Steve Simels

Manipulative but fitfully entertaining "Twilight Zone"-ish comedy of redemption.

Musically it's often breathtaking.

The picture is nearly stolen, however, by co-star Greg Germann (of TV's Ally McBeal) in the role of Joe's company's resident corporate weasel. Germann's squinty-eyed insincerity is truly a marvel to behold, and it's an astringent corrective to the film's rather too frequent feel-good passages.

A very sweet, very funny coming-of-age story, featuring Kiss as the Great White Whale of adolescence.

An often spectacular but ultimately rather tedious musical/adventure/comedy.

It's a good thing the two rappers are such utterly natural actors, armed with terrific comic timing.

Veers inconsistently between sit-com jokeiness and nostril-flaring melodrama.

An unintentionally surreal kid's picture.

Let's be blunt: Bass can't really act.

An extremely loud and simpleminded cross between TV's "WWF Smackdown!" and "Dumb and Dumber."

Glacially slow going.

A triumph of genre filmmaking.

The plot is Kate-Moss thin. Basically agreeable stuff, but not much more. And that's a shame.

A delightful surprise, a tightly written, savvy slapstick comedy with genuine heart.

Visually dazzling, touching and funny.

It takes perverse genius to make an action film this stupid.

If you accept the film on its own brain-damaged level, there actually are laughs to be had.

As a director, La Salle manages to sustain a mood of looming menace almost throughout, and as an actor he gets the film's best joke: When his Satan fills out his hospital admission form, he gives his social security number as 666.

The film delivers some genuine laughs — Diggs and Anderson are a hoot throughout — and real rapper Snoop Dogg all but steals the picture with his brief voice turn as Ronnie Rizzat.

Not only one of the most spectacular cartoons ever made, but also a reasonably adult piece of sci-fi.

Sally Field has actually made a likeable movie.

Mildly amusing and as obvious as it is good-natured.

A hick-town, screwball comedy version of "Dog Day Afternoon," and surprisingly palatable despite its sitcom soul and star.

While not for every taste, this often very funny collegiate gross-out comedy goes a long way toward restoring the luster of the National Lampoon film franchise.

You have to have a certain affection for any movie in which a stressed-out Mother Nature announces ominously, "Don't mess with me -- I'm pre-El Niño."

The cast is aces, and Peter Morgan's screenplay is both very sharp on male sexual politics and crammed with enough comic twists and turns to keep you interested.

To be fair, this is hardly the worst gross-out comedy ever made; it's nowhere as misogynistic as, say, "Tomcats," and in the end, it probably won't leave you in a state of utter nihilistic despair.

Even generally sympathetic adults may eventually find their minds wandering, if only because of the characters' continual, annoying hopping; being vegetables, they have no legs, you see.