Raunchy.

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.

Filled with holes big enough to drive a train through and moments of suspense that prove false alarms, the story concerns two young people (Shields and Chris Atkins) who are shipwrecked on an island, develop a sexual relationship as they mature, and so forth. At a little over 100 minutes, the film feels as if huge chunks of it were edited out for pace; however, the wrong chunks have been cut.

For a movie of its type, Max Payne is a little short on excitement and heavy on pathos.

"Queer as Folk's" Peter Paige makes a strong debut as a writer/director with this original black comedy.

Simultaneously nakedly formulaic and oddly clumsy, particularly in terms of character introduction.

For all the casual terribleness it records, it is entertainment; the characters are real and fleshed-out, and we care about what happens to them.

Forget about social significance, depth of character and complex thematic underpinnings, and repeat after me: "It's only a werewolf movie."

It's somewhat more energetic than the previous year's Breaking Training, and the Japanese locations are a plus, but so much silliness has been substituted for the solid situations and characterizations of the original that it's hard to believe the same people had anything to do with both pictures.

The first film featured George Wendt from TV's "Cheers"; this time around, they tapped the same TV show for John Ratzenberger.

MANNEQUIN TWO is breathlessly funny and blessedly unassuming comedic nonsense.

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.

An aesthetically contemptible, crassly commercial work.

Runs out of story a good half hour before it runs out of spooky images, but it comes to a quietly chilling conclusion far more haunting than any bloody mayhem.

When a performer as sharp as Cedric the Entertainer is reduced to funny fat-guy shtick, you know you're in the presence of grinding mediocrity.

Amusing and at times uproarious.

The film vacillates between inanity and flat-out lameness, and the decision to recut from an R-rated version to a PG-13 sucked out whatever life might have been left.

Todd Komarnicki's screenplay relies heavily on red herrings and a host of suspects (there are more murderers swanning around Hill's sleek offices than there were aboard the Orient Express) to keep audiences distracted from what, in retrospect, is really pretty obvious.

The huge cast seems to share in the sense of confusion, and what might have been an excellent treatment of an important story merely falls flat.

Shock-rocker Rob Zombie's loving homage to flat-out nasty horror films of the 1970s will leave many post-"Scream" (1996) horror fans cold because of what it's not. It's not slick or glossy. It's not funny or self-referential.

Though the story eventually runs out of steam and it's never clear why the night-crawlers torment certain children and then come back to get them, fledgling screenwriter Brendan William Hood and director Robert Harmon -- whip up some effective suspense sequences.

THE HUNTER is more dead than alive. Supposedly based on a real bounty hunter's life, this episodic film never focuses on anything long enough for the audience to care about it, and characters race in and out of the story without introduction or development.

What was a subtle farce when directed by Yves Robert in French becomes an overstated comedy here, with all the actors hamming it up to no end.

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.

The only really good thing that can be said about REPOSSESSED is that it makes Exorcist II look like a classic. To hell with it.

The only bright spots are Cavanagh's easy charm about him and Cumming's performance as Grody -- he's much more believable as a straight man than Graham is as a gay woman.

Thoroughly preposterous on every level.

Acouple of well-earned laughs but ultimately overstays its welcome.