Most damaging to the film, however, is Costner's dull, listless performance as Earp. He simply lacks the gravity and stature necessary to handle the mythic baggage of this emblematic American role.

Insubstantial, predictable and often dull, it's a dismaying move from director Allen Moyle, who displayed a real grasp of pulp energy in 1990's "Pump Up the Volume".

Hokey, slow-moving thriller.

The Carter and Spotnitz's credit, such weighty concerns aren't the stuff of most mainstream genre movies. But they're also not sufficiently gripping to transform a middling thriller into something truly provocative or haunting.

A harmless, if ultimately inane, fantasy-comedy vehicle for youngsta-rapper Lil' Bow Wow, a 15-year-old who's already an alarmingly accomplished scene stealer.

It's not the bomb on the plane that scuttles this film: It's the mugging, ham-fisted direction and total absence of comic timing.

It's periodically enlivened by unlikely cameos, including Lou Diamond Phillips as an undercover cop posing as a transvestite hooker and Gladys Knight as a forgotten Motown singer.

Inconsistency of tone and internal logic plagues the film throughout.

It's hard to believe that this oddly mesmerizing film, set in large part in the vast subway system that snakes its way through Manhattan and its outer boroughs, wasn't made by a native New Yorker.

Tries to be all things to all people and winds up a tedious muddle.

To make the package look fresh, there's a pile of complications.

Van Sant's film feels as dated as Hitchcock's, and Hitchcock's has the better excuse.

The humor is mostly visual -- 70s relics like Pong, Shasta and men's platform shoes compete with the sight of Ferrell squeezed into tube socks and short shorts.

It's not a pretty picture, but it's an important one.

Had it actually been told from the perspective of the scientist's daughter, as the title suggests, it might have been more appealing, but instead a predictable, amateurish script shifts the focus elsewhere.

Tediously predictable thriller.

Highly derivative of Night Of The Living Dead and filled with amateurish performances, strained comedy, and zero production values, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things does convey, nonetheless, an undeniable power in the rising-dead scenes and a genuine mood of unease throughout that most big-budget horror outings fail to capture.

Avildsen, however, is hardly a comedy director. Best known for his Oscar-winning ROCKY, he shows little sense of comic set-up and delivery. The result peters out about halfway through the film, with only touches of bizarre flavor in the rest. A ridiculous, cartoonlike score by Conti doesn't help much.

Director Amy Heckerling is gentler than Harold Ramis was, and the result is a slightly more cohesive picture that is far less mean-spirited. Lighthearted fun, pretty scenery, lots of chuckles, a few guffaws, and a lilting score by Charles Fox all contribute to making this movie a pleasant surprise.

If not exactly dull, Hopkins' stream-of-consciousness rant is nonetheless self-indulgent and crammed with bits of business that never add up to anything much.

Enthralling, darkly funny, horrifying and hopeful.

Stephens has a gentle touch and an unflagging sense of humor, but this is Rue's show: She's a natural with a million-dollar smile who deserves to escape TV land for more interesting work.

Writer-director Erik Palladino's admirably subtle bit of chronological trickery allows his small-scale drama, set in 9/11 New York, to deliver a sucker-punch of an ending.

The plot isn't much (some described it as an unsuccessful combination of Midnight Run and Betrayed), but Pink Cadillac is rich in character, containing some of the most heartfelt and engaging moments in an Eastwood film since his unjustly neglected Bronco Billy.

There's less than meets the eye in this tricky psychological thriller, one of a long line of mess-with-your-head brain ticklers in which all is not as it seems.

By now the "Ten Little Indians" method of killing characters one at a time has gotten so stale that no matter how impressive the monster is, the resulting sequence is inevitably tedious.

Works because of the utterly charming leads and a strong supporting cast.

Thematically the film is banal, and even its simple themes of alienation, loneliness, and paranoia are muddled and sapped of relevancy by the overblown treatment. Geldof is effective in the lead, and the animation sequences by political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe are interesting and well executed, though too long.