The unhappy dead populate Geoffrey Sax's third-rate thriller White Noise like a pre-Christmas crowd at a suburban mall. This is a shame, since they are neither scary nor sad, and less likely to haunt an audience than simply bore them to death.

Oddly enough, though, only the finale is predictable in a movie that appears to have been edited in an early-model blender. Not a single scene connects smoothly with the next.

It's interesting in the same way the early, rejection episodes of "American Idol" are oddly compelling. But, of course, you can watch those for free.

Cusack is excellent as Joan, the only woman in the film who values a girl's brains over her body, so it's a shame Fywell treats her with amused scorn.

With little plot and a stifling set, the ­movie needs stronger performances than its leads can offer.

Hartley's satire of consumer-driven sexuality is undermined by the straight-faced decision to cast affectless model Tatiana Abracos as the heroine.

The sort of slick-looking indie that plays well at film festivals, this heavy-handed boxing drama is really just a flyweight bulked up on cliches and false sentimentality.

This tale of disaffected sexual depravity is practically a parody of the worst of French filmmaking.

You don't have to rise very high to get above the level of these gags.

Sets out to be a social critique but settles for smug disdain.

Unfortunately, while director Steve Boyum is a successful stunt man and off-road biker, his skills do not extend to the relatively passive arena of filmmaking. Somehow, he even makes much of the action static.

Burns doesn't even bother to disguise his New York accent, any more than he does his boredom.

It's an ugly affair overall, but at least you can say you've never seen such beautiful shirts.

The film does deserve credit for juggling difficult racial and class issues - but with a wacky score, cute puppies and silly side stories also jockeying for space, Bamford's best intentions tumble to a heap long before the movie ends.

There are moments of amusing melodrama, but for the most part, the action is too preposterous to take seriously, and too serious to be very much fun.

And though Samantha is written as a sly spoof of Ashlee Simpson, Faris frantically overplays her. She might have taken a tip from Smart, a lovely, understated actress who wastes too much time in lousy films.

Arnold's heart is in the right place, but somebody needs to save him from himself - and soon.

A few relevant themes do bubble up from this visually intriguing swamp of self-indulgence, but Arquette's pseudo-philosopher seems to speak for Almereyda when he says, "If there was a point, there wouldn't be a story."

The result feels as if she (Trish Doolan) gathered all her friends, turned on her camera and let them loose. Which is perfectly fine, if you don't expect anyone to pay to watch the finished product.

A mediocre little thriller that might have promised cheap fun on Blockbuster's direct-to-DVD shelf is instead destined to die a quick death on the big screen.

There's a fascinating and terrifying story to be told about Elizabeth Bathory, the dramatically depraved 17th century sadist known as the Blood Countess.....This ain't it.

A muddle of good intentions and bad direction, this amateurish road movie follows a young Brit across Europe as he reconnects with his Jewish roots.

An exhausting combination of generic thriller, political tract and sentimental weepie.

In a town as status-conscious as Hollywood, the embarrassment of two "Garfield" movies on your résumé must sting like the Dickens.

Dramatically miscalculated satire.

If he earns no other accolades for his directorial debut - a distinct likelihood - Lee Daniels deserves some kind of award just for assembling the most bizarrely random cast of this young century.

A bizarrely off-key animated comedy.

As irritating as an ideological college student, this earnest debut from Zak Tucker is determined to teach us a lesson about right and wrong.

A superficial tween comedy that mocks celebutantes like the Olsen twins while simultaneously pushing stars Hilary and Haylie Duff as their replacements.

After languishing unseen for years, Laurent Firode's long-delayed comedy is finally getting its day in the sun. Too bad there's such a heavy shadow hanging over it.

The movie is hindered by its weak script, but there's also a bigger problem to overcome: If we want to laugh at superficial celebrities, we already have plenty to choose from in real life.

Profoundly mediocre supernatural thriller.

Like a mango rotting in the sun, Frank Flowers' squishy Caribbean thriller has been sitting on the shelf long enough to attract suspicion. Bite into it at your own risk.

Just another trip down a very dusty road.

Writer-director Claudia Myers' clunky debut feature makes the case that first-timers should probably focus on either writing or directing.

A murky swamp of a movie, Terry Gilliam's defiantly surreal Tideland finds every good idea drowning in an excess of indulgence.

This preposterous adaptation of the Book of Esther is recommended viewing only for those impressed that it comes endorsed by the American Bible Society.

Just like its increasingly wan antihero, this blood-soaked series is on its last legs.

One of Walsch's precepts is that you should never make a living doing something you hate. If I'd known that, I might not have felt obliged to sit through every excruciating minute of this sanctimonious infomercial.

Since Adam Sussman's script is as lazy as Asif Kapadia's direction is disjointed, nothing ever makes sense, even after the anticlimatic explanation is revealed.

Ever been on a blind date that you knew would be dismal from the start? Well, this is the movie version of that date, stretched out over the slowest two hours imaginable.

Broderick is uptight; DeVito is obnoxious; and, somewhere, Nathan Lane is thanking his lucky stars he didn't get roped into this dreck.

Turns out to be as heavy and earthbound as an injured dragon.

Where the first film was a seminal forerunner of early stalker classics like "Halloween," this version feels as stale as old gingerbread.

How do films this stale and generic continue to get made, let alone with topflight talent? Cedric has been stealing scenes from bigger names for nearly a decade; he deserves better than a few amusingly-improvised minutes at the end of his own movie. And so do we.

Subtlety has never been Perry's strength, but his previous films balanced the sermonizing with good humor and sincerity. Perhaps next time, he'll ease up on the lectures, and bring back the love.

We never get a sensible explanation for Linda's bizarre double life, or uncover any reason - any reason at all - why Bullock would pick this lazy, patchwork script out of all the ones she surely receives every year.

Goldberger's stubbornly insular script - adapted from a novel by Harry Crews - might have fared better on stage, where the story would feel more contained than suffocating. But by the time you crawl across this finish line, you'll know just how those sluggish the birdsfeel.

If there's a lesson to be found in this shameless vanity project, it's that money can buy anything. Even a movie.

A convoluted mess of a horror movie.

The best that can be said about the big-screen Bratz is that they are not nearly as appalling as their toy-shelf twins.

In fairness, the new movie from the Lorne Michaels machine does have its amusing moments. It's just most of them can also be found in "Napoleon," "Talladega Nights," "Eagle vs. Shark," and any installment of "Jackass."

Paul Auster's suffocating romance makes you feel as if you're helplessly stuck inside the head of the most pretentious person you know.

Director Andy Fickman seems to have thrown everything into this artificial comedy, in the hopes that something might stick. Almost nothing does.

Lighter on horror than it is on inadvertent humor.

It would be nice to say this predictable fantasy has such a big heart, we can forgive its excesses. But director Kirsten Sheridan overplays nearly every already-corny scene, and there is no chemistry between Russell and Rhys Meyers, who appear to be passing through on their way to better projects.

If you're really hoping for a perfect holiday, steer clear of this stale fruitcake of a comedy.

Southland Tales does have enough energy and audacity to suggest significant potential. But was it ready for public consumption? The answer is no. It's as simple as that.

A few scenes are stylish enough to amuse, but they all add up to nothing - leaving you ten bucks short and feeling like a sucker.

If karma exists, Alvin and the Chipmunks must be Lee's punishment for appearing in the likes of "Jersey Girl."

Why would so many accomplished women waste their time and talents on a movie as counterfeit as Mad Money?

Unless you happen to be one yourself, chances are pretty good that you'll take an immediate dislike to the self-satisfied hipsters who populate this disappointing comedy.

Despite catchy animation and a few intense scenes, there's simply nothing here we haven't seen before.

Does little more than re-create the oppressive feeling of suffocating employment. And why put yourself through that experience without the promise of a paycheck at the other end?

Striking naturalism and blatant dishonesty blend awkwardly in this bleak drama.

Cantor seems to have noticed how dull the actual footage is, since he relies heavily on "arty" shots and black-and-white inserts.

A painfully flat spoof of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

The movie veers so wildly between being zany and grim, we're left feeling more empty than entertained.

The characters speak in Dialogue rather than English, the actors are so busy emoting they forget to act and the story feels like a first-draft college project.

Alternates between being amusingly pretentious and studiously dull.

Aside from the shamelessly promoted corporate sponsors, nobody emerges from this game a winner. But the biggest losers are the ones who paid good money to watch it.

Feels like reading someone else's diary. Undoubtedly, there's some very important stuff in there, but it's most interesting to the person who wrote it.

The truth about Lies is that it's a case of art-house porn being more porn than art.

You may want to wait and watch "Never Land" the way it was meant to be seen -- as a straight-to-video baby-sitter.

This lackluster outing is mostly just a retread of past glories.

The movie's strongest draw is its kitsch value -- along with a wisecracking Bruce Vilanch, the cast includes '80s TV refugees Jm J. Bullock ("Too Close for Comfort") and the Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt.

All the subtlety of an Olive Garden commercial.

A jumbled composite of blurred images, poetic yearnings and metaphoric dialogue.

Commits the cardinal sin of moviemaking: It leaves you bored.

Don't let the title fool you. The one thing they have in common is how decidedly unerotic they are.

Would that the film were as interesting as the setting.

Unless you're struck by the urge to watch strangers work out their petty issues in couples therapy, it's hard to find a compelling reason to sit through Gregg Lachow's irritatingly self-absorbed indie drama.

Stays firmly, depressingly, inside the lines.

The movie eventually chokes on its own pretensions.

A flashy homage to a dozen better movies, this self-conscious Hong Kong action flick is so packed with visual thrills, you may not notice that there's absolutely nothing beneath its impressively slick surface.

The full title of this animé import is WXIII (Patlabor the Movie 3), and if you think the name's confusing, you may want to spare yourself the work of figuring out the film itself.

Director and screenwriter Adam Brooks, adapting Jennifer Egan's novel, doesn't seem to understand what makes a movie relevant.

Made in 1998, the picture sags beneath the leaden weight of its pre-millennial theme.

Scenario is ripe for subversive humor, but Ralston never even questions the superiority of the genetically privileged.

A great idea that never gets off the ground.

A warmed-over ripoff, rather than the gritty urban drama it so desperately wants to be.

Only a memorably commanding Ruehl transcends the limitations of her two-dimensional character.

The martial arts are well represented, the gentler arts -- like, for example, acting -- are not.

Stambrini puts so much weight on shock value, she overlooks the matter of emotional resonance.

Competent in the extreme, the talented Jolie would make a great Jane Bond. But mired in this joyless orgy of preposterousness, her biggest challenge is simply keeping a straight face.

Frankly, you may prefer the company of cinematic serial killers (Freddy vs. Jason) after you meet the pair at the center of this story.

Oddly enough, given his limited role, the movie seems to have been made around Nelly; when he's not onscreen, everything falls apart.

There is a fair share of turkeys at the multiplex this week, but none are quite as overcooked as Extreme Ops.