Between its ridiculous setup and its hard-to-care-about ending, McDonald still manages to craft an engaging suspense film that -- when you're not scratching your head in puzzlement -- will have you on the edge of your seat.

Twenty-five years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that Imagine That would see Eddie Murphy and The Beatles coming together to create family entertainment, but I'll be darned if it doesn't work.

If it weren't for the casting of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in the lead roles, the film probably would have gone straight to DVD.

Michelle Pfeiffer's performance brings life to a sometimes sagging script. Also, Kathy Bates is a hoot as the mother of Pfeiffer's love interest.

Ritchie and company spend too much time being cute and not enough time being clever, resulting in a one-dimensional comic-book version of Doyle's detectives.

It boasts strong acting and a nice dose of suspense.

If there's a prevailing problem with director Richard Loncraine's bit of period fluff, it's that many of the characters encountered along the way are a touch too cartoonish to resonate meaningfully with audiences.

With its immensely likable cast elevating the material, Judge extracts just enough ironic chuckles to rescue the movie from being written off as an assembly-line comedy.

The result is a film that is equal parts fluff and tough.

The only thing missing from the film -- which is frequently amusing but too bleak to be consistently laugh-out-loud funny -- is a genuine connection with its audiences, or at least those audiences not raised in 1960s Jewish suburbia.

Trades breathless romance for a fun "Ripley's Believe it or Not"-flavored weirdness.

There's an overly episodic feel to it all, as Curtis and company seem happy merely to float along from gag to gag.

Director Martin Campbell does a nice job of creating suspense, and Ray Winstone stands out for his performance as a conflicted hitman.

The result is an often-screwball jaunt that isn't without its fun moments.

Fortunately, there's enough charisma in those doe eyes -- to narrowly rescue the featherweight Leap Year from becoming a full-blown case of Erin-go-blah.

It's a nice, feel-good story with an appealing cast and strong production values.

This isn't the kind of film that will leave audiences in awe of clever writing. Rather, it will leave them thinking how much Fuqua wanted to make a movie version of "The Wire."

Don't expect there to be a run on Secret of Kells action figures any time soon.

There's humor there, but this is a "smart" comedy, which is to say it's not intended to make you guffaw.

For her part, Stewart has Jett down pat: her strut, her slouch, her sexiness. This is a performance that goes far beyond Jett's shag haircut.

If you appreciate historical melodrama, you could do worse than Vincere.

A surprisingly entertaining movie on its own, a strap-yourself-in, suspend-your-disbelief summer popcorn adventure.

Although they've left the city behind, the girls haven't forgotten the sex. They're still as frank as ever, as outrageous as ever, as liberated as ever.

Worse, Shrek Forever After feels like just another animated movie -- which is exactly what the series was fighting against when it started, and a big reason why it caught on with audiences.

What it does have going for it are its lead actors -- Brand and Hill both know exactly how to deliver a punch line -- and a lead character who represents one of the best bits of rock 'n' roll satire since "This Is Spinal Tap."

As fun as it is at times -- particularly early on -- the longer The Sorcerer's Apprentice goes on, the more the magic wears off.

What Noyce and company don't seem to realize is that there's a huge difference between a superspy and a superhuman.

It's probably best not to think very hard about any of it -- just dummy up and laugh along.

As with most Ferrell projects, there's nothing profound going on in The Other Guys. It's just a bit of good, stupid fun, had at the expense of an uber-formulaic genre that has long been ripe for the spoofing. But it also works.

I've got a fourth verb to add to the comma-challenged title of Julia Roberts' how-to-be-happy travelogue, Eat Pray Love. How about "edit"?

Getting two biographies on the same person in such a short window is unusual. What's even more unusual is that both suffer from the same flaw.

The Lottery Ticket doesn't hit the comedy jackpot, but it doesn't roll snake eyes, either. In my book, that's a winner.

A reasonably well-made biopic, with crowd-pleasing moments, but one that -- despite that title -- isn't really about the animal.

It represents the rare lead role for Mackie, and he seizes the opportunity, convincingly playing the part of a soft-spoken former Black Panther.

How do you know when a romantic comedy just isn't working? Key indicators are that your audience doesn't get goose bumps in the inevitable third-act reunion. They don't get misty-eyed. In short, they don't really care.

Once the real story hits its stride, it's easy to get lost in Sanctum.

A beautifully uncomplicated story, really -- about the love between daddies and their little girls.

It's a decent comedy, mind you, one with its fair share of chuckles. But it's really more amusing than it is fall-out-of-your-seat funny.

This is a film custom-made for dog lovers.

Burger's film would have been better had he ended it about three minutes earlier than he does -- a move that would have given his movie at least a dash of profundity.

A slick and sweet film all on its own, a harmless bit of fun that fills the Easter-movie void.

Potiche never becomes funny enough or interesting enough.

Despite the derivative nature and low production values of Super, there are laughs in the at-times ragged script.

A predictable but painless pastiche of high school drama clichés that will give its intended tween audience a lot to squeal about -- and leave their parents reminiscing quietly about how good films from '80s icon John Hughes were.

These characters are so likeable, and so well-portrayed, that it's easy to go along with it all.

So what is Bridesmaids? A boozy wedding comedy? A touching character story? A paean to friendship? At turns, it's each -- making it a wedding movie with a commitment problem and giving Feig's scattered film a rudderless quality between the laugh lines.

It's a fun one to talk about -- if only for the opportunity to shake your head in amused disbelief at what you just saw.

Best of all, here there be fun.

These women deserve to have their voices heard, and this film finally lets them have their say.

Breezy but forgettable.

A film that is neither great nor horrible. Favreau does enough things right in Cowboys & Aliens to churn out a mostly enjoyable bit of mindless summertime action, just not enough to come close to rivaling his 2008 crowd-pleaser "Iron Man."

The actors never stray too far from their comfort zones, resulting in a sporadically funny but mostly bland crime comedy that only occasionally feels fresher or more memorable than that cold pizza you scarfed for breakfast Monday morning.

It continuously feels less like straight-up reportage and more like a fan film, one built on equal parts idol worship and wishful thinking.

A movie that wants to be a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy at times and a weighty drama at others. It ends up being an imperfect blend of both.

One major reason it succeeds is because of 11-year-old actress Bailee Madison, who brings a wonderful believability to her role as the girl at the center of the film.

Leisurely paced and plot-challenged, it's too unique and kindhearted to be outright disliked, but it's not the kind of film you can get too close to, either.

There are some nice surprises in store, as well, but the longer Madden's story goes on, the more manufactured things tend to feel.

As it turns out, though, the most troubling part of the film for me wasn't the rape scene, or the siege scene or the Southern stereotypes. Rather, it was the audience's reaction to Marsden's chilling spasms of bloody violence as he defends his home. Rather than breaking out in hives, many in the audience broke out in laughter.

It's not a perfect film, mind you. It's too long by a quarter, and actor-turned-director Charles Martin Smith ("The Untouchables") lets any sense of real structure slip away in the film's crowded third act.

Along the way, Shut Up, Little Man boasts nice technical elements. And it is, admittedly, amusing to a degree. Peter and Raymond certainly know how to turn a phrase. But things begin to wear thin about halfway through.

As clearly calculated and self-consciously cutesy as it is, it's also tender and meaningful stuff -- and far more watchable than other recent attempts to capture the existential angst of adolescence. ("The Art of Getting By.")

Plotwise, though, Brewer's Footloose is anything but loose. In fact, it's rigidly loyal to the original, to the point of slavishness.

Intermittently interesting, but well-intentioned, it almost makes up for "The Tourist."

So while J. Edgar ends up feeling like a mostly complete portrait of the man, and as fascinating a story as it is, it still falls just short of being something entirely memorable.

The quietly moving drama Martha Marcy May Marlene must be thought of as an "arrival" film. That is, for all that it has going for it (and, it must be said, against it), if it is remembered for anything it will be for introducing a 22-year-old newcomer named Elizabeth Olsen.

There's plenty of melodrama, plenty of whispered intensity, plenty of dramatic pauses in his story. There also are a few bizarro -- and, in some cases, unnecessary -- detours. But when it's all said and done, there's no real call for any emotional investment on the part of his audience.

What most saw as entirely charming behavior others saw as a nuisance. After all, a playful whale has a way of unwittingly damaging rudders and outriggers and outboard motors and such. Worse, wildlife officials saw Luna's behavior as potentially dangerous, for the people he encountered -- and for the whale himself.

All of the pieces fall into place by the third act -- or most of them, anyway. But Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is such a cold, unemotional film that getting there is a chore, muting the payoff.

What we're left with is a movie that is about as nourishing as the Junior Mints and nachos available at the theater snack bar. But, then, many a Friday night dinner has been made of far less.

All along, though, I was struck by an even stronger feeling, that I was sitting in on somebody else's therapy session. That's not a comfortable feeling -- and that makes Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close considerably less rewarding than it should be.

There isn't a whole lot of nuance in writer-director Rachid Bouchareb's unapologetically political movie. As such, it doesn't take much brainpower for a viewer to stay a step or two ahead of his plot the entire way.

What Kwapis does do, however, is nicely handle the film's whale of an emotional payoff.

It's easy to be interested in the characters' lives -- as tragic as they are -- but it's not nearly as easy to become emotionally invested in them.

That's not to say it's a bad film, necessarily. It's just not as good as it could have -- and should have -- been.

That's some admirably mature stuff for a kid's flick in this day of rampant pandering, but it also helps rob the film of a certain breathless, edge-of-your-seat appeal. In other words, there are lulls here.

While Pina will undoubtedly be well-received by modern-dance devotees, it does little to take advantage of the enormous opportunity to open the door for newcomers.

There are plenty of entertaining moments to latch onto beneath the sci-fi tropes -- and maybe even a few that will inspire a new generation of storytellers.

Unlike most enforcers in the movies, Jacky isn't just a brainless slab of meat.

It's an uplifting, even enchanting, smile-inducer.

At worst, though, the film's faintly sleazy bait-and-switch tactic robs the film of its biggest asset -- its sense of fun.

The surrealist and decidedly bizarre humor of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim is, to put it mildly, an acquired taste -- and there's no guarantee you'll ever actually acquire it.

This is a movie to be experienced on a more visceral level. As long as you don't expect anything more, you won't be disappointed.

They're fascinating characters, to be sure, with back stories ripe for development. But Whedon doesn't commit here, and the results are shrug-worthy.

It's no "Das Boot," but Battleship is a boatload of popcorny fun.

An uplifting and colorful crowd-pleaser, it's built on a wealth of cinematic contrivances -- all designed to make sure things, indeed, turn out all right in the end -- but the result is just too good-natured to begrudge.

The good news: This is Goldthwait the writer-director, not Goldthwait the actor -- so there's no schticky voice to endure. But his exceedingly black comedy does speak loudly -- and it turns out he's actually got something worthwhile to say.

Some summer movies are big, woofing mastiffs. (Think "Battleship.") Others are naughty, nipping lapdogs. ("The Dictator.") Here, what we get is a calm, quiet basset hound. And, for the most part, it's a good dog.

The joy of Hysteria, like the joy of certain other things, isn't necessarily rooted in the element of surprise. Rather, it's in the pleasure of the path taken to get to that crescendo.

Like the character at its center, Wein's film suffers from a certain sense of inertia, which is where Gerwig comes in.

Unapologetically raw -- and very funny.

The problem is that the film must re-establish a great deal of mythology, much of which is already familiar to most moviegoers. Unfortunately, Webb's film never quite makes usshake the feeling that we've done all this before.

While you're watching it, it is cozy and enjoyable, the same way a sleeping cat in your lap is cozy and enjoyable.

Doesn't rise as much as it flounders and frustrates, in what would appear to be a case of a filmmaker prioritizing ego over efficiency, and engaging in generally muddled storytelling.

Seizing the role, and the screen, Gelber actually makes us care what happens to his surly, thoroughly unlikable character.

Director David Bowers' story is straightforwardly -- almost unimaginatively -- approached. But, armed with a talented cast and Kinney's chuckle-generating source material, it functions nicely as a sort of big-screen "Wonder Years" for Millennials.

Billed as a dramatic comedy, and it lives up to that billing, even if it tends more toward chuckles than guffaws. In other words, one thing it's not is "It's Complicated," Streep's previous -- and often riotous -- relationship dramedy.

Gilroy -- who earned writing credits on all four "Bourne" films -- doesn't miss when it comes to the most important task at hand: He takes a well-worn concept and makes it feel new, and without sacrificing its sense of familiarity.

No, it's not a perfect movie, given how dangerously close it comes to running out of quality third-act punchlines before you're liable to have run out of Sno-caps and Raisinettes. Also, some of the biggest names in the supporting cast -- John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd, specifically -- are all but wasted.

A solidly entertaining and largely engaging film that, even with its faults, functions as a singular -- albeit melancholy -- tribute to a tragic American icon.

Hit and Run achieves its chief goal: to put the pedal to the metal for some good, goofy fun, squealing the tires as often as possible along the way.

Is Premium Rush a two-wheeled "French Connection"? No, not by a long shot. (Although it does include a racing-beneath-the-el-train homage.) But when it comes to lightweight, synapse-free action fare, Premium Rush delivers.

Suffers through the occasional lull, but those would be much easier to forgive if they didn't also generate frequent false moments that threaten to take viewers out of the movie.

There's a good reason why the true-crime film The Imposter is a documentary: If someone tried to pass off this bizarre Texas tale as fiction, nobody would believe it.

What Anderson's talky and willfully opaque film doesn't have, however, is an unfailingly compelling story to tell.

Ends up being the kind of movie we don't see a whole lot anymore: an emotionally grounded and quietly meaningful crowd-pleaser that functions as a lovely antidote to the recently ended summer blockbuster season.

The music, of course, is the engine that makes the whole exercise go, tapping into a genre-spanning collection of tunes, but every bit as important to the film's success is its unexpected humor, which flirts with raunchy but stops juuuust short of crossing any lines that would have earned it an R rating.

The result is an artist profile that doesn't feel like the standard, stuffy artist profile. Instead, Beauty is Embarrassing is an entertaining whimsy that, like White, never takes itself too seriously, doesn't overstay its welcome and never, ever underestimates the value of a chuckle.

The resulting slowdown, as well as a significant narrative shift, gives Looper a slightly sprawling and ungrounded feel at times, almost as if the first and second halves are two separate movies.

John C. Reilly provides the voice of Ralph, and he's every bit as good as you'd expect in the role. It's Sarah Silverman, however, as his unlikely sidekick, and rescue subject, whose considerable charm threatens to steal the show.

In fact, "restraint" is the word that best characterizes DuVernay's film. This isn't a movie filled with overt action or outbursts of melodrama.

The sky is far from falling on the Bond franchise. In fact, it is as good as it has ever been. What's more, Craig is reportedly on board for at least two more outings, so Q had better get to work on those bifocals because 007 is no where near ready for retirement.

An enjoyable diversion, a lightweight bit of philosophizing that blends humor with the bittersweet. It won't likely stick in your memory for too terribly long.

His (Andrew Dominik) film delivers when it matters, especially with its crystallizing final lines. Not only do they wrap a bow on what ends up being a treatise on the uglier side of capitalism, but they stand among the most memorable closing lines in recent Hollywood history.

That storytelling, however, is uneven, ranging from something approaching tedium to moments that are downright wonderful (such as the sweetest of scenes, involving two young lovers -- played by and Alicia Vikander and Domhnall Gleeson -- and a stack of children's blocks).

Hitchcock purists will certainly take issue with some details, but Gervasi's film shouldn't be taken as an ironclad factual film docudrama. Rather, it is fact-inspired fiction -- a film based on real events but one that isn't shy about taking creative liberties. As long as viewers keep that in mind, Gervasi's stands to be a nice bit of murderous fun.

An Unexpected Journey also proves that it is, indeed, possible to get too much of a good thing.

The sort of movie you should go see with someone you love. You should also hold their hand during the movie. And be thankful that that hand is there.

Yes, Apatow's film has its peaks and valleys -- just the way life does -- but it stands alone nicely on its own, a satisfying comedic riff on life and all of its absurdities.

The ultimate goal of a film like this, of course, is to change minds. As compelling a case as it builds, Promised Land isn't quite persuasive enough to be able to promise to do that.

It's a good, old-fashioned sit-around-the-campfire ghost story, one that delivers on its sole reason for existence: to raise the hairs on the back of your arms.

Rust and Bone is somber and gritty if nothing else, a movie that takes itself very, very seriously, even as it struggles at times to find its focus.

It's an uneven but fairly enjoyable ride, one that benefits from Statham's cool, capable presence.

Stand Up Guys becomes something not only enjoyable but memorable and emotionally layered at the same time.

Ends up being foreign but familiar, artful and honest, as well as beautiful and believable.

Is all of that to say that Oz the Great and Powerful comes even close to matching the timeless, iconic stature of 1939's "The Wizard of Oz"? No, of course not. That's not just a once-in-a-lifetime cultural phenomenon, but a once-in-many-liftimes one.

As it is, it's little more than an artful rehash -- which means that anyone who wants closure to the story, or to see justice truly served, will have to wait a little longer.

One gets the feeling that Thompson left a lot on the table with The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, that it could have been something more, something bigger, something elaborate. And that may be true. But the film that Thompson did choose to make - one that is both simple but effective -- is fascinating in its own right.

Aesthetically, Helgeland's film -- while highly polished -- is straight-forward stuff, hewing so closely to the prescribed genre conventions as to border on unimaginative.

Dawson, who to this point has largely built her career playing supporting characters, seizes the opportunity to stand center-stage, all but taking over the film.

Granted, "intelligent" might be too generous a word to describe Oblivion, which flirts with big questions, but never answers them. What's left is a story that doesn't quite go where no man has gone before.

Ends up being an enjoyable, if only marginally memorable, ride.

In other words, Iron Man 3 -- once more delivering a satisfying combination of humor, action and dazzling set pieces -- provides everything fans of the franchise expect.

The film's message -- about how the Internet is sabotaging our real-life relationships -- doesn't resonate with absolute clarity, but Disconnect does a much more effective job than anyone could hope to do in 140 characters or less.

So does the film succeed, overall? On some levels. But if all you want is a guilt-free, sci-fi summer pleasure, save your money and wait another week. The crew of the Enterprise is on its way.

And so the real question isn't whether director Todd Phillips' third -- and, he insists, the final -- installment in the unabashedly crude, very R-rated comedy trilogy is funny. Of course, it is.

It feels like a desperate attempt at edginess -- and desperation is never becoming, whether in real-life romance or in a romantic comedy.

Unlike it's "Transformers" cousin, the story is appealingly straightforward, and the movie is chock-a-block with breathless action sequences.

Doesn't boast enough universal meaning to make it truly sing.

The truth, however, is that for much of Soderbergh's film, it's all as yawn-inducing as its premise.

As well-intended as it is, writer-director Max Mayer's film lacks focus.

A better title: "Coco Before She Was Interesting."

That it's all true might make it more heart-tugging, but it doesn't make it any more interesting.

Parnassus is a cold film that delights in dancing along that fine line separating "fantastical" and "nonsensical." Then, when a movie is supposed to hit things home -- in that all-important third act -- it lands with a thud on the wrong side.

The ending of Dear John feels manufactured and patently false. Seyfried tries to sell it, but you can tell that she's having a hard time believing the words coming out of her mouth.

It has a sweet quality, and Forest Whitaker gets a chance to show off his comic chops.

It's neither a good movie nor a bad movie. It's just a movie.

Unfortunately, on the way to delivering that message, it becomes weighted down by its own dreary self-importance.

Even at its worst moments, it's better than "awful." But at its best, it's never comes close to "incredible."

Built on spasms of explosive summertime action interspersed throughout a vacant shell of an origins story, animator-turned-director Jimmy Hayward's first stab at directing a live-action film ends up feeling like one great, big missed opportunity.

More than just corny. Eclipse is boring.

Sure, it's an interesting scene as he (Stone) chews the fat with Raul Castro, and coca leaves with Bolivia's Evo Morales. But his South of the Border can't be taken seriously, muchacho -- and if you think it can, well, I've got a primo cigar factory in Havana to sell you.

I love a good, brainless action flick as much as the next alpha male, but this time I had a whole lot of trouble laughing along.

She could stand to learn a lesson herself, from another magical governess -- you know, the one about the spoon full of sugar.

By the time The American is finished, it feels like one great big pointless exercise. With George Clooney on the poster.

Rather than "Greased Lightning," we get a holding pattern -- which is better than a crash-landing, but still ...

The result is a film with sporadic outbursts of wackiness, but one that (Oh, Fortuna's Wheel!) never gains traction from a storytelling standpoint.

If there's a breath of fresh air in it all, it's in the form of the young actress Jessica Barden playing a smoking, swearing, Tom Sawyer-flavored teenage delinquent determined to add some life to her excruciatingly boring rural existence.

The hard, cold truth is that the hard, cold For Colored Girls is just plain difficult to fall in love with, regardless of the amount of passion Perry poured into it or how much meaning he's freighted it with.

Clearly, Brevig's past as a visual effects maestro had him focusing more on the look of Yogi Bear than on crafting anything resembling a clever narrative.

It's the same fine line that so often separates artfulness and "trying too hard" -- a line that Lebanon tramples all over.

This is even worse than a repetitive rehash. These "Fockers" are just lazy, limp -- and lame.

An uneven story that tries too hard to be meaningful and not hard enough to be funny.

It is raw, it is searing, it is honest.

Many scenes, like Another Year itself, don't actually go anywhere.

It's not really a Disney film. Rather, this is a product of Starz Animation. It's a key distinction, because -- well, because Starz Animation is no Disney, and it's certainly no Pixar. It proves that here.

McDonald's film never really finds its footing -- and The Eagle never takes flight.

There are entertaining moments along the way, and some likeable characters.

McNamara's relentlessly shiny, happy outlook crosses the line between believable and artificial by about the 10-minute mark.

An unapologetic B-movie, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night tries mightily to cover its flaws with a peppering of humor -- much of it supplied courtesy of Dylan's zombie sidekick, played by Sam Huntington -- and an at-times fun "Buffy the Vampire Hunter" vibe.

A cast of American actors -- including Matthew Modine, Whoopi Goldberg and Wallace Shawn -- were hired to provide recognizable voices for the English version of the film. They fulfill that requirement, too: Their voices are, indeed, recognizable -- though little more.

The world is a whole lot more complex than Shadyac seems to realize. If all we need is love, wouldn't we all still be wearing tie-dyed shirts and headbands?

A movie that offers exactly the kind of bittersweet drama you'd expect from something called White Irish Drinkers.

For the first time in its 25-year existence, Pixar has created an utterly ordinary film.

You want a change-up? Here's a change-up: How about if Hollywood stops spoon-feeding us this uninspired pablum and comes up with a fresh idea or two?

While this nouveau Fright Night does a reasonable job of maintaining the fun spirit of the original film, between the blood splatters and vamp stakings, it never builds on what the original had to offer -- and thus never quite makes a convincing case for its own existence.

When making a film for 10-year-old boys, it doesn't have to be good, necessarily -- just good enough. And that's exactly what Real Steel is: good enough.

Normally a reliable screenwriter, Sayles probably gives his audience too much credit with regard to its knowledge of what is one of the lesser-known chapters in America's military history. As a result, even with its modern parallels, Amigo makes for dense, slow-going viewing.

Bill Condon returns fans' love and gives them exactly what they have shown they want. That is: uneven storytelling, maudlin dialog and decidedly one-note performances, even from the big names in the cast.

Ritchie is simply trying to buy a good movie here -- and forgetting that a little brainpower is also required to complete the job.

As ridiculous as it is, Man on a Ledge isn't a movie that requires suspension of disbelief. It requires the absolute absence of it.

A Dangerous Method still feels as if it's based on a rather pedestrian narrative --and so, in the final analysis, Cronenberg's film bores.

What we're left with is a thoroughly mediocre, shrug-generating disappointment -- and one that certainly doesn't feel like it should have cost more than a third of a billion dollars to make and market.

This latest enterprise - 70-odd minutes of purposeful navel-gazing directed by Steven Soderbergh - isn't quite as searching or provocative as Gray's prior big-screen outings, "Swimming to Cambodia" and "Monster In a Box." [16 May 1997, p.L25]

If the surpassingly murky narrative logic behind "Generations" is any indication of what's to come, Paramount had better start making explanatory material available to perplexed viewers as well as confused critics. [18 Nov. 1994, p.L27]

This is not a feel-good movie. This is the frigid, hard-to-embrace cinematic opposite of a feel-good movie, in fact -- all wrapped in one long, dark metaphor for depression.

With a scattered, meandering script, a stable of throwaway characters and an almost laughably drawn-out ending, it's all amounts to standard movie-of-the-week fare dressed up in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.

There's a germ of a good story there, and Intruders isn't without the occasional tense moment. But unfortunately Hollowface is as undeveloped as the other characters in Intruders, which is the film's biggest flaw of all.

As well-shot and well-acted as it is, one can't help feeling there's a good movie in there somewhere. Unfortunately, it's buried beneath such an avalanche of extraneousness and artistic posing.

As with its gooey, smoochy predecessors, The Lucky One is, beneath it all, a fairy-tale romance, just one with modern trappings.

It's not only shameless, it detracts from what this movie could have been, and still is when the self-promoting Harvey shuts up.

What you won't find amid the clashing cutlasses and flashing foils, however, is anything resembling a rapier wit.

When a film's clichés are so obvious that its cast points them out for you, you've got to wonder how hard it's really trying.

Unfortunately, like the Poison song says -- and, in many ways, like the decade itself -- it ain't nothin' but a good time.

Never coalesces into anything memorable, much less meaningful.

Thoroughly, and disappointingly, pedestrian.

What the Duplasses end up with is a film that is amusing at times, a touch repetitive at others, but one that never quite shakes the feeling that it is something of an unfinished thought. And perhaps something they've also grown beyond.

There's a lot of eye candy in what ends up being a slick, breathless and at-times enjoyable sci-fi update. Unfortunately, it's what Wiseman forgets to do that makes the biggest difference in his film -- and which keeps it from becoming much more than a glossy missed opportunity.

Has potential to be fun and meaningful, but it's not exactly a novel idea. In fact, it feels like a literary-minded "Lars and the Real Girl," the 2007 dramatic comedy that starred Ryan Gosling as a man who falls in love with a sex doll, and which coasted along on its charm and smarts.

This is a movie that confuses teary with sweet. Mopey with sad. Discomfort with humor. And, worst of all, it confuses weird with odd.

At some point, Lee as a storyteller must step in to move things along, to dig the rudder deep into the narrative waters and steer this ship. The destination is almost irrelevant - just steer it somewhere.

Celeste and Jesse Forever isn't a movie many people will outright hate, but if this is the most original romantic comedy that Hollywood can muster, forever can't come soon enough.

Alas, in Cronenberg's hands, it just comes across as cold and lifeless and exhausting.

Sleepwalk With Me is a decent film -- even if its not one that lingers.

Some of those detours are fun ideas - like Marty's O. Henry-esque tale of the Amish psychopath. Mostly, though, they feel out of place, like so much filler that distracts from the half-developed main story. Call me crazy, but I need more from my movie.

Pros and cons aside, Sinister has the benefit of arriving in the thick of Halloween season, right when movie-goers are most hungry for a few scares. And they'll get them from Derrickson's film, too.

Few people will be surprised by how it all unfolds or by how it all ends. This is a movie about lightweight entertainment and heavyweight fighters, not a movie about surprises.

The resulting film, despite its occasional outbursts of action and tension, is less an action film than a psychological thriller, although even there it fumbles the ball.

Lillard's film ends up being more unsatisfying than anything else. His "Fat Kid" might rule the world, but it doesn't quite rule the screen.