What Linklater does exceptionally well is open the door on an era seventeen years in the past. This is 1976, from the music and cars...to the people and their attitudes. You'd have to climb into a time machine to get a better view...However, this is light entertainment -- nothing groundbreaking or even especially noteworthy.

Murphy in particular deserves better, but at least she got a boyfriend and a paycheck out of the deal. No such benefits await those who sacrifice both cash and time to see this movie.

When I watch a comedy, I want it either to present endearing characters in fun situations or to make me laugh frequently. BASEketball accomplishes neither objective.

A major misstep and a disappointment of significant proportions. It may not be a failure for Eastwood the actor, but it's a big one for Eastwood the director.

The film's heart is undoubtedly in the right place, but so what? Fine ideals don't mean much when they're couched in an inert, pointless storyline.

Instead of bringing intriguing characters with real problems and interesting dialogue to the bash, Kaplan and Elfont take the lazy approach of pulling generic stereotypes off the shelf and throwing them into a formulaic plot that doesn't offer one genuine surprise or meaningful moment.

Turns out to be hopelessly mediocre -- a poorly scripted, preachy fable that forgets about unfolding a coherent, believable story in its zeal to spread propaganda.

Not an abomination, although it is uninspired and insipid. As such, it's perfect television fare.

Pretty much a one-trick pony, and, after a while, that trick loses its ability to impress.

There's nothing remotely memorable about this walk.

This could easily go down as the year's best example of solid acting in a wretched motion picture.

If you're desperate to give something up for Lent, make it movies like this one.

By de-mythologizing Alexander, Stone has turned him into an unbelievable individual. We accept great deeds from great people, not from sniveling whiners.

Saved by energetic musical numbers.

Die-hard fans are advised to wait for the video. Everyone else would be better off pretending that this movie doesn't exist. In the long run, you'll have a higher opinion of everyone involved.

It's only possible to have the time of your life once, and, for this franchise, that was in 1987.

It's moderately engaging for the first half-hour, somewhat trying during the second half hour, and virtually unbearable over the final twenty minutes. It's a marginally recommendable film for kids, but not necessarily for parents.

MouseHunt is "'Home Alone" with a rodent in the place of Macaulay Culkin.

The kind of film that will work for an audience that's just interested in having an emotional experience (with a happy ending) without caring how obviously or clumsily they are manipulated. I find this sort of sledgehammer film making to be offensive, but there are those who enjoy it.

Sluggish, conventional, and almost completely lacking in energy.

Feel-good tripe: a string of clichés lashed together by a formulaic plot that features underwritten characters and sit-com style humor.

Ron Livingstone plays his part relatively straight, and, as a result, comes out unscathed.

Ultimately, however, appreciation of The Phantom of the Opera will hinge upon your opinion of Lloyd Webber's skills as a composer.

The problem lies in the screenplay which latches on to the few clever and/or funny elements in the film and runs them into the ground via repetition.

Mechanical and artificial, and tells you what to think.

Despite its name, Beautiful Girls is actually about a group of irritating, twenty-something males whose adolescent attitudes have remained with them well into adulthood.

There are moments when The Relic is almost enjoyable, albeit in a visceral sort of way. Unfortunately, when all is said and done, this horror/science fiction amalgamation seems like nothing more ambitious than a bad reworking of elements from Aliens, Species, Jaws, and Predator.

There's hardly a single aspect of this motion picture that seems more than superficially credible, and if the United States government is really run in the Keystone Cops manner depicted in Wayne Beach and David Hodgin's script, then this country is in a great deal more trouble than anyone suspects.

Actually, the more distance the studio places between the two films, the better, because the 1997 production can't hold a candle to the 1973 release, and an attempted comparison only makes the new Bruce Willis/Richard Gere vehicle look worse.

Crash has a couple of concepts which are, admittedly, fascinating and original, but not a whole lot more.

"Twister" is a rush. Dante's Peak, on the other hand, is a bore. Oh, it has its moments, but most of them are concentrated in the final forty-five minutes. The first hour, which is all typical disaster movie setup, is interminable.

Half of what's going on is never explained, and what is explained, doesn't make much sense. And that's just the beginning of the problems encountered in director Paul Anderson's ("Mortal Kombat") poorly executed endeavor.

If you like Alicia Silverstone, you'll probably enjoy Excess Baggage. This dubious road movie/romance/caper flick is clearly a vehicle for the spritely starlet, and her winsome charm is one of its strengths.

The absence of originality and inspiration isn't Mad City's only problem -- it also suffers from a shocking lack of subtlety.

Unfortunately, where the movie falls apart is in the storyline. While Spawn fans may be delighted by this effort, the uninitiated may have a hard time getting beyond the fancy special effects and often-incoherent plot.

Aside from a powerful performance by Ron Rifkin (reprising his stage role) and a few quietly effective scenes, there's not much reason to subject yourself to a film this off-putting.

Jumanji takes approximately one-hundred minutes for four people to play a board game. The result isn't much more fun or involving than watching a few friends play Monopoly.

Put simply, this movie is dumb.

Foster's film offers its fair share of laughs, although most come at the expense of "easy mark" characters. Dramatically, however, the movie is only a step up from a flop.

In the case of Dangerous Minds, we get an idealized version of inner city life, where, though problems may require more than the wave of a magic wand to remove, the solutions still seem too facile.

This is easily the worst filmed version of anything penned by the prolific author.

Despite a slow start, the movie eventually slips into a congenial flow. Unfortunately, Guarding Tess ends up derailing because of a ill-conceived ending that has something to do with a silly kidnapping subplot.

The dialogue is routine, frequently punctuated by cliches, and the character-building scenes do little more than waste time.

Once the setup is over, however, Indecent Proposal starts to fall apart, with the implausibilities and contrivances getting worse with every passing minute.

The final result is an unnecessarily-long thriller that contains far more talking than action. Pakula's direction is lackluster, showing little of the style that permeated his two most impressive pictures, "All the President's Men" and "Presumed Innocent".

The quality of the writing is more than a notch below that of our show. Most of the jokes aren't as witty, and the laughs come less frequently. Maybe it's because so many of the things they do in the movie are lifted directly from the show, but a lot of stuff seems stale.

The Santa Clause isn't an unmitigated disaster, but it's also a whole lot less impressive than it could be.

From that point on, the movie becomes distressingly predictable, with nary a surprise to be found.

This film mistakes action for energy, ridiculous circumstances for comedy, and a mismatched male/female pairing for romance.

Polanski abandons all attempts at subtlety. The resulting production ends up far too heavy-handed to be considered powerful drama.

Grumpier Old Men isn't as fun, spontaneous, or amusing as the original. In short, it's a poor retread that can't be redeemed by the pleasure of seeing Lemmon and Matthau together.

A kinetic, visually dazzling thriller that's actually a notch above many of its predecessors - albeit only a small notch.

The delicate air of romance that often makes this sort of film worthwhile is absent. French Kiss does it by the numbers, not from the heart.

The movie, however, seems to make the wrong decision at almost every opportunity, trying for the kind of melodramatic tragedy that only works in opera.

The curious thing about Father of the Bride Part 2 is that not only is it the sequel to a remake, but it's the remake of a sequel. As such, it's a perfect illustration of stretching an idea too far. Certain premises lack the necessary material for a multiple features, and this is one such example

The problem here isn't as much the talent in front of the camera as it is the weak and hackneyed script. Vampire in Brooklyn is in need of an infusion (or should that be transfusion?) of originality and creativity -- two qualities that are blatantly absent.

If movies were rated solely on the basis of style, The Quick and the Dead would score highly indeed. With its dazzling photography, inventive camera angles, and throbbing bass score, the film is an experience for the eyes and ears. Director Sam Raimi and cinematographer Dante Spinotti have woven a beautifully elaborate tapestry: colorful and evocative -- and depressingly two-dimensional.

Last Action Hero is sporadically entertaining, but it could have been a whole lot more. Trimmed down and better edited, this film might have been a top-notch satire. As it is, however, it gets caught someplace in between action and comedy, and never really comes across as a solid example of either.

Taken as a whole, Mad Dog and Glory is a disappointingly mixed bag. What's on the screen is passably diverting, but I often felt as if I was seeing only half the movie. With this intriguing premise and cast, the film should have offered more complete entertainment.

Those who love to cry at movies will doubtless get their money's worth from The Man Without a Face. Others, I imagine, will discover in this movie what I did: a curious mixture of scenes that work and situations that seem hopelessly contrived or overly-sentimental. I didn't hate the film, and after the jarring first half-hour, it kept my attention, but The Man Without a Face never strays far from familiar territory.

The comedy is mostly restricted to one-liners, some of which aren't funny. And the action is uninspired, barely tapping the vast potential of an amusement park chase film.

Renaissance Man is a movie of moments, too many of which are mediocre or unfulfilling.

Swing Kids has a multitude of problems, the most glaring of which is its loose treatment of history and the Nazis.

If not for Bornedal's stylish approach to the material and a couple of effectively chilling sequences, Nightwatch would have been a complete waste of time and effort.

Nevertheless, given Washington's presence and the promise of a virtual reality action story, Virtuosity has some appeal -- provided, of course, the viewers aren't selective.

Never boring. It is, however, frustrating.

Beastly was made with tween girls in mind. It's the kind of love story a viewer can believe in when she is indiscriminating enough to ignore bad acting, bad writing, and mediocre filmmaking.

There's little here that's new or interesting; the movie is for hard-core Romero devotees only.

This is the film to watch when pretty much everything else has been sold out and the only remaining choices are The Back-Up Plan and the latest Rob Schneider opus.

The energy is missing in the remake because the techniques, which are replicated in a straightforward fashion, are stale.

And, while it's not bad enough for me to suggest that it should have been left where it came from, this certainly isn't a shining example of Australian cinema.

The movie is populated by dislikeable individuals doing unpleasant things but isn't redeemed by the vein of viciously black comedy that made "The War of the Roses" and "Bad Santa" such devilish pleasures.

There's no compelling reason to see Deal. Everything it offers is familiar to the extent where even though it's not a remake, it feels like one.

Perhaps it's the lack of sex or perhaps it's the incessant, banal chattering of the characters, but this movie is more likely to inspire sleep than interest. Breillat has done something I never expected from her: made a boring film.

What a waste of a talented cast! There are times when it can be depressing to see so much acting potential wasted on a script unable to elicit the best from its stars, and this is one such occasion.

In the final analysis, The Expendables is little more than an ordinary, uninspired action feature.

The movie isn't so much bad as it is formulaic and uninspired. In some ways, that might almost be a worse sin.

Relies on uncomfortable black humor and moments of sincere drama to involve viewers. But everything is encased in artifice and the movie becomes a chore to take in.

The clumsy and obvious byproduct of the financial success of its predecessor last Halloween, this movie has no reason for existing except to provide Paramount Pictures with a few extra shekels.

Not without humor, but it lacks the explosive spontaneity of "The Hangover."

A small group of viewers will find in Burlesque a gem to treasure for years to come. It's a bad movie lover's wet dream. For the average multiplex stalker, however, it exists somewhere between inconsequential and a waste of time, so that's where I'll peg it.

A dull, meandering storyline and visuals all-but destroyed by a second-rate 3-D conversion make this movie inferior to its predecessors.

Watching Little Fockers is a depressing experience. Rarely does a comedy bring such an overpowering sense of sadness.

Even as a mindless diversion, it's weak.

The best segments of the film occur early, as the setting is established with a dose of "Friday Night Lights" normalcy followed by an invasion that recalls "Independence Day."

The Dilemma downshifts from slapstick to melodrama and back so abruptly that it is at times jarring.

Yes, Unknown is preposterous. That in and of itself is not a reason to avoid the movie. The problems lie in the way the absurdity is presented and the manner in which the screenplay resolves once the "truth" is revealed.

Scream 4 is so obsessed with the self-referential element that made the original Scream unique that it loses the capacity to be genuinely scary or funny.

It's amazing how a lifeless, pointless remake can provoke pangs of nostalgia about a mediocre movie.

One of the cleverest moments in Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator comes during the first five seconds: a memorial dedication to Kim Jong Il. It's all downhill from there.

Overlong and at times tedious; the taste is gritty and lingers unpleasantly.

As a movie, On Stranger Tides would have to be considered a failure. The story does not engage, the characters are stick figures, the action sequences are perfunctory, and the whole enterprise reeks of being a money-grab.

I'm not a religious man but, Hallelujah! I may not be done with Meyer but at least I'll never again have to cope with the angst, self-absorption, and vampire mythology mutilation that characterized these five movies.

The result makes the movie seem assembled from bits and pieces of other superhero yarns rather than existing on a plane of its own.

For me, this is as deflating a movie as I have seen all year. Not the worst, to be sure, but a project so utterly unnecessary that it made me want to gnash my teeth in frustration.

At least the werewolves in Red Riding Hood have teeth and, when in human form, they don't parade around shirtless.

Bridesmaids is bipolar filmmaking at its most disconcerting, with changes in tone so abrupt that they can cause whiplash. In part because of this and in part because the writing is often lazy and self-indulgent, the movie rarely works.

The product is akin to a mediocre '80s sex comedy (with minimal nudity) and "daring" is a descriptor only the most naïve and puritanical would employ.

The Sitter is sort of an "Adventures in Babysitting" with a potty mouth.

Aside from some cosmetic changes, little of what this Fright Night offers elevates it above the classification of "unnecessary."

There are times when the story behind the making of a film is more interesting than the finished product. This is one of those occasions.

The scares (if you want to call them that) are still there - one "boo!" moment after another, strung together like a breadcrumb trail through a labyrinth. So if that's all you want from a Halloween release like Paranormal Activity 3, you are the perfect audience member.

70 minutes into the 90-minute process, I was engaged. Then it all collapsed.

The caper is a dud - so stupid and implausible from beginning to end that it's impossible to take it seriously for even the briefest of moments.

Okay, Wanderlust has its moments. It's sporadically funny - funny enough to deliver a good laugh or two. The problem is, it doesn't do more than that, and the comedy is inconsistent.

The pacing is uneven, the frenetic action is rarely suspenseful, the dialogue is neither witty nor intelligent, and the anticlimactic endgame drags out to an improbable conclusion.

Contraband is the kind of thriller that offers just enough in the way of effective elements to assemble a two-minute trailer. When it comes to a 110-minute feature, however, the sketchiness of the plotting and the director's lack of sure-handedness sink the project.

For many adults, sitting through this will be an exercise in tedium. It offers about as much as an oversized, overlong Saturday morning cartoon and if that's where expectations are set, it probably won't disappoint. Talk about setting the bar low, though.

Here Comes the Boom is stale and vanilla. We know we're in trouble early when the first joke fails.

The biggest flaw of the 1990 Total Recall was how disappointingly banal the endgame was. Wiseman adds some special effects and Michael Bay-style pyrotechnics, but the result is similar. It's doubly deflating because one of the great advantages of remaking a movie is being given the opportunity to correct problems - something not attempted here.

It's tame and rather bland, and the laughter it generates is half-hearted. Director Jesse Peretz commits the unpardonable sin of wasting the considerable comedic talent of Paul Rudd.

For those with a burning curiosity to know how "The Lord of the Rings" as directed by Michael Bay might look, Wrath of the Titans provides an idea. This is epic fantasy for teenage boys as only Hollywood can do it: with plenty of grotesque monsters and big explosions replacing characters and narrative.

This is a joyless experience made all the sadder because most viewers still remember the naughty delights delivered by "American Pie."

Dark Shadows is a mess, and it's unclear whether its bizarre recipe of comedy, campy horror, and gothic melodrama will satisfy anyone, regardless of their familiarity with the source material.

Reading a Sparks novel allows one's imagination to enter the equation. Watching one of his stories adapted on screen has exactly the opposite effect: it neuters the imagination. This is soap opera, pure and simple.

A sloppy, poorly focused comedy.

The most disappointing aspect of The Iron Lady is that some of the most memorable hallmarks of Thatcher's time in power are glossed over.

Sleeping Beauty is one of those self-consciously artsy motion picture that promises more than it delivers.

Bullet to the Head is bloody and violent but not nearly as much fun as it should be.

There is a perverse enjoyment to be had from something this cheesy, although not enough of one that I can recommend sitting through it. Still, as bad as Creature is, it can be fun, although the level of enjoyment is probably in direct proportion to the viewer's level of intoxication.

Taken 2 is more of the same, except a little bigger, a little dumber, and a little less invigorating.

This is a character we have seen a million times before and Eastwood brings little that's new or original to the part. The movie as a whole can be labeled with the same criticism.

Tobey Maguire is fine as Nick but his function is more as an observer than a participant. Carey Mulligan's Daisy is unremarkable in every way. And Joel Edgerton is just a mustache twirl away from doing a Snidely Whiplash impersonation.

Whether the core flaw lies in the script or is the result of overly aggressive editing, the final result is offers only sporadic glimpses of the compelling thriller Broken City fails to evolve into.

The material isn't sufficiently funny to allow me to forgive the film's feeble storyline and two-dimensional inhabitants.

The only time Sparkle evidences energy is during the song performances, of which there are too few. The half-baked melodrama provides an unappealing and overlong buffer between them that fails to justify the nearly two-hour running time.

This isn't just a horror movie with gore - it's a gore movie, period. Blood is its raison d'etre. It's not scary. It's not shocking. It just wallows in viscera. Ho-hum. Pass the ketchup.

Ultimately, as things develop, this becomes less about revenge than it does about escaping a set-up. A successful production of this sort needs to constantly elevate the stakes as it builds suspense. Seeking Justice fails and that failure makes it a dubious movie-going choice best suited to the low expectations of a video release.

We have entered generic action movie territory and the idiosyncrasies that made the series special at the outset have been leeched out, papered over, or turned into obligatory inserts.

There's nothing in Alex Cross that argues another installment is warranted, but much will depend on whether Tyler Perry's audience crosses over and continues to follow him in this new, very different role.

The inevitable twist ties things neatly together before leading to a confusing, borderline-indecipherable ending that fails to satisfy on a number of levels.

Chernobyl Diaries is afflicted with a fatal flaw that damages many horror films: after a better-than-average setup and a promising first half, everything falls apart.

Jack Reacher has the distinction of being little more than it initially appears to be: a clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie that offers little more than every other clumsily condensed mystery/thriller novel made into a movie.

At least the set design and costumes are excellent. The movie feels overstuffed and undercooked but it always looks nice.

What's missing is honesty. It has been supplanted by artifice.

One of the most positive comments that can be made about Hick is that it advances Chloe Grace Moretz's claim to be one of the best young actresses emerging into today's spotlight.

Pitch Perfect looks, sounds, and feels like pretty much every other movie that features a singing or dancing competition.

V/H/S comes across as a production that wants to be more than it is but, as they say, The Emperor has no clothes.

Yes, A Late Quartet is disappointing. But it's also pretty bad.

Unfortunately, much of what's good about Promised Land is easily forgotten as a result of the preachy, impossible-to-swallow final 15 minutes in which the protagonist is subjected to character assassination, the screenplay turns into a sermon, and narrative intelligence is discarded in favor of a message.

Someone please get director Ric Roman Waugh a tripod! Snitch might be a passable action-thriller but it's hard to say because every time an action scene comes along, the image shakes so badly it's impossible to keep anything in view or focus.

Coscarelli's screenplay introduces an abundance of intriguing concepts but never goes very far with any of them. The characters are paper thin and the special effects are laughably bad.

Despite being largely uninspired, the dialogue is peppered with enough profanity and salacious comments to keep the undiscriminating interested.

On the whole, Star Trek V is a highly forgettable motion picture, regardless of whether you're looking at it from the perspective of a Trek lover or a movie-goer.

Did You Hear about the Morgans? Yes and, to be perfectly frank, I wish I had been spared the experience.

Perhaps the strangest thing about 2012 is that the bad parts of the film are among the most enjoyable, because they're so over-the-top ridiculous that it's impossible not to break out laughing.

I wonder if Gamer might make a good game; it certainly doesn't make a good movie.

Is this a movie or a feature-length advertisement for Qwest? We're not just talking one product placement; this brand name is nearly omnipresent.

The storyline is so infantile that it will appeal to young kids.

Orphan is being marketed as a horror movie, but that's misdirection. It's more of a standard thriller in the "evil amongst us" mode, about a group of people who inadvertently admit a psychopath into their midst.

The film is critic-proof and it will find an audience, but it's hard to imagine even the film's target demographic (teenage boys) being overly enthusiastic about the product. It's disposable entertainment of the worst kind.

The lackluster acting and horrendous dialogue don't help.

The Informers is nihilism for nihilism's sake; a bleak and borderline-unwatchable collage of misanthropes, self-absorbed a**holes, and pathetic weaklings as they struggle to move forward during the early 1980s in Los Angeles.

If there's the kernel of a good story buried somewhere deep in Cursed, it never pops. As werewolf movies go, this one is on par with "An American Werewolf in Paris," but at least that dud had plenty of gore and Julie Delpy's bare breasts to recommend it.

Offensive because it offers little more than unleavened stupidity in the place of the family-friendly action and comedy it promises.

As far as I'm concerned, it's official: Hollywood has lost the art of how to make horror films.

A shallow, transparent satire/social commentary, Palindromes lives and dies on a gimmick.

One can give Ice Cube props for attitude, but not much more.

Monster-in-Law is appalling misfire of a comedy - a motion picture that takes a situation ripe for the blackest vein of satire and reduces it to a puerile and edgeless pile of goo

Plastic characters, chaotic camerawork, lots of things blowing up, and an incredibly dumb screenplay. In short, it represents a great time at the movies for anyone who has recently undergone a frontal lobotomy.

Dirty Deeds boasts a passably entertaining idea that is butchered in the telling.

Only for die-hard Cho fans. Everyone else will be offended, bored, or some combination of the two.

The movie starts cheating the audience early, and never lets up.

Movies like this usually have something interesting to say about the human condition, but not Nine Lives. It makes an insufferably obvious observation: we live boring lives, shit happens, and we die.

Tedious and predictable, it employs obvious situations and clichés instead of genuine suspense-building elements.

Plagued by moralizing so strident and a style so artificial that the story never has a chance to speak to an audience.

Fans of the original will end up doing shot-by-shot comparisons. On every level, The Omen isn't just bad filmmaking, it's bad storytelling.

It's all about eye candy and the quick tease. It's not over fast enough.

This is sloppy filmmaking, and it's likely to wipe away whatever luster still remains to Shyamalan's reputation.

John Tucker Must Die is toothless. The jokes are obvious and unfunny, the storyline goes nowhere that's interesting or unexpected, and the only chemistry happens in a science lab.

LaBute has transformed the eerie, disturbing psychological thriller into an unintentional comedy. At times, The Wicker Man is hilariously bad.

Tideland is, by turns, a complete bore and a creepy experience. And I don't mean "creepy" in a positive sense.

Three adjectives spring to mind when describing Marie Antoinette: odd, irritating, and tedious.

It's hard to imagine anyone having the patience to sit through this movie except perhaps a handful of 11-year old boys seeking vicarious wish fulfillment.

This is a mechanical gore-fest that offers preposterous stunts in place of escalating tension and waxwork mannequins in place of marginally interesting characters.

Horror fans will be disgusted by the lack of gore. Romance fans will be disgusted by the presence of gore. One is tempted to applaud the filmmakers for trying something this daring, but the result isn't good enough to warrant any acclaim, however lukewarm it might be.

It's a little sad that The Messengers is ultimately a good candidate for burial in a toxic waste dump because there are some good elements contained herein.

Wild Hogs is more tired, worn out, and sagging than its protagonists - an arthritic comedy whose humor is below mediocre and whose drama is cringe-worthy.

It's hard to say what is more responsible for the film's utter failure: Hopkins direction, the editing, or the screenplay. The result is such a muddle that one assumes each aspect deserves part of the blame.

A movie so inane that it fails to rise to the level of "good trash."

There are stretches when it becomes tedious and insufferably self important. There's even a late scene in which the movie turns preachy.

The problem with Hostel Part II is the same flaw that afflicted Hostel: no tension.

A tedious, incoherent bore.

Louder, flashier, and more hollow than anything else out there.

It stands alongside this year's other werewolf disaster, "Blood and Chocolate," in illustrating why the moon should set on the werewolf movie.

Dull, uninspired, and redundant.

It doesn't take long for the The Signal's promising beginning to fade into a haze that leaves the viewer exhausted and irritated.

By any standards, Silk is a bad movie: pretentious, stillborn, devoid of emotion.

It's a depressing experience to view something like Saw IV. It's not just the soullessness that's dispiriting, but the lack of invention. When a movie does little more than repeat what its predecessors accomplished with grotesque effectiveness, it's past time to tip this corpse into its grave and bury it.

Newell has followed up a respectable adaptation of a Harry Potter novel with an ignominious translation of something more delicate and literate. It's hard to recommend this movie to anyone except perhaps the MST3K crew.

"Mindless" applies, and Book of Secrets is more like a tame, endlessly repetitive amusement park ride than a motion picture.

Uninspired and painfully familiar.

One doesn't expect intelligent scripting or deep characterization from Roland Emmerich, but the film's lack of energy, poor special effects, and monotonous pacing lead to an inescapable conclusion: 10,000 B.C. isn't only brain-dead, it's COMPLETELY dead. It's inert and without a heartbeat.

Chaos Theory stumbles from one contrived circumstance to the next, and there's not a moment in this entire mess that conveys any sort of genuine human emotion or reaction.

To succeed, Deception requires viewers to be both inattentive and stupid. There's not a twist in this flimsy and moth-eaten plot that isn't both contrived and transparent and not a character who hasn't been hopelessly manipulated by the needs of the narrative.

This is the sort of movie that gives "chick flicks" a bad name. It's a cross between inept melodrama and a bad sit-com.

The Happening is a movie to walk out of, sleep through, or - best of all - not to bother with.

Humor is subjective, but this movie made me feel as if I had been subjected to something unpleasant.

Feels perfunctory and obligatory and, despite the return of several familiar characters, is more like an afterthought than an organic third piece of a trilogy puzzle.

A failure on pretty much every level, Hounddog would never have been known beyond Park City had it not been for the notoriety surrounding the rape scene.

My Best Friend's Girl isn't just a misfire; it's a misfire compounded by a chain of miscalculations, and it's hard to figure out who this could appeal to (except, perhaps, Dane Cook's fan club).

There is no truth to the rumor that free frontal lobotomies will be performed at the entrance to all theaters showing Eagle Eye.

Most of the laughs are unintentional, but the result is absurd and laughable.

It represents a missed opportunity on every level. As a black comedy, it fails. As a satire of the bloated wedding industry, it fails. As a drama about friendship triumphing over all, it fails.

The movie has little to recommend it and more than a few things to encourage those who pursue quality cinema to stay away.

The breath of fresh air, to the extent that one can be identified in the staleness of this recycled refuse, is John Cleese.

If all you're looking for is breasts, blood, and gore, this film hits pay dirt. None of the killings are terribly inventive, but they are plentiful, and why bother being devious when axes, machetes, knives, and pointed sticks will do the job just as well?

Of course, the problem with Angels & Demons is that to get to the final 40 minutes, it's necessary to endure the first 90, and that would be defined as cruel and unusual punishment.

Echelon Conspiracy is a more evocative title than a movie this stupid deserves.

Boring and uninspired, this movie gives ghost stories a bad name.

I found the most extreme material to be so tasteless that it voided all comedy.

A turd of T-Rex proportions, Land of the Lost makes one remember last summer's "Speed Racer" fondly.

Sluggish. Torpid. Boring. Those three words (and more) can describe The Yellow Handkerchief, a stultifying road trip movie whose inept screenplay is only partially counterbalanced by a trio of nice performances.

The only worthwhile portion of Twin Dragons is the climactic action sequence, but, to get to that, it's necessary to endure more than an hour of unfunny physical comedy and excruciating verbal interaction.

It's the kind of thing that Shakespeare might have written if he had undergone a frontal lobotomy.

A colossal disappointment. Not because it's superficial and shallow –- those characteristics pretty much go with the territory –- but because it's boring.

Schumacher doesn't leave an imprint on the film -- it could be the work of any second-rate director.

This isn't just typical, unchallenging Hollywood drek -- it's typical, unchallenging Hollywood drek made by people who don't care, for people who don't care.

A Perfect Murder has inexplicably managed to eliminate almost everything that was worthwhile about "Dial M for Murder," leaving behind the nearly-unwatchable wreckage of a would-be '90s thriller.

Delpy's injection of class into an otherwise classless production raises the specter of what this film could have been with a better script and a better cast surrounding her.

A maudlin hack-job.

It's not just about a disaster, it is a disaster.

With the flat characters and lifeless performances, it's a wonder that anyone in the audience can stay awake all the way through this dull and dreary production.

A soulless jumble of ineptly assembled cliches and pabulum that plays like a 95-minute commercial for NBA properties.

Wild Wild West isn't just a bad adaptation of a TV series; it's a bad film.

For those looking for something positive, this is the only movie I can recall that features music from both ABBA ("Does Your Mother Know") and Handel ("Zadok the Priest"). Let's hear it for musical diversity!

The script isn't just "dumbed down," it's lobotomized.

One could easily argue that, like many Ed Wood-type bad movies, The Faculty might be headed for the cult classic shelf in the video store. Unfortunately, it's not campy enough, and, worse, it seems to think it's being hip when it's just being dumb.

This is the kind of tearjerker that will cause audience members to cry, but only because they paid hard-earned money to see it.

Nothing short of a disaster -– easily one of the worst movies of the year.

Redundant and unnecessary.

The only thing that distinguishes Species 2 is how awful it is.

Unfortunately for the poor viewer trapped into sitting through this 95 minute mess, the humor is both conventional and unfunny, the script never takes any chances, and the ending is a cop-out.

This is film noir for the MTV generation: fast-paced, slick, flashy, gleefully mindless, and hollow to the core.

Two agonizing hours of lifeless, mind-numbing hogwash.

Meet Joe Black has the dubious distinction of being the longest film to date of 1998. It is also one of the most tedious and bombastic.

This is one of those nearly unwatchable movies that becomes an endurance contest for any thinking adult.

Misses the mark.

A huge disappointment -- the kind of motion picture that makes you actively angry at the filmmaker for subjecting you to it and stealing two hours of your life.

Once again, we have a movie where the jokes are aimed at the least common denominator - meaning that to genuinely enjoy the experience of sitting through Slackers, you will need help from a controlled substance.

No amount of youthful charisma can alter the fact that, in the light of "Dangerous Liaisons", Cruel Intentions is a feeble and dissatisfying shadow.

Boring and repetitive.

For a strangely-titled, female-oriented drama about mothers and daughters bonding, try "The Joy Luck Club" and leave Ya-Ya as a phrase uttered by one-year olds who have yet to learn how to talk.

It's the most disappointing thing to come from the brothers in years.

With a script that waffles between being hilariously absurd and insultingly stupid, and action scenes that won't cause anyone's pulse to skip a beat, Paycheck is less appealing than a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking.

Twisted is a D-grade thriller with an A-list cast. It's a disappointment from start to finish...But, in the final quarter-hour, it committed the unpardonable sin of insulting my intelligence.

It's a cloying, humorless motion picture whose only assets are the work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop and a couple of good one-liners by a pair of rodents.

The level of humor is sit-com-ish at best and the film's dramatic elements are bland and uninvolving.

The Thirteenth Floor shows what can happen when film makers fail to recognize that they need more than a concept to establish a full-length motion picture.

This is a tedious and insulting motion picture. The only ones likely to be surprised by the payoff are those who understandably dozed off fifteen minutes into the proceedings.

The movie mandates complete gullibility and vacuous attention in order to work on any level.

Instead of generating a testosterone rush, the fight scenes release tryptophan. Not only are they boring, but they are choreographed in an amateurish fashion.

The Punisher isn't Frank Castle; it's Jonathan Hensleigh. And the punishee is anyone sitting in the audience.

The Brown Bunny is one long, self-indulgent bore topped off with a hard-core porn scene featuring Gallo and co-star Chloë Sevigny.

Captures the essence of its TV inspiration, which is to say that it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. It also feels very, very long.

Beverly Hills Ninja is essentially a one-joke film.

Godsend is godawful.

Unremarkable. A more honest description would be to label it as mirthless, pointless, and banal.

By trying to satisfy every kind of viewer, it's possible that Sphere may end up pleasing no one.

An inferior product. It is not well written, well acted, or well directed.

Has some promise as a throw-away, lighthearted romance. Unfortunately, once those elements are gone, what's left only has a running time of about 13 minutes.

At its best, Dumb and Dumber is like an Ernest movie with a scatological bent.

Want to see a movie where almost everything takes place on a bus? Try "Speed." Jeepers Creepers 2 isn't even worth a peek.

Unappealing for children and adults alike, The King and I will likely bring families together in their mutual boredom.

Chase, like his Vacation movies, are things of the past. This is a series that should have died with the '80s. Instead, inexplicably, it has limped on into the '90s.

A woefully underwritten motion picture that starts out as a dumb comedy before taking an ill-advised detour into mawkish sentimentality. The last 30 minutes of Bruce Almighty is so godawful that it almost sent me screaming from the theater.

Isn't worth the time, money, or effort. For Stephen King aficionados, it's just the latest cinematic nightmare.

Like many genuinely awful movies, Queen of the Damned has the ingredients of a cult film.

Stay away from Birth not because of what goes on (or doesn't) in a bathtub, but because this is not a very good movie.

Too long and too full of itself to offer more than a few fleeting moments of entertainment. It doesn't take long for tediousness to triumph.

Watching a misfire like Thunderbirds illustrates how impressive the "Spy Kids" movies are.

An insult to anyone who has tragically and unexpectedly lost a loved-one in a similar manner.

The result is an unappealing mess, made less bearable by uniformly lackluster performances and the cheesy special effects.

This is as dreadful a holiday offering as you're likely to find this year. A lump of coal would be more welcome.

This remake replaces suspense with boredom and witty dialogue with lame lines any self-respecting actor should be embarrassed to utter.

National Treasure's storyline isn't compelling or coherent enough to warrant the term "plot."

If the film is to work on any level, even a comedic one, it's necessary for the viewers to sympathize with Joanna and Walter. However, the script and scattershot performances keep them at arm's length. Nicole Kidman is in full scenery-chewing mode, and Matthew Broderick hasn't been this invisible since Ferris Bueller had to go back to school.

Can't decide whether it wants to be a black comedy, dumb farce, or sentimental sit-com.

Welcome to Mooseport's satirical edge is dull and pitted, the screenplay is overlong and uninteresting, the comedy is soft and shapeless, and the actors perform like they're on a sit com.

Code 46 is like "Solaris" without the psychological depth and strong acting. The movie is flat, boring, pointless, and nonsensical.

One has the sense that if the level of violence had been ratcheted up a little, Paparazzi might have been more of a guilty pleasure and less of a chore to watch.

A bad movie. No amount of perfume sprayed on talk show audiences by Madonna and her husband can eliminate the stench of failure emanating from this motion picture.

Take away the film's attitude, and you're left with "Son of Van Helsing."

The really disgusting thing about this movie isn't the crude jokes themselves, but how grossly unfunny they all are.

Breakdown is the latest in a seemingly endless traffic jam of thrillers that opens strong but finishes abominably.

Speed 2 can be numbered among the worst second chapters ever made.

Even children, who will be enthralled by all the puppies, may have a hard time not fidgeting for protracted portions of the running time.

Unfortunately, although there are a few nasty thorns here and there, The First Wives Club is a largely uninspired (and unfunny) comedy that collapses completely in the final fifteen minutes.

From the start, it's obvious that this is a vehicle for his comedy, and it mostly works -- for about ten to fifteen minutes. After that, Carrey's act gradually grows less humorous and more tiresome, and the laughter in the audience seems forced.

Very little of what made the written version so enjoyable has been successfully translated to the screen, and what we're left with instead is an overly-long (two hours and thirty-four minutes, to be exact), pedantic thriller.

Director Rick Friedberg (who made the "bad golf" videos with Leslie Nielsen) has crafted a dreadfully unfunny comedy that takes Naked Gun-like sketches and rehashes them without a whit of style or energy.

Things might have been okay if this film had gone someplace, anyplace, but it stalls early, then coasts through an hour of minimally-amusing material before screeching to an amazingly improbable stop.

Yes, this film is worse than "Cliffhanger," Stallone's last venture into chaos.

As a satire on the media's infatuation with violence and murderers, Natural Born Killers hits the bullseye. The problem is, this is a one-note movie. It repeatedly hammers home the same point until the audience is bludgeoned into senselessness.

A muddle of a film - an overlong bore that either mistakenly thinks it's something more than a humdrum romance or has incorporated a variety of pretentions as window-dressing.

For all of its existential posturing, Being Human ends up being a rather shallow motion picture.

This unexceptional and uninteresting story of a self-pitying borderline-personality teenager verges on being unwatchable as a result of McDonald's decision to bombard the audience with extraneous images in lieu of telling the story.

Clumsily incorporates elements of "Ghost," "The Sixth Sense," and "Field of Dreams."