A numbingly stupid actioner, Invasion U.S.A. has one of the most laughable villains ever committed to film.

A satisfying hatchet job on the spooky -- or as the Wayans see it, kooky -- world of supernatural pictures.

We already knew Hudson and McConaughey weren't exactly Gable and Lombard from their first romantic pairing in "How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days," but director Andy Tennant's complete lack of inventiveness comes as a surprise.

It's enjoyable and profoundly unlikely to make a lasting impression on anyone.

Formulaic but not entirely predictable, it's like old-school Disney, but without Tim Conway.

Garish, animated junk.

Costner's ponderous post-apocalyptic morality tale feels every minute of its nearly three hours.

Well-written and surprisingly well-acted by a relatively inexperienced cast

To say Wes Craven's rewrite of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 "Pulse" isn't as bad as it could have been sounds like faint praise, but Kurosawa's "Pulse" is one of the true masterpieces of recent Asian horror, and the track record for Hollywood horror redos isn't great.

It's a gee-whiz kiddie movie imagined by pervy grown-ups who get a giggle out of mixing bloodless fight scenes with close-ups of rubber-wrapped butts and baskets.

Given the track records of its writer, Neil Simon, and director, Hal Ashby, THE SLUGGER'S WIFE should at least have been entertaining. It isn't. Instead, it is one of the most disappointing, least credible films about baseball in recent memory.

Suffers from wishy-washiness.

If you're feeling open-minded and a little adventurous, this chilling exploration of the gender gap from Gallic bad-girl Catherine Breillat is worth a look.

Set mostly over the course of a single evening, the film is lugubriously paced and filled with improbable turns of events.

Limping along on a scant plot, HOT PURSUIT succeeds largely because of Cusack's handling of his character. Loggia is always a pleasure to watch, even when his part is as mindless as it is here.

Meandering melodrama.

Penn's stark and unvarnished portrait of the challenged Sam makes even the hardest-to-swallow plot acceptable.

Filled with short, rapid-fire takes, edited to a pulsating beat and punctuated with blasts of noise...the style suits the often violent material, as well as Arquette's remarkable physical performance.

Derivative, indifferently acted, artlessly photographed and awash in nudity and rudimentary gore effects, this direct-to-DVD feature mars the producing debut of longtime horror and exploitation distributor Media Blasters.

The result is rather like eavesdropping on a bright but painfully self-absorbed adolescent's secret thoughts: sometimes fascinating, other times just infuriating.

Director/co-writer/co-producer Jon Gunn's Christian agenda is evident without being intolerably sanctimonious, and he's a competent filmmaker who shows sign of having a little style.

Frustrating, confusing, loud, and offensive, this horribly bad sequel not only continues to ruin the story line and characters so deftly created by John Carpenter in HALLOWEEN (1978), but sets a new standard of stupidity.

Attempting to force the story into a romantic comedy template compels Marshall to gloss over the disturbing aspects his characters' disabilities, frequently forcing Ribisi and Lewis to act the part of noble fools.

A movie whose best features are its lush tropical vistas has evident limitations.

This Ashby-directed film suffers most from its too-simple plot, but the often-indecipherable Texas accents that Blake and Harris lay on don't help matters much.

The movie is simultaneously soft and icky; the gross-out effects are grafted onto a sub-"Tales from the Crypt" ghost story that never scares up any serious chills.

No one seems to be having any fun, including the normally masterful Van Sant, whose direction is unstructured, confusing, and lackadaisical.

Uniformly dull and predictable, save for the sight of Borgnine turning into a goat-headed demon--not much of a stretch, perhaps--and Travolta (in a small role) melting along with the rest of the cast.

There are a couple of mildly amusing moments, but overall Howard the Duck is a monumental waste of time.

Most of the jokes are either ethnic slurs, homosexual japes, or unfunny gags with not a shred of wit. Babes and brewskis are just not enough to carry an entire picture.

The film had the calculated feel of a movie made simply because the title was guaranteed to pull in audiences on opening weekend. Sadly, it's the kind of effort that gives horror films a bad name.

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.

What may have looked good on paper across the Atlantic gets lost in the translation to our shores.

The film's only sparks are generated by Tom's last-ditch attempt to win back Sarah's affections, but they come too late to redeem the picture from its surfeit of over-the-top physical comedy and low-brow jokes.

It can make for entertainingly silly viewing, but it should come as no surprise that the film's plea for tolerance and unexpectedly tragic ending -- an unfortunate throwback to the Dark Ages of gays in films -- rings equally hollow.

Executive produced by B-movie veteran Samuel Z. Arkoff and indifferently directed by TV-trained Stuart Rosenberg, the film's reputation exceeds its achievements, and the true story angle has been vigorously disputed.

Although Christopher Lambert repeats his film role as the immortal action hero, he is less dynamic than he was in Highlander or even Highlander 2, The Quickening. He is also far less charismatic and interesting to watch than Adrian Paul of the European television serial. Moreover, in this film, Lambert inexplicably whispers his lines, while the special effects are deafening.

With its porno plot, Undressed production values and ersatz "Will & Grace" banter that manages to be crude without being the least bit funny, Q. Allan Brocka's debut is a tasteless comedy that nevertheless leaves a nasty flavor on the tongue.

Fortunately, the movie is so flat and boring that any children who might be tempted to ape its stunts will probably not sit still long enough to see them.

Lots of laughs; some fine darts tossed at fascism, southern California customs, and the USA in general; a tongue firmly embedded in the cheek; and a fairly good score all add up to make this a sleeper...If your sense of humor has the slightest warp in it, you may thoroughly enjoy SURF NAZIS MUST DIE.

With a plot stolen from THE GUMBALL RALLY (1976) and CANNONBALL (1976), this wholly derivative car-chase movie provides a flimsy excuse for good ol' boy Burt Reynolds to cavort on-screen with a cast that's chock-full of familiar faces.

The film lacks the usual juvenile raunch, but it also lacks brains in telling its story of an all-night scavenger hunt, involving a lot of dumb jokes and predictable situations.

No better than the first.

Screenwriter Lona Williams doesn't seem to have gotten much beyond the petty absurdity of theme headdresses and ludicrous talent competitions.

Bean carves out his own modest variations on the theme of John Ryder-on-the-storm, but Bush and Knighton are so blandly forgettable that it's hard to believe that they're the protagonists and not Victims 1 and 2.

In all, it's a peculiar mishmash, simultaneously bland and suggestive.

Horror of the glossiest, safest kind. It's a boring bubblegum shocker that loses its flavor faster than Fruit Stripes.

With even less plot and cheaper production values than usual, this is comedy for catatonics that will bore even fans of past entries in the series.

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.

For horror fans in a forgiving mood, it's an adequate fear fix.

At the end of the day, people who want to see this movie aren't looking for something original. There's a certain familiarity that makes the romantic comedy a perennial favorite among audiences.

Filled with forced yuletide cheer and mixed messages about the true meaning of Christmas, this loud and obnoxious holiday comedy boasts a fine cast and little else.

Director Richard Fleischer demonstrates a keen understanding of the potentials of the 3-D gimmick here, but there is little else to recommend this dull retread.

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.

Given that most fans are very young, ignoring a key aspect of the Pokemon mythos is bound to confuse and disappoint them.

If you try to imagine a breezy Cary Grant movie in which Grant makes penis and fart jokes, you'll have some idea just how wretched it is.

This cream puff of a romantic comedy is sweet enough, but lack of substance makes it deeply unsatisfying.

This whimsical weeper gets off to an awkward start and never finds its footing.

The best thing about it is the cast. Baldwin's moronic Barney is an acquired taste, but Krakowski is an adorable, sassy Betty, and Johnston brings an endearing coltishness to the sensible Wilma.

The CGI is well-done, but Garfield's presence among the otherwise live cast is a constant distraction.

Farley -- one of the few comedians who could ever be justly accused of debasing the pratfall -- has made a film that's tantamount to watching an overweight man slip on a banana peel for nearly 90 minutes.

The message this oddball film propounds is pretty much standard stuff on the Oprah circuit.

It's a great-looking film with a great-looking cast, it had some of Hollywood's top talent behind the cameras, and a budget of more than $45 million, but it lacks bite and conviction and utterly failed to strike a single spark, much less catch fire.

Vampire in Brooklyn, a purported "comic tale of horror and seduction" that is neither funny nor frightening, just unpleasant.

Repetitive, predictable comedy.

Although shot well and boasting some effective 3-D work, this is a woefully inadequate effort, and the series began to slip into inadvertent self-parody.

The film's mealy-mouthed messages about feminine empowerment will almost certainly fall on deaf ears, since even 11-year-olds know Spears's power resides largely in her taut torso.

The formulaic mechanical plot machinations benefit greatly from the presence of the vivacious Stiles, gravely beautiful Blair and personable Lee, who radiates fundamental decency without seeming like a sap.

That Carrey, who's a bit old for the part, always seems one facial muscle away from a smirk doesn't help matters.

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

The devout will no doubt enjoy this picturesque dramatization of an inspirational story many have known since childhood; others may understandably expect something more.

Peter Fonda's cameo appearance is a cute fillip, but hardly worth the wait.

Given Argento's willingness to attempt the controversial book at all, she pulls a surprising number of punches. What at first appears to go too far in reality doesn't go far enough: Argento doesn't even broach the subject of child prostitution.

An $18 million, star-studded disaster film, which in itself is a major disaster.

Combining an interracial friendship with an age-old love story is certainly a worthy idea, but this poorly executed film is riddled with every cliché in the book and then some.

The bar scenes are the only reason to sit through this jello shot of a movie.

fans of this venerable Eurotrash form will welcome any evidence that it's still alive and writhing lasciviously.

So consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start.

Rather than remake the entire original movie, Simon West and screenwriter Jake Wade Wall have taken only that now-classic first act and padded it out into a dull, filler-filled feature that's remarkably void of any new ideas.

The humor is forced.

Cool World's numerous plot holes and illogicalities might be forgiven if it had interesting characters or impressive visual effects.

If the characters were more interesting, the long, long buildup to their night of ghostly reckoning might be suspenseful rather than tedious.

The sad thing is that Arnett, Shepard and McBride quickly establish a loose, easy camaraderie that's a real pleasure to watch. The shame is that they're working with such unrewarding material.

Queen Latifah is a natural-born charmer, but there's only so much she can do when paired with a costar so irritating it's hard not to squirm when he's on the screen, which is most of the time.

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.

The story's not much, but this dark comedy contains moments of unexpected wit.

Mean-spirited and depressing, this horror movie in comedy disguise delights in the twin spectacles of morbid obesity and domestic abuse, of which children are often the target.

Director Jack Bender films all this with enough style that Child's Play 3 never becomes overly boring or tedious, and there's some nicely timed tension and comic bits scattered throughout.

Nicely shot around New York City, this dodgy mixture of cutesy romance, dark satire and murder mystery uses the same central conceit as Neil LaBute's "Nurse Betty."

Stiffly animated and featuring uninspired songs.

Frankly, the film's nostalgia for the "coffee, tea or me?" era of flying, when stewardesses were fantasy figures in soaring heels and uniforms tailored for bust enhancement rather than utility, is retro in all the wrong ways.

Though glossy and smoothly directed, this limp concoction has all the sparkle of flat champagne.

Meng's film, which uses a fairly sophisticated flashback structure to reveal the secrets of Ah Na's past in China, touches on a number of very serious subjects: the business of illegal immigration, the exploitation of "aliens" and the treatment of people with AIDS in China. But it's also filled with touches of humor.

Though filled with witty lines, fast-paced overlapping dialog, and screwball situations, this film too often sinks to Police Academy-style stupidity. The only reason Who's That Girl works at all is because of Madonna and Dunne.

Dino De Laurentiis' attempt to cash in on the popularity of JAWS is a total failure.

Pathetic acting and a scattershot plot sink this pitiful attempt by producer Robert Stigwood to turn the landmark Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band into an engaging film.

Only Sol and Sara even approach being real characters; the supporting players, Black and Jewish alike, are shrill stereotypes.

In the hands of a more gleefully provocative filmmaker, this variation on the standard erotic-thriller stew of sleaze, tease and murder, this ludicrous farrago might have been tawdry fun.