The Doorman, is simply too distracted to hit the comedic bull's-eye. Whatever the case, his movie gets a chuckle or two but mostly will tickle insiders.

As a mechanical thrill ride, The Clone Wars has an uncluttered look and furious pace that make it more or less as satisfying as its wildly overdesigned predecessors.

What makes this one different? Absolutely nothing. (Sure, it's based on a true story, but I mean come on, whatever.)

An overall sense that the movie was infinitely more fun to make than it is to watch.

Never quite shakes off its aura of second-rate made-for-TV movie, Save Me has a lot of heart but little nerve and no surprise.

Tells a colorful if conventional tale of dysfunctional Americans abroad. The misadventures of Jake and Oliver play off against the conflicted sympathies of the locals, who simultaneously resent, enjoy, prosper from and exploit the tourist scene.

As multimillion-dollar frivolities about the pets of the ruling class go, Chihuahua is reasonably diverting. As one that happens to be opening in the middle of an economic meltdown, its mere existence feels utterly insane.

The First Basket, a functional (if narrowly interesting) history lesson by the filmmaker David Vyorst, recollects the rich history of Jewish participation in basketball.

Either way, it doesn’t quite go far enough as psychological study or cultural commentary.

Inoffensive if uninspired.

Isn't a movie so much as a devotional object, a kind of secular fetish designed to induce rapture.

Starts promisingly, with a sharp comedic bite and genuine compassion for this fraught family dynamic, but soon gives way to the kind of compressed, schematic psychodrama endemic to (if no more welcome on) the stage.

It's all good clean fun; the movie is well intentioned to a blandly feminist fault. Just as burlesque loses most of its oomph when put on video -- no art is more dependent on the intimacy of live performance -- self-esteem trips are less compelling to hear about than to experience firsthand.

Perhaps because the music is so good, with its purity of tone and dazzling rhythmic precision, the flaws of the surrounding movie become all the more obvious.

Co-starring as Rome, the ringleader with "intimacy issues," Robert Patrick appears to be enjoying himself. That makes one of us.

A genuine labor of love -- and a real bore.

It is perverse that a movie concerned with objectification would reduce its hero to an object.

Though Mr. Rose can't be blamed for waxing nostalgic, he can't much expect us to care about so fawning and self-serving a document.

Cheap shots and mean spirits abound, as do celebrity cameos (James Woods, Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer). But it's the laziness of the writing that most offends.

The problem with the movie is that James and Mattie exhibit little but shallow, infantile neurosis, with next to no hint of a complex -- or even legible -- inner life.

Feels destined to please a campy coterie of fans and no one else.

Diverting enough as a series of music videos, Dark Streets strikes postures in place of drama.

A tossed-off comedy from Adam Sandler's production company that makes one long for the comparative genius of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry."

Reunion overflows with catharsis -- at least for those on screen. This may not be quite the moment to solicit our sympathy for self-absorbed beneficiaries of Ivy League privilege.

The film dithers along with Leonardo, whose self-involved tedium -- and the movie's -- is occasionally interrupted by fantasy sequences.

From a producer of "Crash" comes Haven, an even phonier exercise in manufactured conflict, facile irony and preposterous contrivance.

Premised entirely on nonsense.

Of all the shoddy, insipid qualities of Bangkok Dangerous, the most egregious is the most fundamental: The film is simply dreadful to look at.