This lackluster sequel forgoes everything that made the original a superior horror film in favor of simplistic genre cliches.

Plays no better than a bad after-school special. None of the characters is the least bit sympathetic. Just what audience the filmmakers were aiming at is a mystery, though the movie may have therapeutic value as an anaesthetic.

Filmed with great visual style, the film looks terrific but makes almost no sense save for its "insider" references to such films noir as Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville and Fritz Lang's M.

The film is dull going, even for the pre-adolescents at whom it's aimed, and feels far longer than it actually is.

Though the premise has at least the potential to be funny, TRAPPED IN PARADISE is an indigestible blend of smart-ass TV sketch comedy and syrupy sentimentality.

The film only gains its footing in the final half hour, when Griffin and Solvang interview a healer who regularly performs female circumcisions and, finally, two people who actually have AIDS.

The original Phantasm was an inventive fever-dream, but the sequel, unfortunately, lacks that delirious youthful imagination. There are some memorable moments along the way--fleeting images scattered throughout the film that have a cumulative effect--but when the shocks do come, they are mostly retreads of highlights from the first movie.

Slight and pleasantly predictable film coasts along on the considerable charms of its cast and exotic setting.

The film is meticulously crafted but frustratingly meaningless.

Palindromes read the same way backward and forward, and Todd Solondz' sour tale ends where it begins.

Affleck is no more convincing as a flesh-and-blood action than as a superbrain, Thurman is cruelly photographed and director Woo appears to be imitating his own worst work.

The script recycles clichés that go back to 1937'S "Dead End," the performances are one-note, and the whole thing has the flat, bright look of a TV cop show.

Hauser and Miles go for broke, lobbing their every comic idea at the screen. Some work better than others, and overall tomfoolery like this is a matter of taste.

Chanteuse Toni Braxton, making her feature film debut as Juanita, a snobbish Slocumb relative, delivers a scene-stealing turn.

Saturday Night Live veteran Chris Kattan more or less steals the film as the racially confused Mr. Feather, a white supremacist bad guy whose speech patterns tend to get down and funky against his will.

Jeremy Irons, giving what is, hands down, the worst performance of his career.

It's so cool all the life has drained away, leaving nothing behind but a faint whiff of attitude.

Film's real sticky wicket is that the bad guys not only threaten to nuke a major American city but do it — a conceit that might have been more amusing before terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center using hijacked commercial jets. Witnesses said the WTC attack looked like a movie; they didn't say it was a movie they wanted to see.

The real trouble is Jack: He's narcissistic and tough to like (Pontevecchio's fine, but a younger actor might not have brought an impression of arrested development to the character), and his crude sense of humor borders on the disgusting.

The movie's tone fluctuates wildly, suggesting that no one was exactly sure what kind of movie they were making.

This labored farce relies on an unpleasant collection of stereotypes for its comic effects, and Janger is a singularly unappealing leading man.

Penn and Madonna both do a fine job with their roles, the supporting roles are excellent, the direction is passable, the camera work and art direction are accomplished, and the script mindless and predictable. There's nothing to create outrage, and there's nothing to stimulate excitement, which is probably why there was no substantial interest in SHANGHAI SURPRISE.

A deliciously bad reworking of The Karate Kid, with just a touch of Rocky IV tossed in.

Appears to be a complete about-face for Kitano, and yet it's unmistakably his, both stylistically (the film is gorgeous to look at) and thematically.

Not to be confused with the suggestive, subversive melodramas of Sirk and Minnelli, this is the kind of hypertensive trash that gives melodrama a bad name, cynically tempering its naughty bits with smug moralizing.

The year's most eagerly anticipated green-eyed monster finally rears its ugly head, not with his trademark radioactive roar, but a deafening yawn.

The movie turns into a rather-dull mad-scientist romp. Craven's direction is nothing more than workmanlike, and it appears that out of sheer boredom he threw two nightmare sequences into the mix.

This second feature from director Fred Dekker is a poorly paced and haphazardly scripted horror-comedy that is neither scary nor particularly funny.

The camera never ventures outside, but remains fixed on the action at the table, gliding languidly past the same sepia-toned tableau: In the film's universe, people are indistinguishable and the setting never changes. Hou does succeed in one key respect: His films evokes opium addiction, a narcotic delirium fading into a dreamless sleep.

That the film seems willing to erect a simple religious parable on such a moral morass is bewildering. That it should do so without accurately depicting the nightmare of Hitler's Europe is unconscionable.

Ridiculous scripting and frequently comical budget limitations make this film a mostly awful trip to Bruce Lee Land, though the fight scenes, choreographed by Mike Stone, a karate champion and former partner of Chuck Norris, are spectacular and not as silly as the usual Hong Kong product. For fans of the genre only.

The real-life Modigliani did indeed live a short, tragic life, but this factually inaccurate, plodding film makes it feel twice as long.

It's basically a one-joke comedy that spins out of control once the joke's over, but the cast is likable, the women smart, and one can't argue with the important safe-sex message.

Film is preposterous without being surreal; only at the Tailor's Ball -- which takes place shortly before the end -- does it strike that perfect balance between the bizarre and the curiously mundane.

The film's shortcomings notwithstanding, it's a must-see for Swinton fans, who can select a favorite among four different variations of their idol or simply adore them all.

Serviceable enough, if you come to it with sufficiently modest expectations.

It's hard to care even just a little when you have no idea what's at stake or why, be it Heaven or Hell.

Believe it or not, this fantastic story (of a close encounter of the worst kind) ultimately proves to be pretty uninvolving, relying on the quality of the performances to maintain interest.

This is a rare road picture that leaves us knowing less about our traveling companions than we did when the journey started; Dahan and screenwriter Agnes Fustier-Dahan reduce their characters to pasteboard symbols, colored by unexplained quirks.

Surprisingly humor-free. Worse, with the exception of Cornwell's brilliant Bowie, the impersonations aren't particularly good, and can be found in any two-bit comedian's repertoire.

Cruz's willingness to allow her appearance to be so degraded for cinema's sake doesn't really help.

Queen Latifah's warmly formidable presence drives this amiable but poky comedy.

The non-professional actors do their schmaltzy best with Gatlif and co-writer David Trueba's sparse dialogue and what appears to have been Gatlif's very limited direction.

Its excellent cast, including Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine, and Peter Lorre, play rather predictable characters, but the film boasts some captivating special effects and sets.

Gets off to a pretty intriguing start before degenerating into a series of routine action sequences.

If you pitch your expectations at an all time low, you could do worse than this oddly cheerful -- but not particularly funny -- body-switching farce.

Toothless satire punctuated by the occasional biting gag.

Overblown, ridiculously contrived drive-in flick.

Based on a goofy '60s TV series and aimed squarely at vulgar 10-year-olds (and inner vulgar 10 year olds), this sappy comedy is relatively harmless and occasionally serves up a funny bit.

It's all too mawkishly life-affirming for words, the sort of film that wins Golden Globe Awards for its tear-jerking sincerity. And you thought -- hoped? -- they didn't make movies like this anymore.

In light of the recent plight of real New York City-based filmmaker Micah Garen, who was kidnapped and nearly executed while attempting to make a genuine documentary in Iraq, the whole endeavor seems simply foolish.

The filmmakers created an animated version of the writer to accompany audio clips of Dick speaking. It's a well-intentioned but unsatisfying invention, which pretty much sums up the whole enterprise.

Norman Jewison's honorable but stodgy exercise in ethical outrage, based on Brian Moore's acclaimed 1996 novel, fairly aches to be called a thinking man's thriller.

Overall, though, the film drags at 91 minutes, filled with dead air that should be crackling with pulp energy.

The plot's contrivances are uncomfortably strained, and ultimately your reaction to its featherweight story of love and serendipity will be determined by how charming you find the dithering, slack-jawed Janice.

Lurches queasily between ghastly broad gags and oddly engaging, character-driven laughs born of clashing cultures and expectations.

Simultaneously sober and silly horror picture.

The lame gags keep on coming and the mystery is both blindingly obvious and needlessly complicated.

The film has all the pregnant pauses, exaggerated reaction shots and melodramatic scoring of an overripe telenovela, but, unlike a good soap opera, the sisters' separate story lines are clumsily balanced.

Most of the film's humor derives from smug anachronisms (the Brit-pop soundtrack, Wang and Roy's use of modern slang) and jokes about bad English food, teeth and weather that were old when Victoria was a girl.

There's not an original thought in sight — the story is Evil Dead in a movie theater — and it doesn't pay to give much thought to the self-referential implications of the story: The demons and their gross-out antics are the main event.

The dialogue flows a little too thickly in an awkward attempt to find a parallel with the then-raging Vietnam War; Hale, a TV veteran, directs loosely, but the few action scenes he does permit are snappy and scary.

It's not a total shock when this gay romantic comedy suddenly veers into to heavy S&M, non-consensual sex and suicide.

The kind of movie for which the term "video baby-sitter" was coined.

The idea is more interesting than the screenplay, which lags badly in the middle and lurches between not-very-funny comedy, unconvincing dramatics and some last-minute action strongly reminiscent of "Run Lola Run." Great soundtrack, though.

Neither very dark nor particularly funny.

It's just plain lurid when it isn't downright silly, and that "drunk cam," a blurred, cockeyed lens through which Sonny's soused point-of-view is shown, is just a terrible idea.

Foxx is a charmer, and he makes Alvin's unlikely evolution from relentless hustler to reasonably solid citizen believable, and even rather touching.

A startling about-face for Australian director Alex Proyas, and an unwelcome one as well.

The massive sets and extensive special effects are certainly... massive and extensive. But watching them is like watching the wheels and gears inside a hugely complicated clock: It's interesting and even beautiful, but can hardly be called scary.

Despite some strong performances, never rises above the level of a telanovela.

"Double Indemnity's" darkly poetic carnality is timeless. Trashy, throwaway fluff like De Palma's film can only look bad by comparison.

Although sporadically funny and not quite the disaster it was initially made out to be, this ROBIN HOOD robs gags from other films while giving the poor viewer far too few laughs.

The novelty value of seeing 17th-century French swordsmen fight like Chinese martial artists doesn't compensate for the film's generally wooden performances and clichéd dialogue.

Lame and surprisingly awkward from start to finish.

Most of it comes across as overheated nonsense, but Page's egomaniacal telephone soliloquy at the film's climax is reason enough to tune in.

A train wreck of a film whose chaotic, partly improvised story and too-tricky mix of film stocks, image sizes, split-screen effects and color/B&W footage overwhelm some phenomenally beautiful sequences and a memorable performance by Saffron Burroughs.

The best parts of the film come when he (Doillon) just lets the camera roll and lets the kids be kids.

The film pretends to be seriously concerned about the intersection of madness and identity, but never explores who these people really are. Instead of showing two people developing genuine intimacy through tenderness and slow, hard-won honesty, we see hysterical behavior generating hysterical responses. This is less psychodrama than Harlequin romance.

Energetic and ambitious, and its likeable cast marks a welcome return of non-white faces to the center of a gay-themed film.

if you're in the mood to watch some high-class head-kicking, Double Impact is a perfectly adequate piece of work.

The identity of the bad guy is ludicrously obvious; and his public unmasking relies on the dopiest contrivance in recent memory.

Even on a purely sentimental level, Free Willy this ain't: The product placements are the most promiscuous in recent memory --perhaps in history -- and all but the smallest children will sense the cynicism underlying this superficially noble shaggy fish story.

All too often, dramatic confrontations feel like barely dramatized debates.

Marred by lack of a clear strategy and an over-reliance on audio-visual trickery.

This neo-noir pastiche is so preposterously overwrought that you keep figuring it must be some kind of joke, except that it's not funny.

The movie's "shock" payoff still feels like a cheap trick.

Dull, derivative horror anthology.

All of this of course would be forgivable if it all added up to a scary movie or made even a lick of sense, but Balaguero manages to disappoint on all possible fronts.

Happily, a feeling of genuine comradeship among these athletes shines through, and their irreverent, go-for-broke comments are a jolt of fun compared to the usual canned epigrams from pampered sports multimillionaires.

This imitation of the classic AMERICAN GRAFFITI is set on Halloween night, 1965, when a group of teenagers decides to get back at the grown-ups for closing down the main drag street in Beverly Hills. Gags involving urination, obscenities, and racism are included in the fun; ripoffs from GRAFFITI include the sabotage of a police car and a disc jockey who plays tunes all night long.

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

Rather than converting messy, real-life experience into slick, formulaic entertainment, Well's script transforms it into a shapeless, internally inconsistent mess of artificial contrivances.

A rather tepid anthology film, CAT'S EYE is a pastiche of leftover Stephen King notions, connected by a ubiquitous cat that ominously appears to set off each tale.

Fun for the kids, but no Beauty and the Beast or Lion King. This child-friendly retelling of Hercules' story takes the predictable liberties with a story originally chockablock with sex, violence and generally sordid behavior. After several passes through the Disney wringer, a sanitized, blandly blond Hercules (voice of Tate Donovan) emerges, ready to enter no pantheon other than that of muscle-beach pinup boys.

Bond spends an awful lot of time being rescued from peril by supporting characters.

Predictable and dull, though sleazy brothers Borgnine, Martin, and Elam are terrific.

Call it Death Wish Goes Suburban.