Director Donen takes us for a few romps in the green countryside to ease the claustrophobia, but this gratuitous meandering only serves to make us realize how hidebound the story is.

Derivative, predictable and entirely forgettable, the sort of low-expectations genre picture that generally goes directly to video.

At best, this is a kiddie movie with a few laughs for the easily pleased adult.

The cliched plot and unconvincing action sequences -- don't blend well with the comic scenes and make the film look painfully cheap.

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

As for the performances, Moore doesn't bring anything special to his role, but Hannah's slightly awkward and befuddled demeanor works to her advantage, since she's playing someone with a tenuous grip on reality. The other performers are generally left adrift by the simpleminded, juvenile script, which, devoid of comic inspiration, resorts to gratuitous profanity and crude sex 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.

There's much amiss here, with a long catalog of contrived situations that make this film a tough act to swallow.

The music is lavishly overproduced pop pablum of the first order, and there's a deeply shallow irony in the fact the film's most memorable tune, KC and the Sunshine Band's 28-year-old "That's the Way I Like It," is easily twice the age of its target audience.

LOVERBOY's "comedy" is a blend of genre-cliches and slapstick, and, not surprisingly, the film delivers few laughs.

The play for the heartstrings is so cold and calculated that the movie's sentimentality feels as synthetic as its hero, and the philosophy is simpleminded and lazy.

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

A deep waste is more like it.

No cliché is unturned, no "dog duty" pun avoided (get it -- dog doody), no creepy gay-panic subtext unplumbed in this family comedy.

Misbegotten mess.

It's all mean-spirited, foulmouthed sniping.

Folks watching any movie that opens with a shot of a butt crack (with the possible exception of "Lost in Translation") can't claim they weren't warned.

Ghostbusters II is such a lazy effort that the formula machinery is laid bare for all to see. It suffers from writing that is obvious, sloppy, and unimaginative.

Gone is the joy and wide-eyed fun of the original; in its place is a hokey, ho-hum story that might have come out of a computer.

Hopelessly muddled film cries out for the firm hand of a dyed-in-the-wool cynic like Billy Wilder, who would have put some teeth in its jabs at amoral politicians and blindly ambitious journalists.

There are no two ways about it: A chubby-cheeked dummy doing stuff it shouldn't be doing is spooky stuff. But Wan isn't on such sure footing with his actors -- Wahlberg is stilted as the tough-guy cop, and Kwanten is blandly uninteresting.

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.

A stale rehash of Woody Allen-style "he's a neurotic Jew, she's a flaky shiksa" gags.

That the 27-year-old Usher isn't much of an actor is no surprise, but he's strikingly uncharismatic for someone who's been in the spotlight since he was six.

The story vacillates between broad, kid-friendly gags and a series of oddly sour riffs on the theme of adult sibling rivalry.

Sacre bleu! Bumbling French police inspector Jacques Clouseau is back, and he's never been less funny.

This trashy, overwrought thriller gets itself worked up into a fine, sleazy lather that recalls the matricidal glories "Die! Die! My Darling!" and "You'll Like My Mother", then wimps out at the end.

The trouble is that Turturro's reach considerably exceeds his grasp.