When movies have degraded to the point that Tyson is acting more than Quentin Tarantino is directing, maybe it is time for an industry shutdown, strike-induced or otherwise.

Not since Andy Kaufman's reign of terror has a supposed funnyman been so self-indulgently persistent in testing a fan's patience.

Where the highly likable actress (Zellweger) proves most valuable is in making us adore this insecure, clumsy, contradictory creature.

Structured loosely enough to work in all the excrement and incest jokes necessary to seem hip these days.

The concept is so hypocritical, it's like Britney Spears calling Christina Aguilera underdressed and overexposed.

It's reduced to glorified refereeing of family squabbles discomfortingly magnified by his frequent use of close-ups.

Consistently compelling without being truly memorable.

It's instantly devoured and quickly forgotten.

Vile, violent and less hip than it thinks it is.

No disinfectant could clean up this misbegotten, Americanized remake of "Les Visiteurs."

OK, Time Warner, a joke is a joke, but the time of tolerance has passed. Get your creatures out of our faces unless you're willing to regale us by afflicting them with Mad Pokémon Disease.

The story doesn't exactly startle with surprises and has a tendency to hammer and rehammer its points.

Brosnan and Rush are a smooth fit, playing off each other like a snappy shirt and tie.

The gritty, Oscar-nominated "Traffic" is a limo ride compared with the bloodletting in this year's foreign-film nominee from Mexico.

By emphasizing surreal humor and fast-paced action instead, Rodriguez has crafted a prepubescent version of James Bond without aping that series' style.

This is 90 minutes of gags of the lowest order, yet Poirier occasionally injects them with more energy than anything in "Heartbreakers."

A blah romantic comedy that has the bad taste to force the heavenly Ashley Judd into being an insecure, date-desperate, quirky career gal.

The pace is fast, many of the performers are attractive, and even the end-credits montage is zippier than usual.

The nasty, overlong and undisciplined sourball of a sex farce about a mother-daughter con team will nonetheless satisfy bigenerational libidinous fantasies.

It's so-so. As in mediocre. Even gross-out comedies need the stink of genius.

Annaud's epic might have worked better dramatically as a smaller, more focused picture. The best scenes simply involve Law and Harris playing sneaky professional games (less cat-and-mouse than cat-and-cat) with each other.

Has the unanticipated craft and artfully ambiguous appeal of last year's "Croupier," a movie whose art-house word-of-mouth success could be duplicated here.

Dramatically moving and good-naturedly humorous, it transmits a sharp picture of humanity that inspires both awe and laughter.

One of the film's strengths is that nobody -- male, female, gay, straight or Jewish mother -- is reduced to stereotype.

Clumsy urban thriller.

Calling a cave of rocks home while spouting invective worthy of the Juilliard attendee he once was, homeless-by-choice Samuel L. Jackson worms his way into one of the least compelling mysteries in years.

As entertainment, such dark material can only stretch so far, and Series 7 comes awfully close to being as numbing as the genre it mocks. But its power can't be denied.

Someone should have treated See Spot Run like a bone and buried it.

Superstars usually avoid movies this spiritless, and it's tough to believe anyone could read this script and fail to realize the movie wouldn't end up going anywhere.

An odd mix of seediness, sideburns and even scorpions, the movie nearly matches the Lisa Marie-Michael Jackson marriage for weirdness.

Wildly uneven collage of effects and live action is no Disney-bland vision of dreams gone bonkers. There's enough Freudian material to reupholster a thousand therapy couches.

This remake is shorter than its predecessors, a welcome earthly reward.

A few chuckles will be had by both the rabble and more learned brains.

The result is passably speedy on the level of other TV retreads that seem miscast on the big screen.

November is when we eat turkey, and Sweet November is pretty much a fat, juicy gobbler passed off as Valentine's Day date bait.

Not just stupid, but brain dead.

Hopkins' Hannibal is no longer mysterious, Clarice is no longer vulnerable, and the overextended Florence scenes dash any hopes of early momentum, even if Giancarlo Giannini is perfect as the cop.

A stylistically fastidious, exasperatingly affected package that will put most people in the mood for slumber.

This joyless coming-of-age travelogue is such a downer that not even breathtaking locales can provide a lift.

Wenders creates an imaginative, stylized cityscape, but what's missing is the compelling story that could bring the setting to life.

A nose-bleeding mass murderer wears a mask that suggests Roger Ebert is knocking off a group of lifelong female friends.

At least the models' avarice and teasing provide a chuckle or two, as their dates line up panting at the door. Purely by default, their contribution makes this a slightly better working-woman romance than "The Wedding Planner."

Ragged but with an appealing comic edge, the movie is certainly funnier than most of the other comedies that studios have tried to keep from critics until opening day.

The sometimes fatiguing slow flow in hour one is worth the labor because the power in this 2-hour triumph reveals itself gradually.

Don't buy a ticket for this one, even if the theater is having a fire sale on Raisinets.

The movie wouldn't be imaginable without its commanding star. Nicholson is in virtually every scene underplaying to great effect

All about macho my-weapon-is-bigger-than-your-weapon posturing and far-fetched coincidences that slam together in an entertaining rush.

As buddy pics go, this is pretty much not even worth a single look, let alone a double take.

Thomas' easygoing warmth helps to melt Stiles' icy veneer, and one of Dance's few pleasures is an extended musical segment where she tries to ape his homeboy posturings.

Robbins' performance as Winston is the best thing in the movie.

The actors seem as frozen as the landscape in this unsuccessful attempt at a grand and profound Western about the California Gold Rush.

Feast upon a career-peak Willem Dafoe performance as a bat-eared fiend who is foul, funny, ferocious, forlorn and unforgettable.

The story itself is surprisingly seamless, yet it's the individual components that linger.

There's definitely some paradiso in watching Malena walking, but not enough to sustain almost two hours of cinema.

Once this 2 1/4-hour slow-starter finally finds its rhythm, we're reminded of how gripping policy give-and-take around a long rectangular table can be.

As this year's literary adaptations go, Horses comes a lot closer to being a truly bad movie than "The Perfect Storm" did, yet it would be hard to argue that the two are not the year's most disappointing in terms of trampled hopes.

The satire is surprisingly tepid.

This wee trinket of a comedy, one of the more offbeat stabs at capturing the absurdity of the religious and political strife in Ireland, is for those who like their Guinness with a shot of wry.

Plays like a labor of love.

Terence Davies' deliberately paced, earnest adaptation of Edith Wharton's breakthrough novel quietly captures the grim complexities of New York's social world nearly a century ago.

Just be glad that Hanks and Zemeckis toiled mightily to pull off at least two-thirds of a remarkable achievement.

Of all unlikely possibilities, the team has finally made a movie that, for them, is on the tepid side.

Despite solid acting, it's a fantasy for those who don't know jack about what really makes for a wonderful life.

The script's clichés have nowhere to hide.

It is a measure of the movie's lack of inspiration that William Shatner is the funniest thing in it.

As close as anything could be to a light Mamet comedy.

One can't underestimate the appeal of any movie constructed around Sean Connery's charm.

Tolerance for this movie will likely depend on tolerance for melodramatic, over-the-top finales, especially ones with otherworldly twists.

Yummy yet empty.

The movie falls short of achieving its apparent goal: being the "Raging Bull" of the art world.

Any civilization that can produce a movie this stupid probably deserves to be hit by famine and pestilence.

The goofiest, giddiest and, yes, grooviest animated trip since Aladdin unbottled its genie.

Never enough goodies to keep the two-hour running time from seeming like three.

The action scenes in Vertical Limit take cliffhanging to the highest peaks of excitement. It's a shame the story keeps dragging us down to sea level.

It's never enough of a grabber to keep the mind from wandering to the romance it apparently sparked.

Worst of all, Marlon Wayans' performance as a cowardly thief would have seemed in bad taste a half-century ago.

This is a great movie, but it needs a sales job because it's in Mandarin.

Though 102 Dalmatians digs up little new ground and muzzles its villain, it does have a fetching sense of functional fun now and then.

Uniformly robust acting puts still more feathers in the caps of Rush, Winslet and Caine.

Shyamalan's style is so exaggerated, with its long pauses and exacting rhythms of sound- vs.- silence, that it easily can engender eye-rolling and snickers.

Overproduced and essentially charmless.

Truth is, Affleck and Paltrow flunk Chemistry 101. They aren't believable even as a fake couple.

Edited like the world's most expensive car ad. The screen opens and closes like a nervous accordion, and the action shifts speeds like crazy.

Great movies are sometimes described as filet mignon or champagne, but this one is more like a pacifier.

Comprehensive and blisteringly paced.

Don't put yourself through this hell.

The best drama you've seen about Anytown, USA, since "American Beauty."

You can always judge a sci-fi thriller by its aliens. What does Planet offer -- Space roaches.

Flaws and all, Men of Honor ultimately does its duty. It honors the feats of an incredible man.

Molasses-paced fable.

It's to these Angels' credit that they, like the movie, are at least intermittent fun.

More interesting as a sociological study than successful as a movie, What's Cooking? gets more involving as it strolls along.

Lucky Numbers is anything but lucky for stars John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow.

A dreary poke-along adaptation of the Angela Sommer-Bodenburg children's stories.

Can't scare up a decent plot.

There's no real dazzle in Bedazzled.

The result is almost enough to make an audience levitate.

After so much frenetic kicking and grunting, you may feel like you're in a stupor, too.