it's simply ponderous.

Sweet-natured and as inconsequential as can be, shored up by smooth, low-key ensemble performances.

Despite its scant 48-minute running time (which many viewers will find frustrating), the film sets up a provocative equation between vampirism and American involvement in Asia.

A romantic comedy whose sour take on romance never manages to be comic.

Clearly, neither screenwriter Randall Wallace nor director Michael Bay ever met a cliche he didn't embrace.

Exceptionally satisfying and enormously entertaining.

Boursinhac and Bibi Naceri throw all the usual elements into the pot: Economic inequality, ethnic tensions, feverish family ties and the titular criminal code, which everyone invokes and everyone agrees is a load of claptrap.

Atonal romantic comedy.

This kind of gloomy razzle-dazzle isn't everyone's cup of mind-altering tea, but strong performances make it worth the effort to keep the time-tripping shenanigans straight until the surprisingly satisfying payoff.

It's essential viewing for anyone interested in the state of post-Apartheid South Africa.

Far too long for a movie so unabashedly formulaic, Sylvain White's drama about a kid from L.A. who discovers the world of "stepping" at an Atlanta university uses a propulsive soundtrack and flashy dance sequences to draw attention away from wooden acting and a cliched plot.

You could hardly ask for more from a historical spectacle: Silly wigs, plunging décolletage, lavish banquets in ornate halls, a stirring score from Ennio Morricone and witty dialogue by Tom Stoppard.

The lack of opposing viewpoints soon grows tiresome -- the film feels more like a series of toasts at a testimonial dinner than a documentary.

Director and enfant terrible-wannabe Gregg Araki winds up his Teen Apocalypse trilogy with this loud, ridiculous mess, and not a moment too soon.

Parillaud makes for a sympathetic and convincing vampire protagonist, with her appealing accent lending Marie an exoticism she might have lacked with an American actress. Given the apparent intention to make this a strong woman's role, though, it's a shame that she becomes a sex object in a few key moments.

Sally Field's flawless performance as a mother whose imminent death reunites her four grown children elevates a fairly formulaic melodrama in the made-for-Lifetime mode into something considerably more memorable.

The amazing thing is how dull a movie crawling with gunfire, psycho tantrums and stuff blowing up can be when you just don't care what happens to anyone.

Weber's losers really are losers -- envious, spiteful, complacent, mean-spirited and ultimately boring malcontents pickled in their own poison, and they drag his film down with them.

With its flashy, music-video style edits, rock-scored montages and septuagenarian cast, it’s hard to say who, exactly, is the right audience for this unusual comedic drama.

Mimics the kind of comedy that doesn't date particularly well to begin with.

Although inspired by actual events, the film proceeds along formulaic wish-fulfillment lines, its dynamics unaltered by the casting of a mixed-race actor in what was originally a redneck role; it's a sign of some sort of social progress that justified ass-kicking trumps race.

The younger actors bring varying degrees of experience to bear on their roles, but all capture the desperation beneath their characters' tough fronts, while the NYC locations are suitably depressing.

This remake of the 1951 family fantasy is strictly minor league, struggling mightily to balance heartwarming sentiment with sporty sight gags, yet never getting beyond second base.

The film attempts to pay tribute to vintage rock music--most of the songs are covers of golden oldies. But the renditions are so uninspired, the tribute falls flat.

Candy manages to squeeze a few laughs from the crude and cliche-ridden script, but Paul Flaherty directs broadly and obviously, with little feeling for comic pacing.

Dennis Hopper's knockabout direction makes CHASERS an engaging action farce; his intelligence and sensitivity make this modest military comedy more memorable than most.

Much of the dialog seems improvised, with erratic results. Director Hal Ashby's cut of the film was chopped by Paramount and by producer Schaffel and writers Voight and Schwartz, and it came up weaker for it. In spite of having problems, however, the film is not a complete turkey.

Renaissance Man is an exceptionally unoriginal comedy with a heart-tugging streak as big as Fort Bragg, but it succeeds perfectly well on its own unambitious terms.

The first full-fledged Indian musical coproduced and distributed by a major Hollywood studio, this fanciful love story takes its unlikely inspiration from Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story "White Nights."

Unmotivated, often plodding, and singularly without humor, this film could have been terrific.

Director Moshe Mizrahi (best known for his 1977 Oscar-winning feature, MADAME ROSA) fails to make much of the narrative's potentially fascinating time and place, other than throwing out a couple of token observations about British colonial rule.