Like all films constructed out of pop-culture effluvia, Zoolander runs the risk of being so last month; this is a movie that treats Fabio as the ultimate punch line and regards David Bowie as the prince of style.

It's war porn, a movie that revels in the carnage.

That's not to say Simone doesn't offer a good time. Shove aside its self-righteous agenda and it's a deft kick, a light comedy whenever it's not trying to play heavy. And it's bolstered by Al Pacino in a lively performance.

This innocuous, frothy fairy tale isn't so off-putting as you might imagine, thanks in large part to Andrews' ageless charm.

Wacky chaos ensues, as the film veers toward a subplot about industrial espionage, but director Clare Kilner's debut is never as daft as it should have been.

This is the smart-ass stoner's "E.T.," the movie the fanboy parent won't be able to hand down like some tattered, squeaky-clean memento to their action-figure-collecting kids. It's just not quite right without Wright, who could have helped Frost and Pegg stuff Mel Brooks back into their Han Solo Underoos.

Ultimately, Hart's War can't decide what it is: treatise on racism, escape (and escapist) thriller or murder mystery. So it sits there -- and we sit there with it, waiting and waiting. And waiting.

The film desperately wants to play like "Three Kings," a war film with a guilty conscience, but it's too pat and familiar to earn its high-minded stripes.

When Affleck keeps getting work, the terrorists HAVE won. With blank eyes and soft features, he has none of the gravitas of his predecessors, Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford, who saved the world with swagger. Affleck merely looks like a frat boy in over his head, which is perhaps the point.

In the end, it's a film so short on style and verve it feels lifeless; audiences might feel imprisoned in the Château d'If, praying for escape or quick death. Thankfully, one need not tunnel out of a movie theater.

That Osmosis Jones plays like a sloppy hodgepodge is no surprise: The live-action scenes were done by the Farrellys, the animation by Sito and Kroon (whose names sounds like bodily functions), and the script was penned by another first-timer, Marc Hyman. Nobody seems to be on the same page.

Like so many other allegedly scary movies, it gets so tangled up in The Twist that it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten.

Rock Star takes itself so seriously it becomes full-on parody -- "This Is Spinal Tap" as a sanctimonious cautionary tale. And how rock 'n' roll is that?

It's by turns poignant and cold, twisted and sweet, dreamy and drab, effortless and overwrought. In short, the movie is a stunning, ambitious mess that leaves you wondering how much better it might have been without Kubrick's specter peering over Spielberg's heavy shoulders.

At its best, Cats & Dogs plays like a live-action Tex Avery cartoon, down to the exploding ACME dog bone; it's slapstick and slapdash, full of silly and violent nonsense worth a chuckle or two as dogs slam into glass doors and cats play dead on suburban streets.

Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that's been unearthed from an antique store's attic and polished off for display.

The actual finale, which so betrays what's come before it that it leaves one walking out of the theater holding a grudge against what was.

Either a put-on or a straight shooter; that you can't tell the difference underscores its small but ultimately overwhelming flaws.

I liked when they had the paint fights and the pillow fights.

It's far more than merely disappointing that Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams lacks the charm and wit -- and humanity --of its predecessor. It's dispiriting.

Evolution is merely stale, sterile and, worst of all, safe.

The cumulative effect is less thrilling than it is merely amusing.

Shrek isn't clever or smart. It just wants you to think it is, through wink after wink after wink.

Crowe renders David's dream (and its accompanying nightmare) so literal we can't help but leave the theater feeling as though we've been lectured to, told how to feel and what to think. And for an audience, that's a bit of a nightmare.

Little more than direct-to-vid nonsense offered by Disney at dollars on the penny to parents looking to waste time and money keeping kids occupied away from the TV screen.

Leguizamo is all twitches and spasms; there's not a bit of subtlety in his high-wire performance. By the time you get past it, the film bogs down in dime-store potboiling.

Turns out some folks just don't know Philip K. Dick about making movies.

Final is one big hunh? barely worth the effort; just because it doesn't make any sense doesn't mean it's art.