A good example of the now-neglected caper genre.

The less said about Simpson the better; whatever her talents, she can't sell a simple reaction shot, and, perhaps sensing this, Coolidge's camera tends to drift south of her face.

You can't accuse the film of making speed addiction look glamorous, but the freak-show kick is too compelling for it to be called cautionary.

Ultimately, the comedy here is grounded in self-hatred, hostility, and despair. Nearly everyone who wanders through this brash and deliberately tasteless film is stupid, ungainly, or grotesquely tragic. But this only heightens the pleasure during moments of delirious merriment.

The irony is that Shakur's speaking voice is the film's greatest asset: His transformation from eager-to-please teenager to gangsta icon is vividly apparent in the sound bites.

It's all densely imagined and more than a little goofy -- perhaps too goofy for the average American viewer.

This lighthearted meditation on life, death, love and timing contains some genuinely lovely scenes, but they're buried in a shapeless jumble of cutesy-pie vignettes.

Girard and his collaborators are so focused on the stunning tableaux that all other considerations fall by the wayside, leaving their visual achievements -- miraculous on such a small budget -- mired in the elaborate but maladroit storytelling.

While trying so hard to have such a good time, the movie simply forgets to be funny, and begins to grate before the body even cools.

The crime story here is lazily constructed, mostly an excuse for the give-and-take between Tucker and Chan, which is shrill and raucous without being especially clever.

The whole film has a rag-tag, purposefully shambolic feel -- but this communal commitment to a DIY aesthetic is also his undoing, particularly when he allows an irritatingly manic Jack Black to run wild and virtually hijack the movie.

The direction is slack -- it's Lloyd's first feature film and it shows -- the choreography clumsy and every ten minutes there's yet another gratuitous showstopper shouting in your face and insisting you have a good time.

Fans of the series may be disappointed to see so little of Barker's sadistic Cenobites, but while they're used sparingly, they're used to good effect.

Despite, or perhaps because of, a flurry of 11th-hour recutting and reshoots -- the film feels rushed and unfocused.

Visually inventive, The Maker is a superficially compelling film that adds nothing new to the environment-vs.-heredity debate.

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

Despite its preposterous storyline, Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead is surprisingly entertaining and fun. While the film, directed by Stephen Herek from a screenplay by Neil Landau and Tara Ison, might have been sharper, wittier and cleverer, it nevertheless achieves on its own level by genuinely involving its young target audience.

Shane West does a pretty impressive impersonation of the on-stage antics of Darby Crash...Unfortunately, little else in this clunky, half-baked biopic rings very true.

It doesn't pay to look too closely at this sumptuous fantasy, but if you're in the right mood to let it wash over you it's very warm and fizzy indeed.

Seven segments make up this melange--some of them work; some of them are dreadful. It was Allen's sixth screenplay, his third directorial assignment, and one of his weakest efforts.

It desperately wants to be a paranoid political thriller, but this cobbled-together collection of corruption-on-Capitol Hill and cop movie cliches is so implausible that it's hard to care about any of the conspiratorial cover-ups and counter cover-ups.

There's nothing under the goofball gags and gushing gore, and its welcome is worn out well before it's over.

John Waters's film about a suburban mom turned serial killer lacks the bite it would need to be subversive, despite a few moments of vintage Waters tastelessness.

Aside from a few moments of comedy between Davis and Chase (in a relationship lifted almost unaltered from THE FRONT PAGE), HERO is an embarrassment best forgotten by everyone involved.

Though SMITHEREENS is not without its problems--much of the material seems to be cliched--it is a good display of what a persistent creative drive can achieve.

Fleder delivers the requisite shocks, and his direction is brisk, efficient and occasionally stylish; Judd and Freeman both give more than the material demands.

Though the material is nothing special and relies on the avenging angel mystique that had been established for Eastwood in the Leone films, director Post squeezes out some fine and memorable moments in the film

Wearing its patent ridiculousness on its sleeve, this slight but generally agreeable comedy integrates the Airplane/Top Secret school of non-sequitur comedy into a less explicitly parodic buddy flick.