Proof that the US has no monopoly on white-trash humor.

Made in 1988 but unreleased for several years, BORIS AND NATASHA isn't truly wretched, just undernourished. It tries hard to revive the anarchic spirit of Jay Ward's cartoons, but Boris and Natasha were only supporting characters there and nothing is done to make them interesting over the course of a feature film.

Classic Italian splatter directed by Lucio Fulci, reviled and adored in equal proportions by Euro-horror fans.

Just more proof that special effects are worthless if there are no solid characters or story. My Science Project is formula filmmaking with no substance, style, or entertainment to be found in its unimpressive package.

While there is nothing Earth-shattering about director Patrick Read Johnson's first film, it is often quite entertaining. SPACED INVADERS makes fun of just about every outer space film ever made, and throws in some Three Stooges-like mayhem for good measure.

Simply exhausting; it wants to be funny and sad and lighthearted and serious all at once.

Not everyone will be comfortable with a story that's as geared toward recruitment as any Army film, be it God's or Uncle Sam's.

Overall, it's an interesting experiment, but the idea is stronger than the end result.

Hackman's performance, beautiful photography by Stephen Burum and Ric Waite, and some effective action direction from Ted Kotcheff make this watchable, but the jingoist wish-fulfillment inherent in the material is ultimately disturbing.

This sequel remains true to the tasteless formula of the original.

The film sags under the crushing weight of its own inadequacy, lacking not only subtlety, intelligence, and insight, but also dramatic tension, character development, and a satisfying resolution.

There's nothing beneath the flashy editing and self-consciously cool production design but a soulless adrenaline machine that's never scary and rarely engrossing.

The cast is eclectic and talented, but their roles are two-dimensional and the is-it-or-isn't-it-satirical? tone ensures that their performances never seem properly pitched.

Tedious and obscure where it was apparently meant to be atmospheric and tantalizing.

London-born director Asif Kapadia's second feature, following 2001's critically acclaimed "The Warrior," is a slow, low-key supernatural thriller whose story is too slender to justify its feature-length running time.

OUT FOR JUSTICE's only real weakness is Seagal himself. Always an icon rather than an actor, Seagal's face appears puffy and he's developing jowls. This doesn't bode well for his future as an action hero, since looks count; ugly guys are relegated to the heavy roles, and it's hard to imagine Seagal settling for such an ignoble fate.

Diehard Sandler fans will probably find it uproarious, but others will have to make do with the occasional chuckle.

A very funny superhero spoof.

There's just no reason why it should take more than two hours for so little to happen.

A slow-moving, dramatically slack film.

If this is your idea of fun, step right up.

A gloomy-doomy ghost story that gets off to a creepy start and then spirals into flat-out preposterousness.

The concept is cute and the movie starts out well, but it devolves into a muddled, overstuffed mess that wears out its welcome around the time the novelty of 3-D effects wears off.

Lee deserves a lot of credit for attempt the same kind of complex story structure Quentin Tarantino made look so easy in "Pulp Fiction": Like Tarantino's interlocking stories, Lee's four segments occur achronologically and come full circle in a neat twist at the very end.

As unpalatable as stale wedding cake.

So low-key that it verges on unconsciousness.

The plot's preposterous and Affleck is way too callow for a role that would have fit Robert Mitchum like a second-hand suit.

Not much acting is on display, the dialog is simplistic, the story is superficial, and the direction is faceless, but true fans won't care. Others have been warned.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective marks the ascendance of a new star in film farce, as Jim Carrey elevates this stupid, suprisingly shoddy picture into the comedy stratosphere, mainly thanks to his Gumby-like ability to contort his face and body in the most amazing ways.

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.

Desperate-to-shock slice of sleaze life.

This could have been a sweet, charming little romantic comedy, but it is ruined by excessive vulgarity and gratuitous nudity.

Neil Diamond (who even reverts to Al Jolson's blackface for one sequence) is wholly unbelievable as the cantor's son who forsakes the synagogue for the bright lights of pop music.

There's something disheartening about seeing real-life stories and their inevitable complexities put through the Hollywood sausage machine and transformed into bland parables about a privileged, wayward young bucks redeemed by wise, infinitely patient mentors and the self-abnegating spirit of team sports.

If you're expecting anything resembling the beloved cartoon, you'll enjoy the title sequence and nothing else. If, however, you set your expectations just low enough, or are an easily satisfied 8-year-old, you might have a bit of fun.

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.

Hong Kong action pioneer Tsui Hark is in high form here, tricking out the bare-bones story with disorienting camera angles, trick photography and virtuoso action sequences.

It doesn't help that the cast is populated by unfunny actors, with the possible exception of Evans, who is an appealing presence if not necessarily a great comedienne.

Writer-director Richard Ledes' dreadfully misconceived, pitch-black, film-noir comedy seeks to find the humor in the post-WWII mental hygiene boom, and the result is way off target.

While not exactly in the same league as the visually dazzling "Excalibur" and saddled with cheap looking CGI effects, this Anglo-Italian co-production has quite a bit of fun finding a direct path from the fall of Rome to the birth of Arthurian legend.

It's really just "Rocky" in gleaming dress whites.

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

Really lame.

There's a fine line between subversively transgressive and just plain gross, and this coming-of-age-movies parody from Todd Stephens, who wrote and directed the charming and underrated "Gypsy 83," crashes right over it.

Too many musical montages break the momentum, but overall it's an engaging piece of work, regardless of which team you play for.

Golan barely touches on the fundamental conflicts that created the situation there and simply offers a pack of wild-eyed, swarthy Arabs preying on passive, middle-aged Jews represented by the likes of Winters, Balsam, Bishop, and Kazan. Such horrors do happen, but they do not have to be presented as a cartoon.

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.

Formulaic hodge-podge that trades on a certain demographic's affection for the bogeymen of their formative years.

The sweet nostalgia of Travolta and Thurman's reprise of their "Pulp FIiction" dance-floor flirtation cuts through a lot of rubbish, including the Black Eyed Peas' smutty "Sexy."

Normally, this situation comedy would provide its own built-in laughs, but here the situations are dominated by Pryor's forced, manic behavior, which removes him from empathy and offers the subservient story nothing more than casual interest.

Among the disconnected scenes are a few that are downright hilarious, and the actors do their best to rise above disjointed material.

Hogan returns with what feels like a feature-length vanity project.

Tatou IS adorable, but Michele is a such a brainless flibbertigibbet that it's hard to take her spiritual quest at all seriously, and if you don't feel in your heart that she's really TRYING to grow and mature as a spiritual person, then who cares about her idiotic antics?

Burnett and Lee's graceful, sympathetic documentary focuses on participants who embody Burning Man's ideals without being blind to the opportunists and party animals it inevitably attracts.

The "Bullet" is an amusement-park roller coaster, and the title is a ham-fisted metaphor for facing your fears.

It now seems that style has completely replaced substance in Scott's films, and he leaves gaping holes in his heroine's character.

It's even louder and dumber than the first XXX, but if watching things fall down and go boom in a very big way makes you cheer, you're in luck.

Though it's quite possibly an even worse film than "Bruce Almighty," the sequel offers at least one consolation: The smug and increasingly unfunny Jim Carrey is replaced by the very talented Steve Carell.

A deep waste is more like it.

This is first Lee's first attempt at a war epic, but it feels like it's his very first film: What should have been an eloquent answer to the likes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood -- with whom Lee justly took to task over the total absence of any black soldiers in "The Flags Of Our Fathers" -- is instead a patchy war-time drama.

Hopkins and Rock are a surprisingly good mix; Hopkins actually underplays his role as a company man with a barely acknowledged conscience, while Rock's manic impulses aren't allowed to run riot.

Much better than you'd expect, largely thanks to an extremely game cast.

All the money in the world couldn't have saved actress-turned-filmmaker Troy Beyer's lewd, obnoxious, product placement-laden remake of the sweet and simple romantic comedy "Can't Buy Me Love."

Taylor, while perhaps a little small to become a real Vegas showboy, makes for a very charismatic hero, while Joaquin Baca-Asay's cinematography captures all the glitz and slightly tawdry glamour of the Vegas strip.

Tuff Turf is so relentlessly derivative that its good points--chiefly an attractive, relatively talented cast--are buried in cliche.

In what can only be described as a throwback to the awkward "gay" farces of the 1970s and '80s -- think "The Ritz" and "Partners -- this painfully uncomfortable buddy comedy trips all over itself to say something positive while still managing to offend. Worse still, it's just not funny.

Fatuous twaddle posing as a REALLY DEEP consideration of what's wrong with our crazy, mixed-up world, Matthew Ryan Hoge's slick but deeply dumb film unfolds in a picture-perfect suburb of Anywheresville, USA.

Conway's constant pratfalls and frightened, anxious looks may be a riot for the kids, but anyone over the age of six will find them just plain dumb.

The mind marvels at the bravery of the person who walked into the producer's office to pitch this idea.

We never see enough of the small compromises Willie Stark makes on the way up to fully grasp the tragedy of his fall. Some will undoubtedly find Penn's hamboned, spittle-lashing performance a bit much, but it's a pretty close to Warren's original conception.

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.

There's less than meets the eye to writer-director Flowers' time-hopping narrative, and what could have been a routine but entertaining crime story gets hopelessly muddled in its telling, despite the efforts of a generally strong cast.

The trouble with this satirical take US involvement in Iraq, penned by Mark Leyner, John Cusack and Jeremy Pikser, is that the real thing is equally absurd and only marginally less funny.

Contrived, slapdash and utterly false, this action thriller with a cynically soft center exemplifies the worst end-product of contemporary Hollywood formulas.

You come away from the film wishing her the best, but fearing the worst.

Though this frank documentary about extreme sexual practices comes with a cautionary message, it could perhaps use a stronger one.

The annoying Reg Rogers, on the other hand, who plays Little Caesar creator Raoul Berman, delivers his lines like a stoned Pee-wee Herman, and the scene in which Billy Crystal mutters and drools in a restaurant is just disturbing for anyone who admired his work in the past.

It's seldom boring and always beautifully photographed, but it's also considerably less than satisfying, perhaps because its internal logic never comes into focus.

Litvak's broad comedy has novelty on its side, and though the script never rises above sitcom-style one-liners and sight gags, strong performances invest both the jokes and the syrupy moments of forgiveness and reconciliation with no small measure of, yes, heart.

A crass, tedious sequel.

No matter how you parse it, the film is a bizarre muddle.

Welsh-born actor Roger Rees bares body and soul in director/cowriter Eric Werthman's handsomely photographed examination of the dynamic that unites a masochist and the sex worker who caters to his desires.

Surprisingly effective supernatural tale in which there's more to fear from the living than the dead.

It's a one-joke film that's stretched well beyond its welcome.

Alba, constantly sporting off-the-shoulder tops a la "Flashdance," brings no depth of feeling to her character, and her average -- often wooden -- moves make it hard to believe she's a uniquely talented hoofer and sought-after choreographer.

Writing, directing, and starring in WISDOM, Emilio Estevez was in over his head. It's a well-intentioned project that shows a certain promise and visual flair, but fails to come together as anything more than an expensive film-school thesis project.

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.

This sequel to the surprise 1988 hit is a slicker and ultimately more disturbing film than the first.

All of which would be fine if Figgis managed to work up any real suspense, but the film slogs towards its inevitable mano-a-mano showdown like something up to its knees in mud.

The sequence in which the crew acquires press credentials to the Republican National Convention by helping organizers desperate to book a rock band (they deliver Leitch's scruffy pals the Interpreters USSA) is priceless.

It's not easy to make a thriller that's both incredibly convoluted and intensely boring, but director E. Elias Merhige scores on both counts with this lame excuse for a spooky crime story.

This lackluster tale of redemption has violence aplenty and an undercurrent of humor.

SIDE OUT might interest a few beach bums, volleyball fans, and product-placement buffs, but otherwise it has limited appeal.

Overlong, overblown, and badly scripted.

An unintentionally surreal kid's picture.

Instead of the witty, intelligent script needed to pull off an interracial buddy story, however, the scenario for this film is an obvious lift from RAIDERS and a flat, uninteresting piece of writing, occasionally interspersed with embarrassingly sappy affirmations of friendship.

As the barbaric Montgomery, who helps bring out the beast in the beast-men, Val Kilmer raids the closet of sinister mannerisms and tries them all on for size. Poor David Thewlis is in another movie entirely.

Mean little film that pretends to say something about rape but panders to the cheap exploitation values of bad thriller films.