simplistic , silly and tedious .

it's so laddish and juvenile , only teenage boys could possibly find it funny .
exploitative and largely devoid of the depth or sophistication that would make w
atching such a graphic treatment of the crimes bearable .
[garbus] discards the potential for pathological study , exhuming instead , the
skewed melodrama of the circumstantial situation .
a visually flashy but narratively opaque and emotionally vapid exercise in style
and mystification .
the story is also as unoriginal as they come , already having been recycled more
times than i'd care to count .
about the only thing to give the movie points for is bravado -- to take an entir
ely stale concept and push it through the audience's meat grinder one more time
.
not so much farcical as sour .
unfortunately the story and the actors are served with a hack script .
all the more disquieting for its relatively gore-free allusions to the serial mu
rders , but it falls down in its attempts to humanize its subject .
a sentimental mess that never rings true .
while the performances are often engaging , this loose collection of largely imp
rovised numbers would probably have worked better as a one-hour tv documentary .
interesting , but not compelling .
on a cutting room floor somewhere lies . . . footage that might have made no suc
h thing a trenchant , ironic cultural satire instead of a frustrating misfire .
while the ensemble player who gained notice in guy ritchie's lock , stock and tw
o smoking barrels and snatch has the bod , he's unlikely to become a household n
ame on the basis of his first starring vehicle .
there is a difference between movies with the courage to go over the top and mov
ies that don't care about being stupid
nothing here seems as funny as it did in analyze this , not even joe viterelli a
s de niro's right-hand goombah .
such master screenwriting comes courtesy of john pogue , the yale grad who previ
ously gave us " the skulls " and last year's " rollerball . " enough said , exce
pt : film overboard !
here , common sense flies out the window , along with the hail of bullets , none
of which ever seem to hit sascha .
this 100-minute movie only has about 25 minutes of decent material .
the execution is so pedestrian that the most positive comment we can make is tha
t rob schneider actually turns in a pretty convincing performance as a prissy te
enage girl .
on its own , it's not very interesting . as a remake , it's a pale imitation .
it shows that some studios firmly believe that people have lost the ability to t
hink and will forgive any shoddy product as long as there's a little girl-on-gir
l action .
a farce of a parody of a comedy of a premise , it isn't a comparison to reality
so much as it is a commentary about our knowledge of films .
as exciting as all this exoticism might sound to the typical pax viewer , the re
st of us will be lulled into a coma .
the party scenes deliver some tawdry kicks . the rest of the film . . . is dudsv
ille .
our culture is headed down the toilet with the ferocity of a frozen burrito afte
r an all-night tequila bender and i know this because i've seen 'jackass : the m
ovie . '
the criticism never rises above easy , cynical potshots at morally bankrupt char
acters . . .
the movie's something-borrowed construction feels less the product of loving , w
ell integrated homage and more like a mere excuse for the wan , thinly sketched
story . killing time , that's all that's going on here .
stupid , infantile , redundant , sloppy , over-the-top , and amateurish . yep ,
it's " waking up in reno . " go back to sleep .
somewhere in the middle , the film compels , as demme experiments he harvests a
few movie moment gems , but the field of roughage dominates .
the action clichs just pile up .
payami tries to raise some serious issues about iran's electoral process , but t
he result is a film that's about as subtle as a party political broadcast .
the only surprise is that heavyweights joel silver and robert zemeckis agreed to
produce this ; i assume the director has pictures of them cavorting in ladies'
underwear .
another useless recycling of a brutal mid-'70s american sports movie .
i didn't laugh . i didn't smile . i survived .
please , someone , stop eric schaeffer before he makes another film .
most of the problems with the film don't derive from the screenplay , but rather
the mediocre performances by most of the actors involved
. . . if you're just in the mood for a fun -- but bad -- movie , you might want
to catch freaks as a matinee .
curling may be a unique sport but men with brooms is distinctly ordinary .
though the opera itself takes place mostly indoors , jacquot seems unsure of how
to evoke any sort of naturalism on the set .
there's no getting around the fact that this is revenge of the nerds revisited -
- again .
the effort is sincere and the results are honest , but the film is so bleak that
it's hardly watchable .
analyze that regurgitates and waters down many of the previous film's successes
, with a few new swings thrown in .
with flashbulb editing as cover for the absence of narrative continuity , undisp
uted is nearly incoherent , an excuse to get to the closing bout . . . by which
time it's impossible to care who wins .
stinks from start to finish , like a wet burlap sack of gloom .
to the civilized mind , a movie like ballistic : ecks vs . sever is more of an o
rdeal than an amusement .
equlibrium could pass for a thirteen-year-old's book report on the totalitarian
themes of 1984 and farenheit 451 .
the lack of naturalness makes everything seem self-consciously poetic and forced
. . . it's a pity that [nelson's] achievement doesn't match his ambition .
everything is off .
when seagal appeared in an orange prison jumpsuit , i wanted to stand up in the
theater and shout , 'hey , kool-aid ! '
an easy watch , except for the annoying demeanour of its lead character .
imagine the cleanflicks version of 'love story , ' with ali macgraw's profanitie
s replaced by romance-novel platitudes .
pc stability notwithstanding , the film suffers from a simplistic narrative and
a pat , fairy-tale conclusion .
forget the misleading title , what's with the unexplained baboon cameo ?
an odd , haphazard , and inconsequential romantic comedy .
though her fans will assuredly have their funny bones tickled , others will find
their humor-seeking dollars best spent elsewhere .
pascale bailly's rom-com provides amlie's audrey tautou with another fabuleux des
tin -- i . e . , a banal spiritual quest .
a static and sugary little half-hour , after-school special about interfaith und
erstanding , stretched out to 90 minutes .
watching the chemistry between freeman and judd , however , almost makes this mo
vie worth seeing . almost .
. . . a pretentious and ultimately empty examination of a sick and evil woman .
the country bears has no scenes that will upset or frighten young viewers . unfo
rtunately , there is almost nothing in this flat effort that will amuse or enter
tain them , either .
the cumulative effect of watching this 65-minute trifle is rather like being tra
pped while some weird relative trots out the video he took of the family vacatio
n to stonehenge . before long , you're desperate for the evening to end .
the characters are never more than sketches . . . which leaves any true emotiona
l connection or identification frustratingly out of reach .
mattei's underdeveloped effort here is nothing but a convenient conveyor belt of
brooding personalities that parade about as if they were coming back from stock
character camp -- a drowsy drama infatuated by its own pretentious self-examina
tion .
only in its final surprising shots does rabbit-proof fence find the authority it
's looking for .
isn't as sharp as the original . . . despite some visual virtues , 'blade ii' ju
st doesn't cut it .
. . . plays like a badly edited , 91-minute trailer ( and ) the director can't
seem to get a coherent rhythm going . in fact , it doesn't even seem like she tr
ied .
maybe leblanc thought , " hey , the movie about the baseball-playing monkey was
worse . "
what you expect is just what you get . . . assuming the bar of expectations hasn
't been raised above sixth-grade height .
barry sonnenfeld owes frank the pug big time
the biggest problem with roger avary's uproar against the mpaa is that , even in
all its director's cut glory , he's made a film that's barely shocking , barely
interesting and most of all , barely anything .
so riddled with unanswered questions that it requires gargantuan leaps of faith
just to watch it plod along .
i approached the usher and said that if she had to sit through it again , she sh
ould ask for a raise .
earnest but heavy-handed .
if sinise's character had a brain his ordeal would be over in five minutes but i
nstead the plot goes out of its way to introduce obstacles for him to stumble ov
er .
too slow for a younger crowd , too shallow for an older one .
there's a reason the studio didn't offer an advance screening . " the adventures
of pluto nash " is a big time stinker .
a punch line without a premise , a joke built entirely from musty memories of ha
lf-dimensional characters .
takes one character we don't like and another we don't believe , and puts them i
nto a battle of wills that is impossible to care about and isn't very funny .
the things this movie tries to get the audience to buy just won't fly with most
intelligent viewers .
even if the enticing prospect of a lot of nubile young actors in a film about ca
mpus depravity didn't fade amid the deliberate , tiresome ugliness , it would be
rendered tedious by avary's failure to construct a story with even a trace of d
ramatic interest .
sitting through the last reel ( spoiler alert ! ) is significantly less charming
than listening to a four-year-old with a taste for exaggeration recount his hal
loween trip to the haunted house .
confuses its message with an ultimate desire to please , and contorting itself i
nto an idea of expectation is the last thing any of these three actresses , nor
their characters , deserve .
deadly dull , pointless meditation on losers in a gone-to-seed hotel .
with this new rollerball , sense and sensibility have been overrun by what can o
nly be characterized as robotic sentiment .
one can only assume that the jury who bestowed star hoffman's brother gordy with
the waldo salt screenwriting award at 2002's sundance festival were honoring an
attempt to do something different over actually pulling it off
a movie more to be prescribed than recommended -- as visually bland as a dentist
's waiting room , complete with soothing muzak and a cushion of predictable narr
ative rhythms .
sex ironically has little to do with the story , which becomes something about h
ow lame it is to try and evade your responsibilities and that you should never ,
ever , leave a large dog alone with a toddler . but never mind all that ; the b
oobs are fantasti
the script covers huge , heavy topics in a bland , surfacey way that doesn't off
er any insight into why , for instance , good things happen to bad people .
a portrait of alienation so perfect , it will certainly succeed in alienating mo
st viewers .
the code talkers deserved better than a hollow tribute .
skip the film and buy the philip glass soundtrack cd .
feels like a cold old man going through the motions .
dignified ceo's meet at a rustic retreat and pee against a tree . can you bear t
he laughter ?
dull and mechanical , kinda like a very goofy museum exhibit
there's no point of view , no contemporary interpretation of joan's prefeminist
plight , so we're left thinking the only reason to make the movie is because pre
sent standards allow for plenty of nudity .
beware the quirky brit-com . they can and will turn on a dime from oddly humorou
s to tediously sentimental .
has its moments -- and almost as many subplots .
the gags , and the script , are a mixed bag .
completely awful iranian drama . . . as much fun as a grouchy ayatollah in a col
d mosque .
narratively , trouble every day is a plodding mess .
there's no point in extracting the bare bones of byatt's plot for purposes of bl
and hollywood romance .
directors john musker and ron clements , the team behind the little mermaid , ha
ve produced sparkling retina candy , but they aren't able to muster a lot of emo
tional resonance in the cold vacuum of space .
adam sandler's heart may be in the right place , but he needs to pull his head o
ut of his butt
there's no doubting that this is a highly ambitious and personal project for ego
yan , but it's also one that , next to his best work , feels clumsy and convolut
ed .
despite engaging offbeat touches , knockaround guys rarely seems interested in k
icking around a raison d'etre that's as fresh-faced as its young-guns cast .
it's all pretty tame . the most offensive thing about the movie is that hollywoo
d expects people to pay to see it .
the movie is a mess from start to finish .
the trouble with making this queen a thoroughly modern maiden is that it also ma
kes her appear foolish and shallow rather than , as was more likely , a victim o
f mental illness .
i'm not saying that ice age doesn't have some fairly pretty pictures , but there
's not enough substance in the story to actually give them life .
in the telling of a story largely untold , bui chooses to produce something that
is ultimately suspiciously familiar .
the plot is nothing but boilerplate clichs from start to finish , and the script
assumes that not only would subtlety be lost on the target audience , but that i
t's also too stupid to realize that they've already seen this exact same movie a
hundred times
terminally brain dead production .
some episodes work , some don't .
beautifully filmed and well acted . . . but admittedly problematic in its narrat
ive specifics .
j . lo will earn her share of the holiday box office pie , although this movie m
akes one thing perfectly clear : she's a pretty woman , but she's no working gir
l .
rymer doesn't trust laughs -- and doesn't conjure proper respect for followers o
f the whole dead-undead genre , who deserve more from a vampire pic than a few s
hrieky special effects .
not only are the film's sopranos gags incredibly dated and unfunny , they also d
emonstrate how desperate the makers of this 'we're -doing-it-for -the-cash' sequ
el were .
wow . i have not been this disappointed by a movie in a long time .
off the hook is overlong and not well-acted , but credit writer-producer-directo
r adam watstein with finishing it at all .
it's a drag how nettelbeck sees working women -- or at least this working woman
-- for whom she shows little understanding .
watching harris ham it up while physically and emotionally disintegrating over t
he course of the movie has a certain poignancy in light of his recent death , bu
t boyd's film offers little else of consequence .
it's also curious to note that this film , like the similarly ill-timed antitrus
t , is easily as bad at a fraction the budget .
'ejemplo de una cinta en que no importa el talento de su reparto o lo interesant
e que pudo haber resultado su premisa , pues el resultado es francamente aburrid
o y , por momentos , deplorable . '
will probably be one of those movies barely registering a blip on the radar scre
en of 2002 .
the problem is not that it's all derivative , because plenty of funny movies rec
ycle old tropes . the problem is that van wilder does little that is actually fu
nny with the material .
there's nothing interesting in unfaithful whatsoever .
none of this is half as moving as the filmmakers seem to think .
a processed comedy chop suey .
as spent screen series go , star trek : nemesis is even more suggestive of a 65t
h class reunion mixer where only eight surviving members show up -- and there's
nothing to drink .
fails as a dystopian movie , as a retooling of fahrenheit 451 , and even as a ri
p-off of the matrix .
full of the kind of obnoxious chitchat that only self-aware neurotics engage in
.
an erotic thriller that's neither too erotic nor very thrilling , either .
the movie , like bartleby , is something of a stiff -- an extra-dry office comed
y that seems twice as long as its 83 minutes .
with its parade of almost perpetually wasted characters . . . margarita feels li
ke a hazy high that takes too long to shake .
if you value your time and money , find an escape clause and avoid seeing this t
rite , predictable rehash .
the director and her capable cast appear to be caught in a heady whirl of new ag
e-inspired good intentions , but the spell they cast isn't the least bit mesmeri
zing .
everything is pegged into the groove of a new york dating comedy with 'issues' t
o simplify .
a dramatic comedy as pleasantly dishonest and pat as any hollywood fluff .
the cameo-packed , m : i-2-spoofing title sequence is the funniest 5 minutes to
date in this spy comedy franchise . . . then mike myers shows up and ruins every
thing .
it comes off as so silly that you wouldn't be surprised if ba , murdock and rest
of the a-team were seen giving chase in a black and red van .
the 50-something lovebirds are too immature and unappealing to care about .
so genial is the conceit , this is one of those rare pictures that you root for
throughout , dearly hoping that the rich promise of the script will be realized
on the screen . it never is , not fully .
even in the summertime , the most restless young audience deserves the dignity o
f an action hero motivated by something more than franchise possibilities .
what with all the blanket statements and dime-store ruminations on vanity , the
worries of the rich and sudden wisdom , the film becomes a sermon for most of it
s running time .
one lousy movie .
as gamely as the movie tries to make sense of its title character , there remain
s a huge gap between the film's creepy , clean-cut dahmer ( jeremy renner ) and
fiendish acts that no amount of earnest textbook psychologizing can bridge .
plodding , peevish and gimmicky .
the four feathers is definitely horse feathers , but if you go in knowing that ,
you might have fun in this cinematic sandbox .
oozes condescension from every pore .
solaris " is a shapeless inconsequential move relying on the viewer to do most o
f the work .
the direction , by george hickenlooper , has no snap to it , no wiseacre crackle
or hard-bitten cynicism .
. . . hypnotically dull .
though this saga would be terrific to read about , it is dicey screen material t
hat only a genius should touch .
it has plenty of laughs . it just doesn't have much else . . . especially in a m
oral sense .
an awful lot like one of [spears'] music videos in content -- except that it goe
s on for at least 90 more minutes and , worse , that you have to pay if you want
to see it .
confusion is one of my least favourite emotions , especially when i have to put
up with 146 minutes of it .
[h]ad i suffered and bled on the hard ground of ia drang , i'd want something a
bit more complex than we were soldiers to be remembered by .
occasionally loud and offensive , but more often , it simply lulls you into a ge
ntle waking coma .
it may play well as a double feature with mainstream foreign mush like my big fa
t greek wedding
by the time you reach the finale , you're likely wondering why you've been watch
ing all this strutting and posturing .
journalistically dubious , inept and often lethally dull .
putting the primitive murderer inside a high-tech space station unleashes a pand
ora's box of special effects that run the gamut from cheesy to cheesier to chees
iest .
at its best , it's black hawk down with more heart . at its worst , it's rambo-
meets-john ford .
exactly what you'd expect from a guy named kaos .
calculated swill .
this movie . . . doesn't deserve the energy it takes to describe how bad it is .
with or without ballast tanks , k-19 sinks to a harrison ford low .
director oliver parker labors so hard to whip life into the importance of being
earnest that he probably pulled a muscle or two .
you might be shocked to discover that seinfeld's real life is boring .
it's not nearly as fresh or enjoyable as its predecessor , but there are enough
high points to keep this from being a complete waste of time .
walsh can't quite negotiate the many inconsistencies in janice's behavior or com
pensate for them by sheer force of charm .
this 10th film in the series looks and feels tired .
it leers , offering next to little insight into its intriguing subject .
i found myself growing more and more frustrated and detached as vincent became m
ore and more abhorrent .
one of the oddest and most inexplicable sequels in movie history .
there's nothing to gain from watching they . it isn't scary . it hates its chara
cters . it finds no way to entertain or inspire its viewers .
fear permeates the whole of stortelling , todd solondz' oftentimes funny , yet u
ltimately cowardly autocritique .
the skirmishes for power waged among victims and predators settle into an undist
inguished rhythm of artificial suspense .
thoroughly awful .
. . . ice age treads predictably along familiar territory , making it a passabl
e family film that won't win many fans over the age of 12 .
though the film is well-intentioned , one could rent the original and get the sa
me love story and parable .
just too silly and sophomoric to ensnare its target audience .
the video work is so grainy and rough , so dependent on being 'naturalistic' rat
her than carefully lit and set up , that it's exhausting to watch .
truly terrible .
a cleverly crafted but ultimately hollow mockumentary .
it gets bogged down by hit-and-miss topical humour before getting to the truly g
ood stuff .
an achingly enthralling premise , the film is hindered by uneven dialogue and pl
ot lapses .
it's tommy's job to clean the peep booths surrounding her , and after viewing th
is one , you'll feel like mopping up , too .
rifkin no doubt fancies himself something of a hubert selby jr . , but there isn
't an ounce of honest poetry in his entire script ; it's simply crude and unrele
ntingly exploitative .
fluffy and disposible .
such a bad movie that its luckiest viewers will be seated next to one of those i
gnorant pinheads who talk throughout the show .
if you go into the theater expecting a scary , action-packed chiller , you might
soon be looking for a sign . an exit sign , that is .
holds limited appeal to those who like explosions , sadism and seeing people bea
t each other to a pulp .
the dialogue is very choppy and monosyllabic despite the fact that it is being d
ubbed .
a feature-length , r-rated , road-trip version of mama's family .
what you end up getting is the vertical limit of surfing movies - memorable stun
ts with lots of downtime in between .
stealing harvard doesn't care about cleverness , wit or any other kind of intell
igent humor .
bigelow handles the nuclear crisis sequences evenly but milks drama when she sho
uld be building suspense , and drags out too many scenes toward the end that sho
uld move quickly .
there's undeniable enjoyment to be had from films crammed with movie references
, but the fun wears thin -- then out -- when there's nothing else happening .
imagine kevin smith , the blasphemous bad boy of suburban jersey , if he were st
ripped of most of his budget and all of his sense of humor . the result might lo
ok like vulgar .
suffers from a lack of clarity and audacity that a subject as monstrous and path
etic as dahmer demands .
what soured me on the santa clause 2 was that santa bumps up against 21st centur
y reality so hard , it's icky .
it's an 88-minute highlight reel that's 86 minutes too long .
the film favors the scientific over the spectacular ( visually speaking ) .
such an incomprehensible mess that it feels less like bad cinema than like being
stuck in a dark pit having a nightmare about bad cinema .
with the exception of mccoist , the players don't have a clue on the park . the
acting isn't much better .
the whole affair is as predictable as can be .
a not-so-divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood with a hefty helping of re-fried
green tomatoes .
this cloying , voices-from-the-other-side story is hell .
a suffocating rape-payback horror show that hinges on the subgenre's most enabli
ng victim . . . and an ebullient affection for industrial-model meat freezers .
star trek was kind of terrific once , but now it is a copy of a copy of a copy .
[n]o matter how much good will the actors generate , showtime eventually folds u
nder its own thinness .
every potential twist is telegraphed well in advance , every performance respect
ably muted ; the movie itself seems to have been made under the influence of roh
ypnol .
puts on airs of a hal hartley wannabe film -- without the vital comic ingredient
of the hilarious writer-director himself .
ver wiel's desperate attempt at wit is lost , leaving the character of critical
jim two-dimensional and pointless .
despite a performance of sustained intelligence from stanford and another of sub
tle humour from bebe neuwirth , as an older woman who seduces oscar , the film f
ounders on its lack of empathy for the social milieu - rich new york intelligent
sia - and its off
although disney follows its standard formula in this animated adventure , it fee
ls more forced than usual .
gaghan . . . has thrown every suspenseful clich in the book at this nonsensical s
tory .
a sham construct based on theory , sleight-of-hand , and ill-wrought hypothesis
.
[p]artnering murphy with robert de niro for the tv-cops comedy showtime would se
em to be surefire casting . the catch is that they're stuck with a script that p
revents them from firing on all cylinders .
'you'll laugh for not quite and hour and a half , but come out feeling strangely
unsatisfied . you'll feel like you ate a reeses without the peanut butter . . .
'
gooding offers a desperately ingratiating performance .
parker should be commended for taking a fresh approach to familiar material , bu
t his determination to remain true to the original text leads him to adopt a som
ewhat mannered tone . . . that ultimately dulls the human tragedy at the story's
core .
the director has injected self-consciousness into the proceedings at every turn
. the results are far more alienating than involving .
bogdanich is unashamedly pro-serbian and makes little attempt to give voice to t
he other side .
a lack of thesis makes maryam , in the end , play out with the intellectual and
emotional impact of an after-school special .
the worst film of the year .
by-the-numbers yarn .
without shakespeare's eloquent language , the update is dreary and sluggish .
if h . g . wells had a time machine and could take a look at his kin's reworked
version , what would he say ? 'it looks good , sonny , but you missed the point
. '
during the tuxedo's 90 minutes of screen time , there isn't one true 'chan momen
t' .
bisset delivers a game performance , but she is unable to save the movie .
watching austin powers in goldmember is like binging on cotton candy . it's swee
t and fluffy at the time , but it may leave you feeling a little sticky and unsa
tisfied .
the most anti-human big studio picture since 3000 miles to graceland .
the film can depress you about life itself .
i'm sure the filmmakers found this a remarkable and novel concept , but anybody
who has ever seen an independent film can report that it is instead a cheap clic
h .
the acting is fine but the script is about as interesting as a recording of conv
ersations at the wal-mart checkout line .
its weighty themes are too grave for youngsters , but the story is too steeped i
n fairy tales and other childish things to appeal much to teenagers .
the plot plummets into a comedy graveyard before janice comes racing to the resc
ue in the final reel .
sometimes there are very , very good reasons for certain movies to be sealed in
a jar and left on a remote shelf indefinitely .
at 90 minutes this movie is short , but it feels much longer .
here's my advice , kev . start reading your scripts before signing that dotted l
ine .
an alternately raucous and sappy ethnic sitcom . . . you'd be wise to send your
regrets .
an ugly-duckling tale so hideously and clumsily told it feels accidental .
unfortunately , it's also not very good . especially compared with the televisio
n series that inspired the movie .
it wraps up a classic mother/daughter struggle in recycled paper with a shiny ne
w bow and while the audience can tell it's not all new , at least it looks prett
y .
glazed with a tawdry b-movie scum .
this is the kind of movie during which you want to bang your head on the seat in
front of you , at its cluelessness , at its idiocy , at its utterly misplaced e
arnestness .
it winds up moving in many directions as it searches ( vainly , i think ) for so
mething fresh to say .
all in all , road to perdition is more in love with strangeness than excellence
.
a big fat pain .
a mimetic approximation of better films like contempt and 8 1/2 .
unintelligible , poorly acted , brain-slappingly bad , harvard man is ludicrous
enough that it could become a cult classic .
watching the powerpuff girls movie , my mind kept returning to one anecdote for
comparison : the cartoon in japan that gave people seizures .
aan opportunity wasted .
an inelegant combination of two unrelated shorts that falls far short of the dir
ector's previous work in terms of both thematic content and narrative strength .

to build a feel-good fantasy around a vain dictator-madman is off-putting , to s

ay the least , not to mention inappropriate and wildly undeserved .
with the cheesiest monsters this side of a horror spoof , which they isn't , it
is more likely to induce sleep than fright .
mild , meandering teen flick .
though its atmosphere is intriguing . . . the drama is finally too predictable t
o leave much of an impression .
though this rude and crude film does deliver a few gut-busting laughs , its digs
at modern society are all things we've seen before .
although it tries to be much more , it's really just another major league .
astonishing isn't the word -- neither is incompetent , incoherent or just plain
crap . indeed , none of these words really gets at the very special type of badn
ess that is deuces wild .
one thing is for sure : this movie does not tell you a whole lot about lily chou
-chou .
with a tone as variable as the cinematography , schaeffer's film never settles i
nto the light-footed enchantment the material needs , and the characters' quirks
and foibles never jell into charm .
to better understand why this didn't connect with me would require another viewi
ng , and i won't be sitting through this one again . . . that in itself is comme
ntary enough .
cuba gooding jr . valiantly mugs his way through snow dogs , but even his boiste
rous energy fails to spark this leaden comedy .
diane lane's sophisticated performance can't rescue adrian lyne's unfaithful fro
m its sleazy moralizing .
not at all clear what it's trying to say and even if it were i doubt it would be
all that interesting .
storytelling feels slight .
[swimfan] falls victim to sloppy plotting , an insultingly unbelievable final ac
t and a villainess who is too crazy to be interesting .
this remake of lina wertmuller's 1975 eroti-comedy might just be the biggest hus
band-and-wife disaster since john and bo derek made the ridiculous bolero .
silly , loud and goofy .
why spend $9 on the same stuff you can get for a buck or so in that greasy littl
e vidgame pit in the theater lobby ?
the french director has turned out nearly 21/2 hours of unfocused , excruciating
ly tedious cinema that , half an hour in , starts making water torture seem appe
aling .
the basic premise is intriguing but quickly becomes distasteful and downright cr
eepy .
the pool drowned me in boredom .
it's like an all-star salute to disney's cheesy commercialism .
it's hard to imagine any recent film , independent or otherwise , that makes as
much of a mess as this one .
some of the computer animation is handsome , and various amusing sidekicks add m
uch-needed levity to the otherwise bleak tale , but overall the film never rises
above mediocrity .
there's an excellent 90-minute film here ; unfortunately , it runs for 170 .
as saccharine movies go , this is likely to cause massive cardiac arrest if take
n in large doses .
die another day is only intermittently entertaining but it's hard not to be a su
cker for its charms , or perhaps it's just impossible not to feel nostalgia for
movies you grew up with .
as is often the case with ambitious , eager first-time filmmakers , mr . murray
, a prolific director of music videos , stuffs his debut with more plot than it
can comfortably hold .
the mystery of enigma is how a rich historical subject , combined with so much f
irst-rate talent . . . could have yielded such a flat , plodding picture .
it throws quirky characters , odd situations , and off-kilter dialogue at us , a
ll as if to say , " look at this ! this is an interesting movie ! " but the film
itself is ultimately quite unengaging .
the inherent limitations of using a video game as the source material movie are
once again made all too clear in this schlocky horror/action hybrid .
bad company . bad movie . just plain bad .
it's not only dull because we've seen [eddie] murphy do the genial-rogue shtick
to death , but because the plot is equally hackneyed .
avary's film never quite emerges from the shadow of ellis' book .
a poorly scripted , preachy fable that forgets about unfolding a coherent , beli
evable story in its zeal to spread propaganda .
while it is interesting to witness the conflict from the palestinian side , long
ley's film lacks balance . . . and fails to put the struggle into meaningful his
torical context .
woo has as much right to make a huge action sequence as any director , but how l
ong will filmmakers copy the " saving private ryan " battle scenes before realiz
ing steven spielberg got it right the first time ?
it's sincere to a fault , but , unfortunately , not very compelling or much fun
.
. . . jones , despite a definitely distinctive screen presence , just isn't abl
e to muster for a movie that , its title notwithstanding , should have been a lo
t nastier if it wanted to fully capitalize on its lead's specific gifts .
this follow-up seems so similar to the 1953 disney classic that it makes one lon
g for a geriatric peter .
why , you may ask , why should you buy the movie milk when the tv cow is free ?
there's no good answer to that one .
this slow-moving swedish film offers not even a hint of joy , preferring to focu
s on the humiliation of martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants
at his own birthday party .
a muddled limp biscuit of a movie , a vampire soap opera that doesn't make much
sense even on its own terms .
there's the plot , and a maddeningly insistent and repetitive piano score that m
ade me want to scream .
this is a movie so insecure about its capacity to excite that it churns up not o
ne but two flagrantly fake thunderstorms to underscore the action .
this is amusing for about three minutes .
klein , charming in comedies like american pie and dead-on in election , deliver
s one of the saddest action hero performances ever witnessed .
it's rare to see a movie that takes such a speedy swan dive from " promising " t
o " interesting " to " familiar " before landing squarely on " stupid " .
this is the sort of low-grade dreck that usually goes straight to video --with a
lousy script , inept direction , pathetic acting , poorly dubbed dialogue and m
urky cinematography , complete with visible boom mikes .
the direction occasionally rises to the level of marginal competence , but for m
ost of the film it is hard to tell who is chasing who or why .
there are few things more frustrating to a film buff than seeing an otherwise go
od movie marred beyond redemption by a disastrous ending .
it won't harm anyone , but neither can i think of a very good reason to rush rig
ht out and see it . after all , it'll probably be in video stores by christmas ,
and it might just be better suited to a night in the living room than a night a
t the movies .
looks more like a travel-agency video targeted at people who like to ride bikes
topless and roll in the mud than a worthwhile glimpse of independent-community g
uiding lights .
given too much time to consider the looseness of the piece , the picture begins
to resemble the shapeless , grasping actors' workshop that it is .
they kept much of the plot but jettisoned the stuff that would make this a movin
g experience for people who haven't read the book .
just because a walk to remember is shrewd enough to activate girlish tear ducts
doesn't mean it's good enough for our girls .
[carvey's] characters are both overplayed and exaggerated , but then again , sub
tlety has never been his trademark .
it's mildly interesting to ponder the peculiar american style of justice that pl
ays out here , but it's so muddled and derivative that few will bother thinking
it all through .
this dreadfully earnest inversion of the concubine love triangle eschews the pre
vious film's historical panorama and roiling pathos for bug-eyed mugging and gay
-niche condescension .
brown's saga , like many before his , makes for snappy prose but a stumblebum of
a movie .
the boys' sparring , like the succession of blows dumped on guei , wears down th
e story's more cerebral , and likable , plot elements .
the script by vincent r . nebrida . . . tries to cram too many ingredients into
one small pot .
the story is so light and sugary that were it a macy's thanksgiving day parade b
alloon , extra heavy-duty ropes would be needed to keep it from floating away .
oedekerk mugs mercilessly , and the genuinely funny jokes are few and far betwee
n .
since dahmer resorts to standard slasher flick thrills when it should be most in
the mind of the killer , it misses a major opportunity to be truly revelatory a
bout his psyche .
only those most addicted to film violence in all its forms will find anything he
re to appreciate .
cold and scattered , minority report commands interest almost solely as an exerc
ise in gorgeous visuals . that's not vintage spielberg and that , finally , is m
inimally satisfying .
every now and again , a movie comes along to remind us of how very bad a motion
picture can truly be . frank mcklusky c . i . is that movie !
it's not difficult to spot the culprit early-on in this predictable thriller .
[a] soulless , stupid sequel . . .
. . . a mostly boring affair with a confusing sudden finale that's likely to ir
k viewers .
the trappings of i spy are so familiar you might as well be watching a rerun .
what starts off as a potentially incredibly twisting mystery becomes simply a mo
nster chase film .
in the wake of saving private ryan , black hawk down and we were soldiers , you
are likely to be as heartily sick of mayhem as cage's war-weary marine .
it is messy , uncouth , incomprehensible , vicious and absurd .
really does feel like a short stretched out to feature length .
hampered -- no , paralyzed -- by a self-indulgent script . . . that aims for poe
try and ends up sounding like satire .
cheap , vulgar dialogue and a plot that crawls along at a snail's pace .
and if you appreciate the one-sided theme to lawrence's over-indulgent tirade ,
then knock yourself out and enjoy the big screen postcard that is a self-glorifi
ed martin lawrence lovefest . if you are willing to do this , then you so crazy
!
directed without the expected flair or imagination by hong kong master john woo
, windtalkers airs just about every cliche in the war movie compendium across it
s indulgent two-hour-and-fifteen-minute length .
it's a very tasteful rock and roll movie . you could put it on a coffee table an
ywhere .
the movie is loaded with good intentions , but in his zeal to squeeze the action
and our emotions into the all-too-familiar dramatic arc of the holocaust escape
story , minac drains his movie of all individuality .
an infuriating film . just when you think you are making sense of it , something
happens that tells you there is no sense .
the entire movie is so formulaic and forgettable that it's hardly over before it
begins to fade from memory .
the setting turns out to be more interesting than any of the character dramas ,
which never reach satisfying conclusions .
as an entertainment destination for the general public , kung pow sets a new ben
chmark for lameness .
this misty-eyed southern nostalgia piece , in treading the line between sappy an
d sanguine , winds up mired in tear-drenched quicksand .
as pure over-the-top trash , any john waters movie has it beat by a country mile
.
wendigo wants to be a monster movie for the art-house crowd , but it falls into
the trap of pretention almost every time .
bigelow offers some flashy twists and turns that occasionally fortify this turgi
d fable . but for the most part , the weight of water comes off as a two-way tim
e-switching myopic mystery that stalls in its lackluster gear of emotional bland
ness .
this film biggest problem ? no laughs .
less-than-compelling documentary of a yiddish theater clan .
that the chuck norris " grenade gag " occurs about 7 times during windtalkers is
a good indication of how serious-minded the film is .
viewers are asked so often to suspend belief that were it not for holm's perform
ance , the film would be a total washout .
it's not exactly worth the bucks to expend the full price for a date , but when
it comes out on video , it's well worth a rental .
i can't begin to tell you how tedious , how resolutely unamusing , how thoroughl
y unrewarding all of this is , and what a reckless squandering of four fine acti
ng talents . . .
everybody loves a david and goliath story , and this one is told almost entirely
from david's point of view .
throw smoochy from the train !
eventually , they will have a showdown , but , by then , your senses are as mush
y as peas and you don't care who fires the winning shot .
irwin and his director never come up with an adequate reason why we should pay m
oney for what we can get on television for free .
a light , engaging comedy that fumbles away almost all of its accumulated enjoym
ent with a crucial third act miscalculation .
cedar somewhat defuses this provocative theme by submerging it in a hoary love t
riangle .
to paraphrase a line from another dickens' novel , nicholas nickleby is too much
like a fragment of an underdone potato .
the actresses may have worked up a back story for the women they portray so conv
incingly , but viewers don't get enough of that background for the characters to
be involving as individuals rather than types .
the result , however well-intentioned , is ironically just the sort of disposabl
e , kitchen-sink homage that illustrates why the whole is so often less than the
sum of its parts in today's hollywood .
an extremely unpleasant film .
a movie just for friday fans , critics be damned . if you already like this sort
of thing , this is that sort of thing all over again .
a sincere but dramatically conflicted gay coming-of-age tale .
wait for it to hit cable .
ultimately feels like just one more in the long line of films this year about th
e business of making movies .
a high-minded snoozer .
nothing but one relentlessly depressing situation after another for its entire r
unning time , something that you could easily be dealing with right now in your
lives .
77 minutes of pokemon may not last 4ever , it just seems like it does . my only
wish is that celebi could take me back to a time before i saw this movie and i c
ould just skip it .
the one not-so-small problem with expecting is that the entire exercise has no r
eal point .
a movie you observe , rather than one you enter into .
[at least] moore is a real charmer .
john carlen's script is full of unhappy , two-dimensional characters who are any
thing but compelling .
labute can't avoid a fatal mistake in the modern era : he's changed the male aca
demic from a lower-class brit to an american , a choice that upsets the novel's
exquisite balance and shreds the fabric of the film .
the notion of deleting emotion from people , even in an advanced prozac nation ,
is so insanely dysfunctional that the rampantly designed equilibrium becomes a
concept doofus .
stale first act , scrooge story , blatant product placement , some very good com
edic songs , strong finish , dumb fart jokes .
unsurprisingly , the way this all works out makes the women look more like stere
otypical caretakers and moral teachers , instead of serious athletes .
a film that loses sight of its own story .
adam sandler's eight crazy nights grows on you -- like a rash .
the big-screen scooby makes the silly original cartoon seem smart and well-craft
ed in comparison .
few of the increasingly far-fetched events that first-time writer-director neil
burger follows up with are terribly convincing , which is a pity , considering b
arry's terrific performance .
gets better after foster leaves that little room .
the movie is as padded as allen's jelly belly .
resident evil isn't a product of its cinematic predecessors so much as an mtv ,
sugar hysteria , and playstation cocktail .
a rather average action film that benefits from several funny moments supplied b
y epps .
. . . unspeakably , unbearably dull , featuring reams of flatly delivered dialo
gue and a heroine who comes across as both shallow and dim-witted .
resembles a soft porn brian de palma pastiche .
bluto blutarsky , we miss you .
innocuous enough to make even jean-claude van damme look good .
it's a glorified sitcom , and a long , unfunny one at that .
woody allen can write and deliver a one liner as well as anybody . but i had a l
ot of problems with this movie .
execrable .
devoid of any of the qualities that made the first film so special .
all movie long , city by the sea swings from one approach to the other , but in
the end , it stays in formula -- which is a waste of de niro , mcdormand and the
other good actors in the cast .
plotless collection of moronic stunts is by far the worst movie of the year .
however sincere it may be , the rising place never quite justifies its own exist
ence .
parker updates the setting in an attempt to make the film relevant today , witho
ut fully understanding what it was that made the story relevant in the first pla
ce .
it's sort of a 21st century morality play with a latino hip hop beat . but the s
econd half of the movie really goes downhill .
paxton's uneven directorial debut fails to unlock the full potential of what is
in many ways a fresh and dramatically substantial spin on the genre .
the script becomes lifeless and falls apart like a cheap lawn chair .
the script falls back on too many tried-and-true shenanigans that hardly disting
uish it from the next teen comedy .
the film starts promisingly , but the ending is all too predictable and far too
cliched to really work .
let's issue a moratorium , effective immediately , on treacly films about inspir
ational prep-school professors and the children they so heartwarmingly motivate
.
it's the element of condescension , as the filmmakers look down on their working
-class subjects from their lofty perch , that finally makes sex with strangers ,
which opens today in the new york metropolitan area , so distasteful .
alternately frustrating and rewarding .
it's impossible to even categorize this as a smutty guilty pleasure .
despite suffering a sense-of-humour failure , the man who wrote rocky does not d
eserve to go down with a ship as leaky as this .
swinging , the film makes it seem , is not a hobby that attracts the young and f
it . or intelligent .
the most memorable moment was when green threw medical equipment at a window ; n
ot because it was particularly funny , but because i had a serious urge to grab
the old lady at the end of my aisle's walker and toss it at the screen in frustr
ation .
see clockstoppers if you have nothing better to do with 94 minutes . but be warn
ed , you too may feel time has decided to stand still . or that the battery on y
our watch has died .
suffers from over-familiarity since hit-hungry british filmmakers have strip-min
ed the monty formula mercilessly since 1997 .
there are enough throwaway references to faith and rainbows to plant smile-butto
n faces on that segment of the populace that made a walk to remember a niche hit
.
yes , i have given this movie a rating of zero . but fans of the show should not
consider this a diss . consider it 'perfection . '
the cumulative effect of the movie is repulsive and depressing .
children and adults enamored of all things pokemon won't be disappointed .
i don't even care that there's no plot in this antonio banderas-lucy liu faceoff
. it's still terrible !
children of the century , though well dressed and well made , ultimately falls p
rey to the contradiction that afflicts so many movies about writers .
it's not so much a movie as a joint promotion for the national basketball associ
ation and teenaged rap and adolescent poster-boy lil' bow wow .
peralta's mythmaking could have used some informed , adult hindsight .
amazingly dopey .
a close-to-solid espionage thriller with the misfortune of being released a few
decades too late .
cloaks a familiar anti-feminist equation ( career - kids = misery ) in tiresome
romantic-comedy duds .
the good girl is a film in which the talent is undeniable but the results are un
derwhelming .
just a collection of this and that -- whatever fills time -- with no unified who
le .
the animation and game phenomenon that peaked about three years ago is actually
dying a slow death , if the poor quality of pokemon 4 ever is any indication .
only about as sexy and dangerous as an actress in a role that reminds at every t
urn of elizabeth berkley's flopping dolphin-gasm .
kids who are into this thornberry stuff will probably be in wedgie heaven . anyo
ne else who may , for whatever reason , be thinking about going to see this movi
e is hereby given fair warning .
mr . soderbergh's direction and visual style struck me as unusually and unimpres
sively fussy and pretentious .
do you say " hi " to your lover when you wake up in the morning ?
it makes me feel weird / thinking about all the bad things in the world / like p
uppies with broken legs / and butterflies that die / and movies starring pop que
ens
director tom dey demonstrated a knack for mixing action and idiosyncratic humor
in his charming 2000 debut shanghai noon , but showtime's uninspired send-up of
tv cop show cliches mostly leaves him shooting blanks .
banal and predictable .
'yes , that's right : it's forrest gump , angel of death . '
a wildly erratic drama with sequences that make you wince in embarrassment and o
thers , thanks to the actors , that are quite touching .
while easier to sit through than most of jaglom's self-conscious and gratingly i
rritating films , it's still tainted by cliches , painful improbability and murk
y points .
about as enjoyable , i would imagine , as searching for a quarter in a giant pil
e of elephant feces . . . positively dreadful .
a generic international version of a typical american horror film .
. . . while certainly clever in spots , this too-long , spoofy update of shakes
peare's macbeth doesn't sustain a high enough level of invention .
crikey indeed .
lucas has in fact come closer than anyone could desire to the cheap , graceless
, hackneyed sci-fi serials of the '30s and '40s .
there's a lot of good material here , but there's also a lot of redundancy and u
nsuccessful crudeness accompanying it .
absurdities and clichs accumulate like lint in a fat man's navel .
if you think it's a riot to see rob schneider in a young woman's clothes , then
you'll enjoy the hot chick .
the sheer dumbness of the plot ( other than its one good idea ) and the movie's
inescapable air of sleaziness get you down .
strangely comes off as a kingdom more mild than wild .
the next big thing's not-so-big ( and not-so-hot ) directorial debut .
yet another iteration of what's become one of the movies' creepiest conventions
, in which the developmentally disabled are portrayed with almost supernatural p
owers to humble , teach and ultimately redeem their mentally " superior " friend
s , family . . .
bond-inspired ? certainly . likely to have decades of life as a classic movie fr
anchise ? let's hope not .
this flat run at a hip-hop tootsie is so poorly paced you could fit all of pooti
e tang in between its punchlines .
davis has energy , but she doesn't bother to make her heroine's book sound convi
ncing , the gender-war ideas original , or the comic scenes fly .
surprisingly , considering that baird is a former film editor , the movie is rat
her choppy .
none of this is very original , and it isn't particularly funny .
. . . a bland murder-on-campus yawner .
a humorless journey into a philosophical void .
these two are generating about as much chemistry as an iraqi factory poised to r
eceive a un inspector .
responsvel direto pelo fracasso 'artstico' de doce lar , o roteirista c . jay cox
no consegue sequer aproveitar os pouqussimos momentos em que escapa da mediocridad
e .
just as the lousy tarantino imitations have subsided , here comes the first lous
y guy ritchie imitation .
a passable romantic comedy , in need of another couple of passes through the wor
d processor .
the movie attempts to mine laughs from a genre -- the gangster/crime comedy -- t
hat wore out its welcome with audiences several years ago , and its cutesy relia
nce on movie-specific cliches isn't exactly endearing .
shows holmes has the screen presence to become a major-league leading lady , ( b
ut ) the movie itself is an underachiever , a psychological mystery that takes i
ts sweet time building to a climax that's scarcely a surprise by the time it arr
ives .
in the book-on-tape market , the film of " the kid stays in the picture " would
be an abridged edition
ultimately . . . the movie is too heady for children , and too preachy for adult
s .
it's just a little too self-satisfied .
clever but not especially compelling .
mckay seems embarrassed by his own invention and tries to rush through the inter
mediary passages , apparently hoping that the audience will not notice the glari
ng triteness of the plot device he has put in service .
a piece of mildly entertaining , inoffensive fluff that drifts aimlessly for 90
minutes before lodging in the cracks of that ever-growing category : unembarrass
ing but unmemorable .
labute was more fun when his characters were torturing each other psychologicall
y and talking about their genitals in public .
the movie weighs no more than a glass of flat champagne .
brisk hack job .
the problem with antwone fisher is that it has a screenplay written by antwone f
isher based on the book by antwone fisher .
alarms for duvall's throbbing sincerity and his elderly propensity for patting p
eople while he talks .
the maudlin way its story unfolds suggests a director fighting against the urge t
o sensationalize his material .
what little grace [rifkin's] tale of precarious skid-row dignity achieves is pus
hed into the margins by predictable plotting and tiresome histrionics .
tries to work in the same vein as the brilliance of animal house but instead com
es closer to the failure of the third revenge of the nerds sequel .
unfortunately , kapur modernizes a . e . w . mason's story to suit the sensibili
ties of a young american , a decision that plucks " the four feathers " bare .
. . . what a banal bore the preachy circuit turns out to be
falsehoods pile up , undermining the movie's reality and stifling its creator's
comic voice .
a mechanical action-comedy whose seeming purpose is to market the charismatic ja
ckie chan to even younger audiences .
one of the most incoherent features in recent memory .
low rent from frame one .
eight legged freaks ? no big hairy deal .
the issues are presented in such a lousy way , complete with some of the year's
( unintentionally ) funniest moments , that it's impossible to care .
laggard drama wending its way to an uninspired philosophical epiphany .
the respective charms of sandra bullock and hugh grant have worn threadbare .
'this movie sucks . '
none of this so-called satire has any sting to it , as if woody is afraid of bit
ing the hand that has finally , to some extent , warmed up to him .
. . . bibbidy-bobbidi-bland .
a few nonbelievers may rethink their attitudes when they see the joy the charact
ers take in this creed , but skeptics aren't likely to enter the theater .
bad in such a bizarre way that it's almost worth seeing , if only to witness the
crazy confluence of purpose and taste .
there's more repetition than creativity throughout the movie .
hugh grant's act is so consuming that sometimes it's difficult to tell who the o
ther actors in the movie are .
although the sequel has all the outward elements of the original , the first fil
m's lovely flakiness is gone , replaced by the forced funniness found in the dul
lest kiddie flicks .
i've had more interesting -- and , dare i say , thematically complex -- bowel mo
vements than this long-on-the-shelf , point-and-shoot exercise in gimmicky crime
drama .
what we get . . . is caddyshack crossed with the loyal order of raccoons .
the jokes are flat , and the action looks fake .
when a movie asks you to feel sorry for mick jagger's sex life , it already has
one strike against it .
there are now two signs that m . night shyamalan's debut feature sucked up all h
e has to give to the mystic genres of cinema : unbreakable and signs .
. . . hokey art house pretension .
. . . a weak and ineffective ghost story without a conclusion or pay off .
gussied up with so many distracting special effects and visual party tricks that
it's not clear whether we're supposed to shriek or laugh .
plodding , poorly written , murky and weakly acted , the picture feels as if eve
ryone making it lost their movie mojo .
this is a fudged opportunity of gigantic proportions -- a lunar mission with no
signs of life .
a baffling subplot involving smuggling drugs inside danish cows falls flat , and
if you're going to alter the bard's ending , you'd better have a good alternati
ve .
soderbergh seems capable only of delivering artfully lighted , earnest inquiries
that lack the kind of genuine depth that would make them redeemable .
the only thing that distinguishes a randall wallace film from any other is the f
act that there is nothing distinguishing in a randall wallace film .
silly stuff , all mixed up together like a term paper from a kid who can't quite
distinguish one sci-fi work from another .
there is so much plodding sensitivity .
the town has kind of an authentic feel , but each one of these people stand out
and everybody else is in the background and it just seems manufactured to me and
artificial .
. . . too sappy for its own good .
circuit queens won't learn a thing , they'll be too busy cursing the film's stra
tegically placed white sheets .
as an actress , madonna is one helluva singer . as the mediterranean sparkles ,
'swept away' sinks .
every so often a film comes along that is so insanely stupid , so awful in so ma
ny ways that watching it leaves you giddy . half past dead is just such an achie
vement .
expanded to 65 minutes for theatrical release , it still feels somewhat unfinish
ed .
it all looks and plays like a $40 million version of a game you're more likely t
o enjoy on a computer .
[javier bardem is] one of the few reasons to watch the film , which director ger
ardo vera has drenched in swoony music and fever-pitched melodrama .
feels shrill , simple and soapy .
adults , other than the parents . . . will be hard pressed to succumb to the cal
l of the wild .
brady achieves the remarkable feat of squandering a topnotch foursome of actors
. . . by shoving them into every clichd white-trash situation imaginable .
in the name of an allegedly inspiring and easily marketable flick , the emperor'
s club turns a blind eye to the very history it pretends to teach .
no amount of blood and disintegrating vampire cadavers can obscure this movie's
lack of ideas .
a direct-to-void release , heading nowhere .
typical anim , with cheapo animation ( like saturday morning tv in the '60s ) , a
complex sword-and-sorcery plot and characters who all have big round eyes and j
apanese names .
below is well below expectations .
at no point during k-19 : the widowmaker did this viewer feel enveloped in a sto
ry that , though meant to be universal in its themes of loyalty , courage and de
dication to a common goal , never seems to leave the lot .
. . . standard guns versus martial arts cliche with little new added .
empire can't make up its mind whether it wants to be a gangster flick or an art
film . it doesn't work as either .
given the fact that virtually no one is bound to show up at theatres for it , th
e project should have been made for the tube .
possession is in the end an honorable , interesting failure . it falls far short
of poetry , but it's not bad prose .
jonathan parker's bartleby should have been the be-all-end-all of the modern-off
ice anomie films .
there may have been a good film in " trouble every day , " but it is not what is
on the screen .
unfortunately , carvey's rubber-face routine is no match for the insipid script
he has crafted with harris goldberg .
viewed as a comedy , a romance , a fairy tale , or a drama , there's nothing rem
otely triumphant about this motion picture .
there's something unintentionally comic in the film's drumbeat about authenticit
y , given the stale plot and pornographic way the film revels in swank apartment
s , clothes and parties .
the master of disguise is funny--not " ha ha " funny , " dead circus performer "
funny . and for all the wrong reasons besides .
a zippy 96 minutes of mediocre special effects , hoary dialogue , fluxing accent
s , and -- worst of all -- silly-looking morlocks .
a 75-minute sample of puerile rubbish that is listless , witless , and devoid of
anything resembling humor .
you leave feeling like you've endured a long workout without your pulse ever rac
ing .
the waterlogged script plumbs uncharted depths of stupidity , incoherence and su
b-sophomoric sexual banter .
with mcconaughey in an entirely irony-free zone and bale reduced mainly to batti
ng his sensitive eyelids , there's not enough intelligence , wit or innovation o
n the screen to attract and sustain an older crowd .
it's the type of stunt the academy loves : a powerful political message stuffed
into an otherwise mediocre film .
in theory , a middle-aged romance pairing clayburgh and tambor sounds promising
, but in practice it's something else altogether -- clownish and offensive and n
othing at all like real life .
so mind-numbingly awful that you hope britney won't do it one more time , as far
as movies are concerned .
the images are usually abbreviated in favor of mushy obviousness and telegraphed
pathos , particularly where whitaker's misfit artist is concerned .
if welles was unhappy at the prospect of the human race splitting in two , he pr
obably wouldn't be too crazy with his great-grandson's movie splitting up in pre
tty much the same way .
sets animation back 30 years , musicals back 40 years and judaism back at least
50 .
weirdly , broomfield has compelling new material but he doesn't unveil it until
the end , after endless scenes of him wheedling reluctant witnesses and pointing
his camera through the smeared windshield of his rental car .
might best be enjoyed as a daytime soaper .
eventually arrives at its heart , as simple self-reflection meditation .
a showcase for both the scenic splendor of the mountains and for legendary actor
michel serrault , the film is less successful on other levels .
boy oh boy , it's a howler .
a few pieces of the film buzz and whir ; very little of it actually clicks . the
thing just never gets off the ground .
. . . contains very few laughs and even less surprises .
the actors must indeed be good to recite some of this laughable dialogue with a
straight face .
most of the storylines feel like time fillers between surf shots . the movie isn
't horrible , but you can see mediocre cresting on the next wave .
however stale the material , lawrence's delivery remains perfect ; his great gif
t is that he can actually trick you into thinking some of this worn-out , pander
ing palaver is actually funny .
there's nothing remotely topical or sexy here .
the tuxedo wasn't just bad ; it was , as my friend david cross would call it , '
hungry-man portions of bad' .
blue crush is so prolonged and boring it isn't even close to being the barn-burn
ingly bad movie it promised it would be .
the sequel plays out like a flimsy excuse to give blade fans another look at wes
ley snipes' iconic hero doing battle with dozens of bad guys -- at once .
while van wilder may not be the worst national lampoon film , it's far from bein
g this generation's animal house .
so devoid of pleasure or sensuality that it cannot even be dubbed hedonistic .
reeks of rot and hack work from start to finish .
an exhausting family drama about a porcelain empire and just as hard a flick as
its subject matter .
woody allen has really found his groove these days . the problem is that it is o
ne that allows him to churn out one mediocre movie after another .
the bland outweighs the nifty , and cletis tout never becomes the clever crime c
omedy it thinks it is .
it's such a mechanical endeavor [that] it never bothers to question why somebody
might devote time to see it .
the art direction is often exquisite , and the anthropomorphic animal characters
are beautifully realized through clever makeup design , leaving one to hope tha
t the eventual dvd release will offer subtitles and the original italian-languag
e soundtrack .
if the predictability of bland comfort food appeals to you , then the film is a
pleasant enough dish .
ultimately , in the history of the academy , people may be wondering what all th
at jazz was about " chicago " in 2002 . zellweger's whiny pouty-lipped poof face
d and spindly attempt at playing an ingenue makes her nomination as best actress
even more of a an a
a seriously bad film with seriously warped logic by writer-director kurt wimmer
at the screenplay level .
a pleasant and engaging enough sit , but in trying to have the best of both worl
ds it ends up falling short as a whole .
its plot and animation offer daytime tv serviceability , but little more .
a tired , unimaginative and derivative variation of that already-shallow genre .
human nature , in short , isn't nearly as funny as it thinks it is ; neither is
it as smart .
a film with a great premise but only a great premise .
instead of building to a laugh riot we are left with a handful of disparate funn
y moments of no real consequence .
kirshner and monroe seem to be in a contest to see who can out-bad-act the other
. ( kirshner wins , but it's close . )
a lame romantic comedy about an unsympathetic character and someone who would no
t likely be so stupid as to get involved with her .
what started out as a taut contest of wills between bacon and theron , deteriora
tes into a protracted and borderline silly chase sequence .
[sam's] self-flagellation is more depressing than entertaining .
an ugly , pointless , stupid movie .
simply put , there should have been a more compelling excuse to pair susan saran
don and goldie hawn .
the master of disguise represents adam sandler's latest attempt to dumb down the
universe .
this is an ungainly movie , ill-fitting , with its elbows sticking out where the
knees should be .
too silly to take seriously .
obvious
the inevitable double- and triple-crosses arise , but the only drama is in waiti
ng to hear how john malkovich's reedy consigliere will pronounce his next line .
everything's serious , poetic , earnest and -- sadly -- dull .
i like it . no , i hate it . no , i love it . . . hell , i dunno .
this mess of a movie is nothing short of a travesty of a transvestite comedy .
it's clotted with heavy-handed symbolism , dime-store psychology and endless sce
nic shots that make 105 minutes seem twice as long .
a fifty car pileup of cliches .
it's a stale , overused cocktail using the same olives since 1962 as garnish . n
ot only is entry number twenty the worst of the brosnan bunch , it's one of the
worst of the entire franchise .
what ultimately makes windtalkers a disappointment is the superficial way it dea
ls with its story .
as an actor's showcase , hart's war has much to recommend it , even if the top-b
illed willis is not the most impressive player . as a story of dramatic enlighte
nment , the screenplay by billy ray and terry george leaves something to be desi
red .
a non-britney person might survive a screening with little harm done , except ma
ybe for the last 15 minutes , which are as maudlin as any after-school special y
ou can imagine .
it's not hateful . it's simply stupid , irrelevant and deeply , truly , bottomle
ssly cynical .
possibly not since grumpy old men have i heard a film so solidly connect with on
e demographic while striking out with another .
the drama was so uninspiring that even a story immersed in love , lust , and sin
couldn't keep my attention .
a rather tired exercise in nostalgia .
the misery of these people becomes just another voyeuristic spectacle , to be co
nsumed and forgotten .
some body often looks like an episode of the tv show blind date , only less tech
nically proficient and without the pop-up comments .
bad company has one of the most moronic screenplays of the year , full of holes
that will be obvious even to those who aren't looking for them .
predecessors the mummy and the mummy returns stand as intellectual masterpieces
next to the scorpion king .
a markedly inactive film , city is conversational bordering on confessional .
while kids will probably eat the whole thing up , most adults will be way ahead
of the plot .
its one-sidedness . . . flirts with propaganda .
despite an impressive roster of stars and direction from kathryn bigelow , the w
eight of water is oppressively heavy .
we've liked klein's other work but rollerball left us cold .
they were afraid to show this movie to reviewers before its opening , afraid of
the bad reviews they thought they'd earn . they were right .
it would be churlish to begrudge anyone for receiving whatever consolation that
can be found in dragonfly , yet it is impossible to find the film anything but a
ppalling , shamelessly manipulative and contrived , and totally lacking in convi
ction .
offers no new insight on the matter , nor do its characters exactly spring to li
fe .
nohe has made a decent 'intro' documentary , but he feels like a spectator and n
ot a participant .
apparently designed as a reverie about memory and regret , but the only thing yo
u'll regret is remembering the experience of sitting through it .
a 94-minute travesty of unparalleled proportions , writer-director parker seems
to go out of his way to turn the legendary wit's classic mistaken identity farce
into brutally labored and unfunny hokum .
guy gets girl , guy loses girl , audience falls asleep .
too ordinary to restore [harmon] to prominence , despite some creepy scenes that
evoke childish night terrors , and a praiseworthy attempt to generate suspense
rather than gross out the audience .
stirs potentially enticing ingredients into an uneasy blend of ghost and close e
ncounters of the third kind .
the weird thing about the santa clause 2 , purportedly a children's movie , is t
hat there is nothing in it to engage children emotionally .
it's pretentious in a way that verges on the amateurish .
contains the humor , characterization , poignancy , and intelligence of a bad si
tcom .
it doesn't matter that the film is less than 90 minutes . it still feels like a
prison stretch .
partly a schmaltzy , by-the-numbers romantic comedy , partly a shallow ruminatio
n on the emptiness of success -- and entirely soulless .
ong chooses to present ah na's life as a slight , weightless fairy tale , whose
most unpleasant details seem to melt away in the face of the character's blank-f
aced optimism .
the overall feel is not unlike watching a glorified episode of " 7th heaven . "
just a kiss is a just a waste .
. . . this isn't even a movie we can enjoy as mild escapism ; it is one in whic
h fear and frustration are provoked to intolerable levels .
frankly , it's kind of insulting , both to men and women . and it's not that fun
ny -- which is just generally insulting .
as if drop dead gorgeous wasn't enough , this equally derisive clunker is fixate
d on the spectacle of small-town competition .
a wretched movie that reduces the second world war to one man's quest to find an
old flame .
this is a remake by the numbers , linking a halfwit plot to a series of standup
routines in which wilson and murphy show how funny they could have been in a mor
e ambitious movie .
it's better than mid-range steven seagal , but not as sharp as jet li on rollerb
lades .
no dia em que aceitou dirigir esta continuao , harold ramis deve ter sado da cama c
om o p esquerdo . e aqueles que decidiram assistir a este filme tambm .
there's a reason why halftime is only fifteen minutes long .
the talk-heavy film plays like one of robert altman's lesser works .
as happily glib and vicious as its characters .
one of those films that started with a great premise and then just fell apart .
. . . a pretentious mess . . .
no better or worse than 'truth or consequences , n . m . ' or any other intercha
ngeable actioner with imbecilic mafia toolbags botching a routine assignment in
a western backwater .
a sour attempt at making a farrelly brothers-style , down-and-dirty laugher for
the female set .
[macdowell] ventures beyond her abilities several times here and reveals how bad
an actress she is .
i can imagine this movie as a b&w british comedy , circa 1960 , with peter selle
rs , kenneth williams , et al . , but at this time , with this cast , this movie
is hopeless .
talky , artificial and opaque . . . an interesting technical exercise , but a te
dious picture .
kurys never shows why , of all the period's volatile romantic lives , sand and m
usset are worth particular attention .
almost nothing else -- raunchy and graphic as it may be in presentation -- is on
e-sided , outwardly sexist or mean-spirited . and in a sense , that's a liabilit
y .
it's easy to love robin tunney -- she's pretty and she can act -- but it gets ha
rder and harder to understand her choices .
if you've got a house full of tots -- don't worry , this will be on video long b
efore they grow up and you can wait till then .
the new film of anton chekhov's the cherry orchard puts the 'ick' in 'classic .
'
has an uppity musical beat that you can dance to , but its energy can't compare
to the wit , humor and snappy dialogue of the original . if i want music , i'll
buy the soundtrack . if i want a real movie , i'll buy the criterion dvd .
an unremarkable , modern action/comedy buddy movie whose only nod to nostalgia i
s in the title .
has all the right elements but completely fails to gel together .
writer-director stephen gaghan has made the near-fatal mistake of being what the
english call 'too clever by half . '
seagal ran out of movies years ago , and this is just the proof .
the movie is so contrived , nonsensical and formulaic that , come to think of it
, the day-old shelf would be a more appropriate location to store it .
an awkwardly garish showcase that diverges from anything remotely probing or pen
etrating .
the name says it all . jackass is a vulgar and cheap-looking version of candid c
amera staged for the marquis de sade set .
children , christian or otherwise , deserve to hear the full story of jonah's de
spair -- in all its agonizing , catch-22 glory -- even if they spend years tryin
g to comprehend it .
pleasant but not more than recycled jock piffle .
. . . the kind of movie you see because the theater has air conditioning .
with zoe clarke-williams's lackluster thriller " new best friend " , who needs e
nemies ? just another generic drama that has nothing going for it other than its
exploitive array of obligatory cheap thrills .
hip-hop prison thriller of stupefying absurdity .
an uneven mix of dark satire and childhood awakening .
aside from showing us in explicit detail how difficult it is to win over the two
-drink-minimum crowd , there's little to be learned from watching 'comedian'
a perfectly acceptable , perfectly bland , competently acted but by no means sca
ry horror movie .
the film would have been more enjoyable had the balance shifted in favor of wate
r-bound action over the land-based 'drama , ' but the emphasis on the latter lea
ves blue crush waterlogged .
the problem is the needlessly poor quality of its archival prints and film foota
ge . the images lack contrast , are murky and are frequently too dark to be deci
pherable .
like a soft drink that's been sitting open too long : it's too much syrup and no
t enough fizz .
as the movie dragged on , i thought i heard a mysterious voice , and felt myself
powerfully drawn toward the light -- the light of the exit sign . i have return
ed from the beyond to warn you : this movie is 90 minutes long , and life is too
short .
there are some fairly unsettling scenes , but they never succeed in really rattl
ing the viewer .
the emperor's club is one of those films that possesses all the good intentions
in the world , but . . .
in the end , the weight of water comes to resemble the kind of soft-core twaddle
you'd expect to see on showtime's 'red shoe diaries . '
a straight-ahead thriller that never rises above superficiality .
glizty but formulaic and silly . . . cagney's 'top of the world' has been replac
ed by the bottom of the barrel .
the re- enactments , however fascinating they may be as history , are too crude
to serve the work especially well .
eisenstein lacks considerable brio for a film about one of cinema's directorial
giants .
is anyone else out there getting tired of the whole slo-mo , double-pistoled , b
allistic-pyrotechnic hong kong action aesthetic ?
once again , director chris columbus takes a hat-in-hand approach to rowling tha
t stifles creativity and allows the film to drag on for nearly three hours .
serving sara is little more than a mall movie designed to kill time .
too smart to ignore but a little too smugly superior to like , this could be a m
ovie that ends up slapping its target audience in the face by shooting itself in
the foot .
a well-made but emotionally scattered film whose hero gives his heart only to th
e dog .
the most repugnant adaptation of a classic text since roland joff and demi moore'
s the scarlet letter .
the isolated moments of creative insanity finally are lost in the thin soup of c
anned humor .
as a movie , it never seems fresh and vital . it never plays as dramatic even wh
en dramatic things happen to people . it labours as storytelling .
the adventures of pluto nash is a whole lot of nada .
a really good premise is frittered away in middle-of-the-road blandness .
lawrence should stick to his day job . he's a better actor than a standup comedi
an .
despite the fact that this film wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be ,
it's still not a good movie
a well made indieflick in need of some trims and a more chemistry between its st
ars .
i never thought i'd say this , but i'd much rather watch teens poking their geni
tals into fruit pies !
a film neither bitter nor sweet , neither romantic nor comedic , neither warm no
r fuzzy .
tiresomely derivative and hammily acted .
we never truly come to care about the main characters and whether or not they'll
wind up together , and michele's spiritual quest is neither amusing nor dramati
c enough to sustain interest .
the plot grows thin soon , and you find yourself praying for a quick resolution
.
too bad maggio couldn't come up with a better script .
much of the cast is stiff or just plain bad .
rice is too pedestrian a filmmaker to bring any edge or personality to the risin
g place that would set it apart from other deep south stories .
at best , cletis tout might inspire a trip to the video store -- in search of a
better movie experience .
witless , pointless , tasteless and idiotic .
not really a thriller so much as a movie for teens to laugh , groan and hiss at
.
as plain and pedestrian as catsup--
an improvement on the feeble examples of big-screen poke-mania that have precede
d it .
i know we're not supposed to take it seriously , but i can't shake the thought t
hat undercover brother missed an opportunity to strongly present some profound s
ocial commentary .
your stomach for heaven depends largely on your appetite for canned corn .
a picture as erratic as its central character .
whatever satire lucky break was aiming for , it certainly got lost in the " soon
-to-be-forgettable " section of the quirky rip-off prison romp pile . it's petty
thievery like this that puts flimsy flicks like this behind bars
the package in which this fascinating -- and timely -- content comes wrapped is
disappointingly generic .
guys say mean things and shoot a lot of bullets . some of the characters die and
others don't , and the film pretends that those living have learned some sort o
f lesson , and , really , nobody in the viewing audience cares .
wildly incompetent but brilliantly named half past dead -- or for seagal pessimi
sts : totally past his prime .
just another combination of bad animation and mindless violence . . . lacking th
e slightest bit of wit or charm .
all the movie's narrative gymnastics can't disguise the fact that it's inauthent
ic at its core and that its story just isn't worth telling .
much like its easily dismissive take on the upscale lifestyle , there isn't much
there here .
the film ultimately offers nothing more than people in an urban jungle needing o
ther people to survive . . .
for all its shoot-outs , fistfights , and car chases , this movie is a phlegmati
c bore , so tedious it makes the silly spy vs . spy film the sum of all fears ,
starring ben affleck , seem downright hitchcockian .
this mild-mannered farce , directed by one of its writers , john c . walsh , is
corny in a way that bespeaks an expiration date passed a long time ago .
[a] rather thinly-conceived movie .
a bit too eager to please .
you'd be hard put to find a movie character more unattractive or odorous [than l
eon] .
kapur's contradictory feelings about his material result in a movie that works a
gainst itself .
" the road paved with good intentions leads to the video store "
animated drivel meant to enhance the self-image of drooling idiots .
so-so entertainment .
one scene after another in this supposedly funny movie falls to the floor with a
sickening thud .
'the chteau is never quite able to overcome the cultural moat surrounding its lud
icrous and contrived plot . '
meyjes focuses too much on max when he should be filling the screen with this to
rtured , dull artist and monster-in-the- making .
jacobi , the most fluent of actors , is given relatively dry material from nijin
sky's writings to perform , and the visuals , even erotically frank ones , becom
e dullingly repetitive .
crudup's screen presence is the one thing that holds interest in the midst of a
mushy , existential exploration of why men leave their families .
there is one surefire way to get a nomination for a best-foreign-film oscar : ma
ke a movie about whimsical folk who learn a nonchallenging , life-affirming less
on while walking around a foreign city with stunning architecture .
despite terrific special effects and funnier gags , harry potter and the chamber
of secrets finds a way to make j . k . rowling's marvelous series into a deadly
bore .
an incredibly narrow in-joke targeted to the tiniest segment of an already obscu
re demographic .
the only thing i laughed at were the people who paid to see it .
all of the elements are in place for a great film noir , but director george hic
kenlooper's approach to the material is too upbeat .
the hackneyed story about an affluent damsel in distress who decides to fight he
r bully of a husband is simply too overdone .
the phone rings and a voice tells you you've got seven days left to live . then
you get another phone call warning you that if the video isn't back at blockbust
er before midnight , you're going to face frightening late fees . o . k . , not
really .
possibly the most irresponsible picture ever released by a major film studio .
the film's overall mood and focus is interesting but constantly unfulfilling .
. . . a cheap , ludicrous attempt at serious horror .
those of you who are not an eighth grade girl will most likely doze off during t
his one .
punitively affirmational parable .
befuddled in its characterizations as it begins to seem as long as the two year
affair which is its subject
from beginning to end , this overheated melodrama plays like a student film .
the movie would seem less of a trifle if ms . sugarman followed through on her d
efiance of the saccharine .
it's just not very smart .
like the excruciating end of days , collateral damage presents schwarzenegger as
a tragic figure , but sympathy really belongs with any viewer forced to watch h
im try out so many complicated facial expressions .
imagine ( if possible ) a pasolini film without passion or politics , or an almo
dovar movie without beauty or humor , and you have some idea of the glum , numb
experience of watching o fantasma .
in trying to be daring and original , it comes off as only occasionally satirica
l and never fresh .
90 punitive minutes of eardrum-dicing gunplay , screeching-metal smashups , and
flaccid odd-couple sniping .
sadly , though many of the actors throw off a spark or two when they first appea
r , they can't generate enough heat in this cold vacuum of a comedy to start a r
eaction .
never capitalizes on this concept and opts for the breezy and amateurish feel of
an after school special on the subject of tolerance .
after a while , hoffman's quirks and mannerisms , particularly his penchant for
tearing up on cue -- things that seem so real in small doses -- become annoying
and artificial .
this wretchedly unfunny wannabe comedy is inane and awful - no doubt , it's the
worst movie i've seen this summer .
it's drab . it's uninteresting . it squanders chan's uniqueness ; it could even
be said to squander jennifer love hewitt !
the movie keeps coming back to the achingly unfunny phonce and his several silly
subplots .
this tale has been told and retold ; the races and rackets change , but the song
remains the same .
a surprisingly flat retread , hobbled by half-baked setups and sluggish pacing .
forget the psychology 101 study of romantic obsession and just watch the process
ion of costumes in castles and this won't seem like such a bore .
a film that should be relegated to a dark video store corner is somehow making i
ts way instead to theaters . it's hard to imagine acting that could be any flatt
er .
new ways of describing badness need to be invented to describe exactly how bad i
t is .
lots of effort and intelligence are on display but in execution it is all awkwar
d , static , and lifeless rumblings .
when cowering and begging at the feet a scruffy giannini , madonna gives her bes
t performance since abel ferrara had her beaten to a pulp in his dangerous game
.
i suspect that there are more interesting ways of dealing with the subject .
decent but dull .
the film itself is about something very interesting and odd that would probably
work better as a real documentary without the insinuation of mediocre acting or
a fairly trite narrative .
an unintentional parody of every teen movie made in the last five years .
only for young children , if them . their parents would do well to cram earplugs
in their ears and put pillowcases over their heads for 87 minutes .
for all its violence , the movie is remarkably dull with only caine making much
of an impression .
no matter how firmly director john stainton has his tongue in his cheek , the fa
ct remains that a wacky concept does not a movie make .
a sub-formulaic slap in the face to seasonal cheer .
the action is reasonably well-done . . . yet story , character and comedy bits a
re too ragged to ever fit smoothly together .
several uninteresting , unlikeable people do bad things to and with each other i
n " unfaithful . " why anyone who is not a character in this movie should care i
s beyond me .
thin period piece .
hill looks to be going through the motions , beginning with the pale script .
howard conjures the past via surrealist flourishes so overwrought you'd swear he
just stepped out of a buuel retrospective .
the best thing that can be said of the picture is that it does have a few cute m
oments .
it's not a bad premise , just a bad movie .
an already thin story boils down to surviving invaders seeking an existent anti-
virus . if only there were one for this kind of movie .
by the time the surprise ending is revealed , interest cannot be revived .
the heedless impetuousness of youth is on full , irritating display in [this] me
andering and pointless french coming-of-age import from writer-director anne-sop
hie birot .
a peculiar misfire that even tunney can't save .
watching queen of the damned is like reading a research paper , with special eff
ects tossed in .
i can't remember the last time i saw worse stunt editing or cheaper action movie
production values than in extreme ops .
too much of nemesis has a tired , talky feel .
i felt trapped and with no obvious escape for the entire 100 minutes .
when mr . hundert tells us in his narration that 'this is a story without surpri
ses , ' we nod in agreement .
leaves us wondering less about its ideas and more about its characterization of
hitler and the contrived nature of its provocative conclusion .
it is that rare combination of bad writing , bad direction and bad acting -- the
trifecta of badness .
each scene wreaks of routine ; the film never manages to generate a single threa
t of suspense .
a soulless jumble of ineptly assembled cliches and pabulum that plays like a 95-
minute commercial for nba properties .
borstal boy represents the worst kind of filmmaking , the kind that pretends to
be passionate and truthful but is really frustratingly timid and soggy .
the film's lack of personality permeates all its aspects from the tv movie-esque
, affected child acting to the dullest irish pub scenes ever filmed .
works on the whodunit level as its larger themes get lost in the murk of its own
making
crush could be the worst film a man has made about women since valley of the dol
ls .
4ever has the same sledgehammer appeal as pokemon videos , but it breathes more
on the big screen and induces headaches more slowly .
feels like the work of someone who may indeed have finally aged past his prime .
. . and , perhaps more than he realizes , just wants to be liked by the people
who can still give him work .
trailer park magnolia : too long , too cutesy , too sure of its own importance ,
and possessed of that peculiar tension of being too dense & about nothing at al
l .
[a] stuporously solemn film .
viewers of barney's crushingly self-indulgent spectacle will see nothing in it t
o match the ordeal of sitting through it .
. . . its stupidities wind up sticking in one's mind a lot more than the cool b
its .
sayles . . . once again strands his superb performers in the same old story .
the piano teacher , like its title character , is repellantly out of control .
i have to admit i walked out of runteldat . i did go back and check out the last
10 minutes , but these were more repulsive than the first 30 or 40 minutes .
the filmmakers lack the nerve . . . to fully exploit the script's potential for
sick humor .
the film wasn't preachy , but it was feminism by the book .
. . . the same tired old gags , modernized for the extreme sports generation .
there's already been too many of these films . . .
several of steven soderbergh's earlier films were hailed as the works of an arti
st . sadly , full frontal plays like the work of a dilettante .
clockstoppers is one of those crazy , mixed-up films that doesn't know what it w
ants to be when it grows up .
although bright , well-acted and thought-provoking , tuck everlasting suffers fr
om a laconic pace and a lack of traditional action .
'the war of the roses , ' trailer-trash style . entertaining but like shooting f
ish in a barrel .
supposedly , pokemon can't be killed , but pokemon 4ever practically assures tha
t the pocket monster movie franchise is nearly ready to keel over .
white hasn't developed characters so much as caricatures , one-dimensional buffo
ons that get him a few laughs but nothing else .
when you resurrect a dead man , hard copy should come a-knocking , no ?
cattaneo should have followed the runaway success of his first film , the full m
onty , with something different .
the film feels formulaic , its plot and pacing typical hollywood war-movie stuff
, while the performances elicit more of a sense of deja vu than awe .
this overproduced piece of dreck is shockingly bad and absolutely unnecessary .
hmmm might i suggest that the wayward wooden one end it all by stuffing himself in
to an electric pencil sharpener ?
the makers of mothman prophecies succeed in producing that most frightening of a
ll movies -- a mediocre horror film too bad to be good and too good to be bad .
mr . deeds is not really a film as much as it is a loose collection of not-so-fu
nny gags , scattered moments of lazy humor .
how this one escaped the lifetime network i'll never know .
couldn't someone take rob schneider and have him switch bodies with a funny pers
on ?
one of these days hollywood will come up with an original idea for a teen movie
, but until then there's always these rehashes to feed to the younger generation
s .
for all its brilliant touches , dragon loses its fire midway , nearly flickering
out by its perfunctory conclusion .
i have to admit that i am baffled by jason x .
a mean-spirited film made by someone who surely read the catcher in the rye but
clearly suffers from dyslexia
instead of a witty expose on the banality and hypocrisy of too much kid-vid , we
get an ugly , mean-spirited lashing out by an adult who's apparently been force
d by his kids to watch too many barney videos .
this is a film living far too much in its own head .
the umpteenth summer skinny dip in jerry bruckheimer's putrid pond of retread ac
tion twaddle .
national lampoon's van wilder may aim to be the next animal house , but it more
closely resembles this year's version of tomcats .
the film thrusts the inchoate but already eldritch christian right propaganda ma
chine into national media circles .
dogtown is hollow , self-indulgent , and - worst of all - boring .
a movie so bad that it quickly enters the pantheon of wreckage that includes bat
tlefield earth and showgirls .
more of a career curio than a major work .
it's just too bad the screenwriters eventually shoot themselves in the feet with
cop flick cliches like an oily arms dealer , squad car pile-ups and the requisi
te screaming captain .
cox is far more concerned with aggrandizing madness , not the man , and the resu
lts might drive you crazy .
to be influenced chiefly by humanity's greatest shame , reality shows -- reality
shows for god's sake ! -- is a crime that should be punishable by chainsaw .
taken as a whole , the tuxedo doesn't add up to a whole lot .
as we have come to learn -- as many times as we have fingers to count on -- jaso
n is a killer who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'quit . ' the filmmakers
might want to look it up .
a frustrating 'tweener' -- too slick , contrived and exploitative for the art ho
uses and too cynical , small and decadent for the malls .
what's surprising about this traditional thriller , moderately successful but no
t completely satisfying , is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution
turns out to be .
drowning's too good for this sucker .
an instantly forgettable snow-and-stuntwork extravaganza that likely will be ups
taged by an avalanche of more appealing holiday-season product .
frankly , it's pretty stupid . i had more fun with ben stiller's zoolander , whi
ch i thought was rather clever . but there's plenty to offend everyone . . .
love liza is a festival film that would have been better off staying on the fest
ival circuit .
there are things to like about murder by numbers -- but , in the end , the dispa
rate elements don't gel .
. . . tackling a low-budget movie in which inexperienced children play the two
main characters might not be the best way to cut your teeth in the film industry
.
quite frankly , i can't see why any actor of talent would ever work in a mccullo
ch production again if they looked at how this movie turned out .
my precious new star wars movie is a lumbering , wheezy drag . . .
the innocence of holiday cheer ain't what it used to be .
too campy to work as straight drama and too violent and sordid to function as co
medy , vulgar is , truly and thankfully , a one-of-a-kind work .
horrid little propaganda film with fascinating connections not only to the serbs
themselves but also to a network of american right-wing extremists .
should have gone straight to video . it looks like an action movie , but it's so
poorly made , on all levels , that it doesn't even qualify as a spoof of such .
it is supremely unfunny and unentertaining to watch middle-age and older men dri
nk to excess , piss on trees , b . s . one another and put on a show in drag .
consider the film a celluloid litmus test for the intellectual and emotional ped
igree of your date and a giant step backward for a director i admire .
a boring , pretentious muddle that uses a sensational , real-life 19th-century c
rime as a metaphor for -- well , i'm not exactly sure what -- and has all the dr
amatic weight of a raindrop .
sheridan had a wonderful account to work from , but , curiously , he waters it d
own , turning grit and vulnerability into light reading .
heavy with flabby rolls of typical toback machinations .
it is very difficult to care about the character , and that is the central flaw
of the film .
snow dogs finds its humour in a black man getting humiliated by a pack of dogs w
ho are smarter than him
whole stretches of the film may be incomprehensible to moviegoers not already cl
ad in basic black .
reggio and glass so rhapsodize cynicism , with repetition and languorous slo-mo
sequences , that glass's dirgelike score becomes a fang-baring lullaby .
es triste tener que decirles que lo nico grato de la cinta es el cuerpo desnudo d
e la heather . . .
ends up offering nothing more than the latest schwarzenegger or stallone flick w
ould .
the film makes strong arguments regarding the social status of america's indigen
ous people , but really only exists to try to eke out an emotional tug of the he
art , one which it fails to get .
charlize chases kevin with a gun . courtney chases stuart with a cell phone . th
e sound of gunfire and cell phones ringing .
if the tuxedo actually were a suit , it would fit chan like a $99 bargain-baseme
nt special .
parents beware ; this is downright movie penance .
. . . a complete shambles of a movie so sloppy , so uneven , so damn unpleasant
that i can't believe any viewer , young or old , would have a good time here .
has nothing good to speak about other than the fact that it is relatively short
, tries its best to hide the fact that seagal's overweight and out of shape .
a pathetically inane and unimaginative cross between xxx and vertical limit .
impeccably filmed , sexually charged , but ultimately lacking in substance , not
to mention dragged down by a leaden closing act .
feels at times like a giant commercial for universal studios , where much of the
action takes place .
while the mystery unravels , the characters respond by hitting on each other .
britney spears' phoniness is nothing compared to the movie's contrived , lame sc
reenplay and listless direction .
every sequel you skip will be two hours gained . consider this review life-affir
ming .
if the movie were all comedy , it might work better . but it has an ambition to
say something about its subjects , but not a willingness .
the movie , while beautiful , feels labored , with a hint of the writing exercis
e about it .
twenty-three movies into a mostly magnificent directorial career , clint eastwoo
d's efficiently minimalist style finally has failed him . big time .
this heist flick about young brooklyn hoods is off the shelf after two years to
capitalize on the popularity of vin diesel , seth green and barry pepper . it sh
ould have stayed there .
the film has a childlike quality about it . but the feelings evoked in the film
are lukewarm and quick to pass .
the most opaque , self-indulgent and just plain goofy an excuse for a movie as y
ou can imagine .
it's not a film to be taken literally on any level , but its focus always appear
s questionable .
big fat liar is little more than home alone raised to a new , self-deprecating l
evel .
the movie is gorgeously made , but it is also somewhat shallow and art-conscious
.
the only time 8 crazy nights comes close to hitting a comedic or satirical targe
t is during the offbeat musical numbers .
loses its sense of humor in a vat of failed jokes , twitchy acting , and general
boorishness .
there's a delightfully quirky movie to be made from curling , but brooms isn't i
t .
the story suffers a severe case of oversimplification , superficiality and silli
ness .
chamber of secrets will find millions of eager fans . but if the essence of magi
c is its make-believe promise of life that soars above the material realm , this
is the opposite of a truly magical movie .
too clever by about nine-tenths .
has all the hallmarks of a movie designed strictly for children's home video , a
market so insatiable it absorbs all manner of lame entertainment , as long as 3
-year-olds find it diverting .
well-meant but unoriginal .
bears about as much resemblance to the experiences of most battered women as spi
der-man does to the experiences of most teenagers .
toward the end sum of all fears morphs into a mundane '70s disaster flick .
director carl franklin , so crisp and economical in one false move , bogs down i
n genre cliches here .
mendes still doesn't quite know how to fill a frame . like the hanks character ,
he's a slow study : the action is stilted and the tabloid energy embalmed .
this thing is just garbage .
as crimes go , writer-director michael kalesniko's how to kill your neighbor's d
og is slight but unendurable .
there must be an audience that enjoys the friday series , but i wouldn't be inte
rested in knowing any of them personally .
a bold ( and lovely ) experiment that will almost certainly bore most audiences
into their own brightly colored dreams .
an uplifting , largely bogus story .
an empty exercise , a florid but ultimately vapid crime melodrama with lots of s
urface flash but little emotional resonance .
if you are curious to see the darker side of what's going on with young tv actor
s ( dawson leery did what ? ! ? ) , or see some interesting storytelling devices
, you might want to check it out , but there's nothing very attractive about th
is movie .
my own minority report is that it stinks .
trying to make head or tail of the story in the hip-hop indie snipes is enough t
o give you brain strain -- and the pay-off is negligible .
the script is high on squaddie banter , low on shocks .
. . . if you , like me , think an action film disguised as a war tribute is dis
gusting to begin with , then you're in for a painful ride .
while solondz tries and tries hard , storytelling fails to provide much more ins
ight than the inside column of a torn book jacket .
with very little to add beyond the dark visions already relayed by superb recent
predecessors like swimming with sharks and the player , this latest skewering .
. . may put off insiders and outsiders alike .
[davis] wants to cause his audience an epiphany , yet he refuses to give us real
situations and characters .
without a fresh infusion of creativity , 4ever is neither a promise nor a threat
so much as wishful thinking .
. . . unlike [scorsese's mean streets] , ash wednesday is essentially devoid of
interesting characters or even a halfway intriguing plot .
being unique doesn't necessarily equate to being good , no matter how admirably
the filmmakers have gone for broke .
a few hours after you've seen it , you forget you've been to the movies .
odd and weird .
waydowntown may not be an important movie , or even a good one , but it provides
a nice change of mindless pace in collision with the hot oscar season currently
underway .
yes , i suppose it's lovely that cal works out his issues with his dad and comes
to terms with his picture-perfect life -- but world traveler gave me no reason
to care , so i didn't .
shadyac , who belongs with the damned for perpetrating patch adams , trots out e
very ghost trick from the sixth sense to the mothman prophecies .
the photographer's show-don't-tell stance is admirable , but it can make him a p
roblematic documentary subject .
it is not the first time that director sara sugarman stoops to having characters
drop their pants for laughs and not the last time she fails to provoke them .
i'd be hard pressed to think of a film more cloyingly sappy than evelyn this yea
r .
nothing more than an amiable but unfocused bagatelle that plays like a loosely-c
onnected string of acting-workshop exercises .
meanders between its powerful moments .
what remains is a variant of the nincompoop benigni persona , here a more annoyi
ng , though less angry version of the irresponsible sandlerian manchild , underc
ut by the voice of the star of road trip .
a backhanded ode to female camaraderie penned by a man who has little clue about
either the nature of women or of friendship .
pure of intention and passably diverting , his secret life is light , innocuous
and unremarkable .
. . . delivers few moments of inspiration amid the bland animation and simplist
ic story .
take away the controversy , and it's not much more watchable than a mexican soap
opera .
it's got the brawn , but not the brains .
mindless and boring martial arts and gunplay with too little excitement and zero
compelling storyline .
a lot of talent is wasted in this crass , low-wattage endeavor .
to show these characters in the act and give them no feelings of remorse -- and
to cut repeatedly to the flashback of the original rape -- is overkill to the hi
ghest degree .
[t]oo many of these gross out scenes . . .
about one in three gags in white's intermittently wise script hits its mark ; th
e rest are padding unashamedly appropriated from the teen-exploitation playbook
.
little is done to support the premise other than fling gags at it to see which o
nes shtick .
reno does what he can in a thankless situation , the film ricochets from humor t
o violence and back again , and ryoko hirosue makes us wonder if she is always l
ike that .
if jews were catholics , this would be catechism
one of those films that seems tailor made to air on pay cable to offer some mode
st amusements when one has nothing else to watch .
the big ending surprise almost saves the movie . it's too bad that the rest isn'
t more compelling .
charming , if overly complicated . . .
schneider's mugging is relentless and his constant need to suddenly transpose hi
mself into another character undermines the story's continuity and progression .

all very stylish and beautifully photographed , but far more trouble than it's w
orth , with fantasy mixing with reality and actors playing more than one role ju
st to add to the confusion .
it's probably not easy to make such a worthless film . . .
hope keeps arising that the movie will live up to the apparent skills of its mak
ers and the talents of its actors , but it doesn't .
has no reason to exist , other than to employ hollywood kids and people who owe
favors to their famous parents .
for a guy who has waited three years with breathless anticipation for a new hal
hartley movie to pore over , no such thing is a big letdown .
constantly slips from the grasp of its maker .
smothered by its own solemnity .
'christian bale's quinn [is] a leather clad grunge-pirate with a hairdo like gan
dalf in a wind-tunnel and a simply astounding cor-blimey-luv-a-duck cockney acce
nt . '
might be one of those vanity projects in which a renowned filmmaker attempts to
show off his talent by surrounding himself with untalented people .
after you laugh once ( maybe twice ) , you will have completely forgotten the mo
vie by the time you get back to your car in the parking lot .
not one moment in the enterprise didn't make me want to lie down in a dark room
with something cool to my brow .
in the era of the sopranos , it feels painfully redundant and inauthentic .
the overall vibe is druggy and self-indulgent , like a spring-break orgy for pre
tentious arts majors .
breen's script is sketchy with actorish notations on the margin of acting .
there's no question that epps scores once or twice , but it's telling that his f
unniest moment comes when he falls about ten feet onto his head .
if only merchant paid more attention the story .
at the one-hour mark , herzog simply runs out of ideas and the pace turns positi
vely leaden as the movie sputters to its inevitable tragic conclusion .
. . . too contrived to be as naturally charming as it needs to be .
a simpler , leaner treatment would have been preferable ; after all , being abou
t nothing is sometimes funnier than being about something .
the characters are based on stock clichs , and the attempt to complicate the stor
y only defies credibility .
everything about it from the bland songs to the colorful but flat drawings is co
mpletely serviceable and quickly forgettable .
not the great american comedy , but if you liked the previous movies in the seri
es , you'll have a good time with this one too .
a domestic melodrama with weak dialogue and biopic cliches .
mr . goyer's loose , unaccountable direction is technically sophisticated in the
worst way .
the movie is so thoughtlessly assembled .
benigni presents himself as the boy puppet pinocchio , complete with receding ha
irline , weathered countenance and american breckin meyer's ridiculously inappro
priate valley boy voice .
plays like some corny television production from a bygone era
the end result is like cold porridge with only the odd enjoyably chewy lump .
for all the charm of kevin kline and a story that puts old-fashioned values unde
r the microscope , there's something creepy about this movie .
i was feeling this movie until it veered off too far into the exxon zone , and l
eft me behind at the station looking for a return ticket to realism .
producer john penotti surveyed high school students . . . and came back with the
astonishing revelation that " they wanted to see something that didn't talk dow
n to them . " ignoring that , he made swimfan anyway
naipaul fans may be disappointed . those who are not acquainted with the author'
s work , on the other hand , may fall fast asleep .
hoffman waits too long to turn his movie in an unexpected direction , and even t
hen his tone retains a genteel , prep-school quality that feels dusty and leathe
rbound .
if you're a crocodile hunter fan , you'll enjoy at least the " real " portions o
f the film . if you're looking for a story , don't bother .
full frontal had no effect and elicited no sympathies for any of the characters
. by that measure , it is a failure .
a baffling mixed platter of gritty realism and magic realism with a hard-to-swal
low premise .
an affable but undernourished romantic comedy that fails to match the freshness
of the actress-producer and writer's previous collaboration , miss congeniality
.
sometimes this modest little number clicks , and sometimes it doesn't .
like a pack of dynamite sticks , built for controversy . the film is explosive ,
but a few of those sticks are wet .
has its charming quirks and its dull spots .
an admitted egomaniac , evans is no hollywood villain , and yet this grating sho
wcase almost makes you wish he'd gone the way of don simpson .
the audience when i saw this one was chuckling at all the wrong times , and that
's a bad sign when they're supposed to be having a collective heart attack .
everyone's to blame here .
you get the impression that writer and director burr steers knows the territory
. . . but his sense of humor has yet to lose the smug self-satisfaction usually
associated with the better private schools .
less a study in madness or love than a study in schoolgirl obsession .
rice never clearly defines his characters or gives us a reason to care about the
m .
it's a bizarre curiosity memorable mainly for the way it fritters away its poten
tially interesting subject matter via a banal script , unimpressive acting and i
ndifferent direction .
a slight and obvious effort , even for one whose target demographic is likely st
ill in the single digits , age-wise .
sex with strangers will shock many with its unblinking frankness . but what is m
issing from it all is a moral . what is the filmmakers' point ? why did they dee
m it necessary to document all this emotional misery ?
you see robin williams and psycho killer , and you think , hmmmmm . you see the
movie and you think , zzzzzzzzz .
downright transparent is the script's endless assault of embarrassingly ham-fist
ed sex jokes that reek of a script rewrite designed to garner the film a " coole
r " pg-13 rating .
the movie slides downhill as soon as macho action conventions assert themselves
.
formulaic to the 51st power , more like .
draggin' about dragons
howard and his co-stars all give committed performances , but they're often undo
ne by howard's self-conscious attempts to find a 'literary' filmmaking style to
match his subject .
a respectable but uninspired thriller that's intelligent and considered in its d
etails , but ultimately weak in its impact .
jones helps breathe some life into the insubstantial plot , but even he is overw
helmed by predictability .
the movie just has too much on its plate to really stay afloat for its just unde
r ninety minute running time .
comes off more like a misdemeanor , a flat , unconvincing drama that never catch
es fire .
cinematic poo .
offers absolutely nothing i hadn't already seen .
" analyze that " is one of those crass , contrived sequels that not only fails
on its own , but makes you second-guess your affection for the original .
you might say tykwer has done all that heaven allows , if you wanted to make as
anti-kieslowski a pun as possible . suffice to say its total promise is left sli
ghtly unfulfilled .
complex , sinuously plotted and , somehow , off-puttingly cold .
first-time writer-director dylan kidd also has a good ear for dialogue , and the
characters sound like real people .
. . . an airless , prepackaged julia roberts wannabe that stinks so badly of ha
rd-sell image-mongering you'll wonder if lopez's publicist should share screenwr
iting credit .
goldmember has none of the visual wit of the previous pictures , and it looks as
though jay roach directed the film from the back of a taxicab .
could as easily have been called 'under siege 3 : in alcatraz' . . . a cinematic
corpse that never springs to life .
in comparison to his earlier films it seems a disappointingly thin slice of lowe
r-class london life ; despite the title . . . amounts to surprisingly little .
lame sweet home leaves no southern stereotype unturned .
slow , dry , poorly cast , but beautifully shot .
the jokes are sophomoric , stereotypes are sprinkled everywhere and the acting r
anges from bad to bodacious .
will give many ministers and bible-study groups hours of material to discuss . b
ut mainstream audiences will find little of interest in this film , which is oft
en preachy and poorly acted .
in its chicken heart , crush goes to absurd lengths to duck the very issues it r
aises .
this long and relentlessly saccharine film is a clear case of preaching to the c
onverted .
the film is flat .
the movie is a lumbering load of hokum but . . . it's at least watchable .
it's a boom-box of a movie that might have been titled 'the loud and the ludicro
us' . . . the pandering to a moviegoing audience dominated by young males is all
too calculated .
an unbelievably stupid film , though occasionally fun enough to make you forget
its absurdity .
the first fatal attraction was vile enough . do we really need the tiger beat ve
rsion ?
this bond film goes off the beaten path , not necessarily for the better .
the problem is that the movie has no idea of it is serious or not .
when the fire burns out , we've only come face-to-face with a couple dragons and
that's where the film ultimately fails .
it would work much better as a one-hour tv documentary .
the elements were all there but lack of a pyschological center knocks it flat .
anemic chronicle of money grubbing new yorkers and their serial loveless hook up
s .
simply doesn't have sufficient heft to justify its two-hour running time .
an unsuccessful attempt at a movie of ideas .
queen of the damned as you might have guessed , makes sorry use of aaliyah in he
r one and only starring role -- she does little here but point at things that ex
plode into flame .
this toothless dog , already on cable , loses all bite on the big screen .
it made me feel unclean , and i'm the guy who liked there's something about mary
and both american pie movies . oh , and booty call .
not only is it hokey , manipulative and as bland as wonder bread dipped in milk
, but it also does the absolute last thing we need hollywood doing to us : it pr
eaches .
it's so crammed with scenes and vistas and pretty moments that it's left a few c
rucial things out , like character development and coherence .
serving sara should be served an eviction notice at every theater stuck with it
.
director roger michell does so many of the little things right that it's difficu
lt not to cuss him out severely for bungling the big stuff .
a loud , low-budget and tired formula film that arrives cloaked in the euphemism
'urban drama . '
the movie has a script ( by paul pender ) made of wood , and it's relentlessly f
olksy , a procession of stagy set pieces stacked with binary oppositions .
a pathetic exploitation film that tries to seem sincere , and just seems worse f
or the effort .
at some point , all this visual trickery stops being clever and devolves into fl
ashy , vaguely silly overkill .
despite some charm and heart , this quirky soccer import is forgettable
meyjes's movie , like max rothman's future , does not work .
what's needed so badly but what is virtually absent here is either a saving dark
humor or the feel of poetic tragedy .
schneidermeister . . . makin' a fool of himself . . . losin' his fan base . . .
an ambitious , serious film that manages to do virtually everything wrong ; sitt
ing through it is something akin to an act of cinematic penance .
not once does it come close to being exciting .
a frankenstein mishmash that careens from dark satire to cartoonish slapstick ,
bartleby performs neither one very well .
it plays like a big-budget , after-school special with a generous cast , who at
times lift the material from its well-meaning clunkiness .
there's something not entirely convincing about the quiet american . and that ho
lds true for both the movie and the title character played by brendan fraser .
one of those strained caper movies that's hardly any fun to watch and begins to
vaporize from your memory minutes after it ends .
needed a little less bling-bling and a lot more romance .
the ending doesn't work . . . but most of the movie works so well i'm almost rec
ommending it , anyway -- maybe not to everybody , but certainly to people with a
curiosity about how a movie can go very right , and then step wrong .
it's hard to believe these jokers are supposed to have pulled off four similar k
idnappings before .
i'm not exactly sure what this movie thinks it is about .
cal is an unpleasantly shallow and immature character with whom to spend 110 cla
ustrophobic minutes .
so brisk is wang's pacing that none of the excellent cast are given air to breat
he .
the bottom line , at least in my opinion , is imposter makes a better short stor
y than it does a film .
some elements of it really blow the big one , but other parts are decent .
it is just too bad the film's story does not live up to its style .
unless you're a fanatic , the best advice is : 'scooby' don't .
a cautionary tale about the folly of superficiality that is itself endlessly sup
erficial .
for single digits kidlets stuart little 2 is still a no brainer . if you're look
ing to rekindle the magic of the first film , you'll need a stronger stomach tha
n us .
shreve's graceful dual narrative gets clunky on the screen , and we keep getting
torn away from the compelling historical tale to a less-compelling soap opera .
contains a few big laughs but many more that graze the funny bone or miss it alt
ogether , in part because the consciously dumbed-down approach wears thin .
nothing more than a widget cranked out on an assembly line to see if stupid amer
icans will get a kick out of goofy brits with cute accents performing ages-old s
lapstick and unfunny tricks .
this is a film tailor-made for those who when they were in high school would cho
ose the cliff-notes over reading a full-length classic .
the movie is undone by a filmmaking methodology that's just experimental enough
to alienate the mainstream audience while ringing cliched to hardened indie-head
s .
a jumbled fantasy comedy that did not figure out a coherent game plan at scripti
ng , shooting or post-production stages .
a sad and rote exercise in milking a played-out idea -- a straight guy has to dr
ess up in drag -- that shockingly manages to be even worse than its title would
imply .
personal velocity ought to be exploring these women's inner lives , but it never
moves beyond their surfaces .
we hate [madonna] within the film's first five minutes , and she lacks the skill
or presence to regain any ground .
sounding like arnold schwarzenegger , with a physique to match , [ahola] has a w
ooden delivery and encounters a substantial arc of change that doesn't produce a
ny real transformation .
two big things are missing -- anything approaching a visceral kick , and anythin
g approaching even a vague reason to sit through it all .
a fascinating but choppy documentary .
scarcely worth a mention apart from reporting on the number of tumbleweeds blowi
ng through the empty theatres graced with its company .
the doofus-on- the-loose banter of welcome to collinwood has a cocky , after-hou
rs loopiness to it . and as with most late-night bull sessions , eventually the
content isn't nearly as captivating as the rowdy participants think it is .
too stagey , talky -- and long -- for its own good .
apparently reassembled from the cutting-room floor of any given daytime soap .
the sinister inspiration that fuelled devito's early work is confused in death t
o smoochy into something both ugly and mindless .
despite auteuil's performance , it's a rather listless amble down the middle of
the road , where the thematic ironies are too obvious and the sexual politics to
o smug .
director boris von sychowski instead opts for a routine slasher film that was pr
obably more fun to make than it is to sit through .
. . . little more than a well-acted television melodrama shot for the big scree
n .
never comes together as a coherent whole .
an unintentionally surreal kid's picture . . . in which actors in bad bear suits
enact a sort of inter-species parody of a vh1 behind the music episode .
first , for a movie that tries to be smart , it's kinda dumb . and second , what
's with all the shooting ?
don't even bother to rent this on video .
there is something in full frontal , i guess , about artifice and acting and how
it distorts reality for people who make movies and watch them , but like most m
ovie riddles , it works only if you have an interest in the characters you see .
this is the kind of movie that gets a quick release before real contenders arriv
e in september .
not counting a few gross-out comedies i've been trying to forget , this is the f
irst film in a long time that made me want to bolt the theater in the first 10 m
inutes .
plays like one long , meandering sketch inspired by the works of john waters and
todd solondz , rather than a fully developed story .
the film doesn't have enough innovation or pizazz to attract teenagers , and it
lacks the novel charm that made spy kids a surprising winner with both adults an
d younger audiences .
a mawkish self-parody that plays like some weird masterpiece theater sketch with
neither a point of view nor a compelling reason for being .
an average b-movie with no aspirations to be anything more .
bartlett's hero remains a reactive cipher , when opening the man's head and hear
t is the only imaginable reason for the film to be made .
gibney and jarecki just want to string the bastard up .
the plot is plastered with one hollywood cliche after another , most of which in
volve precocious kids getting the better of obnoxious adults .
less worrying about covering all the drama in frida's life and more time spent e
xploring her process of turning pain into art would have made this a superior mo
vie .
a film that suffers because of its many excesses .
too bland and fustily tasteful to be truly prurient .
in any case , i would recommend big bad love only to winger fans who have missed
her since 1995's forget paris . but even then , i'd recommend waiting for dvd a
nd just skipping straight to her scenes .
depicts the sorriest and most sordid of human behavior on the screen , then laug
hs at how clever it's being .
nijinsky says , 'i know how to suffer' and if you see this film you'll know too
.
'cq may one day be fondly remembered as roman coppola's brief pretentious period
before going on to other films that actually tell a story worth caring about
the only thing scary about feardotcom is that the filmmakers and studio are braz
en enough to attempt to pass this stinker off as a scary movie .
. . . stale and uninspired .
a dreary movie .
. . . the story simply putters along looking for astute observations and coming
up blank .
instead of contriving a climactic hero's death for the beloved-major- character-
who-shall- remain-nameless , why not invite some genuine spontaneity into the fi
lm by having the evil aliens' laser guns actually hit something for once ?
it just didn't mean much to me and played too skewed to ever get a hold on ( or
be entertained by ) .
this action-thriller/dark comedy is one of the most repellent things to pop up i
n a cinematic year already littered with celluloid garbage .
mib ii is a movie that makes it possible for the viewer to doze off for a few mi
nutes or make several runs to the concession stand and/or restroom and not feel
as if he or she has missed anything . that's because relatively nothing happens
.
no amount of arty theorizing -- the special effects are 'german-expressionist ,
' according to the press notes -- can render it anything but laughable .
blue crush follows the formula , but throws in too many conflicts to keep the st
ory compelling .
boyd's screenplay ( co-written with guardian hack nick davies ) has a florid tur
n of phrase that owes more to guy ritchie than the bard of avon .
there's not a spark of new inspiration in it , just more of the same , done with
noticeably less energy and imagination .
jackson shamefully strolls through this mess with a smug grin , inexplicably wea
ring a kilt and carrying a bag of golf clubs over one shoulder .
a moving picture that does not move .
ruh-roh ! romething's really wrong with this ricture !
its salient points are simultaneously buried , drowned and smothered in the exce
sses of writer-director roger avary .
i'm not sure these words have ever been together in the same sentence : this ero
tic cannibal movie is boring .
'god help us , but capra and cooper are rolling over in their graves . '
. . . an hour-and-a-half of inoffensive , unmemorable filler .
is it a comedy ? a drama ? a romance ? a cartoon ?
ze movie starts out so funny , then she is nothing .
did the film inform and educate me ? yes . did it move me to care about what hap
pened in 1915 armenia ? no . and that is where ararat went astray .
it's a bad sign in a thriller when you instantly know whodunit .
has a customarily jovial air but a deficit of flim-flam inventiveness .
eight legged freaks won't join the pantheon of great monster/science fiction fli
cks that we have come to love . . .
it gets the details of its time frame right but it completely misses its emotion
s .
who , exactly , is fighting whom here ? ah , yes , that would be me : fighting o
ff the urge to doze .
a kilted jackson is an unsettling sight , and indicative of his , if you will ,
out-of-kilter character , who rambles aimlessly through ill-conceived action pie
ces .
contrived , awkward and filled with unintended laughs , the film shows signs tha
t someone other than the director got into the editing room and tried to improve
things by making the movie go faster .
starts out with tremendous promise , introducing an intriguing and alluring prem
ise , only to fall prey to a boatload of screenwriting cliches that sink it fast
er than a leaky freighter .
the film lapses too often into sugary sentiment and withholds delivery on the pe
ll-mell pyrotechnics its punchy style promises .
the only question . . . is to determine how well the schmaltz is manufactured --
to assess the quality of the manipulative engineering . average , at best , i'm
afraid .
this movie is so bad , that it's almost worth seeing because it's so bad .
a crisply made movie that is no more than mildly amusing .
this movie feel more like a non-stop cry for attention , than an attempt at any
kind of satisfying entertainment .
overall , it's a pretty mediocre family film .
love may have been in the air onscreen , but i certainly wasn't feeling any of i
t .
in addition to the overcooked , ham-fisted direction , which has all the actors
reaching for the back row , the dialogue sounds like horrible poetry .
the very definition of what critics have come to term an " ambitious failure . "
it's as if de palma spent an hour setting a fancy table and then served up kraft
macaroni and cheese .
the movie ends with outtakes in which most of the characters forget their lines
and just utter 'uhhh , ' which is better than most of the writing in the movie .
worthy of the gong .
while certainly more naturalistic than its australian counterpart , amari's film
falls short in building the drama of lilia's journey .
i found the movie as divided against itself as the dysfunctional family it portr
ays .
the soul-searching deliberateness of the film , although leavened nicely with dr
y absurdist wit , eventually becomes too heavy for the plot .
the movie doesn't add anything fresh to the myth .
as inept as big-screen remakes of the avengers and the wild wild west .
comes across as a relic from a bygone era , and its convolutions . . . feel sill
y rather than plausible .
moves in such odd plot directions and descends into such message-mongering moral
ism that its good qualities are obscured .
it's a very sincere work , but it would be better as a diary or documentary .
once one experiences mr . haneke's own sadistic tendencies toward his audience ,
one is left with a sour taste in one's mouth , and little else .
oops , she's really done it this time . that chirpy songbird britney spears has
popped up with more mindless drivel .
it's a loathsome movie , it really is and it makes absolutely no sense .
a chiller resolutely without chills .
for those of us who respond more strongly to storytelling than computer-generate
d effects , the new star wars installment hasn't escaped the rut dug by the last
one .
the director mostly plays it straight , turning leys' fable into a listless clim
b down the social ladder .
" bad " is the operative word for " bad company , " and i don't mean that in a
good way .
though frida is easier to swallow than julie taymor's preposterous titus , the e
ye candy here lacks considerable brio .
drumline is -- the mere suggestion , albeit a visually compelling one , of a ful
ly realized story .
the whole movie is simply a lazy exercise in bad filmmaking that asks you to not
only suspend your disbelief but your intelligence as well .
the film affords us intriguing glimpses of the insights gleaned from a lifetime
of spiritual inquiry , but ram dass : fierce grace doesn't organize it with any
particular insight .
pompous and garbled .
billy crystal and robert de niro sleepwalk through vulgarities in a sequel you c
an refuse .
it's loud and boring ; watching it is like being trapped at a bad rock concert .
merely ( and literally ) tosses around sex toys and offers half-hearted paeans t
o empowerment that are repeatedly undercut by the brutality of the jokes , most
at women's expense .
if you want a movie time trip , the 1960 version is a far smoother ride .
traffics in the kind of prechewed racial clichs that have already been through th
e corporate stand-up-comedy mill .
the story is -- forgive me -- a little thin , and the filmmaking clumsy and rush
ed .
. . . grows decidedly flimsier with its many out-sized , out of character and l
ogically porous action set pieces .
i wish windtalkers had had more faith in the dramatic potential of this true sto
ry . this would have been better than the fiction it has concocted , and there s
till could have been room for the war scenes .
aggressive self-glorification and a manipulative whitewash . stay for the credit
s and see a devastating comic impersonation by dustin hoffman that is revelatory
.
none of the characters or plot-lines are fleshed-out enough to build any interes
t .
as social expos , skins has its heart in the right place , but that's not much to
hang a soap opera on .
the whole film has this sneaky feel to it as if the director is trying to dupe t
he viewer into taking it all as very important simply because the movie is ugly
to look at and not a hollywood product .
there's a bit of thematic meat on the bones of queen of the damned , as its orig
ins in an anne rice novel dictate , but generally , it's a movie that emphasizes
style over character and substance .
the only way to tolerate this insipid , brutally clueless film might be with a l
arge dose of painkillers .
this one is certainly well-meaning , but it's also simple-minded and contrived .
coppola has made a film of intoxicating atmosphere and little else .
bad and baffling from the get-go .
a series of immaculately composed shots of patch adams quietly freaking out does
 not make for much of a movie .
at a time when we've learned the hard way just how complex international terrori
sm is , collateral damage paints an absurdly simplistic picture .
the impulses that produced this project . . . are commendable , but the results
are uneven .
a well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel .
like a can of 2-day old coke . you can taste it , but there's no fizz .
there's no excuse for following up a delightful , well-crafted family film with
a computer-generated cold fish .
both the crime story and the love story are unusual . but they don't fit well to
gether and neither is well told .
it's both sitcomishly predictable and cloying in its attempts to be poignant .
other than a mildly engaging central romance , hospital is sickly entertainment
at best and mind-destroying cinematic pollution at worst .
jaglom offers the none-too-original premise that everyone involved with moviemak
ing is a con artist and a liar .
outside of burger's desire to make some kind of film , it's really unclear why t
his project was undertaken
was i scared ? only at the prospect of beck's next project . let's see , a haunt
ed house , a haunted ship , what's next . . . ghost blimp ?
a fragile framework upon which to hang broad , mildly fleshed-out characters tha
t seem to have been conjured up only 10 minutes prior to filming .
by the time the plot grinds itself out in increasingly incoherent fashion , you
might be wishing for a watch that makes time go faster rather than the other way
around .
since lee is a sentimentalist , the film is more worshipful than your random e !
true hollywood story .
wes craven's presence is felt ; not the craven of 'a nightmare on elm street' or
'the hills have eyes , ' but the sad schlock merchant of 'deadly friend . '
sunshine state surveys the landscape and assesses the issues with a clear passio
n for sociology . but the cinematography is cloudy , the picture making becalmed
.
it's one long bore .
it gets old quickly . watch barbershop again if you're in need of a cube fix--th
is isn't worth sitting through .
it's leaden and predictable , and laughs are lacking .
. . . a cinematic disaster so inadvertently sidesplitting it's worth the price
of admission for the ridicule factor alone .
skip this dreck , rent animal house and go back to the source .
the movie is a desperate miscalculation . it gives poor dana carvey nothing to d
o that is really funny , and then expects us to laugh because he acts so goofy a
ll the time .
we just don't really care too much about this love story . in that setting , the
ir struggle is simply too ludicrous and borderline insulting .
the transporter bombards the viewer with so many explosions and side snap kicks
that it ends up being surprisingly dull .
uzumaki's interesting social parallel and defiant aesthetic seems a prostituted
muse . . .
'men in black ii creates a new threat for the mib , but recycles the same premis
e .
large budget notwithstanding , the movie is such a blip on the year's radar scre
en that it's tempting just to go with it for the ride . but this time , the old
mib label stands for milder isn't better .
feels familiar and tired .
a retread of material already thoroughly plumbed by martin scorsese .
instead of making his own style , director marcus adams just copies from various
sources good sources , bad mixture
criminal conspiracies and true romances move so easily across racial and cultura
l lines in the film that it makes my big fat greek wedding look like an aparthei
d drama .
a bore that tends to hammer home every one of its points .
a story which fails to rise above its disgusting source material .
it's fitting that a movie as artificial and soulless as the country bears owes i
ts genesis to an animatronic display at disneyland .
starts as an intense political and psychological thriller but is sabotaged by ti
cking time bombs and other hollywood-action cliches .
completely creatively stillborn and executed in a manner that i'm not sure could
be a single iota worse . . . a soulless hunk of exploitative garbage .
an uneven look into a grim future that doesn't come close to the level of intell
igence and visual splendour that can be seen in other films based on philip k .
dick stories .
horrible
the disjointed mess flows as naturally as jolie's hideous yellow 'do .
bolstered by an astonishing voice cast ( excepting love hewitt ) , an interestin
g racial tension , and a storyline that i haven't encountered since at least pet
e's dragon .
an authentically vague , but ultimately purposeless , study in total pandemonium
.
makes a joke out of car chases for an hour and then gives us half an hour of car
chases .
as the sulking , moody male hustler in the title role , [franco] has all of dean
's mannerisms and self-indulgence , but none of his sweetness and vulnerability
.
the only thing to fear about " fear dot com " is hitting your head on the theate
r seat in front of you when you doze off thirty minutes into the film .
it's too interested in jerking off in all its byzantine incarnations to bother p
leasuring its audience .
'synthetic' is the best description of this well-meaning , beautifully produced
film that sacrifices its promise for a high-powered star pedigree .
it concentrates far too much on the awkward interplay and utter lack of chemistr
y between chan and hewitt .
impostor can't think of a thing to do with these characters except have them run
through dark tunnels , fight off various anonymous attackers , and evade elabor
ate surveillance technologies .
judd's characters ought to pick up the durable best seller smart women , foolish
choices for advice .
the script has less spice than a rat burger and the rock's fighting skills are m
ore in line with steven seagal .
this ill-conceived and expensive project winds up looking like a bunch of talent
ed thesps slumming it .
. . . there's a choppy , surface-effect feeling to the whole enterprise .
doesn't get the job done , running off the limited chemistry created by ralph fi
ennes and jennifer lopez .
a particularly joyless , and exceedingly dull , period coming-of-age tale .
it's impossible to indulge the fanciful daydreams of janice beard ( eileen walsh
) when her real-life persona is so charmless and vacant .
it wasn't the subject matter that ultimately defeated the film it was the unfulfill
ing , incongruous , " wait a second , did i miss something ? " ending .
this is a movie where the most notable observation is how long you've been sitti
ng still .
poor editing , bad bluescreen , and ultra-cheesy dialogue highlight the radical
action .
it's super- violent , super-serious and super-stupid .
so earnest and well-meaning , and so stocked with talent , that you almost forge
t the sheer , ponderous awfulness of its script .
just a string of stale gags , with no good inside dope , and no particular bite
.
it's splash without the jokes .
the chteau would have been benefited from a sharper , cleaner script before it we
nt in front of the camera . not to mention a sharper , cleaner camera lens .
shallow , noisy and pretentious .
morrissette has performed a difficult task indeed - he's taken one of the world'
s most fascinating stories and made it dull , lifeless , and irritating .
granddad of le nouvelle vague , jean-luc godard continues to baffle the faithful
with his games of hide-and-seek .
this loud and thoroughly obnoxious comedy about a pair of squabbling working-cla
ss spouses is a deeply unpleasant experience .
it's better than the phantom menace . but unless you're an absolute raving star
wars junkie , it isn't much fun .
philosophically , intellectually and logistically a mess .
a standard police-oriented drama that , were it not for de niro's participation
, would have likely wound up a tnt original .
coupling disgracefully written dialogue with flailing bodily movements that subs
titute for acting , circuit is the awkwardly paced soap opera-ish story .
hollywood ending just isn't very funny .
though clearly well-intentioned , this cross-cultural soap opera is painfully fo
rmulaic and stilted .
a technical triumph and an extraordinary bore .
i can easily imagine benigni's pinocchio becoming a christmas perennial . coal i
sn't as easy to come by as it used to be and this would be a worthy substitute f
or naughty children's stockings .
two hours of junk .
ends up being mostly about ravishing costumes , eye-filling , wide-screen produc
tion design and joan's wacky decision to stand by her man , no matter how many t
imes he demonstrates that he's a disloyal satyr .
self-congratulatory , misguided , and ill-informed , if nonetheless compulsively
watchable .
a clumsily manufactured exploitation flick , a style-free exercise in manipulati
on and mayhem .
the whole affair , true story or not , feels incredibly hokey . . . [it] comes o
ff like a hallmark commercial .
what's missing is what we call the 'wow' factor .
the nicest thing that can be said about stealing harvard ( which might have been
called freddy gets molested by a dog ) is that it's not as obnoxious as tom gre
en's freddie got fingered .
. . . tara reid plays a college journalist , but she looks like the six-time wi
nner of the miss hawaiian tropic pageant , so i don't know what she's doing in h
ere . . .
the young stars are too cute ; the story and ensuing complications are too manip
ulative ; the message is too blatant ; the resolutions are too convenient .
normally , rohmer's talky films fascinate me , but when he moves his setting to
the past , and relies on a historical text , he loses the richness of characteri
zation that makes his films so memorable .
i highly recommend irwin , but not in the way this film showcases him .
it's been 13 months and 295 preview screenings since i last walked out on a movi
e , but resident evil really earned my indignant , preemptive departure .
this picture is mostly a lump of run-of-the-mill profanity sprinkled with a few
remarks so geared toward engendering audience sympathy that you might think he w
as running for office -- or trying to win over a probation officer .
malone does have a gift for generating nightmarish images that will be hard to b
urn out of your brain . but the movie's narrative hook is way too muddled to be
an effectively chilling guilty pleasure .
though it goes further than both , anyone who has seen the hunger or cat people
will find little new here , but a tasty performance from vincent gallo lifts thi
s tale of cannibal lust above the ordinary .
a blair witch- style adventure that plays like a bad soap opera , with passable
performances from everyone in the cast .
diaz wears out her welcome in her most charmless performance
it is too bad that this likable movie isn't more accomplished . the actors try h
ard but come off too amateurish and awkward .
the plot has a number of holes , and at times it's simply baffling .
an ill-conceived jumble that's not scary , not smart and not engaging .
brainless , but enjoyably over-the-top , the retro gang melodrama , deuces wild
represents fifties teen-gang machismo in a way that borders on rough-trade homo-
eroticism .
gets bogged down by an overly sillified plot and stop-and-start pacing .
utter mush . . . conceited pap .
" what john does is heroic , but we don't condone it , " one of the film's star
s recently said , a tortuous comment that perfectly illustrates the picture's mo
ral schizophrenia .
like coming into a long-running , well-written television series where you've mi
ssed the first half-dozen episodes and probably won't see the next six .
this is no " waterboy ! "
its generic villains lack any intrigue ( other than their funny accents ) and th
e action scenes are poorly delivered .
dripping with cliche and bypassing no opportunity to trivialize the material .
hard-core slasher aficionados will find things to like . . . but overall the hal
loween series has lost its edge .
stiff and schmaltzy and clumsily directed .
the story the movie tells is of brian de palma's addiction to the junk-calorie s
uspense tropes that have all but ruined his career .
too many improbabilities and rose-colored situations temper what could've been a
n impacting film .
generic slasher-movie nonsense , but it's not without style .
with tiny little jokes and nary an original idea , this sappy ethnic sleeper pro
ves that not only blockbusters pollute the summer movie pool .
it sticks rigidly to the paradigm , rarely permitting its characters more than t
wo obvious dimensions and repeatedly placing them in contrived , well-worn situa
tions .
ever see one of those comedies that just seem like a bad idea from frame one ?
once ice-t sticks his mug in the window of the couple's bmw and begins haranguin
g the wife in bad stage dialogue , all credibility flies out the window .
the best drug addition movies are usually depressing but rewarding . quitting ,
however , manages just to be depressing , as the lead actor phones in his autobi
ographical performance .
it would be great to see this turd squashed under a truck , preferably a semi .
in the end , all you can do is admire the ensemble players and wonder what the p
oint of it is .
for most movies , 84 minutes is short , but this one feels like a life sentence
.
while glover , the irrepressible eccentric of river's edge , dead man and back t
o the future , is perfect casting for the role , he represents bartleby's main o
verall flaw .
something has been lost in the translation . . . another routine hollywood frigh
tfest in which the slack execution italicizes the absurdity of the premise .
shatner is probably the funniest person in the film , which gives you an idea ju
st how bad it was .
tries so hard to be quirky and funny that the strain is all too evident .
as immaculate as stuart little 2 is , it could be a lot better if it were , well
, more adventurous .
simply a re-hash of the other seven films .
with jump cuts , fast editing and lots of pyrotechnics , yu clearly hopes to cam
ouflage how bad his movie is . he fails .
i found myself more appreciative of what the director was trying to do than of w
hat he had actually done .
a very depressing movie of many missed opportunities .
goes on and on to the point of nausea .
by turns numbingly dull-witted and disquietingly creepy .
boy , has this franchise ever run out of gas .
one problem with the movie , directed by joel schumacher , is that it jams too m
any prefabricated story elements into the running time .
the comedy is nonexistent .
. . . a bland , pretentious mess .
it's a pedestrian , flat drama that screams out 'amateur' in almost every frame
.
a bland animated sequel that hardly seems worth the effort .
it's not just the vampires that are damned in queen of the damned -- the viewers
will feel they suffer the same fate .
if religious films aren't your bailiwick , stay away . otherwise , this could be
a passable date film .
this is the case of a pregnant premise being wasted by a script that takes few c
hances and manages to insult the intelligence of everyone in the audience .
the pace and the visuals are so hyped up that a curious sense of menace informs
everything .
stuffy , full of itself , morally ambiguous and nothing to shout about .
it is most of the things costner movies are known for ; it's sanctimonious , sel
f-righteous and so eager to earn our love that you want to slap it .
don't let the subtitles fool you ; the movie only proves that hollywood no longe
r has a monopoly on mindless action .
chai's structure and pacing are disconcertingly slack .
to be oblivious to the existence of this film would be very sweet indeed .
the director , with his fake backdrops and stately pacing , never settles on a c
onsistent tone .
one just waits grimly for the next shock without developing much attachment to t
he characters .
instead of panoramic sweep , kapur gives us episodic choppiness , undermining th
e story's emotional thrust .
the director seems to take an unseemly pleasure in [the characters'] misery and
at the same time to congratulate himself for having the guts to confront it .
this dubious product of a college-spawned ( colgate u . ) comedy ensemble known
as broken lizard plays like a mix of cheech and chong and chips .
the movie doesn't think much of its characters , its protagonist , or of us .
super troopers is an odd amalgam of comedy genres , existing somewhere between t
he often literal riffs of early zucker brothers/abrahams films , and the decided
ly foul stylings of their post-modern contemporaries , the farrelly brothers .
. . . will always be remembered for the 9-11 terrorist attacks . after seeing t
he film , i can tell you that there's no other reason why anyone should bother r
emembering it .
made me feel uneasy , even queasy , because [solondz's] cool compassion is on th
e border of bemused contempt .
as a kind of colorful , dramatized pbs program , frida gets the job done . but ,
for that , why not watch a documentary ?
with minimal imagination , you could restage the whole thing in your bathtub .
nights feels more like a quickie tv special than a feature film . . . it's not e
ven a tv special you'd bother watching past the second commercial break .
although . . . visually striking and slickly staged , it's also cold , grey , an
tiseptic and emotionally desiccated .
you can see where big bad love is trying to go , but it never quite gets there .
friday after next is the kind of film that could only be made by african-america
ns because of its broad racial insensitivity towards african-americans .
it's not as awful as some of the recent hollywood trip tripe . . . but it's far
from a groundbreaking endeavor .
the only thing " swept away " is the one hour and thirty-three minutes spent wat
ching this waste of time .
one-sided documentary offers simplistic explanations to a very complex situation
. . . . stylistically , the movie is a disaster .
the corpse count ultimately overrides what little we learn along the way about v
icarious redemption .
as violent , profane and exploitative as the most offensive action flick you've
ever seen .
egoyan's work often elegantly considers various levels of reality and uses shift
ing points of view , but here he has constructed a film so labyrinthine that it
defeats his larger purpose .
life or something like it has its share of high points , but it misses too many
opportunities .
this is a truly , truly bad movie .
despite bearing the paramount imprint , it's a bargain-basement european pickup
. what's hard to understand is why anybody picked it up . wiser souls would have
tactfully pretended not to see it and left it lying there
believability wasn't one of the film's virtues .
sewer rats could watch this movie and be so skeeved out that they'd need a showe
r .
the santa clause 2's plot may sound like it was co-written by mattel executives
and lobbyists for the tinsel industry .
his best film remains his shortest , the hole , which makes many of the points t
hat this film does but feels less repetitive .
just another disjointed , fairly predictable psychological thriller .
. . . stumbles over every cheap trick in the book trying to make the outrage co
me even easier .
even the hastily and amateurishly drawn animation cannot engage .
kung pow is oedekerk's realization of his childhood dream to be in a martial-art
s flick , and proves that sometimes the dreams of youth should remain just that
.
busy urban comedy is clearly not zhang's forte , his directorial touch is neithe
r light nor magical enough to bring off this kind of whimsy .
well-meaning but inert .
not completely loveable -- but what underdog movie since the bad news bears has
been ? -- but certainly hard to hate .
a movie that can't get sufficient distance from leroy's delusions to escape thei
r maudlin influence .
it's young guns meets goodfellas in this easily skippable hayseeds-vs . -greaseb
alls mob action-comedy .
louiso lets the movie dawdle in classic disaffected-indie-film mode , and brothe
r hoffman's script stumbles over a late-inning twist that just doesn't make sens
e .
the movie straddles the fence between escapism and social commentary , and on bo
th sides it falls short .
the film is old-fashioned , occasionally charming and as subtle as boldface .
can't get enough of libidinous young city dwellers ? try this obscenely bad dark
comedy , so crass that it makes edward burns' sidewalks of new york look like o
scar wilde .
in the new guy , even the bull gets recycled .
. . . overly melodramatic . . .
largely , this is a movie that also does it by the numbers .
on top of a foundering performance , [madonna's] denied her own athleticism by l
ighting that emphasizes every line and sag .
the result is an 'action film' mired in stasis .
this is the first full scale wwii flick from hong kong's john woo . he's not goo
d with people .
patchy combination of soap opera , low-tech magic realism and , at times , plodd
ingly sociological commentary .
[stevens is] so stoked to make an important film about human infidelity and happ
enstance that he tosses a kitchen sink onto a story already overladen with plot
conceits .
so boring that even its target audience talked all the way through it .
one of the more glaring signs of this movie's servitude to its superstar is the
way it skirts around any scenes that might have required genuine acting from ms
. spears .
hollywood ending is the most disappointing woody allen movie ever . he has a gre
at cast and a great idea . but the execution is a flop with the exception of abo
ut six gags that really work .
. . . generically , forgettably pleasant from start to finish .
it's just hard to believe that a life like this can sound so dull .
when not wallowing in its characters' frustrations , the movie is busy contrivin
g false , sitcom-worthy solutions to their problems .
an overstylized , pured mlange of sex , psychology , drugs and philosophy . someti
mes entertaining , sometimes indulgent -- but never less than pure wankery .
'lovely and amazing , ' unhappily , is neither . . . excessively strained and co
ntrived .
ringu is a disaster of a story , full of holes and completely lacking in chills
. ignore the reputation , and ignore the film .
this one is a few bits funnier than malle's dud , if only because the cast is so
engagingly messing around like slob city reductions of damon runyon crooks .
'it's painful to watch witherspoon's talents wasting away inside unnecessary fil
ms like legally blonde and sweet home abomination , i mean , alabama . '
a plodding teen remake that's so mechanical you can smell the grease on the plot
twists .
trying to figure out the rules of the country bear universe -- when are bears be
ars and when are they like humans , only hairier -- would tax einstein's brain .
even in terms of the low-grade cheese standards on which it operates , it never
quite makes the grade as tawdry trash .
amidst the action , the script carries arnold ( and the viewers ) into the forbi
dden zone of sympathizing with terrorist motivations by presenting the " other s
ide of the story . "
rife with nutty cliches and far too much dialogue .
it's a 100-year old mystery that is constantly being interrupted by elizabeth hu
rley in a bathing suit .
. . . one big laugh , three or four mild giggles , and a whole lot of not much
else .
too intensely focused on the travails of being hal hartley to function as pastic
he , no such thing is hartley's least accessible screed yet .
kenneth branagh's energetic sweet-and-sour performance as a curmudgeonly british
playwright grounds this overstuffed , erratic dramedy in which he and his impro
bably forbearing wife contend with craziness and child-rearing in los angeles .
director uwe boll and writer robert dean klein fail to generate any interest in
an unsympathetic hero caught up in an intricate plot that while cleverly worked
out , cannot overcome blah characters .
ms . phoenix is completely lacking in charm and charisma , and is unable to proj
ect either esther's initial anomie or her eventual awakening .
the movie fails to portray its literarily talented and notorious subject as anyt
hing much more than a dirty old man .
extremely bad .
a clichd and shallow cautionary tale about the hard-partying lives of gay men .
the fetid underbelly of fame has never looked uglier .
a little weak -- and it isn't that funny .
while it is welcome to see a chinese film depict a homosexual relationship in a
mature and frank fashion , lan yu never catches dramatic fire .
the script boasts some tart tv-insider humor , but the film has not a trace of h
umanity or empathy .
despite the pyrotechnics , narc is strictly by the book .
in both the writing and cutting , it does not achieve the kind of dramatic unity
that transports you . you end up simply admiring this bit or that , this perfor
mance or that .
cacoyannis is perhaps too effective in creating an atmosphere of dust-caked stag
nation and labored gentility .
worth seeing once , but its charm quickly fades .
the original wasn't a good movie but this remake makes it look like a masterpiec
e !
one suspects that craven endorses they simply because this movie makes his own l
ook much better by comparison .
gere gives a good performance in a film that doesn't merit it .
your appreciation of it will depend on what experiences you bring to it and what
associations you choose to make .
includes too much obvious padding .
there's no palpable chemistry between lopez and male lead ralph fiennes , plus t
he script by working girl scribe kevin wade is workmanlike in the extreme .
i'm not sure which half of dragonfly is worse : the part where nothing's happeni
ng , or the part where something's happening , but it's stupid .
don't expect any subtlety from this latest entry in the increasingly threadbare
gross-out comedy cycle .
the only camouflage carvey should now be considering is a paper bag to wear over
his head when he goes out into public , to avoid being recognized as the man wh
o bilked unsuspecting moviegoers .
shot like a postcard and overacted with all the boozy self-indulgence that bring
s out the worst in otherwise talented actors . . .
spain's greatest star wattage doesn't overcome the tumult of maudlin tragedy .
. . . a movie that , quite simply , shouldn't have been made .
conforms itself with creating a game of 'who's who' . . . where the characters'
moves are often more predictable than their consequences .
looks and feels like a low-budget hybrid of scarface or carlito's way .
the script is a tired one , with few moments of joy rising above the stale mater
ial .
suffers from all the excesses of the genre .
the verdict : two bodies and hardly a laugh between them .
the latest adam sandler assault and possibly the worst film of the year .
downbeat , period-perfect biopic hammers home a heavy-handed moralistic message
.
while the film is competent , it's also uninspired , lacking the real talent and
wit to elevate it beyond its formula to the level of classic romantic comedy to
which it aspires .
they ought to be a whole lot scarier than they are in this tepid genre offering
.
it's harmless , diverting fluff . but it's hard to imagine a more generic effort
in the genre .
it's just plain lurid when it isn't downright silly .
comedy troupe broken lizard's first movie is very funny but too concerned with g
iving us a plot .
pap invested in undergraduate doubling subtexts and ridiculous stabs at existent
ialism reminding of the discovery of the wizard of god in the fifth trek flick .
a horror movie with seriously dumb characters , which somewhat dilutes the pleas
ure of watching them stalked by creepy-crawly bug things that live only in the d
arkness .
it's a film with an idea buried somewhere inside its fabric , but never clearly
seen or felt .
'all in all , reign of fire will be a good ( successful ) rental . '
occasionally funny , sometimes inspiring , often boring .
a movie in which two not very absorbing characters are engaged in a romance you
can't wait to see end .
the predominantly amateur cast is painful to watch , so stilted and unconvincing
are the performances .
who are 'they' ? well , they're 'they' . they're the unnamed , easily substituta
ble forces that serve as whatever terror the heroes of horror movies try to avoi
d . they exist for hushed lines like " they're back ! " , " they're out there !
" and " they're coming ! "
elegantly crafted but emotionally cold , a puzzle whose intricate construction o
ne can admire but is difficult to connect with on any deeper level .
were dylan thomas alive to witness first-time director ethan hawke's strained ch
elsea walls , he might have been tempted to change his landmark poem to , 'do no
t go gentle into that good theatre . '
the story has its redundancies , and the young actors , not very experienced , a
re sometimes inexpressive .
i'm sure the filmmaker would disagree , but , honestly , i don't see the point .
it's a visual rorschach test and i must have failed .
the film is really closer to porn than a serious critique of what's wrong with t
his increasingly pervasive aspect of gay culture .
murder by numbers just doesn't add up .
clare peploe's airless movie adaptation could use a little american pie-like irr
everence .
video games are more involving than this mess .
clayburgh and tambor are charming performers ; neither of them deserves eric sch
aeffer .
a pale xerox of other , better crime movies .
. . . a hokey piece of nonsense that tries too hard to be emotional .
illiterate , often inert sci-fi action thriller .
a perfect example of rancid , well-intentioned , but shamelessly manipulative mo
vie making .
the adventure doesn't contain half the excitement of balto , or quarter the fun
of toy story 2 .
essentially a collection of bits -- and they're all naughty .
a mess . the screenplay does too much meandering , norton has to recite bland po
lice procedural details , fiennes wanders around in an attempt to seem weird and
distanced , hopkins looks like a drag queen .
the screenplay by james eric , james horton and director peter o'fallon . . . is
so pat it makes your teeth hurt .
before it takes a sudden turn and devolves into a bizarre sort of romantic comed
y , steven shainberg's adaptation of mary gaitskill's harrowing short story . .
. is a brilliantly played , deeply unsettling experience .
solaris is rigid and evasive in ways that soderbergh's best films , " erin brock
ovich , " " out of sight " and " ocean's eleven , " never were .
seems like something american and european gay movies were doing 20 years ago .
in the process of trimming the movie to an expeditious 84 minutes , director rog
er kumble seems to have dumped a whole lot of plot in favor of . . . outrageous
gags .
you can see the would-be surprises coming a mile away , and the execution of the
se twists is delivered with a hammer . thumbs down .
the characters are paper thin and the plot is so cliched and contrived that it m
akes your least favorite james bond movie seem as cleverly plotted as the usual
suspects .
. . . del toro maintains a dark mood that makes the film seem like something to
endure instead of enjoy .
the movie eventually snaps under the strain of its plot contrivances and its nee
d to reassure .
the real question this movie poses is not 'who ? ' but 'why ? '
now here's a sadistic bike flick that would have made vittorio de sica proud .
a movie that's about as overbearing and over-the-top as the family it depicts .
a movie in which laughter and self-exploitation merge into jolly soft-porn 'empo
werment . '
occasionally interesting but essentially unpersuasive , a footnote to a still ev
olving story .
if we're to slap protagonist genevieve leplouff because she's french , do we hav
e that same option to slap her creators because they're clueless and inept ?
moretti plays giovanni , a psychiatrist who predictably finds it difficult to su
stain interest in his profession after the family tragedy . too predictably , in
fact .
alternative medicine obviously has its merits . . . but ayurveda does the field
no favors .
this thing works on no level whatsoever for me .
it follows the basic plot trajectory of nearly every schwarzenegger film : someo
ne crosses arnie . arnie blows things up .
ice age posits a heretofore unfathomable question : is it possible for computer-
generated characters to go through the motions ?
an incoherent jumble of a film that's rarely as entertaining as it could have be
en .
. . . they missed the boat .
more dutiful than enchanting . . . terribly episodic and lacking the spark of im
agination that might have made it an exhilarating treat .
laconic and very stilted in its dialogue , this indie flick never found its audi
ence , probably because it's extremely hard to relate to any of the characters .
the comedy death to smoochy is a rancorous curiosity : a movie without an appare
nt audience .
barney's ideas about creation and identity don't really seem all that profound ,
at least by way of what can be gleaned from this three-hour endurance test buil
t around an hour's worth of actual material .
affleck merely creates an outline for a role he still needs to grow into , a rol
e that ford effortlessly filled with authority .
cinematic pyrotechnics aside , the only thing avary seems to care about are mean
giggles and pulchritude . it makes sense that he went back to school to check o
ut the girls -- his film is a frat boy's idea of a good time .
the narrative is so consistently unimaginative that probably the only way to hav
e saved the film is with the aid of those wisecracking mystery science theater 3
000 guys .
nothing more or less than an outright bodice-ripper -- it should have ditched th
e artsy pretensions and revelled in the entertaining shallows .
a living testament to the power of the eccentric and the strange . the fact that
it isn't very good is almost beside the point .
feels less like a cousin to blade runner than like a bottom-feeder sequel in the
escape from new york series .
what might have been acceptable on the printed page of iles' book does not trans
late well to the screen .
if oscar had a category called best bad film you thought was going to be really
awful but wasn't , guys would probably be duking it out with the queen of the da
mned for the honor .
a poky and pseudo-serious exercise in sham actor workshops and an affected malai
se .
mediocre fable from burkina faso .
fessenden has nurtured his metaphors at the expense of his narrative , but he do
es display an original talent .
since the movie is based on a nicholas sparks best seller , you know death is lu
rking around the corner , just waiting to spoil things .
bottom-rung new jack city wannabe .
fincher takes no apparent joy in making movies , and he gives none to the audien
ce .
it's mildly amusing , but i certainly can't recommend it .
nicholas nickleby celebrates the human spirit with such unrelenting dickensian d
ecency that it turned me ( horrors ! ) into scrooge .
fear dot com is more frustrating than a modem that disconnects every 10 seconds
.
full of flatulence jokes and mild sexual references , kung pow ! is the kind of
movie that's critic-proof , simply because it aims so low .
may cause you to bite your tongue to keep from laughing at the ridiculous dialog
or the oh-so convenient plot twists .
there are just too many characters saying too many clever things and getting int
o too many pointless situations . where's the movie here ?
a dark , dull thriller with a parting shot that misfires .
lacking substance and soul , crossroads comes up shorter than britney's cutoffs
.
cassavetes thinks he's making dog day afternoon with a cause , but all he's done
is to reduce everything he touches to a shrill , didactic cartoon .
buries an interesting storyline about morality and the choices we make underneat
h such a mountain of clichs and borrowed images that it might more accurately be
titled mr . chips off the old block .
although sensitive to a fault , it's often overwritten , with a surfeit of weigh
ty revelations , flowery dialogue , and nostalgia for the past and roads not tak
en .
it's so badly made on every level that i'm actually having a hard time believing
people were paid to make it .
without non-stop techno or the existential overtones of a kieslowski morality ta
le , maelstrm is just another winter sleepers .
nicks , seemingly uncertain what's going to make people laugh , runs the gamut f
rom stale parody to raunchy sex gags to formula romantic comedy .
'a' for creativity but comes across more as a sketch for a full-length comedy .
if there's one thing this world needs less of , it's movies about college that a
re written and directed by people who couldn't pass an entrance exam .
the script kicks in , and mr . hartley's distended pace and foot-dragging rhythm
s follow .
[e]ventually , every idea in this film is flushed down the latrine of heroism .
i am sorry that i was unable to get the full brunt of the comedy .
no telegraphing is too obvious or simplistic for this movie .
looks and feels like a project better suited for the small screen .
in its best moments , resembles a bad high school production of grease , without
benefit of song .
indifferently implausible popcorn programmer of a movie .
it's inoffensive , cheerful , built to inspire the young people , set to an unen
ding soundtrack of beach party pop numbers and aside from its remarkable cameraw
ork and awesome scenery , it's about as exciting as a sunburn .
his comedy premises are often hackneyed or just plain crude , calculated to prov
oke shocked laughter , without following up on a deeper level .
christina ricci comedy about sympathy , hypocrisy and love is a misfire .
at times , the suspense is palpable , but by the end there's a sense that the cr
ux of the mystery hinges on a technicality that strains credulity and leaves the
viewer haunted by the waste of potential .
they should have called it gutterball .
thekids will probably stay amused at the kaleidoscope of big , colorful characte
rs . mom and dad can catch some quality naptime along the way .
it's too self-important and plodding to be funny , and too clipped and abbreviat
ed to be an epic .
the best that can be said about the work here of scottish director ritchie . . .
is that he obviously doesn't have his heart in it .
less dizzying than just dizzy , the jaunt is practically over before it begins .

slick piece of cross-promotion .

taylor appears to have blown his entire budget on soundtrack rights and had noth
ing left over for jokes .
it believes it's revealing some great human truths , when , in reality , it's ch
urning ground that has long passed the point of being fertile .
by turns pretentious , fascinating , ludicrous , provocative and vainglorious .
it all drags on so interminably it's like watching a miserable relationship unfo
ld in real time .
villeneuve spends too much time wallowing in bibi's generic angst ( there are a
lot of shots of her gazing out windows ) .
[t]here's only so much anyone can do with a florid , overplotted , anne rice roc
k 'n' roll vampire novel before the built-in silliness of the whole affair defea
ts them .
it's another video movie photographed like a film , with the bad lighting that's
often written off as indie film naturalism .
the techno tux is good for a few laughs , as are chan and hewitt , but when such
 a good design turns out to be a cheap knockoff , we can't recommend anything bu
t a rental for the tuxedo .
i got a headache watching this meaningless downer .
apart from dazzling cinematography , we've seen just about everything in blue cr
ush in one form or the other .
too much of the humor falls flat .
detox is ultimately a pointless endeavor .
van wilder doesn't bring anything new to the proverbial table , but it does poss
ess a coherence absent in recent crass-a-thons like tomcats , freddy got fingere
d , and slackers .
the piquant story needs more dramatic meat on its bones .
very special effects , brilliantly bold colors and heightened reality can't hide
the giant achilles' heel in " stuart little 2 " : there's just no story , folks
.
the plot combines the blues brothers and almost famous ( but with bears , and a
g rating ) , with an excruciating dollop of disney sentimentality mixed in for g
ood measure .
no way i can believe this load of junk .
" roger michell ( " notting hill " ) directs a morality thriller . "
it's dumb , but more importantly , it's just not scary .
there is no pleasure in watching a child suffer . just embarrassment and a vague
sense of shame .
the movie's accumulated force still feels like an ugly knot tightening in your s
tomach . but is that knot from dramatic tension or a symptom of artistic malnutr
ition ?
even with a green mohawk and a sheet of fire-red flame tattoos covering his shou
lder , however , kilmer seems to be posing , rather than acting . and that leave
s a hole in the center of the salton sea .
there's just no currency in deriding james bond for being a clichd , doddering ,
misogynistic boy's club .
when the film ended , i felt tired and drained and wanted to lie on my own death
bed for a while .
full of witless jokes , dealing in broad stereotypes and outrageously unbelievab
le scenarios , and saddled with a general air of misogyny
the film's hackneyed message is not helped by the thin characterizations , nonex
istent plot and pretentious visual style .
the iditarod lasts for days - this just felt like it did .
it feels like an after-school special gussied up with some fancy special effect
s , and watching its rote plot points connect is about as exciting as gazing at
an egg timer for 93 minutes .
this movie is maddening . it conveys a simple message in a visual style that is
willfully overwrought .
should have been someone else-
the film is based on truth and yet there is something about it that feels incomp
lete , as if the real story starts just around the corner .
why make a documentary about these marginal historical figures ? wouldn't one ab
out their famous dad , author of death in venice , etc . , be more valuable ?
the lower your expectations , the more you'll enjoy it .
rarely has leukemia looked so shimmering and benign .
is an arthritic attempt at directing by callie khouri . i had to look away - thi
s was god awful .
even in this less-than-magic kingdom , reese rules .
velocity represents everything wrong with ''independent film'' as a commodified
, sold-out concept on the american filmmaking scene .
just one bad idea after another .
because of an unnecessary and clumsy last scene , 'swimfan' left me with a very
bad feeling .
though moonlight mile is replete with acclaimed actors and actresses and tackles
a subject that's potentially moving , the movie is too predictable and too self
-conscious to reach a level of high drama .
a movie that hovers somewhere between an acute character study and a trite power
struggle .
i can't recommend it . but it's surprisingly harmless .
corpus collosum -- while undeniably interesting -- wore out its welcome well bef
ore the end credits rolled about 45 minutes in .
the last 20 minutes are somewhat redeeming , but most of the movie is the same t
eenage american road-trip drek we've seen before - only this time you have to re
ad the fart jokes
it's hard to like a film about a guy who is utterly unlikeable , and shiner , st
arring michael caine as an aging british boxing promoter desperate for a taste o
f fame and fortune , is certainly that .
a by-the-numbers effort that won't do much to enhance the franchise .
involves two mysteries -- one it gives away and the other featuring such badly d
rawn characters that its outcome hardly matters .
overall the film feels like a low-budget tv pilot that could not find a buyer to
play it on the tube .
it's of the quality of a lesser harrison ford movie - six days , seven nights ,
maybe , or that dreadful sabrina remake .
it appears that something has been lost in the translation to the screen .
despite all evidence to the contrary , this clunker has somehow managed to pose
as an actual feature movie , the kind that charges full admission and gets hyped
on tv and purports to amuse small children and ostensible adults .
shrewd but pointless .
an unclassifiably awful study in self- and audience-abuse .
sluggish , tonally uneven .
this movie is something of an impostor itself , stretching and padding its mater
ial in a blur of dead ends and distracting camera work .
hey arnold ! the movie could have been made 40 years ago , and parents' apprecia
tion of it may depend on whether they consider that a good thing .
this one is definitely one to skip , even for horror movie fanatics .
excessive , profane , packed with cartoonish violence and comic-strip characters
.
once the 50 year old benigni appears as the title character , we find ourselves
longing for the block of wood to come back .
a working class " us vs . them " opera that leaves no heartstring untugged and n
o liberal cause unplundered .
if the movie succeeds in instilling a wary sense of 'there but for the grace of
god , ' it is far too self-conscious to draw you deeply into its world .
there are simply too many ideas floating around -- part farce , part sliding doo
rs , part pop video -- and yet failing to exploit them .
it takes a strange kind of laziness to waste the talents of robert forster , ann
e meara , eugene levy , and reginald veljohnson all in the same movie .
we haven't seen such hilarity since say it isn't so !
expect the same-old , lame-old slasher nonsense , just with different scenery .
the cold turkey would've been a far better title .
the idea of 49-year-old roberto benigni playing the wooden boy pinocchio is scar
y enough . the reality of the new live-action pinocchio he directed , cowrote an
d starred in borders on the grotesque .
the ga-zillionth airhead movie about a wife in distress who resorts to desperate
measures .
zaidan's script has barely enough plot to string the stunts together and not qui
te enough characterization to keep the faces straight .
try as i may , i can't think of a single good reason to see this movie , even th
ough everyone in my group extemporaneously shouted , 'thank you ! ' when leguiza
mo finally plugged an irritating character late in the movie .
while it's nice to watch a movie that hasn't been focus-grouped into tedium , yu
's cinematic alchemy produces nearly as much lead as gold .
it treats women like idiots .
though catch me if you can isn't badly made , the fun slowly leaks out of the mo
vie .
just an average comedic dateflick but not a waste of time .
a valueless kiddie paean to pro basketball underwritten by the nba .
impostor has a handful of thrilling moments and a couple of good performances ,
but the movie doesn't quite fly . for starters , the story is just too slim .
so much facile technique , such cute ideas , so little movie .
the experience of going to a film festival is a rewarding one ; the experiencing
of sampling one through this movie is not .
the film takes the materials of human tragedy and dresses them in lovely costume
s , southern california locations and star power .
it has its moments of swaggering camaraderie , but more often just feels generic
, derivative and done to death .
almost gags on its own gore .
how do you spell clich ?
it's sweet , harmless , dumb , occasionally funny and about as compelling as a f
ishing show .
the moviegoing equivalent of going to a dinner party and being forced to watch t
he host and hostess's home video of their baby's birth .
while [hill] has learned new tricks , the tricks alone are not enough to salvage
this lifeless boxing film .
in the real world , an actor this uncharismatically beautiful would have a rsum lo
aded with credits like " girl in bar #3 . "
too much of it feels unfocused and underdeveloped .
under 15 ? a giggle a minute . over age 15 ? big fat waste of time .
hey arnold ! the movie is what happens when you blow up small potatoes to 10 tim
es their natural size , and it ain't pretty .
sometimes seems less like storytelling than something the otherwise compelling d
irector needed to get off his chest .
this is not the undisputed worst boxing movie ever , but it's certainly not a ch
ampion - the big loser is the audience .
you really have to wonder how on earth anyone , anywhere could have thought they
'd make audiences guffaw with a script as utterly diabolical as this .
in the end , we are left with something like two ships passing in the night rath
er than any insights into gay love , chinese society or the price one pays for b
eing dishonest .
chokes on its own depiction of upper-crust decorum .
well-nigh unendurable . . . though the picture strains to become cinematic poetr
y , it remains depressingly prosaic and dull .
i thought my own watch had stopped keeping time as i slogged my way through cloc
kstoppers .
while much of the cast has charm -- especially allodi and nolden -- the performe
rs are sunk by the film's primitive approach to the mechanics of comedy .
this directorial debut from music video show-off higuchinsky is all flash .
yes , ballistic is silly . unfortunately , it's not silly fun unless you enjoy r
eally bad movies .
the twist that ends the movie is the one with the most emotional resonance , but
twists are getting irritating , and this is the kind of material where the film
makers should be very careful about raising eyebrows .
the longer the movie goes , the worse it gets , but it's actually pretty good in
the first few minutes .
while it's genuinely cool to hear characters talk about early rap records ( suga
r hill gang , etc . ) , the constant referencing of hip-hop arcana can alienate
even the savviest audiences .
not only unfunny , but downright repellent .
care deftly captures the wonder and menace of growing up , but he never really e
mbraces the joy of fuhrman's destructive escapism or the grace-in-rebellion foun
d by his characters .
forced , familiar and thoroughly condescending .
does little more than play an innocuous game of fill-in- the-blanks with a tragi
c past .
k-19 exploits our substantial collective fear of nuclear holocaust to generate c
heap hollywood tension .
has a long and clunky ending . . . which forces the audience to fidget through t
en pseudo-serious minutes while waiting for the ending credits and the deleted s
cenes montage to break the audience's awkward silence
a ragbag of promising ideas and failed narrative , of good acting and plain old
bad filmmaking .
whaley's determination to immerse you in sheer , unrelenting wretchedness is exh
austing .
uncommonly stylish but equally silly . . . the picture fails to generate much su
spense , nor does it ask searching enough questions to justify its pretensions .
the entire movie is about a boring , sad man being boring and sad .
the plot convolutions ultimately add up to nothing more than jerking the audienc
e's chain .
confirms the nagging suspicion that ethan hawke would be even worse behind the c
amera than he is in front of it .
made with no discernible craft and monstrously sanctimonious in dealing with chi
ldhood loss .
it's a trifle of a movie , with a few laughs surrounding an unremarkable soft ce
nter .
holden caulfield did it better .
a synthesis of cliches and absurdities that seems positively decadent in its cin
ematic flash and emptiness .
oh come on . like you couldn't smell this turkey rotting from miles away .
if it's seldom boring , well , it's also rarely coherent .
simplistic fluff-ball of whimsy .
not exactly the bees knees
it does nothing new with the old story , except to show fisticuffs in this sort
of stop-go slow motion that makes the gang rumbles look like they're being strea
med over a 28k modem .
the kind of spectacularly misconceived enterprise that only a sophisticated cine
phile could have perpetrated .
makes for some truly odd , at times confusing , kids entertainment . . . but at
least this time there's some centered storytelling to go along with all the weir
d stuff .
the film contains no good jokes , no good scenes , barely a moment when carvey's
saturday night live-honed mimicry rises above the level of embarrassment .
jacquot's rendering of puccini's tale of devotion and double-cross is more than
just a filmed opera . in his first stab at the form , jacquot takes a slightly a
narchic approach that works only sporadically .
chabrol has taken promising material for a black comedy and turned it instead in
to a somber chamber drama .
it's as if you're watching a movie that was made in 1978 but not released then b
ecause it was so weak , and it has been unearthed and released now , when it has
become even weaker .
this is nothing but familiar territory .
in execution , this clever idea is far less funny than the original , killers fr
om space .
one of the more irritating cartoons you will see this , or any , year .
a broad , melodramatic estrogen opera that's pretty toxic in its own right .
too slow , too long and too little happens .
the film's few ideas are stretched to the point of evaporation ; the whole centr
al section is one big chase that seems to have no goal and no urgency . it's jus
t filler .
sacrifices the value of its wealth of archival foot-age with its less-than-objec
tive stance .
utterly lacking in charm , wit and invention , roberto benigni's pinocchio is an
astonishingly bad film .
a hamfisted romantic comedy that makes our girl the hapless facilitator of an ex
tended cheap shot across the mason-dixon line .
scores no points for originality , wit , or intelligence . it's a cookie-cutter
movie , a cut-and-paste job .
they takes a long time to get to its gasp-inducing ending .
barely gets off the ground .
even on those rare occasions when the narrator stops yammering , miller's hand o
ften feels unsure .
pumpkin means to be an outrageous dark satire on fraternity life , but its ambit
ions far exceed the abilities of writer adam larson broder and his co-director ,
tony r . abrams , in their feature debut .
at its best , queen is campy fun like the vincent price horror classics of the '
60s . at its worst , it implodes in a series of very bad special effects .
from the opening scenes , it's clear that all about the benjamins is a totally f
ormulaic movie .
it takes a certain kind of horror movie to qualify as 'worse than expected , ' b
ut ghost ship somehow manages to do exactly that .
on the bright side , it contains jesse ventura's best work since the xfl .
despite impeccable acting . . . and a script that takes some rather unexpected (
even , at times , preposterous ) turns , love is just too , too precious in the
end .
a tv style murder mystery with a few big screen moments ( including one that see
ms to be made for a different film altogether ) .
by getting myself wrapped up in the visuals and eccentricities of many of the ch
aracters , i found myself confused when it came time to get to the heart of the
movie .
too often , the viewer isn't reacting to humor so much as they are wincing back
in repugnance .
what's next ? the porky's revenge : ultimate edition ?
dilbert without the right-on satiric humor .
manages to show life in all of its banality when the intention is quite the oppo
site .
do not see this film .
minority report is exactly what the title indicates , a report .
delivers the same old same old , tarted up with latin flava and turned out by ho
llywood playas .
if you believe any of this , i can make you a real deal on leftover enron stock
that will double in value a week from friday .
to call the other side of heaven " appalling " would be to underestimate just ho
w dangerous entertainments like it can be .
in exactly 89 minutes , most of which passed as slowly as if i'd been sitting na
ked on an igloo , formula 51 sank from quirky to jerky to utter turkey .
if only the story about a multi-million dollar con bothered to include the con .
i'd have to say the star and director are the big problems here .
without the dark spookiness of crystal lake camp , the horror concept completely
loses its creepy menace .
it's like every bad idea that's ever gone into an after-school special compiled
in one place , minus those daytime programs' slickness and sophistication ( and
who knew they even had any ? ) .
while the resident evil games may have set new standards for thrills , suspense
, and gore for video games , the movie really only succeeds in the third of thes
e .
for close to two hours the audience is forced to endure three terminally depress
ed , mostly inarticulate , hyper dysfunctional families for the price of one .
to my taste , the film's comic characters come perilously close to being amoses
and andys for a new generation .
what the director can&#8217 ; t do is make either of val kilmer&#8217 ; s two pe
rsonas interesting or worth caring about .
in an effort , i suspect , not to offend by appearing either too serious or too
lighthearted , it offends by just being wishy-washy .
it's difficult to imagine the process that produced such a script , but here's g
uessing that spray cheese and underarm noises played a crucial role .
harland williams is so funny in drag he should consider permanent sex-reassignme
nt .
. . . nothing scary here except for some awful acting and lame special effects
.
it's not that kung pow isn't funny some of the time -- it just isn't any funnier
than bad martial arts movies are all by themselves , without all oedekerk's imp
ish augmentation .
a very long movie , dull in stretches , with entirely too much focus on meal pre
paration and igloo construction .
not an objectionable or dull film ; it merely lacks everything except good inten
tions .
a science-fiction pastiche so lacking in originality that if you stripped away i
ts inspirations there would be precious little left .
once [kim] begins to overplay the shock tactics and bait-and-tackle metaphors ,
you may decide it's too high a price to pay for a shimmering picture postcard .
the words , 'frankly , my dear , i don't give a damn , ' have never been more ap
propriate .
what's next : " my mother the car ? "
all the amped-up tony hawk-style stunts and thrashing rap-metal can't disguise t
he fact that , really , we've been here , done that .
a sequel that's much too big for its britches .
so unremittingly awful that labeling it a dog probably constitutes cruelty to ca
nines .
what was once original has been co-opted so frequently that it now seems pedestr
ian .
a perplexing example of promise unfulfilled , despite many charming moments .
for all the writhing and wailing , tears , rage and opium overdoses , there's no
sense of actual passion being washed away in love's dissolution .
a coarse and stupid gross-out .
a nightmare date with a half-formed wit done a great disservice by a lack of cri
tical distance and a sad trust in liberal arts college bumper sticker platitudes
.
doesn't offer much besides glib soullessness , raunchy language and a series of
brutal set pieces . . . that raise the bar on stylized screen violence .
there's something with potential here , but the movie decides , like lavinia , t
o go the conservative route .
it's one pussy-ass world when even killer-thrillers revolve around group therapy
sessions .
the stripped-down approach does give the film a certain timeless quality , but t
he measured pace and lack of dramatic inflection can also seem tedious .
but the power of these [subjects] is obscured by the majority of the film that s
hows a stationary camera on a subject that could be mistaken for giving a public
oration , rather than contributing to a film's narrative .
rarely has so much money delivered so little entertainment .
tries to add some spice to its quirky sentiments but the taste is all too famili
ar .
paid in full is so stale , in fact , that its most vibrant scene is one that use
s clips from brian de palma's scarface . that's a cheat .
harrison's flowers puts its heart in the right place , but its brains are in no
particular place at all .
this re-do is so dumb and so exploitative in its violence that , ironically , it
becomes everything that the rather clumsy original was railing against .
a string of rehashed sight gags based in insipid vulgarity .
the movie is dawn of the dead crossed with john carpenter's ghosts of mars , wit
h zombies not as ghoulish as the first and trains not as big as the second .
basically a static series of semi-improvised ( and semi-coherent ) raps between
the stars .
too restrained to be a freak show , too mercenary and obvious to be cerebral , t
oo dull and pretentious to be engaging . . . the isle defies an easy categorizat
ion .
an unpredictable blend of gal-pal smart talk , romantic comedy and dark tragedy
that bites off considerably more than writer/director john mckay can swallow .
it's one of those baseball pictures where the hero is stoic , the wife is patien
t , the kids are as cute as all get-out and the odds against success are long en
ough to intimidate , but short enough to make a dream seem possible .
" the time machine " is a movie that has no interest in itself . it doesn't bel
ieve in itself , it has no sense of humor it's just plain bored .
. . . a hollow joke told by a cinematic gymnast having too much fun embellishin
g the misanthropic tale to actually engage it .
a morose little soap opera about three vapid , insensitive people who take turns
hurting each other . it's a feature-length adaptation of one of those " can thi
s marriage be saved ? " columns from ladies home journal . . .
the film's essentially over by the meet-cute .
i'm sure if you're a hartley fan , you might enjoy yourself . . . me , i didn't
care for it .
it's about following your dreams , no matter what your parents think . socrates
motions for hemlock .
the script isn't very good ; not even someone as gifted as hoffman ( the actor )
can make it work .
walter hill's pulpy , stylized boxing melodrama undisputed nearly overcomes its
questionable in-the-ring match-up with solid fight choreography and gritty priso
n authenticity .
it has all the excitement of eating oatmeal .
it's hard to know whether or not to recommend this film because for every thing
it does right there's at least one and occasionally two things it gets ever so w
rong .
although there are several truly jolting scares , there's also an abundance of h
ackneyed dialogue and more silly satanic business than you can shake a severed l
imb at .
i'll bet the video game is a lot more fun than the film .
star trek : nemesis meekly goes where nearly every star trek movie has gone befo
re . wince-inducing dialogue , thrift-shop costumes , prosthetic makeup by silly
putty and kmart blue-light-special effects all conspire to test trekkie loyalty
.
like all abstract art , the film does not make this statement in an easily acces
sible way , and -- unless prewarned -- it would be very possible for a reasonabl
y intelligent person to sit through its tidal wave of imagery and not get this v
ision at all .
i don't mind having my heartstrings pulled , but don't treat me like a fool .
. . . although this idea is " new " the results are tired .
i'm guessing the director is a magician . after all , he took three minutes of d
ialogue , 30 seconds of plot and turned them into a 90-minute movie that feels f
ive hours long .
an unencouraging threefold expansion on the former mtv series , accompanying the
stunt-hungry dimwits in a random series of collected gags , pranks , pratfalls
, dares , injuries , etc .
the script is a dim-witted pairing of teen-speak and animal gibberish .
its well of thorn and vinegar ( and simple humanity ) has long been plundered by
similar works featuring the insight and punch this picture so conspicuously lac
ks .
for all its impressive craftsmanship , and despite an overbearing series of thir
d-act crescendos , lily chou-chou never really builds up a head of emotional ste
am .
don't be fooled by the impressive cast list - eye see you is pure junk .
not since freddy got fingered has a major release been so painful to sit through
.
the documentary does little , apart from raising the topic , to further stoke th
e conversation .
plays like a volatile and overlong w magazine fashion spread .
a better title , for all concerned , might be swept under the rug .
this movie seems to have been written using mad-libs . there can be no other exp
lanation . hilariously inept and ridiculous .
vera's technical prowess ends up selling his film short ; he smoothes over hard
truths even as he uncovers them .
[a] shapeless blob of desperate entertainment .
feels too formulaic and too familiar to produce the transgressive thrills of ear
ly underground work .
generic thriller junk . teens only .
given how heavy-handed and portent-heavy it is , this could be the worst thing s
oderbergh has ever done .
a by-the-numbers patient/doctor pic that covers all the usual ground
a dumb movie with dumb characters doing dumb things and you have to be really du
mb not to see where this is going .
stealing harvard aspires to comedic grand larceny but stands convicted of nothin
g more than petty theft of your time .
pretension , in its own way , is a form of bravery . for this reason and this re
ason only -- the power of its own steadfast , hoity-toity convictions -- chelsea
walls deserves a medal .
with the exception of some fleetingly amusing improvisations by cedric the enter
tainer as perry's boss , there isn't a redeeming moment here .
it's a grab bag of genres that don't add up to a whole lot of sense .
movie fans , get ready to take off . . . the other direction .
[director] o'fallon manages to put some lovely pictures up on the big screen , b
ut his skill at telling a story -- he also contributed to the screenplay -- fall
s short .
the intent is almost exactly the same [as the full monty] . all that's missing i
s the spontaneity , originality and delight .
no one but a convict guilty of some truly heinous crime should have to sit throu
gh the master of disguise .
even the finest chef can't make a hotdog into anything more than a hotdog , and
robert de niro can't make this movie anything more than a trashy cop buddy comed
y .
there's too much falseness to the second half , and what began as an intriguing
look at youth fizzles into a dull , ridiculous attempt at heart-tugging .
it's not without its pleasures , but i'll stick with the tune .
miller is playing so free with emotions , and the fact that children are hostage
s to fortune , that he makes the audience hostage to his swaggering affectation
of seriousness .
despite the evocative aesthetics evincing the hollow state of modern love life ,
the film never percolates beyond a monotonous whine .
more maudlin than sharp .
this is an egotistical endeavor from the daughter of horror director dario argen
to ( a producer here ) , but her raw performance and utter fearlessness make it
strangely magnetic .
it's slow -- very , very slow . it's not the ultimate depression-era gangster mo
vie . that's pure pr hype .
characters still need to function according to some set of believable and compre
hensible impulses , no matter how many drugs they do or how much artistic licens
e avary employs .
comes . . . uncomfortably close to coasting in the treads of the bicycle thief .
visually rather stunning , but ultimately a handsome-looking bore , the true cre
ativity would have been to hide treasure planet entirely and completely reimagin
e it .
stealing harvard is evidence that the farrelly bros . -- peter and bobby -- and
their brand of screen comedy are wheezing to an end , along with green's half-he
arted movie career .
there seems to be no clear path as to where the story's going , or how long it's
going to take to get there .
if you're a wwf fan , or you related to the people who watched the robots gettin
g butchered in a . i . , you'll probably like rollerball .
i don't think i laughed out loud once . and when you're talking about a slapstic
k comedy , that's a pretty big problem .
it's so mediocre , despite the dynamic duo on the marquee , that we just can't g
et no satisfaction .
slapstick buffoonery can tickle many a preschooler's fancy , but when it costs a
family of four about $40 to see a film in theaters , why spend money on a dog l
ike this when you can rent a pedigree instead ?
. . . turns so unforgivably trite in its last 10 minutes that anyone without a
fortified sweet tooth will likely go into sugar shock .
the notion that bombing buildings is the funniest thing in the world goes entire
ly unexamined in this startlingly unfunny comedy .
my reaction in a word : disappointment . his last movie was poetically romantic
and full of indelible images , but his latest has nothing going for it .
it kinda works and qualifies as cool at times , but is just too lame to work or
be cool at others .
sustains its dreamlike glide through a succession of cheesy coincidences and vol
uptuous cheap effects , not the least of which is rebecca romijn-stamos .
intriguing documentary which is emotionally diluted by focusing on the story's l
east interesting subject .
a non-mystery mystery .
feels haphazard , as if the writers mistakenly thought they could achieve an air
of frantic spontaneity by simply tossing in lots of characters doing silly stuf
f and stirring the pot .
what an embarrassment .
for each chuckle there are at least 10 complete misses , many coming from the am
azingly lifelike tara reid , whose acting skills are comparable to a cardboard c
utout .
in its own way , joshua is as blasphemous and nonsensical as a luis buuel film wi
thout the latter's attendant intelligence , poetry , passion , and genius .
i've always dreamed of attending cannes , but after seeing this film , it's not
that big a deal .
the vintage is pure '87 , with a halfhearted twist on its cautionary message : f
atal attraction = don't have an affair with a nutjob ; unfaithful = don't if you
're married to one .
a workshop mentality prevails .
it cannot be enjoyed , even on the level that one enjoys a bad slasher flick , p
rimarily because it is dull . yes , dull .
pumpkin wants to have it both ways .
director uwe boll and the actors provide scant reason to care in this crude '70s
throwback .
[w]hile long on amiable monkeys and worthy environmentalism , jane goodall's wil
d chimpanzees is short on the thrills the oversize medium demands .
outer-space buffs might love this film , but others will find its pleasures inte
rmittent .
this piece of channel 5 grade trash is , quite frankly , an insult to the intell
igence of the true genre enthusiast .
an occasionally funny , but overall limp , fish-out-of-water story .
a bloated gasbag thesis grotesquely impressed by its own gargantuan aura of self
-importance . . .
it's mighty tedious for the viewer who has to contend with unpleasant characters
, hit-and-miss performances and awkwardly staged scenes .
as a rumor of angels reveals itself to be a sudsy tub of supernatural hokum , no
t even ms . redgrave's noblest efforts can redeem it from hopeless sentimentalit
y .
new best friend's playboy-mansion presentation of college life is laugh-out-loud
ludicrous .
an appalling 'ace ventura' rip-off that somehow manages to bring together kevin
pollak , former wrestler chyna and dolly parton . if any of them list this 'cred
it' on their resumes in the future , that'll be much funnier than anything in th
e film . . .
the humor is forced and heavy-handed , and occasionally simply unpleasant .
scorsese at his best makes gangster films that are equally lovely but also relen
tlessly brutal and brutally intelligent ; perdition , meanwhile , reads more lik
e driving miss daisy than goodfellas .
while the script starts promisingly , it loses steam towards the middle and neve
r really develops beyond attacking obvious target .
as the latest bid in the tv-to-movie franchise game , i spy makes its big-screen
entry with little of the nervy originality of its groundbreaking small-screen p
rogenitor .
this isn't even madonna's swept away . this is her blue lagoon .
the director knows how to apply textural gloss , but his portrait of sex-as-war
is strictly sitcom .
. . . the film suffers from a lack of humor ( something needed to balance out t
he violence ) . . .
burns never really harnesses to full effect the energetic cast .
an overemphatic , would-be wacky , ultimately tedious sex farce .
has all the depth of a wading pool .
this is the sort of burly action flick where one coincidence pummels another , n
arrative necessity is a drunken roundhouse , and whatever passes for logic is a
factor of the last plot device left standing .
the so-inept- it's-surreal dubbing ( featuring the voices of glenn close , regis
philbin and breckin meyer ) brings back memories of cheesy old godzilla flicks
.
. . . the movie is just a plain old monster .
if this disposable tissue has one wild card , it's john turturro , who's simply
fab as a spanish butler with a foot fetish .
one long string of cliches .
a noble failure .
fancy a real downer ? [leigh] lays it on so thick this time that it feels like a
suicide race .
professionally speaking , it's tempting to jump ship in january to avoid ridicul
ous schlock like this shoddy suspense thriller .
nelson's brutally unsentimental approach . . . sucks the humanity from the film
, leaving behind an horrific but weirdly unemotional spectacle .
weaves a spell over you , with its disturbingly close-up look at damaged psyches
and its subtle undercurrents of danger . but its awkward structure keeps breaki
ng the spell .
at once half-baked and overheated .
there's a solid woman- finding-herself story somewhere in here , but you'd have
to dig pretty deep to uncover it .
i still can't relate to stuart : he's a mouse , for cryin' out loud , and all he
does is milk it with despondent eyes and whine that nobody treats him human eno
ugh .
[serry] wants to blend politics and drama , an admirable ambition . it's too bad
that the helping hand he uses to stir his ingredients is also a heavy one .
by the miserable standards to which the slasher genre has sunk , . . . actually
pretty good . of course , by more objective measurements it's still quite bad .
the only entertainment you'll derive from this choppy and sloppy affair will be
from unintentional giggles several of them .
sam mendes has become valedictorian at the school for soft landings and easy way
s out .
lstima por schwarzenegger , pero es hora de que deje la estafeta a las nuevas gen
eraciones .
exactly what it claims to be -- a simple diversion for the kids .
its story may be a thousand years old , but why did it have to seem like it took
another thousand to tell it to us ?
woefully pretentious .
the problem with this film is that it lacks focus . i sympathize with the plight
 of these families , but the movie doesn't do a very good job conveying the issu
e at hand .
a momentary escape from the summer heat and the sedentary doldrums that set in a
t this time of year .
. . . think of it as american pie on valium .
dull , lifeless , and amateurishly assembled .
puportedly " based on true events , " a convolution of language that suggests it
's impossible to claim that it is " based on a true story " with a straight face
.
. . . a plotline that's as lumpy as two-day old porridge . . . the filmmakers'
paws , sad to say , were all over this " un-bear-able " project !
. . . irritating soul-searching garbage .
it's a bad thing when a movie has about as much substance as its end credits blo
oper reel .
with its dogged hollywood naturalism and the inexorable passage of its character
s toward sainthood , windtalkers is nothing but a sticky-sweet soap .
some of it is clever , but it is never melodic/
a relative letdown .
better to just call it abc kiarostami . for aids and africa are nothing more tha
n part of the scenery .
no aspirations to social import inform the movie version . this is a shameless s
ham , calculated to cash in on the popularity of its stars .
manages to be somewhat well-acted , not badly art-directed and utterly unengagin
g no matter how hard it tries to be thrilling , touching or , yikes , uproarious
.
warmed-over hash .
this rather superficial arthouse middle-brow film knows how to please a crowd ,
and that's about all it does well .
it's clear the filmmakers weren't sure where they wanted their story to go , and
even more clear that they lack the skills to get us to this undetermined destin
ation .
as vulgar as it is banal .
a puzzling experience .
you wonder why enough wasn't just a music video rather than a full-length movie
.
the film's tone and pacing are off almost from the get-go .
the talented and clever robert rodriguez perhaps put a little too much heart int
o his first film and didn't reserve enough for his second .
more whiny downer than corruscating commentary .
tambor and clayburgh make an appealing couple he's understated and sardonic , sh
e's appealingly manic and energetic . both deserve better .
suffocated by its fussy script and uptight characters , this musty adaptation is
all the more annoying since it's been packaged and sold back to us by hollywood
.
coughs and sputters on its own postmodern conceit .
a wildly inconsistent emotional experience .
sit through this one , and you won't need a magic watch to stop time ; your dvd
player will do it for you .
a sometimes tedious film .
teen movies have really hit the skids .
there are plot holes big enough for shamu the killer whale to swim through .
. . . plays like somebody spliced random moments of a chris rock routine into w
hat is otherwise a cliche-riddled but self-serious spy thriller .
nasty , ugly , pointless and depressing , even if you hate clowns .
what is 100% missing here is a script of even the most elemental literacy , an i
nkling of genuine wit , and anything resembling acting .
does paint some memorable images . . . , but makhmalbaf keeps her distance from
the characters
it uses the pain and violence of war as background material for color .
just not campy enough
the movie , directed by mick jackson , leaves no cliche unturned , from the pred
ictable plot to the characters straight out of central casting .
it's everything you don't go to the movies for .
like watching a dress rehearsal the week before the show goes up : everything's
in place but something's just a little off-kilter .
the affectionate loopiness that once seemed congenital to demme's perspective ha
s a tough time emerging from between the badly dated cutesy-pie mystery scenario
and the newfangled hollywood post-production effects .
for all its technical virtuosity , the film is so mired in juvenile and near-xen
ophobic pedagogy that it's enough to make one pine for the day when godard can n
o longer handle the rigors of filmmaking .
american chai encourages rueful laughter at stereotypes only an indian-american
would recognize . and the lesson , in the end , is nothing new .
it made me want to wrench my eyes out of my head and toss them at the screen .
due to some script weaknesses and the casting of the director's brother , the fi
lm trails off into inconsequentiality .
. . . plot holes so large and obvious a marching band might as well be stomping
through them in clown clothes , playing a college football fight song on untune
d instruments .
so devoid of any kind of intelligible story that it makes films like xxx and col
lateral damage seem like thoughtful treatises
combining quick-cut editing and a blaring heavy metal much of the time , beck se
ems to be under the illusion that he's shooting the latest system of a down vide
o .
dragonfly has no atmosphere , no tension -- nothing but costner , flailing away
. it's a buggy drag .
works hard to establish rounded characters , but then has nothing fresh or parti
cularly interesting to say about them .
the action switches between past and present , but the material link is too tenu
ous to anchor the emotional connections that purport to span a 125-year divide .
nonsensical , dull " cyber-horror " flick is a grim , hollow exercise in flat sc
ares and bad acting .
instead of hiding pinocchio from critics , miramax should have hidden it from ev
eryone .
manages to be both repulsively sadistic and mundane .
a great ensemble cast can't lift this heartfelt enterprise out of the familiar .
there ought to be a directing license , so that ed burns can have his revoked .
the structure the film takes may find matt damon and ben affleck once again look
ing for residuals as this officially completes a good will hunting trilogy that
was never planned .
whereas last year's exemplary sexy beast seemed to revitalize the british gangst
er movie , this equally brutal outing merely sustains it .
. . . a boring parade of talking heads and technical gibberish that will do lit
tle to advance the linux cause .
green might want to hang onto that ski mask , as robbery may be the only way to
pay for his next project .
i can take infantile humor . . . but this is the sort of infantile that makes yo
u wonder about changing the director and writer's diapers .
there isn't nearly enough fun here , despite the presence of some appealing ingr
edients .
the tale of tok ( andy lau ) , a sleek sociopath on the trail of o ( takashi sor
imachi ) , the most legendary of asian hitmen , is too scattershot to take hold
.
directed in a paint-by-numbers manner .
a cheerful enough but imminently forgettable rip-off of [besson's] earlier work
.
a lackluster , unessential sequel to the classic disney adaptation of j . m . ba
rrie's peter pan .
samira makhmalbaf's new film blackboards is much like the ethos of a stream of c
onsciousness , although , it's unfortunate for the viewer that the thoughts and
reflections coming through are torpid and banal
. . . routine , harmless diversion and little else .
late marriage's stiffness is unlikely to demonstrate the emotional clout to swee
p u . s . viewers off their feet .
this time mr . burns is trying something in the martin scorsese street-realist m
ode , but his self-regarding sentimentality trips him up again .
while there's something intrinsically funny about sir anthony hopkins saying 'ge
t in the car , bitch , ' this jerry bruckheimer production has little else to of
fer
it's hampered by a lifetime-channel kind of plot and a lead actress who is out o
f her depth .
let's hope -- shall we ? -- that the 'true story' by which all the queen's men i
s allegedly " inspired " was a lot funnier and more deftly enacted than what's b
een cobbled together onscreen .
is there a group of more self-absorbed women than the mother and daughters featu
red in this film ? i don't think so . nothing wrong with performances here , but
the whiney characters bugged me .
there is very little dread or apprehension , and though i like the creepy ideas
, they are not executed with anything more than perfunctory skill .
if you've ever entertained the notion of doing what the title of this film impli
es , what sex with strangers actually shows may put you off the idea forever .
in the end , the movie collapses on its shaky foundation despite the best effort
s of director joe carnahan .
adults will wish the movie were less simplistic , obvious , clumsily plotted and
shallowly characterized . but what are adults doing in the theater at all ?
sticky sweet sentimentality , clumsy plotting and a rosily myopic view of life i
n the wwii-era mississippi delta undermine this adaptation .
it's another stale , kill-by-numbers flick , complete with blade-thin characters
and terrible , pun-laden dialogue .
every time you look , sweet home alabama is taking another bummer of a wrong tur
n .
partway through watching this saccharine , easter-egg-colored concoction , you r
ealize that it is made up of three episodes of a rejected tv show .
the overall effect is less like a children's movie than a recruitment film for f
uture hollywood sellouts .
portentous and pretentious , the weight of water is appropriately titled , given
the heavy-handedness of it drama .
a fitfully amusing romp that , if nothing else , will appeal to fans of malcolm
in the middle and its pubescent star , frankie muniz .
jason x is positively anti-darwinian : nine sequels and 400 years later , the te
ens are none the wiser and jason still kills on auto-pilot .
to say this was done better in wilder's some like it hot is like saying the sun
rises in the east .
at the very least , if you don't know anything about derrida when you walk into
the theater , you won't know much more when you leave .
the actors are appealing , but elysian fields is idiotic and absurdly sentimenta
l .
as 'chick flicks' go , this one is pretty miserable , resorting to string-pullin
g rather than legitimate character development and intelligent plotting .
the only excitement comes when the credits finally roll and you get to leave the
theater .
there's no emotional pulse to solaris . with an emotional sterility to match its
outer space setting , soderbergh's spectacular swing for the fence yields only
a spectacular whiff .
it can't decide if it wants to be a mystery/thriller , a romance or a comedy .
denis o'neill's script avoids the prime sports cliche , a last-second goal to wi
n the championship , but it neglects few others .
the character of zigzag is not sufficiently developed to support a film construc
ted around him .
one of those pictures whose promising , if rather precious , premise is undercut
by amateurish execution .
serving sara doesn't serve up a whole lot of laughs .
the most hopelessly monotonous film of the year , noteworthy only for the gimmic
k of being filmed as a single unbroken 87-minute take .
with virtually no interesting elements for an audience to focus on , chelsea wal
ls is a triple-espresso endurance challenge .
stale , futile scenario .
deadeningly dull , mired in convoluted melodrama , nonsensical jargon and stiff-
upper-lip laboriousness .
a misogynistic piece of filth that attempts to pass itself off as hip , young ad
ult entertainment .
like the chelsea's denizens . . . burdette's collage-form scenario tends to over
-romanticize the spiritual desolation of the struggling artiste .
it's basically an overlong episode of tales from the crypt .
the film makes a fatal mistake : it asks us to care about a young man whose only
apparent virtue is that he is not quite as unpleasant as some of the people in
his life .
another in-your-face wallow in the lower depths made by people who have never su
ng those blues .
shaky close-ups of turkey-on-rolls , stubbly chins , liver spots , red noses and
the filmmakers new bobbed do draw easy chuckles but lead nowhere .
i can't quite recommend it -- it's too patched together -- but i almost can ; it
's the kind of movie that makes you want to like it .
complete lack of originality , cleverness or even visible effort
though perry and hurley make inspiring efforts to breathe life into the disjoint
ed , haphazard script by jay scherick and david ronn , neither the actors nor di
rector reginald hudlin can make it more than fitfully entertaining .
something akin to a japanese alice through the looking glass , except that it se
ems to take itself far more seriously .
it takes talent to make a lifeless movie about the most heinous man who ever liv
ed .
on the whole , the movie lacks wit , feeling and believability to compensate for
its incessant coarseness and banality .
the story and the friendship proceeds in such a way that you're watching a soap
opera rather than a chronicle of the ups and downs that accompany lifelong frien
dships .
offers very little genuine romance and even fewer laughs . . . a sad sitcom of a
movie , largely devoid of charm .
makes for a pretty unpleasant viewing experience .
the movie fails to live up to the sum of its parts .
although huppert's intensity and focus has a raw exhilaration about it , the pia
no teacher is anything but fun .
it showcases carvey's talent for voices , but not nearly enough and not without
taxing every drop of one's patience to get to the good stuff .
bad . very bad . stultifyingly , dumbfoundingly , mind-numbingly bad .
may reawaken discussion of the kennedy assassination but this fictional film loo
ks made for cable rather than for the big screen .
if looking for a thrilling sci-fi cinematic ride , don't settle for this imposte
r .
not really bad so much as distasteful : we need kidnapping suspense dramas right
now like we need doomsday thrillers .
the result is a gaudy bag of stale candy , something from a halloween that died
.
davis . . . is so enamored of her own creation that she can't see how insufferab
le the character is .
the man from elysian fields is a cold , bliss-less work that groans along thinki
ng itself some important comment on how life throws us some beguiling curves .
the messages of compassion and mercy are clearly , squarely and specifically exp
ounded via computer animated old testament tale of jonah and the whale . determi
ned to be fun , and bouncy , with energetic musicals , the humor didn't quite en
gage this adult .
historical dramas fused with love triangle is a well worn conceit . but this fil
ms lacks the passion required to sell the material .
long time dead ? not nearly long enough .
nothing more substantial than a fitfully clever doodle .
a solid film . . . but more conscientious than it is truly stirring .
there's not enough here to justify the almost two hours .
the x potion gives the quickly named blossom , bubbles and buttercup supernatura
l powers that include extraordinary strength and laser-beam eyes , which unfortu
nately don't enable them to discern flimsy screenplays .
perceptive in its vision of nascent industrialized world politics as a new art f
orm , but far too clunky , didactic and saddled with scenes that seem simply an
ill fit for this movie .
verbinski implements every hack-artist trick to give us the ooky-spookies .
mcconaughey's fun to watch , the dragons are okay , not much fire in the script
.
an unwise amalgam of broadcast news and vibes .
skins has a right to yawp , and we have a right to our grains of salt .
who needs love like this ?
hit and miss as far as the comedy goes and a big ole' miss in the way of story .

returning aggressively to his formula of dimwitted comedy and even dimmer charac
ters , sandler , who also executive produces , has made a film that makes previo
us vehicles look smart and sassy .
exists then as an occasionally insightful acting exercise .
trite , banal , cliched , mostly inoffensive .
mattei is tiresomely grave and long-winded , as if circularity itself indicated
profundity .
it's not original , and , robbed of the element of surprise , it doesn't have an
y huge laughs in its story of irresponsible cops who love to play pranks .
whenever its story isn't bogged down by idiocy involving the cia and a lost u .
s . satellite , hunter -- starring irwin and his american wife/colleague , terri
-- is a movie children should enjoy .
it offers little beyond the momentary joys of pretty and weightless intellectual
entertainment .
a sequence of ridiculous shoot-'em-up scenes .
nothing in waking up in reno ever inspired me to think of its inhabitants as any
thing more than markers in a screenplay .
i'm just too bored to care .
irwin is a man with enough charisma and audacity to carry a dozen films , but th
is particular result is ultimately held back from being something greater .
not a stereotype is omitted nor a clich left unsaid .
as befits its title , this pg-13-rated piffle is ultimately as threatening as th
e snuggle fabric softener bear .
attempts by this ensemble film to impart a message are so heavy-handed that they
instead pummel the audience .
it all feels like a monty python sketch gone horribly wrong .
nervous breakdowns are not entertaining .
scorsese doesn't give us a character worth giving a damn about .
a beautifully made piece of unwatchable drivel .
like being trapped at a perpetual frat party . . . how can something so gross be
so boring ?
this is so bad .
even film silliness needs a little gravity , beyond good hair and humping .
i felt sad for lise not so much because of what happens as because she was captu
red by this movie when she obviously belongs in something lighter and sunnier ,
by rohmer , for example .
prurient playthings aside , there's little to love about this english trifle .
this is a train wreck of an action film -- a stupefying attempt by the filmmaker
s to force-feed james bond into the mindless xxx mold and throw 40 years of cine
matic history down the toilet in favor of bright flashes and loud bangs .
the film flat lines when it should peak and is more missed opportunity and trifl
e than dark , decadent truffle .
it's played in the most straight-faced fashion , with little humor to lighten th
ings up . the heavy-handed film is almost laughable as a consequence .
van wilder brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'comedy gag . ' at least one
scene is so disgusting that viewers may be hard pressed to retain their lunch .
a disappointment for those who love alternate versions of the bard , particularl
y ones that involve deep fryers and hamburgers .
the film tries too hard to be funny and tries too hard to be hip . the end resul
t is a film that's neither .
every nanosecond of the the new guy reminds you that you could be doing somethin
g else far more pleasurable . something like scrubbing the toilet . or emptying
rat traps . or doing last year's taxes with your ex-wife .
scooby dooby doo / and shaggy too / you both look and sound great . / but daphne
, you're too buff / fred thinks he's tough / and velma - wow , you've lost weig
ht !
is the time really ripe for a warmed-over james bond adventure , with a village
idiot as the 007 clone ?
there's enough melodrama in this magnolia primavera to make pta proud yet direct
or muccino's characters are less worthy of puccini than they are of daytime tele
vision .
however it may please those who love movies that blare with pop songs , young sc
ience fiction fans will stomp away in disgust .
the humor isn't as sharp , the effects not as innovative , nor the story as imag
inative as in the original . but it could have been worse .
some of their jokes work , but most fail miserably and in the end , pumpkin is f
ar more offensive than it is funny .
even horror fans will most likely not find what they're seeking with trouble eve
ry day ; the movie lacks both thrills and humor .
comes off like a rejected abc afterschool special , freshened up by the dunce of
a screenwriting 101 class . . . . designed to provide a mix of smiles and tears
, " crossroads " instead provokes a handful of unintentional howlers and numero
us yawns .
it seems to me the film is about the art of ripping people off without ever lett
ing them consciously know you have done so
it's just disappointingly superficial -- a movie that has all the elements neces
sary to be a fascinating , involving character study , but never does more than
scratch the surface .
the title not only describes its main characters , but the lazy people behind th
e camera as well .
sometimes it feels as if it might have been made in the '70s or '80s , and starr
ed chevy chase and goldie hawn .
schaeffer has to find some hook on which to hang his persistently useless movies
, and it might as well be the resuscitation of the middle-aged character .
demands too much of most viewers .
the story drifts so inexorably into cliches about tortured ( and torturing ) art
ists and consuming but impossible love that you can't help but become more disap
pointed as each overwrought new sequence plods on .
it should be mentioned that the set design and interiors of the haunted vessel a
re more than effectively creepy and moodily lit . so i just did .
shamelessly sappy and , worse , runs away from its own provocative theme .
aggravating and tedious .
the ring just left me cold and wet like i was out in the seattle drizzle without
rainwear .
the film seems a dead weight . the lack of pace kills it , although , in a movie
about cancer , this might be apt .
for anyone who grew up on disney's 1950 treasure island , or remembers the 1934
victor fleming classic , this one feels like an impostor .
a clutchy , indulgent and pretentious travelogue and diatribe against . . . well
, just stuff . watching scarlet diva , one is poised for titillation , raw insi
ght or both . instead , we just get messy anger , a movie as personal therapy .
meandering , sub-aquatic mess : it's so bad it's good , but only if you slide in
on a freebie .
the ending is a cop-out . what happens to john q ? i don't have an i am sam clue
.
has the feel of an unedited personal journal .
remember when bond had more glamour than clamor ? no more .
cry havoc and let slip the dogs of cheese , indeed .
this charmless nonsense ensues amid clanging film references that make jay and s
ilent bob's excellent adventure seem understated .
it doesn't quite deserve the gong , but there are more fascinating acts than " c
onfessions of a dangerous mind . "
the subject of swinging still seems ripe for a documentary -- just not this one
.
. . . hudlin is stuck trying to light a fire with soggy leaves .
unlike his directorial efforts , la femme nikita and the professional , the tran
sporter lacks besson's perspective as a storyteller .
the overall effect is so completely inane that one would have to be mighty bored
to even think of staying with this for more than , say , ten . . . make that th
ree minutes .
lacks depth .
most of the supporting characters in eastwood films are weak , as are most of th
e subplots . this one's weaker than most .
there's no real reason to see it , and no real reason not to .
audiences will find no mention of political prisoners or persecutions that might
paint the castro regime in less than saintly tones .
under-rehearsed and lifeless
the film takes too long getting to the good stuff , then takes too long figuring
out what to do next .
you can practically smell the patchouli oil .
to say analyze that is de niro's best film since meet the parents sums up the sa
d state of his recent career .
the actors don't inhabit their roles -- they're trapped by them , forced to chan
ge behavior in bizarre unjustified fashion and spout dialog that consists mostly
of platitudes .
an often-deadly boring , strange reading of a classic whose witty dialogue is tr
eated with a baffling casual approach
this film was made to get laughs from the slowest person in the audience -- just
pure slapstick with lots of inane , inoffensive screaming and exaggerated facia
l expressions .
consists of a plot and jokes done too often by people far more talented than ali
g
another week , another gross-out college comedy--ugh .
laughably , irredeemably awful .
moderately involving despite bargain-basement photography and hackneyed romance
.
there is no insight into the anguish of heidi's life -- only a depiction of pain
, today's version of greek tragedy , the talk-show guest decrying her fate .
the editing is chaotic , the photography grainy and badly focused , the writing
unintentionally hilarious , the direction unfocused , the performances as wooden
.
when [de palma's] bad , he's really bad , and femme fatale ranks with the worst
he has done .
tadpole is emblematic of the witless ageism afflicting films : young is cool , a
nd too young is too cool .
i doubt anyone will remember the picture by the time christmas really rolls arou
nd , but maybe it'll be on video by then .
uncertain in tone . . . a garbled exercise in sexual politics , a junior varsity
short cuts by way of very bad things .
all's well that ends well , and rest assured , the consciousness-raising lessons
are cloaked in gross-out gags .
the only thing worse than your substandard , run-of-the-mill hollywood picture i
s an angst-ridden attempt to be profound .
if you think that jennifer lopez has shown poor judgment in planning to marry be
n affleck , wait till you see maid in manhattan .
stars matthew perry and elizabeth hurley illicit more than a chuckle , and more
jokes land than crash , but ultimately serving sara doesn't distinguish itself f
rom the herd .
it's best to avoid imprisonment with the dull , nerdy folks that inhabit cherish
.
culkin exudes none of the charm or charisma that might keep a more general audie
nce even vaguely interested in his bratty character .
in the end , ted bundy's only justification is the director's common but unexplo
red fascination with the frustrated maniac ; there's no larger point , and littl
e social context .
. . . ( like ) channel surfing between the discovery channel and a late-night m
ade-for-cable action movie .
a movie that , rather than skip along the seine , more or less slogs its way thr
ough soggy paris , tongue uncomfortably in cheek .
shot perhaps 'artistically' with handheld cameras and apparently no movie lights
by joaquin baca-asay , the low-budget production swings annoyingly between vert
igo and opacity .
imagine a really bad community theater production of west side story without the
songs .
soul is what's lacking in every character in this movie and , subsequently , the
movie itself .
a one-trick pony whose few t&a bits still can't save itself from being unorigina
l , unfunny and unrecommendable .
the worst kind of independent ; the one where actors play dress down hicks and p
onderously mope around trying to strike lightning as captured by their 1970s pre
decessors
it may be a prize winner , but teacher is a bomb .
the production values are up there . the use of cgi and digital ink-and-paint ma
ke the thing look really slick . the voices are fine as well . the problem , it
is with most of these things , is the script .
it's got its heart in the right place , but it also wilts after awhile .
proves that a movie about goodness is not the same thing as a good movie .
well , it does go on forever .
this overproduced and generally disappointing effort isn't likely to rouse the r
ush hour crowd .
topkapi this is not .
if shayamalan wanted to tell a story about a man who loses his faith , why didn'
t he just do it , instead of using bad sci-fi as window dressing ?
ethan hawke has always fancied himself the bastard child of the beatnik generati
on and it's all over his chelsea walls .
equal parts bodice-ripper and plodding costume drama .
i'm not suggesting that you actually see it , unless you're the kind of person w
ho has seen every wim wenders film of the '70s .
while the film misfires at every level , the biggest downside is the paucity of
laughter in what's supposed to be a comedy .
if you liked the 1982 film then , you'll still like it now .
a 93-minute condensation of a 26-episode tv series , with all of the pitfalls of
such you'd expect .
guillen rarely gets beneath the surface of things . she lists ingredients , but
never mixes and stirs .
audiences can be expected to suspend their disbelief only so far -- and that doe
s not include the 5 o'clock shadow on the tall wooden kid as he skips off to sch
ool .
to imagine the life of harry potter as a martial arts adventure told by a loboto
mized woody allen is to have some idea of the fate that lies in store for movieg
oers lured to the mediocrity that is kung pow : enter the fist .
it delivers some chills and sustained unease , but flounders in its quest for de
eper meaning .
credibility levels are low and character development a non-starter .
i would have preferred a transfer down the hall to mr . holland's class for the
music , or to robin williams's lecture so i could listen to a teacher with humor
, passion , and verve .
for the most part , the ingredients are there . but an unwillingness to explore
beyond the surfaces of her characters prevents nettelbeck's film from coming tog
ether .
an earnest , heartrending look at the divide between religious fundamentalists a
nd their gay relatives . it's also heavy-handed and devotes too much time to big
oted views .
a mawkish , implausible platonic romance that makes chaplin's city lights seem d
ispassionate by comparison .
yes , one enjoys seeing joan grow from awkward young woman to strong , determine
d monarch , but her love for the philandering philip only diminishes her stature
.
it's a film that hinges on its casting , and glover really doesn't fit the part
.
this is a throwaway , junk-food movie whose rap soundtrack was better tended to
than the film itself .
. . . with the candy-like taste of it fading faster than 25-cent bubble gum , i
realized this is a throwaway movie that won't stand the test of time . it's a t
rifle .
literally nothing in the pool is new , but if you grew up on the stalker flicks
of the 1980's this one should appease you for 90 minutes .
arguably the year's silliest and most incoherent movie .
anyway , for one reason or another , crush turns into a dire drama partway throu
gh . after that , it just gets stupid and maudlin . too bad , but thanks to some
lovely comedic moments and several fine performances , it's not a total loss .
chao was chen kaige's assistant for years in china . he has not learnt that stor
ytelling is what the movies are about .
a mixed bag of a comedy that can't really be described as out of this world .
unwieldy contraption .
the film is a travesty of the genre and even as spoof takes itself too seriously
.
marries the amateurishness of the blair witch project with the illogic of series
7 : the contenders to create a completely crass and forgettable movie .
the piano teacher is the sort of movie that discourages american audiences from
ever wanting to see another foreign film .
if it's another regurgitated action movie you're after , there's no better film
than half past dead .
so what is the point ? lovingly choreographed bloodshed taking place in a pristi
ne movie neverland , basically .
this is junk food cinema at its greasiest .
when it's all wet , blue crush is highly enjoyable . when it's on dry land , tho
ugh , this surfer-girl melodrama starts gasping like a beached grouper .
most new movies have a bright sheen . some , like ballistic , arrive stillborn .
. . looking like the beaten , well-worn video box cover of seven years into the
future .
the story is naturally poignant , but first-time screenwriter paul pender overlo
ads it with sugary bits of business .
you see robert de niro singing - and dancing to - west side story show tunes . c
hoose your reaction : a . ) that sure is funny ! b . ) that sure is pathetic !
a sermonizing and lifeless paean to teenage dullards .
this dramatically shaky contest of wills only reiterates the old hollywood saw :
evil is interesting and good is boring .
before long , the film starts playing like general hospital crossed with a satur
day night live spoof of dog day afternoon .
the charms of willful eccentricity , at least as evidenced by this latest cinema
tic essay , are beginning to wear a bit thin .
instead of accurately accounting a terrible true story , the film's more determi
ned to become the next texas chainsaw massacre . but what about the countless ot
her people who'd merely like to watch a solid tale about a universally interesti
ng soul ?
a silly , self-indulgent film about a silly , self-indulgent filmmaker .
scarlet diva has a voyeuristic tug , but all in all it's a lot less sensational
than it wants to be .
the character is too forced and overwritten to be funny or believable much of th
e time , and clayburgh doesn't always improve the over-the-top mix .
flashy , pretentious and as impenetrable as morvern's thick , working-class scot
tish accent .
a battle between bug-eye theatre and dead-eye matinee .
the movie is virtually without context -- journalistic or historical . what's wo
rse is that pelosi knows it .
. . . instead go rent " shakes the clown " , a much funnier film with a similar
theme and an equally great robin williams performance .
lame , haphazard teen comedy .
it's the kind of movie that ends up festooning u . s . art house screens for no
reason other than the fact that it's in french ( well , mostly ) with english su
btitles and is magically 'significant' because of that .
this miserable excuse of a movie runs on empty , believing flatbush machismo wil
l get it through .
expect to be reminded of other , better films , especially seven , which directo
r william malone slavishly copies .
nair stuffs the film with dancing , henna , ornamentation , and group song , but
her narrative clichs and telegraphed episodes smell of old soap opera .
it's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that hollywood isn't laughing
with us , folks . it's laughing at us .
might have been better off as a documentary , with less of mr . eyre's uninspire
d dramatics and more of his sense of observation and outrage .
every good actor needs to do his or her own hamlet . for benigni it wasn't shake
speare whom he wanted to define his career with but pinocchio . it might as well
have been problem child iv .
arnold's jump from little screen to big will leave frowns on more than a few fac
es .
both awful and appealing .
the lack of opposing viewpoints soon grows tiresome -- the film feels more like
a series of toasts at a testimonial dinner than a documentary .
nothing plot-wise is worth e-mailing home about .
we are left with a superficial snapshot that , however engaging , is insufficien
tly enlightening and inviting .
helmer devito . . . attempts to do too many things in this story about ethics ,
payola , vice , murder , kids' tv and revenge .
it wouldn't be my preferred way of spending 100 minutes or $7 . 00 .
i hated every minute of it .
[t]hose same extremes prevent us from taking its message seriously , and the ste
pford wives mentality doesn't work in a modern context .
obvious politics and rudimentary animation reduce the chances that the appeal of
hey arnold ! the movie will reach far beyond its core demographic .
there's no mistaking the fact that this hybrid misses the impact of the disney c
lassic , and even that of the excellent 1934 mgm version .
a simple , sometimes maddeningly slow film that has just enough charm and good a
cting to make it interesting , but is ultimately pulled under by the pacing and
lack of creativity within .
roger michell , who did an appealing job directing persuasion and notting hill i
n england , gets too artsy in his american debut .
there is an almost poignant dimension to the way that every major stunt seagal's
character . . . performs is shot from behind , as if it could fool us into thin
king that we're not watching a double .
anthony hopkins ? big deal ! we've already seen the prequel to the silence of th
e lambs and hannibal -- and it was better the first time .
ostensibly celebrates middle-aged girl power , even as it presents friendship be
tween women as pathetic , dysfunctional and destructive .
if this is an example of the type of project that robert redford's lab is willin
g to lend its imprimatur to , then perhaps it's time to rethink independent film
s .
pumpkin sits in a patch somewhere between mirthless todd solondzian satire and c
allow student film .
not so much funny as aggressively sitcom-cute , it's full of throwaway one-liner
s , not-quite jokes , and a determined tv amiability that allen personifies .
it's not that waiting for happiness is a bad film , because it isn't . it's just
incredibly dull .
the sad thing about knockaround guys is its lame aspiration for grasping the coo
lness vibes when in fact the film isn't as flippant or slick as it thinks it is
.
a cumbersome and cliche-ridden movie greased with every emotional device known t
o man .
director ferzan ozpetek creates an interesting dynamic with the members of this
group , who live in the same apartment building . but he loses his focus when he
concentrates on any single person .
egoyan's movie is too complicated to sustain involvement , and , if you'll excus
e a little critical heresy , too intellectually ambitious .
it wants to be thought of as a subversive little indie film , but it has all the
qualities of a modern situation comedy .
despite apparent motives to the contrary , it ends up being , like [seinfeld's]
revered tv show , about pretty much nothing .
shadyac shoots his film like an m . night shyamalan movie , and he frequently ma
intains the same snail's pace ; he just forgot to add any genuine tension .
plays less like a coming-of-age romance than an infomercial .
there are a few laughs and clever sight gags scattered about , but not enough to
make this anything more than another big-budget bust .
the story's so preposterous that i didn't believe it for a second , despite the
best efforts of everyone involved .
i've heard that the fans of the first men in black have come away hating the sec
ond one . i wonder why . they felt like the same movie to me .
despite her relentless vim and winsome facial symmetry , witherspoon is just too
dialed-up to be america's sweetheart .
an ultra-low-budget indie debut that smacks more of good intentions than talent
.
birot is a competent enough filmmaker , but her story has nothing fresh or very
exciting about it .
de niro and mcdormand give solid performances , but their screen time is sabotag
ed by the story's inability to create interest .
even those of a single digit age will be able to recognize that this story is to
o goofy . . . even for disney .
that is essentially what's missing from blackboards -- the sense of something bi
gger , some ultimate point .
a compendium of solondz's own worst instincts in under 90 minutes .
if the title is a jeopardy question , then the answer might be " how does steven
seagal come across these days ? " or maybe " how will you feel after an 88-minu
te rip-off of the rock with action confined to slo-mo gun firing and random glas
s-shattering ?
it is a comedy that's not very funny and an action movie that is not very thrill
ing ( and an uneasy alliance , at that ) .
the story is familiar from its many predecessors ; like them , it eventually cul
minates in the not-exactly -stunning insight that crime doesn't pay .
you'll have more fun setting fire to yourself in the parking lot . you'll be mor
e entertained getting hit by a bus .
dissing a bond movie is quite like calling a dog stupid , but when it has the te
merity to run over two hours , you feel like winding up with a kick .
ritchie's treatment of the class reversal is majorly ham-fisted , from the repet
itive manifestos that keep getting thrown in people's faces to the fact amber is
such a joke .
flat , but with a revelatory performance by michelle williams .
little more than a frothy vanity project .
the film goes from being an unusual sci-fi character study to a chase flick that
detracts from its ending .
verbinski substitutes atmosphere for action , tedium for thrills .
for all its surface frenzy , high crimes should be charged with loitering -- so
much on view , so little to offer .
the sum of all fears is almost impossible to follow -- and there's something cri
nge-inducing about seeing an american football stadium nuked as pop entertainmen
t .
alex nohe's documentary plays like a travelogue for what mostly resembles a real
-life , big-budget nc-17 version of tank girl .
the title trapped turns out to be a pretty fair description of how you feel whil
e you're watching this ultra-manipulative thriller .
the appeal of the vulgar , sexist , racist humour went over my head or -- consid
ering just how low brow it is -- perhaps it snuck under my feet .
the story really has no place to go since simone is not real she can't provide any
conflict .
ihops don't pile on this much syrup .
for the most part , i spy was an amusing lark that will probably rank as one of
murphy's better performances in one of his lesser-praised movies .
focuses on joan's raging hormones and sledgehammers the audience with spanish in
quisitions about her " madness " so much that i became mad that i wasted 123 min
utes and $9 . 50 on this 21st century torture device .
this series should have died long ago , but they keep bringing it back another d
ay as punishment for paying money to see the last james bond movie .
a bit of an unwieldy mess .
with a story as bizarre and mysterious as this , you don't want to be worrying a
bout whether the ineffectual broomfield is going to have the courage to knock on
that door .
the filmmakers juggle and juxtapose three story lines but fail to come up with o
ne cogent point , unless it's that life stinks , especially for sensitive marrie
d women who really love other women .
the movie feels like it's going to be great , and it carries on feeling that way
for a long time , but takeoff just never happens .
a gimmick in search of a movie : how to get carvey into as many silly costumes a
nd deliver as many silly voices as possible , plot mechanics be damned .
. . . the last time i saw a theater full of people constantly checking their wa
tches was during my sats .
. . . fifty minutes of tedious adolescent melodramatics followed by thirty-five
minutes of inflated nonsense .
. . . lacks the punch and verve needed to make this genre soar .
it's often faintly amusing , but the problems of the characters never become imp
ortant to us , and the story never takes hold .
it's tough , astringent , darkly funny and . . . well , it's also generic , unti
dy , condescending and mild of impact rather than stunning .
largely a for-fans artifact .
there's no denying the elaborateness of the artist's conceptions , nor his abili
ty to depict them with outrageous elan , but really the whole series is so much
pretentious nonsense , lavishly praised by those who equate obscurity with profu
ndity .
characters wander into predictably treacherous situations even though they shoul
d know better .
there's plenty of style in guillermo del toro's sequel to the 1998 hit but why d
o we need 117 minutes to tell a tale that simply can't sustain more than 90 minu
tes .
[i]f you've been to more than one indie flick in your life , chances are you've
already seen this kind of thing .
first-time director joo pedro rodrigues' unwillingness to define his hero's backg
round or motivations becomes more and more frustrating as the film goes on .
no reason for anyone to invest their hard-earned bucks into a movie which obviou
sly didn't invest much into itself either .
a strong first quarter , slightly less so second quarter , and average second ha
lf .
a boring , wincingly cute and nauseatingly politically correct cartoon guarantee
d to drive anyone much over age 4 screaming from the theater .
the vampire thriller blade ii starts off as a wild hoot and then sucks the blood
out of its fun toward the end , you can feel your veins cringing from the worko
ut .
when the first few villians are introduced as " spider " and " snake " you know
you're in for a real winner , creativity at its peak .
an afterschool special without the courage of its convictions .
the final result makes for adequate entertainment , i suppose , but anyone who h
as seen chicago on stage will leave the theater feeling they've watched nothing
but a pale imitation of the real deal .
[director] byler may yet have a great movie in him , but charlotte sometimes is
only half of one .
so few movies explore religion that it's disappointing to see one reduce it to a
n idea that fits in a sampler .
it's also clear from the start that the transporter is running purely on adrenal
ine , and once the initial high wears off , the film's shortcomings start to shi
ne through .
watching it is rather like viewing a long soap opera in which only the first epi
sode was any good .
it's fun , but a psychological mess , with austin powers bumping his head on the
way out of the closet .
there are touching moments in etoiles , but for the most part this is a dull , d
our documentary on what ought to be a joyful or at least fascinating subject .
overwrought , melodramatic bodice-ripper .
could the whole plan here have been to produce something that makes fatal attrac
tion look like a classic by comparison ? that's the only sane rationale i can th
ink of for swimfan's existence .
i didn't laugh at the ongoing efforts of cube , and his skinny buddy mike epps ,
to make like laurel and hardy 'n the hood .
the only way this supernatural snore-fest could give anyone a case of the fright
s is if they were put to sleep by the movie and had a nightmare .
i wonder what the reaction of israelis will be to this supposedly evenhanded pre
sentation .
the film would work much better as a video installation in a museum , where view
ers would be free to leave . immediately .
human nature initially succeeds by allowing itself to go crazy , but ultimately
fails by spinning out of control .
[it's] a prison soccer movie starring charismatic tough guy vinnie jones , but i
t had too much spitting for me to enjoy .
not even the hanson brothers can save it
the thriller side of this movie is falling flat , as the stalker doesn't do much
stalking , and no cop or lawyer grasps the concept of actually investigating th
e case .
. . . [a] strained comedy that jettisons all opportunities for rock to make his
mark by serving up the usual chaotic nonsense .
a sour , nasty offering .
feels like one of those contrived , only-in -hollywood productions where name ac
tors deliver big performances created for the sole purpose of generating oscar t
alk .
obstacles are too easily overcome and there isn't much in the way of character d
evelopment in the script .
it tells more than it shows .
earnest falls short of its ideal predecessor largely due to parker's ill-advised
meddling with the timeless source material .
the film might have been more satisfying if it had , in fact , been fleshed out
a little more instead of going for easy smiles .
pretentious editing ruins a potentially terrific flick .
not every animated film from disney will become a classic , but forgive me if i'
ve come to expect more from this studio than some 79-minute after-school " carto
on " .
do not , under any circumstances , consider taking a child younger than middle s
chool age to this wallow in crude humor .
nothing debases a concept comedy quite like the grinding of bad ideas , and show
time is crammed full of them .
much-anticipated and ultimately lackluster movie .
this is really just another genre picture .
each story on its own could have been expanded and worked into a compelling sing
le feature , but in its current incarnation , storytelling never quite gets over
its rather lopsided conception .
william shatner , as a pompous professor , is the sole bright spot . . .
a trite psychological thriller designed to keep the audience guessing and guessi
ng -- which is not to be confused with suspecting -- until it comes time to wrap
things up and send the viewers home .
neither funny nor suspenseful nor particularly well-drawn .
'carente de imaginacin , mal dirigida , peor actuada y sin un pice de romance , es
una verdadera prdida de tiempo y dinero'
acting , particularly by tambor , almost makes " never again " worthwhile , but
[writer/director] schaeffer should follow his titular advice
both stars manage to be funny , but , like the recent i spy , the star chemistry
begs the question of whether random gags add up to a movie .
" collateral damage " goes by the numbers and reps decent action entertainment
until the silly showdown ending that forces the viewer to totally suspend disbel
ief
'enigma' is a good name for a movie this delibrately obtuse and unapproachable .
a waste of good performances .
a dreary , incoherent , self-indulgent mess of a movie in which a bunch of pompo
us windbags drone on inanely for two hours . . . a cacophony of pretentious , me
aningless prattle .
i kept thinking over and over again , 'i should be enjoying this . ' but i wasn'
t .
as conceived by mr . schaeffer , christopher and grace are little more than coll
ections of quirky traits lifted from a screenwriter's outline and thrown at acto
rs charged with the impossible task of making them jell .
like so many other allegedly scary movies , it gets so tangled up in the twist t
hat it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten .
the essential problem in orange county is that , having created an unusually viv
id set of characters worthy of its strong cast , the film flounders when it come
s to giving them something to do .
just like hearst's enormous yacht , it's slow and unwieldy and takes a long time
to reach its destination .
there is not a character in the movie with a shred of plausibility , not an even
t that is believable , not a confrontation that is not staged , not a moment tha
t is not false .
where last time jokes flowed out of cho's life story , which provided an engross
ing dramatic through line , here the comedian hides behind obviously constructed
routines .
why come up with something even quasi-original , when you can pillage from shirl
ey jackson , richard matheson . . . and puke up something like rose red ?
a broadly played , lowbrow comedy in which the cast delivers mildly amusing perf
ormances and no farm animals were injured by any of the gags .
. . . too gory to be a comedy and too silly to be an effective horror film .
lacks heart , depth and , most of all , purpose .
though a bit of a patchwork in script and production , a glossy , rich green , e
nvironment almost makes the picture work .
perfectly enjoyable , instantly forgettable , nothing to write home about .
wasabi is slight fare indeed , with the entire project having the feel of someth
ing tossed off quickly ( like one of hubert's punches ) , but it should go down
smoothly enough with popcorn .
somehow both wildly implausible and strangely conventional .
this ill-fitting tuxedo is strictly off-the-rack .
is " ballistic " worth the price of admission ? absolutely not . it sucked . wou
ld i see it again ? please see previous answer .
the premise is in extremely bad taste , and the film's supposed insights are so
poorly thought-out and substance-free that even a high school senior taking his
or her first psychology class could dismiss them .
sets up a nice concept for its fiftysomething leading ladies , but fails loudly
in execution .
kidman is really the only thing that's worth watching in birthday girl , a film
by the stage-trained jez butterworth ( mojo ) that serves as yet another example
of the sad decline of british comedies in the post-full monty world .
imagine the james woods character from videodrome making a home movie of audrey
rose and showing it to the kid from the sixth sense and you've imagined the ring
.
this time kaufman's imagination has failed him .
an intermittently pleasing but mostly routine effort .
it becomes gimmicky instead of compelling . " interview " loses its overall sens
e of mystery and becomes a tv episode rather than a documentary that you actuall
y buy into .
'unfaithful' cheats on itself and retreats to comfortable territory . too bad .
frenetic but not really funny .
taken individually or collectively , the stories never add up to as much as they
promise .
if you're not a prepubescent girl , you'll be laughing at britney spears' movie-
starring debut whenever it doesn't have you impatiently squinting at your watch
.
a didactic and dull documentary glorifying software anarchy .
an awful snooze .
sluggishly directed by episodic tv veteran joe zwick , it's a sitcom without the
snap-crackle .
you could nap for an hour and not miss a thing .
director clare kilner's debut is never as daft as it should have been .
new best friend shouldn't have gone straight to video ; it should have gone stra
ight to a mystery science theater 3000 video .
wallace seems less like he's been burning to tell a war story than he's been itc
hing to somehow tack one together
the thrill is ( long ) gone .
just plain silly .
began life as a computer game , then morphed into a movie -- a bad one , of cour
se .
part comedy , part drama , the movie winds up accomplishing neither in full , an
d leaves us feeling touched and amused by several moments and ideas , but nevert
heless dissatisfied with the movie as a whole .
godawful boring slug of a movie .
dull , if not devoid of wit , this shaggy dog longs to frisk through the back al
leys of history , but scarcely manages more than a modest , snoozy charm .
scene-by-scene , things happen , but you'd be hard-pressed to say what or why .
 . . . an unimaginative , nasty , glibly cynical piece of work .
it is , by conventional standards , a fairly terrible movie . . . but it is also
weirdly fascinating , a ready-made eurotrash cult object . it is also , at time
s , curiously moving .
the tug-of-war at the core of beijing bicycle becomes weighed down with agonizin
g contrivances , overheated pathos and long , wistful gazes .
vile and tacky are the two best adjectives to describe ghost ship .
some decent actors inflict big damage upon their reputations .
being author wells' great-grandson , you'd think filmmaker simon wells would hav
e more reverence for the material . but this costly dud is a far cry from either
the book or the beloved film .
offensive in the way it exploits the hot-button issue of domestic abuse for chea
p thrills and disgusting in the manner it repeatedly puts a small child in jeopa
rdy , treating her as little more than a prop to be cruelly tormented .
mark me down as a non-believer in werewolf films that are not serious and rely o
n stupidity as a substitute for humor .
thoughtless , random , superficial humour and a lot of very bad scouse accents
aspires for the piquant but only really achieves a sort of ridiculous sourness .
accuracy and realism are terrific , but if your film becomes boring , and your d
ialogue isn't smart , then you need to use more poetic license .
for all its highfalutin title and corkscrew narrative , the movie turns out to b
e not much more than a shaggy human tale .
a soggy , cliche-bound epic-horror yarn that ends up being even dumber than its
title .
one groan-inducing familiarity begets another .
although based on a real-life person , john , in the movie , is a rather dull pe
rson to be stuck with for two hours .
feeble comedy .
great story , bad idea for a movie .
with spy kids 2 : the island of lost dreams writer/director/producer robert rodr
iguez has cobbled together a film that feels like a sugar high gone awry .
there is no entry portal in the rules of attraction , and i spent most of the mo
vie feeling depressed by the shallow , selfish , greedy characters .
it's hard to tell with all the crashing and banging where the salesmanship ends
and the movie begins .
" my god , i'm behaving like an idiot ! " yes , you are , ben kingsley .
a dreadful live-action movie .
divertingly ridiculous , headbangingly noisy .
an earnest racial-issues picture that might have gotten respectful critical prai
se in a different era -- say , the '60s .
a hideous , confusing spectacle , one that may well put the nail in the coffin o
f any future rice adaptations .
all i can say is fuhgeddaboutit .
between bedroom scenes , viewers may find themselves wishing they could roll ove
r and take a nap .
if you collected all the moments of coherent dialogue , they still wouldn't add
up to the time required to boil a four- minute egg .
despite all the talking , by the time the bloody climax arrives we still don't f
eel enough of an attachment to these guys to care one way or another .
every bit as bogus as most disney live action family movies are -- no real plot
, no real conflict , no real point .
a sensual performance from abbass buoys the flimsy story , but her inner journey
is largely unexplored and we're left wondering about this exotic-looking woman
whose emotional depths are only hinted at .
never engaging , utterly predictable and completely void of anything remotely in
teresting or suspenseful .
spousal abuse is a major problem in contemporary society , but the film reduces
this domestic tragedy to florid melodrama .
oedekerk wrote patch adams , for which he should not be forgiven . why he was gi
ven free reign over this project -- he wrote , directed , starred and produced -
- is beyond me .
the creaking , rusty ship makes a fine backdrop , but the ghosts' haunting is ro
utine .
whatever eyre's failings as a dramatist , he deserves credit for bringing audien
ces into this hard and bitter place .
scotland , pa . blurs the line between black comedy and black hole .
it tries too hard , and overreaches the logic of its own world .
the whole damn thing is ripe for the jerry springer crowd . it's all pretty cyni
cal and condescending , too .
i cry for i spy -- or i would if this latest and laziest imaginable of all vinta
ge-tv spinoffs were capable of engendering an emotional response of any kind .
a boring , formulaic mix of serial killers and stalk'n'slash .
what you would end up with if you took orwell , bradbury , kafka , george lucas
and the wachowski brothers and threw them into a blender . but that's just the p
roblem with it - the director hasn't added enough of his own ingredients .
with recent tensions rekindled by the kathleen soliah trial and the upcoming tri
al of sla members emily and william harris , not to mention sept . 11 , its diff
icult these days to appreciate fire's bright side .
flaunts its quirky excesses like a new year's eve drunk sporting a paper party h
at .
writhing under dialogue like 'you're from two different worlds' and 'tonight the
maid is a lie and this , this is who you are , ' this schlock-filled fairy tale
hits new depths of unoriginality and predictability .
. . . too slow , too boring , and occasionally annoying .
is there enough material to merit a documentary on the making of wilco's last al
bum ?
faultlessly professional but finally slight .
schmaltzy and unfunny , adam sandler's cartoon about hanukkah is numbingly bad ,
little nicky bad , 10 worst list bad .
it's really yet another anemic and formulaic lethal weapon-derived buddy-cop mov
ie , trying to pass off its lack of imagination as hip knowingness .
scotland , pa . is a strangely drab romp . some studio pizazz might have helped
.
when perry fists a bull at the moore farm , it's only a matter of time before he
gets the upper hand in matters of the heart .
there's more scatological action in 8 crazy nights than a proctologist is apt to
encounter in an entire career .
too loud , too long and too frantic by half , die another day suggests that the
bond franchise has run into a creative wall that 007 cannot fly over , tunnel un
der or barrel through .
the cartoon is about as true to the spirit of the festival of lights as mr . dee
ds was to that of frank capra .
. . . the sum of the parts equals largely a confused mediocrity .
the tone shifts abruptly from tense to celebratory to soppy .
if we don't demand a standard of quality for the art that we choose , we deserve
the trash that we get .
a modest and messy metaphysical thriller offering more questions than answers .
julia is played with exasperating blandness by laura regan .
morrissette's script and direction show a fair amount of intelligence and wit --
but it doesn't signify a whole lot either .
there's suspension of disbelief and then there's bad screenwriting . . . this fi
lm packs a wallop of the latter .
all ms . jovovich , as the sanctified heroine , has to do is look radiant , grim
ly purposeful and mildly alarmed while forcing open doors , wielding wrenches an
d fleeing monsters .
mocking kung fu pictures when they were a staple of exploitation theater program
ming was witty . mocking them now is an exercise in pointlessness .
this is a particularly toxic little bonbon , palatable to only a chosen and very
jaundiced few .
this isn't just the cliffsnotes version of nicholas nickleby , it's the cliffsno
tes with pages missing .
considering the harsh locations and demanding stunts , this must have been a dif
ficult shoot , but the movie proves rough going for the audience as well .
better at putting you to sleep than a sound machine .
so clichd that , at one point , they literally upset an apple cart .
it's a decent glimpse into a time period , and an outcast , that is no longer ac
cessible , but it doesn't necessarily shed more light on its subject than the po
pular predecessor .
it might be the first sci-fi comedy that could benefit from a three's company-st
yle laugh track .
when the plot kicks in , the film loses credibility .
credibility sinks into a mire of sentiment .
the movie takes itself too seriously and , as a result , it makes for only inter
mittent fun .
[davis] has a bright , chipper style that keeps things moving , while never quit
e managing to connect her wish-fulfilling characters to the human race .
doesn't amount to much of anything .
bullock's complete lack of focus and ability quickly derails the film
so stupid , so ill-conceived , so badly drawn , it created whole new levels of u
gly .
the truth is that the truth about charlie gets increasingly tiresome .
enduring love but exhausting cinema .
some of seagal's action pictures are guilty pleasures , but this one is so formu
laic that it seems to be on auto-pilot .
a ponderous meditation on love that feels significantly longer than its relative
ly scant 97 minutes .
a long-winded and stagy session of romantic contrivances that never really gels
like the shrewd feminist fairy tale it could have been .
a little too pat for its own good .
there are films that try the patience of even the most cinema-besotted critic --
and this was one of them .
watching trouble every day , at least if you don't know what's coming , is like
biting into what looks like a juicy , delicious plum on a hot summer day and com
ing away with your mouth full of rotten pulp and living worms .
well-intentioned though it may be , its soap-opera morality tales have the antis
eptic , preprogrammed feel of an after-school special .
what would jesus do if he was a film director ? he'd create a movie better than
this .
when a set of pre-shooting guidelines a director came up with for his actors tur
ns out to be cleverer , better written and of considerable more interest than th
e finished film , that's a bad sign . a very bad sign .
it's a deeply serious movie that cares passionately about its subject , but too
often becomes ponderous in its teaching of history , or lost in the intricate co
nnections and multiple timelines of its story .
can't kick about the assembled talent and the russos show genuine promise as com
ic filmmakers . still , this thing feels flimsy and ephemeral .
diane lane shines in unfaithful . almost everything else is wan .
i'm afraid you won't get through this frankly fantastical by-the-numbers b-flick
with just a suspension of disbelief . rather , you'll have to wrestle disbelief
to the ground and then apply the chloroform-soaked handkerchief .
so relentlessly wholesome it made me want to swipe something .
the title helpfully offers the most succinct review of it you'll read anywhere .
the makers of divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood should offer a free ticket
( second prize , of course , two free tickets ) to anyone who can locate a genui
nely honest moment in their movie .
god help the poor woman if attal is this insecure in real life : his fictional y
van's neuroses are aggravating enough to exhaust the patience of even the most u
nderstanding spouse .
let's cut to the consumer-advice bottom line : stay home .
undercover brother doesn't go far enough . it's just a silly black genre spoof .
the film's implicit premise is that the faith of the tonga people is in every wa
y inferior to that of john .
rates an 'e' for effort -- and a 'b' for boring .
you've already seen heartbreak if you've watched the far superior nurse betty or
sunset boulevard . even the unwatchable soapdish is more original .
plays like one of those conversations that comic book guy on " the simpsons " ha
s .
a journey that's too random and inconclusive to be compelling , but which hoffma
n's brilliance almost makes worth taking .
the movie bounces all over the map .
but buying into sham truths and routine " indie " filmmaking , freundlich has ma
de just another safe movie . it's not horrible , just horribly mediocre .
not always too whimsical for its own good ( but enough to do harm ) , this stran
ge hybrid of crime thriller , quirky character study , third-rate romance and fe
male empowerment fantasy never really finds the tonal or thematic glue it needs
.
" juwanna mann ? " no thanks . wewannour money back , actually .
it's a sometimes interesting remake that doesn't compare to the brilliant origin
al .
you're too conscious of the effort it takes to be this spontaneous .
. . . salaciously simplistic .
feel bad for king , who's honestly trying , and schwartzman , who's shot himself
in the foot .
some actors steal scenes . tom green just gives them a bad odor . this self-infa
tuated goofball is far from the only thing wrong with the clumsy comedy stealing
harvard , but he's the most obvious one .
sometimes , fond memories should stay in the past : a lesson this film teaches a
ll too well .
the enormous comic potential of an oafish idiot impersonating an aristocrat rema
ins sadly unrealized .
shallow .
begins as a promising meditation on one of america's most durable obsessions but
winds up as a slender cinematic stunt .
a monster combat thriller as impersonal in its relentlessness as the videogame s
eries that inspired it .
proof that a thriller can be sleekly shot , expertly cast , paced with crisp pro
fessionalism . . . and still be a letdown if its twists and turns hold no more s
urprise than yesterday's weather report .
the reason we keep seeing the same movie with roughly the same people every year
is because so many of us keep going and then , out of embarrassment or stupidit
y , not warning anyone .
there's not much going on in this movie unless you simply decide to buy into the
notion that something inexplicably strange once happened in point pleasant .
in the second half of the film , frei's control loosens in direct proportion to
the amount of screen time he gives nachtwey for self-analysis .
director barry skolnick and his screenwriters glibly tick off every point of " t
he longest yard " playbook like a checklist .
the furious coherence that [deniro] brings to this part only underscores the fuz
zy sentimentality of the movie itself , which feels , as it plods toward the end
, less like a movie than like the filmed reading of a script in need of polishi
ng .
oh , it's extreme , all right . extremely dumb . extremely confusing . extremely
boring .
we never really feel involved with the story , as all of its ideas remain just t
hat : abstract ideas .
for a shoot-'em-up , ballistic is oddly lifeless .
one minute , you think you're watching a serious actioner ; the next , it's as t
hough clips from the pink panther strikes again and/or sailor moon have been spl
iced in .
what happened with pluto nash ? how did it ever get made ?
we may never think of band camp as a geeky or nerdy thing again .
opens as promising as any war/adventure film you'll ever see and dissolves into
a routine courtroom drama , better suited for a movie titled " glory : a soldier
's story . "
the result is solemn and horrifying , yet strangely detached .
these spiders can outrun a motorcycle and wrap a person in a sticky cocoon in se
conds , but they fall short of being interesting or entertaining .
a less-than-thrilling thriller .
a long slog for anyone but the most committed pokemon fan .
matthew mcconaughey tries , and fails , to control the screen with swaggering ma
chismo and over-the-top lunacy .
how on earth , or anywhere else , did director ron underwood manage to blow $100
million on this ?
everyone connected to this movie seems to be part of an insider clique , which t
ends to breed formulaic films rather than fresh ones .
with a story inspired by the tumultuous surroundings of los angeles , where feel
ings of marginalization loom for every dreamer with a burst bubble , the dogwalk
er has a few characters and ideas , but it never manages to put them on the same
path .
its lack of quality earns it a place alongside those other two recent dumas botc
h-jobs , the man in the iron mask and the musketeer .
a benign but forgettable sci-fi diversion .
the plot grinds on with yawn-provoking dullness .
it's never a good sign when a film's star spends the entirety of the film in a c
oma . it's a worse sign when you begin to envy her condition .
it doesn't help that the director and cinematographer stephen kazmierski shoot o
n grungy video , giving the whole thing a dirty , tasteless feel .
desperately unfunny when it tries to makes us laugh and desperately unsuspensefu
l when it tries to make us jump out of our seats .
this film's relationship to actual tension is the same as what christmas-tree fl
ocking in a spray can is to actual snow : a poor -- if durable -- imitation .
john mctiernan's botched remake may be subtler than norman jewison's 1975 ultrav
iolent futuristic corporate-sports saga . it's also stupider .
director dirk shafer and co-writer greg hinton ride the dubious divide where gay
porn reaches for serious drama .
borrows from so many literary and cinematic sources that this future world feels
absolutely deja vu .
as [the characters] get more depressed , the story gets more tiresome , especial
ly as it continues to mount a conspicuous effort to be profound .
the acting by the over-25s lacks spark , with csokas particularly unconnected .
though howard demonstrates a great eye as a director , this southern gothic dram
a is sadly a tough sit , with an undeveloped narrative and enough flashbacks and
heavy-handed metaphors to choke a horse -- or at least slow him down to a cante
r .
falters when it takes itself too seriously and when it depends too heavily on it
s otherwise talented cast to clown in situations that aren't funny .
the fight scenes are fun , but it grows tedious .
anyone who can count to five ( the film's target market ? ) can see where this d
umbed-down concoction is going .
all this turns out to be neither funny nor provocative - only dull .
demme's loose approach kills the suspense .
this idea has lost its originality . . . and neither star appears very excited a
t rehashing what was basically a one-joke picture .
[plays] in broad outline as pandering middle-age buddy-comedy .
the film is itself a sort of cinematic high crime , one that brings military cou
rtroom dramas down very , very low .
nothing more than a mediocre trifle .
a turgid little history lesson , humourless and dull .
too silly to be frightening , too stolid to be funny , it projects the same lazy
affability as its nominal star , david arquette .
if kaufman kept cameron diaz a prisoner in a cage with her ape , in his latest ,
he'd have them mate .
trivial where it should be profound , and hyper-cliched where it should be since
re .
it would be hard to think of a recent movie that has worked this hard to achieve
this little fun .
theology aside , why put someone who ultimately doesn't learn at the center of a
kids' story ?
all that ( powerpuff girls ) charm is present in the movie , but it's spread too
thin .
sometimes smart but more often sophomoric .
the ill-conceived modern-day ending falls flat where it should deliver a moral p
unch .
collateral damage is , despite its alleged provocation post-9/11 , an antique ,
in the end . as are its star , its attitude and its obliviousness .
dawdles and drags when it should pop ; it doesn't even have the virtue of enough
mindless violence to break up the tedium of all its generational bonding .
its save-the-planet message clashes with its crass marketing .
a great idea becomes a not-great movie .
. . . watching this film nearly provoked me to take my own life . and if the ho
urs wins 'best picture' i just might .
by the end , i was looking for something hard with which to bludgeon myself unco
nscious .
not a movie but a live-action agitprop cartoon so shameless and coarse , it's al
most funny .
feels like six different movies fighting each other for attention .
life is a crock -- or something like it .
made by jackasses for jackasses .
despite a powerful portrayal by binoche , it's a period romance that suffers fro
m an overly deliberate pace and uneven narrative momentum .
the picture is a primer on what happens when lack of know-how mixes with lack of
give-a-damn .
bartleby is a one-joke movie , and a bad joke at that .
disjointed parody .
given that both movies expect us to root for convicted violent felons over those
assigned to protect us from same , we need every bit of sympathy the cons can m
uster ; this time , there isn't much .
a bravura exercise in emptiness .
philip k . dick must be turning in his grave , along with my stomach .
despite the premise of a good story . . . it wastes all its star power on cliche
d or meaningless roles .
all prints of this film should be sent to and buried on pluto .
not only does the movie fail to make us part of its reality , it fails the most
basic relevancy test as well .
first good , then bothersome . excellent acting and direction .
this goofy gangster yarn never really elevates itself from being yet another ear
nestly generic crime-busting comic vehicle -- a well-intentioned remake that sho
ws some spunk and promise but fails to register as anything distinctive or darin
g
it's difficult to say whether the tuxedo is more boring or embarrassing--i'm pre
pared to call it a draw .
even as lame horror flicks go , this is lame .
so routine , familiar and predictable , it raises the possibility that it wrote
itself as a newly automated final draft computer program .
sunshine state lacks the kind of dynamic that limbo offers , and in some ways is
a rather indulgent piece .
even legends like alfred hitchcock and john huston occasionally directed trifles
 . . . so it's no surprise to see a world-class filmmaker like zhang yimou behin
d the camera for a yarn that's ultimately rather inconsequential .
a long-winded , predictable scenario .
too close to phantom menace for comfort .
. . . silly humbuggery . . .
although trying to balance self-referential humor and a normal ol' slasher plot
seemed like a decent endeavor , the result doesn't fully satisfy either the die-
hard jason fans or those who can take a good joke .
too clunky and too busy ribbing itself to be truly entertaining .
this movie is about lying , cheating , but loving the friends you betray .
it smacks of purely commercial motivation , with no great love for the original
.
melanie eventually slugs the yankee . too bad the former murphy brown doesn't po
p reese back .
at the bottom rung of the series' entries .
a real clunker . a well-made , thoughtful , well-acted clunker , but a clunker n
onetheless .
a dreary rip-off of goodfellas that serves as a muddled and offensive cautionary
tale for hispanic americans .
the picture , scored by a perversely cheerful marcus miller accordion/harmonica/
banjo abomination , is a monument to bad in all its florid variety .
good for a few unintentional laughs , " extreme ops " was obviously made for the
" xxx " crowd , people who enjoy mindless action without the benefit of decent
acting , writing , and direction .
a big , baggy , sprawling carnival of a movie , stretching out before us with lit
tle rhyme or reason .
a frustrating combination of strained humor and heavy-handed sentimentality .
lawrence preaches strictly to the converted .
as written by michael berg and michael j . wilson from a story by wilson , this
relentless , all-wise-guys-all-the-time approach tries way too hard and gets tir
ing in no time at all .
will probably stay in the shadow of its two older , more accessible qatsi siblin
gs .
just when the movie seems confident enough to handle subtlety , it dives into so
apy bathos .
choppy editing and too many repetitive scenes spoil what could have been an impo
rtant documentary about stand-up comedy .
. . . the film falls back on the same old formula of teen sex , outrageous pran
ks and scenes designed to push the envelope of bad taste for laughs .
the only thing in pauline and paulette that you haven't seen before is a scene f
eaturing a football field-sized oriental rug crafted out of millions of vibrant
flowers .
if you're looking for comedy to be served up , better look elsewhere .
it virtually defines a comedy that's strongly mediocre , with funny bits surfaci
ng every once in a while .
an instant candidate for worst movie of the year .
despite its title , amy's orgasm is not a porno , though it is as tedious as one
.
like a tone-deaf singer at a benefit concert , john q . is a bad movie appearing
on behalf of a good cause .
adam sandler is to gary cooper what a gnat is to a racehorse .
what kids will discover is a new collectible . what parents will suspect is that
they're watching a 76-minute commercial .
beers , who , when she's given the right lines , can charm the paint off the wal
l . . . [but] the script goes wrong at several key junctures .
without september 11 , collateral damage would have been just another bad movie
. now it's a bad , embarrassing movie .
drags along in a dazed and enervated , drenched-in-the- past numbness .
there's a disturbing 'great white hope' undertone to the other side of heaven th
at subtly undermines its message of christian love and compassion .
unless you are in dire need of a diesel fix , there is no real reason to see it
. wait for video -- and then don't rent it .
the attempt is courageous , even if the result is wildly uneven .
there's something fundamental missing from this story : something or someone to
care about .
too much of this well-acted but dangerously slow thriller feels like a preamble
to a bigger , more complicated story , one that never materializes .
when a film is created solely because it's a marketable product , soulless and u
gly movies like this are the result . let your silly childhood nostalgia slumber
unmolested .
unfortunately , heartbreak hospital wants to convey the same kind of haughtiness
in its own sketchy material but this territory has already been explored previo
usly with better aplomb and sardonic wit .
the more kevin costner rests on his pretty-boy laurels , the public is , regrett
ably , going to have tepid films like dragonfly tossed at them .
[it's] difficult to get beyond the overall blandness of american chai , despite
its likable performances and refreshingly naive point of view .
the latest installment in the pokemon canon , pokemon 4ever is surprising less m
oldy and trite than the last two , likely because much of the japanese anime is
set in a scenic forest where pokemon graze in peace .
taken purely as an exercise in style , this oppressively gloomy techno-horror cl
ambake is impossible to ignore . but as a movie , it's a humorless , disjointed
mess .
if myers decides to make another austin powers movie , maybe he should just stic
k with austin and dr evil .
the backyard battles you staged with your green plastic army men were more excit
ing and almost certainly made more sense .
too stupid to be satire , too obviously hateful to be classified otherwise , fra
nk novak's irritating slice of lumpen life is as reliably soul-killing as its ti
tle is nearly meaningless .
overly stylized with lots of flash black-&-white freeze frames reminiscent of a
pseudo-hip luxury car commercial , ( it's ) at its worst when it's actually insi
de the ring .
what is captured during the conceptual process doesn't add up to a sufficient ex
planation of what the final dance work , the selection , became in its final for
m .
if this is satire , it's the smug and self-congratulatory kind that lets the aud
ience completely off the hook .
had the film boasted a clearer , more memorable , the creepiness would have gott
en under the skin .
these people wouldn't know subtle characterization if it put on a giant furry mo
nster costume and then gave them a lapdance .
imagine if you will a tony hawk skating video interspliced with footage from beh
ind enemy lines and set to jersey shore techno .
it doesn't quite work , but there's enough here to make us look forward to the r
ussos' next offering .
any film featuring young children threatened by a terrorist bomb can no longer p
ass as mere entertainment .
the director's twitchy sketchbook style and adroit perspective shifts grow weari
some amid leaden pacing and indifferent craftsmanship ( most notably wretched so
und design ) .
about as satisfying and predictable as the fare at your local drive through .
apparently kissing leads to suicide attempts and tragic deaths . marisa tomei is
good , but just a kiss is just a mess .
opens at a funeral , ends on the protagonist's death bed and doesn't get much li
velier in the three hours in between .
the noble tradition of men in drag hits an all-time low in sorority boys , whose
makers apparently believe that women's clothing can cover up any deficiency in
acting , writing or direction .
to portray modern women the way director davis has done is just unthinkable .
too simple for its own good .
flaccid drama and exasperatingly slow journey .
a chaotic panorama that's too busy flying a lot of metaphoric flags .
suffers from rambling , repetitive dialogue and the visual drabness endemic to d
igital video .
the screenplay sabotages the movie's strengths at almost every juncture . all th
e characters are stereotypes , and their interaction is numbingly predictable .
a trashy , exploitative , thoroughly unpleasant experience .
newcomer helmer kevin donovan is hamstrung by a badly handled screenplay of what
is really an amusing concept a high-tech tux that transforms its wearer into a
superman .
shouldn't have been allowed to use the word " new " in its title , because there
's not an original character , siuation or joke in the entire movie .
often silly and gross but it's rarely as moronic as some campus gross-out films
.
the advantage of a postapocalyptic setting is that it can be made on the cheap .
any rock pile will do for a set . reign of fire has the disadvantage of also lo
oking cheap .
it's exactly what you'd expect .
the performances are so leaden , michael rymer's direction is so bloodless and t
he dialogue is so corny that the audience laughs out loud .
a subtle variation on i spit on your grave in which our purported heroine pathol
ogically avenges a hatred for men .
reggio's trippy , ambitious downer can also sometimes come across like nothing m
ore than a glorified nike ad .
as tweedy talks about canning his stockbroker and repairing his pool , you yearn
for a few airborne tv sets or nude groupies on the nod to liven things up .
if somebody was bored and . . . decided to make a dull , pretentious version of
jesus' son , they'd come up with something like bart freundlich's world traveler
.
the best you can say about it is it's so uninspired , it barely gives one pause
when considering some of the other dreck out there right now .
a tough go , but leigh's depth and rigor , and his skill at inspiring accomplish
ed portrayals that are all the more impressive for their lack of showiness , off
sets to a notable degree the film's often-mined and despairing milieu .
an overstuffed compendium of teen-catholic-movie dogma .
too leisurely paced and visually drab for its own good , it succeeds in being on
ly sporadically amusing .
ben affleck as jack ryan , tom clancy's intrepid hero ? ridiculous . what's next
? d . j . qualls as indiana jones ? or tom green as han solo ?
eh .
the movie's biggest offense is its complete and utter lack of tension .
the film is directed by wally wolodarsky from a script by joe jarvis and greg co
olidge . these are names to remember , in order to avoid them in the future .
if this is the resurrection of the halloween franchise , it would have been bett
er off dead .
this formulaic chiller will do little to boost stallone's career .
i saw knockaround guys yesterday , and already the details have faded like photo
graphs from the spanish-american war . . . it's so unmemorable that it turned my
ballpoint notes to invisible ink .
though avary has done his best to make something out of ellis' nothing novel , i
n the end , his rules is barely worth following .
the average local news columnist has a bigger rant on the war between modern lan
dscape architecture and small-town america .
no worse than a lot of the crap we've been offered this summer , and slightly be
tter than men in black 2 as far as slapdash extraterrestrial comedies go .
the plot is so predictable and sentimental that viewers are likely to lose inter
est before sandrine and her goats walk off into the sunset .
at first , the sight of a blind man directing a film is hilarious , but as the f
ilm goes on , the joke wears thin .
never again swings between false sentiment and unfunny madcap comedy and , along
the way , expects the audience to invest in the central relationship as some ki
nd of marriage of true minds .
the story itself is uninteresting , and the songs are painfully undistinguished
: they might be giants' so to be one of us may be the most tuneless tune ever co
mposed .
este apenas mais um ( longo ) episdio do programa da mtv . a nica diferena que , de
sta vez , a paramount teve o mau gosto de exibi-lo nos cinemas .
technically , the film is about as interesting as an insurance commercial .
the title's lameness should clue you in on how bad the movie is .
the parts are better than the whole ( bizarre , funny , tragic - like love in ne
w york ) .
while the film shuns the glamour or glitz that an american movie might demand ,
scherfig tosses us a romantic scenario that is just as simplistic as a hollywood
production .
the humor is hinged on the belief that knees in the crotch , elbows in the face
and spit in the eye are inherently funny .
it's a movie forged in the fires of chick flick hell .
its characters are thinner than cardboard -- or even comic-book paper .
any one episode of the sopranos would send this ill-conceived folly to sleep wit
h the fishes .
feels like the grittiest movie that was ever made for the lifetime cable televis
ion network .
lanie's professional success means she must be a failure at life , because she's
driven by ambition and doesn't know how to have fun .
credit must be given to harland williams , michael rosenbaum and barry watson ,
who inject far more good-natured spirit and talent into this project than it des
erves
denzel washington's efforts are sunk by all the sanctimony .
if this holiday movie is supposed to be a gift , somebody unwrapped it early , t
ook out all the good stuff , and left behind the crap ( literally ) .
so faithful to the doldrums of the not-quite-urban , not-quite-suburban milieu a
s to have viewers recoiling from the reality check .
rambles on in a disjointed , substandard fashion from one poorly executed action
sequence to the next .
there's an audience for it , but it could have been funnier and more innocent .
i can only imagine one thing worse than kevin spacey trying on an irish accent ,
and that's sultry linda fiorentino doing the same thing .
an awkward and indigestible movie .
the movie has very little to offer besides unintentional laughs .
haneke keeps us at arm's length . guided more by intellect than heart , his stor
y flattens instead of sharpens .
all the well-meaningness in the world can't erase the fact that the believer fee
ls like a 12-step program for the jewish nazi .
like most sequels , it takes what worked last time , repeats it and adds more ch
aracters , more stunts , more stuff in attempt to camouflage its sameness .
there's no way to sort out the mess in our heads and deconstruct where it all we
nt wrong . this is an hour and a half of daydreaming .
message movie or an action-packed submarine spectacular ? alas , it's neither .
no movement , no yuks , not much of anything .
'dragonfly' is a movie about a bus wreck that turns into a film wreck .
thirty years ago , it would have been groundbreaking . now it's just tired .
heavy-handed exercise in time-vaulting literary pretension .
the movie is too cute to take itself too seriously , but it still feels like it
was made by some very stoned college students .
a thinly veiled excuse for wilson to play his self-deprecating act against murph
y's well-honed prima donna shtick .
a minor picture with a major identity crisis -- it's sort of true and it's sort
of bogus and it's ho-hum all the way through .
the movie succumbs to being nothing more than a formulaic chase in the dark .
plays as hollow catharsis , with lots of tears but very little in the way of ins
ights .
it will come as no surprise that the movie isn't scary . but here's the real dam
n : it isn't funny , either .
quick : who wants to see a comedy about shoddy airport security ?
the reason i found myself finally unmoved by this film , which is immaculately p
roduced and has serious things to say , is that it comes across rather too plain
ly as allegory .
what you get with empire is a movie you've seen many times before , repackaged a
s new material because there is a latino in the lead .
cho's fans are sure to be entertained ; it's only fair in the interest of full d
isclosure to say that -- on the basis of this film alone -- i'm not one of them
.
looks awfully like one long tourist spot for a mississippi that may never have e
xisted outside of a scriptwriter's imagination .
the period -- swinging london in the time of the mods and the rockers -- gets th
e once-over once again in gangster no . 1 , but falls apart long before the end
.
high crimes miscasts nearly every leading character .
the overall feel of the film is pretty cheesy , but there's still a real sense t
hat the star trek tradition has been honored as best it can , given the embarras
sing script and weak direction .
de niro looks bored , murphy recycles murphy , and you mentally add showtime to
the pile of hollywood dreck that represents nothing more than the art of the dea
l .
i didn't believe for a moment in these villains or their plot .
another rent installment for the ian fleming estate .
with danilo donati's witty designs and dante spinotti's luscious cinematography
, this might have made a decent children's movie -- if only benigni hadn't insis
ted on casting himself in the title role .
so lazy and slipshod it confuses the mere flashing of kinky soft-core imagery wi
th naughty fun .
though it draws several decent laughs , it's low-cal woody at best .
has little on its mind aside from scoring points with drag gags .
britney's performance cannot be faulted . lucy's a dull girl , that's all .
" the kid stays in the picture " is a great story , terrifically told by the ma
n who wrote it but this cliff notes edition is a cheat .
well-shot but badly written tale set in a future ravaged by dragons .
sadly , hewitt's forte is leaning forward while wearing low-cut gowns , not maki
ng snappy comebacks .
if melville is creatively a great whale , this film is canned tuna .
this film is so slick , superficial and trend-hoppy , that it's easy to imagine
that a new software program spit out the screenplay .
just one more collection of penis , breast and flatulence gags in search of a st
ory . or a profit . or some damn thing .
the acting is stiff , the story lacks all trace of wit , the sets look like they
were borrowed from gilligan's island -- and the cgi scooby might well be the wo
rst special-effects creation of the year .
enough trivializes an important crisis , reduces it to an almost comic embarrass
ment .
the makers have forsaken the entertaining elements of the original and , instead
, rehash old jokes and leave any life at the doorstep . i like frank the pug ,
though .
a restrained ribisi convinces as an italian , though if ever a movie needed one
of the actor's whiny jags to pump it up , this has to be among the rare ones .
gee , a second assassin shot kennedy ? moot point .
a hysterical yet humorless disquisition on the thin line between sucking face an
d literally sucking face .
needless to say , the dramatics that follow are utter hooey .
the problem is that rather than dramatizing this premise , mr . desplechin is co
ntent to state it .
madonna still can't act a lick .
even the imaginative gore can't hide the musty scent of todd farmer's screenplay
, which is a simple retread of the 1979 alien , with a plucky heroine battling
a monster loose in a spaceship .
if you pitch your expectations at an all time low , you could do worse than this
oddly cheerful -- but not particularly funny -- body-switching farce .
the episodic film makes valid points about the depersonalization of modern life
. but the characters tend to be cliches whose lives are never fully explored .
serry does a fine job of capturing the climate of the times and , perhaps unwitt
ingly , relating it to what is happening in america in 2002 . but hard-to-believ
e plot twists force the movie off track in its final half hour .
don't let your festive spirit go this far .
though the book runs only about 300 pages , it is so densely packed . . . that e
ven an ambitious adaptation and elaborate production like mr . schepisi's seems
skimpy and unclear .
hey , at least the title of this film lets you know exactly where it's heading .
intended to be a comedy about relationships , this wretched work falls flat in j
ust about every conceivable area .
sensitive though not quite revelatory documentary .
director brian levant , who never strays far from his sitcom roots , skates blit
hely from one implausible situation to another , pausing only to tie up loose en
ds with more bows than you'll find on a french poodle .
. . . perhaps the heaviest , most joyless movie ever made about giant dragons t
aking over the world .
suggests puns about ingredients and soup and somebody being off their noodle , b
ut let's just say the ingredients don't quite add up to a meal .
i'd give real money to see the perpetrators of chicago torn apart by dingoes .
movies like this are selling the old european candor , the old wink of 'bold' re
velation . but in 2002 , such revelations wilt .
the timing in nearly every scene seems a half beat off .
i admire it and yet cannot recommend it , because it overstays its natural runni
ng time .
a fairly by-the-books blend of action and romance with sprinklings of intentiona
l and unintentional comedy .
flounders due to the general sense that no two people working on the production
had exactly the same thing in mind .
even if you feel like you've seen this movie a thousand times before , it is kin
d of enjoyable thanks mainly to belushi's easy-going likableness .
the story bogs down in a mess of purposeless violence .
despite some gulps the film is a fuzzy huggy .
mckay deflates his piece of puffery with a sour cliche and heavy doses of mean-s
piritedness
a recipe for cinematic disaster . . . part quentin tarantino , part guy ritchie
, and part 1960s spy spoof , it's all bad .
the cumulative effect of the relentless horror on parade numbs the movie's power
as a work of drama .
another big , dumb action movie in the vein of xxx , the transporter is riddled
with plot holes big enough for its titular hero to drive his sleek black bmw thr
ough .
aaliyah rarely dampens her diva persona enough to spark genuine chemistry with t
ownsend . when she speaks , her creepy egyptian demigod voice is as computer pro
cessed and overproduced as it was in her music .
outrageousness is all plympton seemed to be going for this time . we miss the qu
irky amazement that used to come along for an integral part of the ride .
much of what is meant to be 'inspirational' and 'uplifting' is simply distastefu
l to audiences not already sharing [the movie's] mindset .
well before it's over , beijing bicycle begins spinning its wheels .
home alone goes hollywood , a funny premise until the kids start pulling off stu
nts not even steven spielberg would know how to do . besides , real movie produc
ers aren't this nice .
[nelson's] movie about morally compromised figures leaves viewers feeling compro
mised , unable to find their way out of the fog and the ashes .
passion , lip-synching , tragedy , and lots of really really high notes . for me
, this opera isn't a favorite , so it's a long time before the fat lady sings .
looks like a high school film project completed the day before it was due .
truth to tell , if you've seen more than half-a-dozen horror films , there's not
hing here you haven't seen before .
abandons all pretense of creating historical context and waltzes off into a hect
ic soap about the ups and downs of the heavy breathing between the two artists .
even die-hard fans of japanese animation . . . will find this one a challenge .
filmmakers have to dig deep to sink this low . fortunately for all involved , th
is movie is likely to disappear as quickly as an ice cube thrown into a pot of b
oiling water .
the movie gets muted and routine .
the issue of faith is not explored very deeply
it's a bad sign when you're rooting for the film to hurry up and get to its subj
ects' deaths just so the documentary will be over , but it's indicative of how u
ncompelling the movie is unless it happens to cover your particular area of inte
rest .
the situations and jokes are as predictable and as lowbrow as the endless pratfa
lls the boys take in their high heels .
it's frustrating to see these guys -- who are obviously pretty clever -- waste t
heir talent on parodies of things they probably thought were funniest when they
were high .
i was perplexed to watch it unfold with an astonishing lack of passion or unique
ness .
k-19 may not hold a lot of water as a submarine epic , but it holds even less wh
en it turns into an elegiacally soggy saving private ryanovich .
a very stylish but ultimately extremely silly tale . . . a slick piece of nonsen
se but nothing more .
automatically pegs itself for the straight-to-video sci-fi rental shelf .
black-and-white and unrealistic .
the film is like a series of beginnings and middles that never take off .
feels less like it's about teenagers , than it was written by teenagers .
ja rule and kurupt should have gotten to rap . it would have benefitted the dial
ogue .
a standard haunted house tale transplanted to the high seas .
elicits more groans from the audience than jar jar binks , scrappy doo and scoob
y dumb , all wrapped up into one .
it's badly acted , blandly directed , and could have been scripted by someone wh
o just graduated from elementary school .
in the end , white oleander isn't an adaptation of a novel . it's a flashy , st
ar-splashed reduction .
this film , starring anthony hopkins and chris rock , is your typical 'fish out
of water' story . you've seen them a million times . just one problem : fish out
of water usually die . this one does .
the angst-ridden , affluent slacker characters are more grating than engaging .
a soggy , shapeless mess . . . just a dumb excuse for a waterlogged equivalent o
f a haunted-house movie .
men in black ii has sequel-itis something fierce . an ungainly , comedy-deficien
t , b-movie rush job . . .
a combination of standard , stiff tv-style animation and snazzy-looking digital
effects that do little to disguise the fact that the characters barely move .
an unsatisfying hybrid of blair witch and typical stalk-and-slash fare , where t
he most conservative protagonist is always the last one living .
say this for the soundtrack , it drowns out the lousy dialogue .
after seeing swept away , i feel sorry for madonna .
instead of kicking off the intrigue and suspense and mystery of the whole thing
, hart's war , like the st . louis rams in the super bowl , waits until after ha
lftime to get started .
two-bit potboiler .
a gob of drivel so sickly sweet , even the eager consumers of moore's pasteurize
d ditties will retch it up like rancid crme brle .
maudlin and melodramatic we expected . boring we didn't .
never quite transcends jokester status . . . and the punchline doesn't live up t
o barry's dead-eyed , perfectly chilled delivery .
the film's bathos often overwhelms what could have been a more multifaceted look
at this interesting time and place .
it almost plays like solaris , but with guns and jokes .
a baffling misfire , and possibly the weakest movie [woody allen] has made in th
e last twenty years .
it won't be long before you'll spy i spy at a video store near you .
this film looks like it was produced in 1954 , shelved for 48 years , and repack
aged for a 2002 audience .
propelled not by characters but by caricatures .
there is not an ounce of honesty in the entire production .
this extremely unfunny film clocks in at 80 minutes , but feels twice as long .
earnest but earthbound . . . a slow , soggy , soporific , visually dank crime me
lodrama/character study that would be more at home on the small screen but for i
ts stellar cast .
the pivotal narrative point is so ripe the film can't help but go soft and stink
y .
for all its alleged youthful fire , xxx is no less subservient to bond's tired f
ormula of guns , girls and gadgets while brandishing a new action hero .
a predictable and stereotypical little b-movie .
if i spy were funny ( enough ) or exciting ( enough ) then it would be fairly si
mple to forgive the financial extortion it's trying to reap from the moviegoing
public .
frustratingly , dridi tells us nothing about el gallo other than what emerges th
rough his music .
places a slightly believable love triangle in a difficult-to-swallow setting , a
nd then disappointingly moves the story into the realm of an improbable thriller
.
stephen earnhart's documentary is a decomposition of healthy eccentric inspirati
on and ambition wearing a cloak of unsentimental , straightforward text when it'
s really an exercise in gross romanticization of the delusional personality type
.
a very average science fiction film .
undone by its overly complicated and derivative screenplay , the glacier-paced d
irection and the stereotypical characters .
how anyone over the age of 2 can stomach the touchy-feely message this preachy p
roduce promotes is beyond us .
the sort of movie that gives tastelessness a bad rap .
the cold and dreary weather is a perfect metaphor for the movie itself , which c
ontains few laughs and not much drama .
the plot is straight off the shelf , the performances are television- caliber an
d the message of providing solace through deception is a little creepy .
ordinary melodrama that is heavy on religious symbols but wafer-thin on dramatic
substance
a whimsical if predictable time-travel fable marred by a willful single-mindedne
ss .
those who managed to avoid the deconstructionist theorizing of french philosophe
r jacques derrida in college can now take an 85-minute brush-up course with the
documentary derrida . or , you can do something fun tonight .
jolie's performance vanishes somewhere between her hair and her lips .
as with too many studio pics , plot mechanics get in the way of what should be t
he lighter-than-air adventure .
static , repetitive , muddy and blurry , hey arnold ! would seem to have a lock
on the title of ugliest movie of the year .
for all of the contemporary post-colonialist consciousness that kapur tries to b
ring to the four feathers , the oddest thing about the movie is how it winds up
affirming the same damn moldy values the material has always held dear .
un thriller manqu qui tombe sur les nerfs presque ds la premire image .
when it comes to entertainment , children deserve better than pokemon 4ever .
what the four feathers lacks is genuine sweep or feeling or even a character wor
th caring about .
while benigni ( who stars and co-wrote ) seems to be having a wonderful time , h
e might be alone in that .
yes , 4ever is harmless in the extreme and it'll mute your kids for nearly 80 mi
nutes , but why not just treat the little yard apes to the real deal and take th
em to spirited away ?
preposterous and tedious , sonny is spiked with unintentional laughter that , un
fortunately , occurs too infrequently to make the film even a guilty pleasure .
calling this movie brainless would be paying it a compliment : it's more like en
tertainment for trolls .
none of these characters resembles anyone you've ever met in real life , unless
you happen to know annoyingly self-involved people who speak in glib sentences t
hat could have only come from the pen of a screenwriter .
. . . just a big mess of a movie , full of images and events , but no tension o
r surprise .
as elegantly crafted as it often is , anderson's movie is essentially a one-tric
k pony that , hampered by an undeveloped script , ultimately pulls up lame .
splashes its drama all over the screen , subjecting its audience and characters
to action that feels not only manufactured , but also so false you can see the f
ilmmakers' puppet strings .
. . . has virtually no script at all . . .
will only satisfy those who can't tell the difference between the good , the bad
and the ugly .
this kind of dark comedy requires a delicate , surgical touch . but director dan
ny devito and screenwriter adam resnick ( remember cabin boy ? ) just pound away
.
at times , however , dogtown and z-boys lapses into an insider's lingo and minds
et that the uninitiated may find hard to follow , or care about .
rather quickly , the film falls into a soothing formula of brotherly conflict an
d reconciliation .
screenwriters scott abbott and michael petroni have turned rice's complex akasha
into a cartoon monster .
the writers , director wally wolodarsky , and all the actors should start their
own coeducational fraternity : kappa rho alpha phi .
bad beyond belief and ridiculous beyond description .
the new faces are interesting , but the old story isn't , especially when it sta
rts to seem more improvised than scripted .
most of the action setups are incoherent .
liman , of swingers and go , makes his big-budget action film debut something of
a clunker as he delivers a long , low-heat chase , interrupted by a middling ca
r chase .
. . . surprisingly inert for a movie in which the main character travels back a
nd forth between epochs .
the problem isn't that the movie hits so close to home so much as that it hits c
lose to home while engaging in such silliness as that snake-down-the-throat busi
ness and the inevitable shot of schwarzenegger outrunning a fireball .
dreary , highly annoying . . . 'some body' will appeal to no one .
a prison comedy that never really busts out of its comfy little cell .
there's something deeply creepy about never again , a new arrow in schaeffer's q
uiver of ineptitudes .
the problem with concept films is that if the concept is a poor one , there's no
 saving the movie . sorry , charlie
a painfully leaden film destined for pre-dawn cable television slots .
blessed with immense physical prowess he may well be , but ahola is simply not a
n actor . and in truth , cruel as it may sound , he makes arnold schwarzenegger
look like spencer tracy .
the cartoon that isn't really good enough to be on afternoon tv is now a movie t
hat isn't really good enough to be in theaters .
shocking only in that it reveals the filmmaker's bottomless pit of self-absorpti
on .
this pep-talk for faith , hope and charity does little to offend , but if saccha
rine earnestness were a crime , the film's producers would be in the clink for l
ife .
all ends well , sort of , but the frenzied comic moments never click .
if this is the danish idea of a good time , prospective tourists might want to c
onsider a different destination -- some jolly country embroiled in a bloody civi
l war , perhaps .
formula 51 is so trite that even yu's high-energy action stylings can't break th
rough the stupor .
only a few minutes elapse before the daddy of all slashers arrives , still with
the boiler suit and white mask , which look remarkably clean for a guy who has b
een mass-murdering since 1978 but has never been seen doing laundry .
when the painted backdrops in a movie are more alive than its characters , you k
now you're in trouble .
[two] fairly dull -- contrasting and interlocking stories about miserable scandi
navian settlers in 18th-century canada , and yuppie sailboaters in the here and
now .
the film is really not so much bad as bland .
the central story lacks punch .
though ganesh is successful in a midlevel sort of way , there's nothing so strik
ing or fascinating or metaphorically significant about his career as to rate two
hours of our attention .
this may be the dumbest , sketchiest movie on record about an aspiring writer's
coming-of-age .
succumbs to the same kind of maudlin , sentimental mysticism that mars the touch
ed by an angel school of non-god spiritual-uplift movies .
a harmless and mildly amusing family comedy .
what was subtle and mystifying in the novella is now broad and farcical .
the kids often appear to be reading the lines and are incapable of conveying any
emotion .
" men in black ii , " has all the earmarks of a sequel . the story is less vibr
ant , the jokes are a little lukewarm , but will anyone really care ?
sucking all the 'classic' out of robert louis stevenson's treasure island and fi
lling the void with sci-fi video game graphics and disney-fied adolescent angst
. . .
this 72-minute film does have some exciting scenes , but it's a tad slow .
while super troopers is above academy standards , its quintet of writers could s
till use some more schooling .
a mix of velocity and idiocy , this ruinous remake lacks the brawn -- and the br
ains -- of the 1970s original .
the low-budget full frontal was one of the year's murkiest , intentionally obscu
re and self-indulgent pictures , and solaris is its big-budget brother .
the plot is very clever , but boyd weighs it down with too many characters and e
vents , all intertwined and far too complicated to keep track of .
the film seems all but destined to pop up on a television screen in the backgrou
nd of a scene in a future quentin tarantino picture
a free-for-all of half-baked thoughts , clumsily used visual tricks and self-ind
ulgent actor moments .
apallingly absurd . . . the chemistry or lack thereof between newton and wahlber
g could turn an imax theater into a 9 " black and white portable tv .
a well acted and well intentioned snoozer .
the smug , oily demeanor that donovan adopts throughout the stupidly named pipe
dream is just repulsive .
must-see viewing for anyone involved in the high-tech industry . others may find
it migraine-inducing , despite moore's attempts at whimsy and spoon feeding .
despite its good nature and some genuinely funny moments , super troopers suffer
s from a bad case of arrested development .
it's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some
really heavy back story .
i watched the brainless insanity of no such thing with mounting disbelief .
this limp gender-bender-baller from a first-time director and rookie screenwrite
r steals wholesale from that 1982's tootsie , forgetting only to retain a single
laugh .
kwan makes the mix-and- match metaphors intriguing , while lulling us into torpo
r with his cultivated allergy to action .
while obviously an extremely personal work , it remains inextricably stuck in an
emotionally unavailable rut .
any movie this boring should be required to have ushers in the theater that hand
you a cup of coffee every few minutes . like a marathon runner trying to finish
a race , you need a constant influx of liquid just to get through it .
i loved looking at this movie . i just didn't care as much for the story .
has all the poignancy of a hallmark card and all the comedy of a gallagher stand
-up act .
it doesn't do the original any particular dishonor , but neither does it exude a
ny charm or personality .
fear dot com is so rambling and disconnected it never builds any suspense .
a gorgeous , somnolent show that is splendidly mummified and thoroughly unsurpri
sing .
a semi-autobiographical film that's so sloppily written and cast that you cannot
believe anyone more central to the creation of bugsy than the caterer had anyth
ing to do with it .
it feels like a community theater production of a great broadway play : even at
its best , it will never hold a candle to the original .
the film apparently takes place in a fantasy world where people in hotel hallway
s recite poetry in voice-over instead of speaking to each other .
the element of surprise might be the only thing femme fatale has going for it .
it's the kind of movie you can't quite recommend because it is all windup and no
t much of a pitch , yet you can't bring yourself to dislike it .
maybe it's asking too much , but if a movie is truly going to inspire me , i wan
t a little more than this .
a graceless , witless attempt at mating some like it hot with the wwii espionage
thriller .
the story and characters are nowhere near gripping enough .
based on a david leavitt story , the film shares that writer's usual blend of ob
servant cleverness , too-facile coincidence and slightly noxious preciousness .
just like every other seagal movie , only louder and without that silly ponytail
.
to enjoy this movie's sharp dialogue and delightful performance by jolie and bur
ns , you have to gloss over the no sense ending .
national lampoon's van wilder could be the worst thing to come out of national l
ampoon since class reunion
this is a great subject for a movie , but hollywood has squandered the opportuni
ty , using it as a prop for warmed-over melodrama and the kind of choreographed
mayhem that director john woo has built his career on .
ecks this one off your must-see list .
overall , the film misses the brilliance of jelinek's novel by some way . it set
tles for being merely grim .
the irwins emerge unscathed , but the fictional footage is unconvincing and crim
inally badly acted .
it's not thirsty , consuming passion which drives this movie . no , it's the rep
etition of said behavior , and so children of the century is more mindless love
than mad , more grating and boring than anything else .
just because it really happened to you , honey , doesn't mean that it's interest
ing to anyone else .
just like the deli sandwich : lots of ham , lots of cheese , with a sickly sweet
coating to disguise its excrescence until just after ( or during ) consumption
of its second half .
every so often a movie comes along that confirms one's worse fears about civiliz
ation as we know it . the new guy is one of them .
this isn't a " friday " worth waiting for .
everything that's worthwhile about collision course can already be seen on telev
ision .
if this movie belonged to a sorority , it would be called beta alpha delta .
not a cheap slasher flick , as the subject matter would suggest , but is a littl
e like a nature film , showing a patient predator and his foolish prey .
uneasy mishmash of styles and genres .
herzog is obviously looking for a moral to his fable , but the notion that a str
ong , unified showing among germany and eastern european jews might have changed
20th-century history is undermined by ahola's inadequate performance .
all in all , there's only one thing to root for : expulsion for everyone .
beyond a handful of mildly amusing lines . . . there just isn't much to laugh at
.
secret ballot is too contemplative to be really funny .
the film's center will not hold .
myers never knows when to let a gag die ; thus , we're subjected to one mind-num
bingly lengthy riff on poo and pee jokes after another .
too lazy to take advantage of its semi-humorous premise .
a great ending doesn't make up for a weak movie , and crazy as hell doesn't even
have a great ending .
dialogue-heavy and too cerebral for its own good -- or , at any rate , too cereb
ral for its racy subject matter .
its over-reliance on genre conventions , character types and formulaic conflict
resolutions crushes all the goodwill it otherwise develops .
as an actor , the rock is aptly named .
a mostly tired retread of several other mob tales .
i wish i could say " thank god it's friday " , but the truth of the matter is i
was glad when it was over .
nothing about it fits .
as it abruptly crosscuts among the five friends , it fails to lend the character
s' individual stories enough dramatic resonance to make us care about them .
somehow we're meant to buy that this doting mother would shun her kids , travel
to one of the most dangerous parts of the world , don fatigues and become g . i
. jane .
the cast is so low-wattage that none of the characters comes off as big . . . an
d the setting remains indistinct .
consider the title's clunk-on-the-head that suggests the overtime someone put in
to come up with an irritatingly unimaginative retread concept .
the movie quickly drags on becoming boring and predictable . i tried to read the
time on my watch .
the film makes a tragic error by going on for too long , trying to mirror every
subsequent event in chinese history : war , revolution , communism , etc .
johnson has , in his first film , set himself a task he is not nearly up to .
ultimately the project comes across as clinical , detached , uninvolving , possi
bly prompting audience members to wonder , 'what's the point ? '
the two leads are almost good enough to camouflage the dopey plot , but so much
naturalistic small talk , delivered in almost muffled exchanges , eventually has
a lulling effect .
the film meant well in its horse tale about freedom , but wasn't able to reach t
he heart because it was too overbearing .
the movie is as far as you can get from racy , to the point where it almost stop
s the blood flow to your brain ; it has a dull , costumey feel .
once the audience figure out what's being said , the filmmaker's relative passiv
ity will make it tough for them to really care .
there's nothing provocative about this film save for the ways in which it studio
usly avoids provoking thought .
it seems just a long , convoluted ploy to get men into drag -- period drag , no
less .
the premise for this kegger comedy probably sounded brilliant four six-packs and
a pitcher of margaritas in , but the film must have been written . . . in the t
hrall of a vicious hangover .
even by dumb action-movie standards , ballistic : ecks vs . sever is a dumb acti
on movie .
the film equivalent of a toy chest whose contents get scattered over the course
of 80 minutes .
just a bloody mess .
creepy but ultimately unsatisfying thriller .
martin scorsese cria um espetculo visual que no possui alma - um filme esteticamen
te belo , mas emocionalmente frio .
you would be better off investing in the worthy emi recording that serves as the
soundtrack , or the home video of the 1992 malfitano-domingo production .
has something to say . . . but it is a statement and issue worthy of a much more
thoughtfulness and insight than a melodramatic and wholly predictable thriller
.
bears is bad . not 'terrible filmmaking' bad , but more like , 'i once had a nig
htmare like this , and it's now coming true' bad .
as is most commonly case with projects such noble and lofty ambitions , the film
is less poetic than simply pretentious .
george , hire a real director and good writers for the next installment , please
.
for a film about two mismatched buddies , crystal and de niro share little scree
n time and even less chemistry .
however clever nelson has been in providing variation within the confines of her
structure and staging , the question remains whether this should , indeed , hav
e been presented as a theatrical release .
extreme oops - oops , ops , no matter how you spell it , it's still a mistake to
go see it .
what could and should have been biting and droll is instead a tepid waste of tim
e and talent .
what will , most likely , turn out to be the most repellent movie of 2002 .
. . . too dull to enjoy .
a morality tale whose thought-provoking potential is hampered by a made-for-tv l
ook , rigid performances and an asinine 'twist' that brazenly rips off the sixth
sense .
here's a self-congratulatory 3d imax rah-rah .
eastwood is an icon of moviemaking , one of the best actors , directors and prod
ucers around , responsible for some excellent work . but even a hero can stumble
sometimes .
a sophomoric exploration of 'life problems' most people solved long ago -- or at
least got tired of hearing people kvetch about .
it's all very cute , though not terribly funny if you're more than six years old
.
the impact of the armenian genocide is diluted by too much stage business in the
modern day .
[u]nrelentingly stupid .
going to the website may be just as fun ( and scary ) as going to the film .
lacking gravitas , macdowell is a placeholder for grief , and ergo this sloppy d
rama is an empty vessel . leave these flowers unpicked -- they're dead on the vi
ne .
admirable , certainly , but not much fun to watch . for caine lovers only .
a shambles of a movie--visually unattractive , unbearably loud and utterly silly
. . . its hilarity is completely unintentional .
de niro may enjoy the same free ride from critics afforded to clint eastwood in
the lazy bloodwork . but like bruce springsteen's gone-to-pot asbury park , new
jersey , this sad-sack waste of a movie is a city of ruins .
no , it's not nearly as good as any of its influences .
a reasonably efficient mechanism , but it offers few surprises and finds its sta
rs slumming in territory they should have avoided .
the rest of the plot is impossible to explain without blowing whatever tension t
here is , although it's more comedy than suspense de palma creates .
human nature talks the talk , but it fails to walk the silly walk that distingui
shes the merely quirky from the surreal .
city by the sea is the cinematic equivalent of defensive driving : it's careful
, conscientious and makes no major mistakes . but what saves lives on the freewa
y does not necessarily make for persuasive viewing .
the marquis de sade couldn't have been as dull a person as this film makes him o
ut to be .
what could have been a neat little story about believing in yourself is swamped
by heavy-handed melodrama .
the cast is uniformly excellent . . . but the film itself is merely mildly charm
ing .
drives for the same kind of bittersweet , conciliatory tone that three seasons a
chieved but loses its way in rhetorical excess and blatant sentimentality .
a bigger holiday downer than your end-of-year 401 ( k ) statement .
the whole thing plays out with the drowsy heaviness of synchronized swimmer wear
ing a wool wetsuit .
fairly successful at faking some pretty cool stunts but a complete failure at tr
ying to create some pretty cool characters . and forget about any attempt at a p
lot !
it will probably prove interesting to ram dass fans , but to others it may feel
like a parody of the mellow , peace-and-love side of the '60s counterculture .
take away all the cliches and the carbon copy scenes from every drug movie we've
seen and all you have left are john leguizamo's cool jackets .
it's so full of wrong choices that all you can do is shake your head in disbelie
f -- and worry about what classic oliver parker intends to mangle next time .
showtime is closer to slowtime .
it may be an easy swipe to take , but this barbershop just doesn't make the cut
.
the weight of water uses water as a metaphor for subconscious desire , but this
leaky script barely stays afloat .
'how many more voyages can this limping but dearly-loved franchise survive ? '
despite a blue-chip cast and a provocative title , writer-director peter mattei'
s first feature microwaves dull leftover romantic motifs basted in faux-contempo
rary gravy .
fans of the tv series will be disappointed , and everyone else will be slightly
bored .
the only element of suspense is whether the movie will change titles or distribu
tors again before the closing credits roll .
barely goes beyond comic book status .
it's disappointing when filmmakers throw a few big-name actors and cameos at a h
okey script .
i spy is an embarrassment , a monotonous , disjointed jumble of borrowed plot po
ints and situations . it's as flat as an open can of pop left sitting in the sun
.
an eccentric little comic/thriller deeply in love with its own quirky personalit
y .
afraid to pitch into farce , yet only half-hearted in its spy mechanics , all th
e queen's men is finally just one long drag .
painfully padded .
maybe it's the star power of the cast or the redundant messages , but something
aboul " full frontal " seems , well , contrived .
[morgan] , judd and franklin can't save the script , rooted in a novel by joseph
 finder , from some opportunism .
the movie is obviously a labour of love so howard appears to have had free rein
to be as pretentious as he wanted .
passably entertaining but also mechanical and joyless .
safe conduct , however ambitious and well-intentioned , fails to hit the enterta
inment bull's-eye .
my response to the film is best described as lukewarm . maybe i found the procee
dings a little bit too conventional .
too timid to bring a sense of closure to an ugly chapter of the twentieth centur
y .
it's push-the-limits teen comedy , the type written by people who can't come up
with legitimate funny , and it's used so extensively that good bits are hopeless
ly overshadowed .
it's too long , too repetitive , and takes way too many years to resolve to be a
total winner .
a sudsy cautionary tale .
a movie that tries to fuse the two 'woods' but winds up a bolly-holly masala mes
s .
mr . wedge and mr . saldanha handle the mix of verbal jokes and slapstick well .
their film falters , however , in its adherence to the disney philosophy of req
uired poignancy , a salute that i'd hoped the movie would avoid .
leaves you with a knot in your stomach , its power is undercut by its own head-b
anging obviousness .
watching it is rather like an overlong visit from a large group of your relative
s . as your relatives swap one mundane story after another , you begin to wonder
if they are ever going to depart .
unfortunately , as a writer , mr . montias isn't nearly as good to his crew as h
e is as a director or actor .
on the right track to something that's creepy and effective . . . it's just goin
g to take more than a man in a bullwinkle costume to get there .
the only thing that could possibly make them less interesting than they already
are is for them to get full montied into a scrappy , jovial team .
one of those movies where you walk out of the theater not feeling cheated exactl
y , but feeling pandered to , which , in the end , might be all the more infuria
ting .
. . . this movie has a glossy coat of action movie excess while remaining heart
less at its core .
murder by numbers is like a couple of mediocre tv-movie -of-the-week films clums
ily stuck together .
the film is surprisingly well-directed by brett ratner , who keeps things moving
well -- at least until the problematic third act .
warmed-over tarantino by way of wannabe elmore leonard .
[sen's] soap opera-ish approach undermines his good intentions .
showtime is one of the hapless victims of the arrogant " if we put together a wr
y white man and a chatty black man and give them guns , the movie will be funny
" syndrome .
sushi for the connoisseurs of the macabre .
don't waste your money .
though certainly original in form , altar boys requires a taste for swamp thing-
type animation , doubled with a deafening score .
there aren't many laughs in this interesting study of the cultural mores of geor
gian jews in tel aviv .
there's not enough to sustain the comedy .
like those to rome , all roads in the banger sisters inevitably lead to a joke a
bout hawn's breasts , which constantly threaten to upstage the woman sporting th
em .
we may get the full visceral impact of a ruthless army on the warpath but no sen
se of the devilish complexity of the balkans conflict .
you're better off staying home and watching the x-files .
chaotic , self-indulgent and remarkably ugly to look at , it's . . . like a seri
es of pretentiously awful student films strung together into one feature-length
horror .
bears resemblance to , and shares the weaknesses of , too many recent action-fan
tasy extravaganzas in which special effects overpower cogent story-telling and v
isual clarity during the big action sequences .
this is the type of movie best enjoyed by frat boys and college kids while sucki
ng on the bong and downing one alcoholic beverage after another .
friday after next has the same problem that next friday did -- it's called where
's chris tucker when you need him ?
this film is full of rabbits . brimful . but like most rabbits , it seems to lac
k substance .
i weep for the future when a good portion of the respected critical community in
this country consider blue crush to be an intelligent film about young women .
i kept wishing i was watching a documentary about the wartime navajos and what t
hey accomplished instead of all this specious hollywood hoo-ha .
no number of fantastic sets , extras , costumes and spectacular locales can disg
uise the emptiness at the center of the story .
a movie far more cynical and lazy than anything a fictitious charlie kaufman mig
ht object to .
could the country bears really be as bad as its trailers ? in a word -- yes .
if high crimes were any more generic it would have a universal product code inst
ead of a title .
reggio falls victim to relying on the very digital technology that he fervently
scorns , creating a meandering , inarticulate and ultimately disappointing film
.
the movie makes absolutely no sense . its underlying mythology is a hodgepodge o
f inconsistencies that pose the question : since when did dumb entertainment hav
e to be this dumb ?
the problem with this film is that it's forced to make its characters idiots in
order to advance the plot . had anyone here done anything remotely intelligent ,
we all could have stopped watching long ago .
despite the authenticity of the trappings , the film is overblown in its plottin
g , hackneyed in its dialogue and anachronistic in its style .
murder and mayhem of this sort quickly becomes monotonous .
the journey toward redemption feels more like a cinematic experiment than a full
-blown movie .
that zhang would make such a strainingly cute film -- with a blind orphan at its
center , no less -- indicates where his ambitions have wandered .
the gantzes' interviews tend to let the guys off the hook .
the streets , shot by cinematographer michael ballhaus , may be as authentic as
they are mean , but it is nearly impossible to care about what happens on them .
this is a good movie in spurts , but when it doesn't work , it's at important ti
mes .
parker probably thinks he's shaking up a classic the way kenneth branagh and baz
luhrmann have , but this half-hearted messing-about just makes us miss wilde's
still-contemporary play .
flotsam in the sea of moviemaking , not big enough for us to worry about it caus
ing significant harm and not smelly enough to bother despising .
a tv episode inflated past its natural length .
involving at times , but lapses quite casually into the absurd .
all these developments and challenges facing santa weigh down the plot so heavil
y that they drain all the film of its energy and needlessly strain credibility .
anemic , pretentious .
there are weird resonances between actor and role here , and they're not exactly
flattering .
the unceasing sadism is so graphically excessive , the director just ends up exp
osing his own obsession .
the story . . . is moldy and obvious .
it's drained of life in an attempt to be sober and educational , and yet it's so
devoid of realism that its lack of whistles and bells just makes it obnoxious a
nd stiff .
suffocated at conception by its munchausen-by-proxy mum . punish the vehicle to
adore the star .
even if britney spears is really cute , her movie is really bad .
big fat liar is just futile silliness looking to tap into the kiddie sensibiliti
es .
usually when i get this much syrup , i like pancakes to go with it .
all the necessary exposition prevents the picture from rising above your generic
sand 'n' sandal adventure .
glib , satirical documentary that fudges facts , makes facile points and engages
in the cinematic equivalent of tabloid journalism .
gangs of new york is an unapologetic mess , whose only saving grace is that it e
nds by blowing just about everything up .
an overblown clunker full of bad jokes , howling cliches and by-the-numbers acti
on sequences .
without a strong script and energetic acting , dogma films can produce the same
sleep-inducing effects as watching your neighbor's home videos .
a mild , reluctant , thumbs down .
strong setup and ambitious goals fade as the film descends into unsophisticated
scare tactics and b-film thuggery .
schindler's list it ain't .
a cinematic sleeping pill of impressive potency .
it's an awfully derivative story .
the movie barely makes sense , with its unbelievable navet and arbitrary flashback
s .
it's an earnest debut full of heartfelt performances , but is ultimately let dow
n by a story that is all too predictable .
about as cutting-edge as pet rock : the movie .
with generic sets and b-grade special effects , jason is about as convincing on
the sci-fi front as tv's defunct cleopatra 2525 .
not sweet enough to liven up its predictable story and will leave even fans of h
ip-hop sorely disappointed .
winds up feeling like lots of other quirky movies that try to score hipness poin
ts with young adults .
oft-described as the antidote to american pie-type sex comedies , it actually ha
s a bundle in common with them , as the film diffuses every opportunity for a br
eakthrough
the pacing is glacial , the screenplay is stiff as a board , and things heat up
only in the movie's final scenes .
the premise is overshadowed by the uberviolence of the clericks as this becomes
just another kung-fu sci-fi movie with silly action sequences .
with its hints of a greater intelligence lurking somewhere , the ring makes its
stupidity more than obvious . it's painful .
pumpkin struts about with " courage " pinned to its huckster lapel while a yello
w streak a mile wide decorates its back .
an uneven film dealing with too many problems to be taken seriously .
sheridan . . . smoothes over sources of conflict that could have lent the film a
bit more depth .
an atonal estrogen opera that demonizes feminism while gifting the most sympathe
tic male of the piece with a nice vomit bath at his wedding .
half of it is composed of snappy patter and pseudo-sophisticated cultural observ
ations , while the remainder . . . would be more at home on a daytime television
serial .
writer/director john mckay ignites some charming chemistry between kate and jed
but , when he veers into sodden melodrama , punctuated by violins , it's disastr
ous and kate's jealous female friends become downright despicable .
[newton]wanders through charlie completely unaware she needs to show some presen
ce and star quality .
unfortunately , the picture failed to capture me . i found it slow , drab , and
bordering on melodramatic .
a lousy movie that's not merely unwatchable , but also unlistenable .
the best way to hope for any chance of enjoying this film is by lowering your ex
pectations . then lower them a bit more .
when not obscured by the booming bass-heavy soundtrack , the conversation presen
ts the kind of linguistic fumbling not heard since macy gray's game of chinese w
hispers with mr bean .
cliches are as thick as the cigarette smoke .
a woozy , roisterous , exhausting mess , and the off-beat casting of its two lea
ds turns out to be as ill-starred as you might expect .
'abandon all hope , ye who enter here' . . . you should definitely let dante's g
loomy words be your guide .
what begins as a seemingly brainless , bubbly romantic comedy becomes a cliche-d
renched melodrama by mid-film and , by film's end , a feminist action fantasy .
a grim , flat and boring werewolf movie that refuses to develop an energy level
.
birot's directorial debut ( she co-wrote the script with christophe honor ) isn't
so much bad as it is bland .
watching the film is like reading a times portrait of grief that keeps shifting
focus to the journalist who wrote it .
enough similarities to gymkata and howie long's firestorm that my fingernails in
stinctively crawled towards my long-suffering eyeballs .
succeeds in providing a disquiet world the long-dreaded completion of the police
academy series .
christians sensitive to a reductionist view of their lord as a luv-spreading dr
. feelgood or omnipotent slacker will feel vastly more affronted than secularist
s , who might even praise god for delivering such an instant camp classic .
if this dud had been made in the '70s , it would have been called the hills have
antlers and played for about three weeks in drive-ins .
a frantic search for laughs , with a hit-to-miss ratio that doesn't exactly favo
ur the audience .
like a documentary version of fight club , shorn of social insight , intellectua
l pretension and cinematic interest .
" an entire film about researchers quietly reading dusty old letters . "
pryor lite , with half the demons , half the daring , much less talent , many fe
wer laughs .
what's at stake in this film is nothing more than an obsolete , if irritating ,
notion of class .
the stories here suffer from the chosen format .
while the mystery surrounding the nature of the boat's malediction remains intri
guing enough to sustain mild interest , the picture refuses to offer much accomp
anying sustenance in the way of characterization , humor or plain old popcorn fu
n .
just how extreme are these ops ? i regret to report that these ops are just not
extreme enough .
the actors are forced to grapple with hazy motivations that never come into focu
s .
john leguizamo may be a dramatic actor -- just not in this movie .
the sequel has turned completely and irrevocably bizarre to the point of utter n
onsense .
hardly makes the kind of points egoyan wanted to make , nor does it exist as the
kind of monument he wanted to build , to victims whose voices have never gained
the ears of the world .
build some robots , haul 'em to the theatre with you for the late show , and put
on your own mystery science theatre 3000 tribute to what is almost certainly go
ing to go down as the worst -- and only -- killer website movie of this or any o
ther year .
rainy days and movies about the disintegration of families always get me down .
. . . has about 3/4th the fun of its spry 2001 predecessor but it's a rushed ,
slapdash , sequel-for-the-sake- of-a-sequel with less than half the plot and ing
enuity .
a incompetncia de marcus adams como roteirista s superada por sua pssima direo .
the master of disaster - it's a piece of dreck disguised as comedy .
this isn't a movie ; it's a symptom .
the film has a few cute ideas and several modest chuckles but it isn't exactly k
iddie-friendly alas , santa is more ho-hum than ho-ho-ho and the snowman ( who ne
ver gets to play that flute ) has all the charm of a meltdown .
the stupidest , most insulting movie of 2002's first quarter .
it's so underwritten that you can't figure out just where the other characters ,
including ana's father and grandfather , come down on the issue of ana's future
.
a film so tedious that it is impossible to care whether that boast is true or no
t .
none of this violates the letter of behan's book , but missing is its spirit , i
ts ribald , full-throated humor .
bad company leaves a bad taste , not only because of its bad-luck timing , but a
lso the staleness of its script .
even if it ultimately disappoints , the picture does have about a matinee admiss
ion's worth of funny to keep it afloat .
fails to bring as much to the table .
a film made with as little wit , interest , and professionalism as artistically
possible for a slummy hollywood caper flick .
disturbingly superficial in its approach to the material .
if you're not the target demographic . . . this movie is one long chick-flick sl
og .
i hate this movie
it's tough to tell which is in more abundant supply in this woefully hackneyed m
ovie , directed by scott kalvert , about street gangs and turf wars in 1958 broo
klyn -- stale cliches , gratuitous violence , or empty machismo .
gooding and coburn are both oscar winners , a fact which , as you watch them clu
msily mugging their way through snow dogs , seems inconceivable .
at every opportunity to do something clever , the film goes right over the edge
and kills every sense of believability . . . all you have left is a no-surprise
series of explosions and violence while banderas looks like he's not trying to l
augh at how bad it
. . . pitiful , slapdash disaster . a doa dud from frame one .
jaw-droppingly superficial , straining to get by on humor that is not even as da
ring as john ritter's glory days on three's company .
there are plenty of scenes in frida that do work , but rarely do they involve th
e title character herself .
although god is great addresses interesting matters of identity and heritage , i
t's hard to shake the feeling that it was intended to be a different kind of fil
m .
the dark and bittersweet twist feels strange as things turn nasty and tragic dur
ing the final third of the film . first-timer john mckay is never able to pull i
t back on course .
distances you by throwing out so many red herrings , so many false scares , that
the genuine ones barely register .
godard uses his characters -- if that's not too glorified a term -- as art thing
s , mouthpieces , visual motifs , blanks .
the movie generates plot points with a degree of randomness usually achieved onl
y by lottery drawing .
a predictable , manipulative stinker . the story passes time until it's time for
an absurd finale of twisted metal , fireballs and revenge .
eastwood winces , clutches his chest and gasps for breath . it's a spectacular p
erformance - ahem , we hope it's only acting .
the movie suffers from two fatal ailments -- a dearth of vitality and a story th
at's shapeless and uninflected .
it's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness , and where human nature should be
 ingratiating , it's just grating .
an ambitiously naturalistic , albeit half-baked , drama about an abused , inner-
city autistic teen .
once she lets her love depraved leads meet , [denis'] story becomes a hopeless ,
unsatisfying muddle
the dose is strong and funny , for the first 15 minutes anyway ; after that , th
e potency wanes dramatically .
the people in abc africa are treated as docile , mostly wordless ethnographic ex
tras .
what's really sad is to see two academy award winning actresses ( and one academ
y award winning actor ) succumb to appearing in this junk that's tv sitcom mater
ial at best .
no doubt the star and everyone else involved had their hearts in the right place
. where their heads were is anyone's guess .
call me a cynic , but there's something awfully deadly about any movie with a li
fe-affirming message .
a gratingly unfunny groaner littered with zero-dimensional , unlikable character
s and hackneyed , threadbare comic setups .
got some good , organic character work , lots of obvious political insights and
little room for engaging , imaginative filmmaking in its nearly 2 1/2-hour , dis
sipated length .
a painfully slow cliche-ridden film filled with more holes than clyde barrow's c
ar .
like leafing through an album of photos accompanied by the sketchiest of caption
s .
i guess it just goes to show that if you give a filmmaker an unlimited amount of
phony blood , nothing good can happen .
gaghan captures the half-lit , sometimes creepy intimacy of college dorm rooms ,
a subtlety that makes the silly , over-the-top coda especially disappointing .
feels less like a change in [herzog's] personal policy than a half-hearted fluke
.
one of the most unpleasant things the studio has ever produced .
will anyone who isn't a fangoria subscriber be excited that it hasn't gone strai
ght to video ?
a selection of scenes in search of a movie .
[janey] forgets about her other obligations , leading to a tragedy which is some
how guessable from the first few minutes , maybe because it echoes the by now in
tolerable morbidity of so many recent movies .
will undoubtedly play well in european markets , where mr . besson is a brand na
me , and in asia , where ms . shu is an institution , but american audiences wil
l probably find it familiar and insufficiently cathartic .
true to its animatronic roots : . . . as stiff , ponderous and charmless as a me
chanical apparatus . . . 'the country bears' should never have been brought out
of hibernation .
[evans is] a fascinating character , and deserves a better vehicle than this fac
etious smirk of a movie .
the script's judgment and sense of weight is way , way off .
you come away wishing , though , that the movie spent a lot less time trying to
make a credible case for reports from the afterlife and a lot more time on the r
omantic urgency that's at the center of the story .
evelyn may be based on a true and historically significant story , but the filmm
akers have made every effort to disguise it as an unimaginative screenwriter's i
nvention .
a derivative collection of horror and sci-fi cliches .
loosely speaking , we're in all of me territory again , and , strictly speaking
, schneider is no steve martin .
as aimless as an old pickup skidding completely out of control on a long patch o
f black ice , the movie makes two hours feel like four .
limps along on a squirm-inducing fish-out-of-water formula that goes nowhere and
goes there very , very slowly .
just the sort of lazy tearjerker that gives movies about ordinary folk a bad nam
e .
the redeeming feature of chan's films has always been the action , but the stunt
s in the tuxedo seem tired and , what's worse , routine .
while the importance of being earnest offers opportunities for occasional smiles
and chuckles , it doesn't give us a reason to be in the theater beyond wilde's
wit and the actors' performances .
has all the scenic appeal of a cesspool .
a rambling ensemble piece with loosely connected characters and plots that never
quite gel .
a lifetime movie about men .
the balkans provide the obstacle course for the love of a good woman .
it's hard to say who might enjoy this , are there tolstoy groupies out there ? i
t's dark and tragic , and lets the business of the greedy talent agents get in t
he way of saying something meaningful about facing death
this is a movie that starts out like heathers , then becomes bring it on , then
becomes unwatchable .
the screenplay flounders under the weight of too many story lines .
i think it was plato who said , 'i think , therefore i know better than to rush
to the theatre for this one . '
if damon and affleck attempt another project greenlight , next time out they mig
ht try paying less attention to the miniseries and more attention to the film it
is about .
this is rote drivel aimed at mom and dad's wallet .
contrived , maudlin and cliche-ridden . . . if this sappy script was the best th
e contest received , those rejected must have been astronomically bad .
i hate the feeling of having been slimed in the name of high art .
this is more a case of 'sacre bleu ! ' than 'magnifique' .
the kids in the audience at the preview screening seemed bored , cheering the pr
atfalls but little else ; their parents , wise folks that they are , read books
.
whether jason x is this bad on purpose is never clear . but one thing's for sure
: it never comes close to being either funny or scary .
yet another weepy southern bore-athon .
i like all four of the lead actors a lot and they manage to squeeze a few laughs
out of the material , but they're treading water at best in this forgettable ef
fort .
perhaps the most annoying thing about who is cletis tout ? is that it's a crime
movie made by someone who obviously knows nothing about crime .
except as an acting exercise or an exceptionally dark joke , you wonder what any
one saw in this film that allowed it to get made .
this insufferable movie is meant to make you think about existential suffering .
instead , it'll only put you to sleep .
who is this movie for ? not kids , who don't need the lesson in repugnance . it'
s also not smart or barbed enough for older viewers -- not everyone thinks poo-p
oo jokes are 'edgy . '
a sleep-inducingly slow-paced crime drama with clumsy dialogue , heavy-handed ph
oney-feeling sentiment , and an overly-familiar set of plot devices .
it's so tedious that it makes you forgive every fake , dishonest , entertaining
and , ultimately , more perceptive moment in bridget jones's diary .
almost as offensive as " freddy got fingered . "
the gifted crudup has the perfect face to play a handsome blank yearning to find
himself , and his cipherlike personality and bad behavior would play fine if th
e movie knew what to do with him .
it is depressing , ruthlessly pained and depraved , the movie equivalent of star
ing into an open wound .
ponderous , plodding soap opera disguised as a feature film .
cold , pretentious , thoroughly dislikable study in sociopathy .
for the future , one hopes mr . plympton will find room for one more member of h
is little band , a professional screenwriter .
a cheap scam put together by some cynical creeps at revolution studios and imagi
ne entertainment to make the suckers out there surrender $9 and 93 minutes of un
recoverable life .
reign of fire never comes close to recovering from its demented premise , but it
does sustain an enjoyable level of ridiculousness .
human nature is a goofball movie , in the way that malkovich was , but it tries
too hard .
originality is sorely lacking .
the plot's clearly mythic structure may owe more to disney's strong sense of for
mula than to the original story . but while the highly predictable narrative fal
ls short , treasure planet is truly gorgeous to behold .
though there are entertaining and audacious moments , the movie's wildly careeni
ng tone and an extremely flat lead performance do little to salvage this filmmak
er's flailing reputation .
ram dass fierce grace moulds itself as an example to up-and-coming documentarian
s , of the overlooked pitfalls of such an endeavour .
lucky break is perfectly inoffensive and harmless , but it's also drab and inert
.
for a story set at sea , ghost ship is pretty landbound , with its leaden acting
, dull exposition and telegraphed 'surprises . '
there might be some sort of credible gender-provoking philosophy submerged here
, but who the hell cares ?
what we have is a character faced with the possibility that her life is meaningl
ess , vapid and devoid of substance , in a movie that is definitely meaningless
, vapid and devoid of substance .
nothing more than a stifling morality tale dressed up in peekaboo clothing .
i like my christmas movies with more elves and snow and less pimps and ho's .
it all seemed wasted like deniro's once promising career and the once grand long
beach boardwalk .
[i]t's certainly laudable that the movie deals with hot-button issues in a comed
ic context , but barbershop isn't as funny as it should be .
unfortunately , a cast of competent performers from movies , television and the
theater are cast adrift in various new york city locations with no unifying rhyt
hm or visual style .
just entertaining enough not to hate , too mediocre to love .
'sophisticated' viewers who refuse to admit that they don't like it will likely
call it 'challenging' to their fellow sophisticates .
equilibrium the movie , as opposed to the manifesto , is really , really stupid
.
excruciatingly unfunny and pitifully unromantic .
the film's thoroughly recycled plot and tiresome jokes . . . drag the movie down
.
it doesn't offer audiences any way of gripping what its point is , or even its a
ttitude toward its subject .
this kiddie-oriented stinker is so bad that i even caught the gum stuck under my
seat trying to sneak out of the theater
though impostor deviously adopts the guise of a modern motion picture , it too i
s a bomb .
cox offers plenty of glimpses at existing photos , but there are no movies of ni
jinsky , so instead the director treats us to an aimless hodgepodge .
every note rings false .
when the screenwriter responsible for one of the worst movies of one year direct
s an equally miserable film the following year , you'd have a hard time believin
g it was just coincidence .
it never rises to its clever what-if concept .
admirably ambitious but self-indulgent .
this story of unrequited love doesn't sustain interest beyond the first half-hou
r .
this angst-ridden territory was covered earlier and much better in ordinary peop
le .
the entire film is one big excuse to play one lewd scene after another . about h
alf of them are funny , a few are sexy and none are useful in telling the story
, which is paper-thin and decidedly unoriginal .
a big , loud , bang-the-drum bore .
grating and tedious .
[less a movie than] an appalling , odoriferous thing . . . so rotten in almost e
very single facet of production that you'll want to crawl up your own * * * in e
mbarrassment .
the concept behind kung pow : enter the fist is hilarious . it's too bad nothing
else is .
hardman is a grating , mannered onscreen presence , which is especially unfortun
ate in light of the fine work done by most of the rest of her cast .
el crimen del padre amaro would likely be most effective if used as a tool to ra
lly anti-catholic protestors .
interesting and thoroughly unfaithful version of carmen
a serious movie with serious ideas . but seriously , folks , it doesn't work .
there's nothing exactly wrong here , but there's not nearly enough that's right
.
the action here is unusually tame , the characters are too simplistic to maintai
n interest , and the plot offers few surprises .
i couldn't help but feel the wasted potential of this slapstick comedy .
what madonna does here can't properly be called acting -- more accurately , it's
moving and it's talking and it's occasionally gesturing , sometimes all at once
.
[a] painfully flat gross-out comedy . . .
even if you're an elvis person , you won't find anything to get excited about on
this dvd .
the movie certainly has its share of clever moments and biting dialogue , but th
ere's just not much lurking below its abstract surface .
it's bedeviled by labored writing and slack direction .
i'm sure there's a teenage boy out there somewhere who's dying for this kind of
entertainment .
the tuxedo miscalculates badly by forcing the star to play second fiddle to the
dull effects that allow the suit to come to life .
the film is a confusing melange of tones and styles , one moment a romantic trif
le and the next a turgid drama .
obviously , a lot of people wasted a lot of their time ( including mine ) on som
ething very inconsequential .
there's a little violence and lots of sex in a bid to hold our attention , but i
t grows monotonous after a while , as do joan and philip's repetitive arguments
, schemes and treachery .
it drowns in sap .
deliberately and devotedly constructed , far from heaven is too picture postcard
perfect , too neat and new pin-like , too obviously a recreation to resonate .
it's rare that a movie can be as intelligent as this one is in every regard exce
pt its storyline ; everything that's good is ultimately scuttled by a plot that'
s just too boring and obvious .
i'm giving it thumbs down due to the endlessly repetitive scenes of embarrassmen
t . there's got to be a more graceful way of portraying the devastation of this
disease .
the good thing -- the only good thing -- about extreme ops is that it's so inane
that it gave me plenty of time to ponder my thanksgiving to-do list .
the modern-day characters are nowhere near as vivid as the 19th-century ones .
blessed with a searing lead performance by ryan gosling ( murder by numbers ) ,
the movie is powerful and provocative . it's also built on a faulty premise , on
e it follows into melodrama and silliness .
uneven performances and a spotty script add up to a biting satire that has no te
eth .
director jay russell stomps in hobnail boots over natalie babbitt's gentle , end
earing 1975 children's novel .
benigni's pinocchio is extremely straight and mind-numbingly stilted , its episo
dic pacing keeping the film from developing any storytelling flow .
the troubling thing about clockstoppers is that it doesn't make any sense .
with its paint fights , motorized scooter chases and dewy-eyed sentiment , it's
a pretty listless collection of kid-movie clichs .
mostly the film is just hectic and homiletic : two parts exhausting men in black
mayhem to one part family values .
kicks off with an inauspicious premise , mopes through a dreary tract of virtual
ly plotless meanderings and then ends with a whimper .
a rote exercise in both animation and storytelling .
the material and the production itself are little more than routine .
the movie's major and most devastating flaw is its reliance on formula , though
, and it's quite enough to lessen the overall impact the movie could have had .
not even steven spielberg has dreamed up such blatant and sickening product plac
ement in a movie .
it's all surface psychodramatics .
the mothman prophecies , which is mostly a bore , seems to exist only for its cl
imactic setpiece .
that frenetic spectacle [on the tv show] has usually been leavened by a charm th
at's conspicuously missing from the girls' big-screen blowout .
kitschy , flashy , overlong soap opera .
for all the time we spend with these people , we never really get inside of them
.
yet another arnold vehicle that fails to make adequate use of his particular tal
ents .
sandra bullock , despite downplaying her good looks , carries a little too much
ain't- she-cute baggage into her lead role as a troubled and determined homicide
cop to quite pull off the heavy stuff .
an undistinguished attempt to make a classic theater piece cinematic .
too many scenarios in which the hero might have an opportunity to triumphantly s
ermonize , and too few that allow us to wonder for ourselves if things will turn
out okay .
there is simply not enough of interest onscreen to sustain its seventy-minute ru
nning time .
a wordy wisp of a comedy .
broomfield's style of journalism is hardly journalism at all , and even those wi
th an avid interest in the subject will grow impatient .
[seagal's] strenuous attempt at a change in expression could very well clinch hi
m this year's razzie .
has the disjointed feel of a bunch of strung-together tv episodes .
a series of escapades demonstrating the adage that what is good for the goose is
also good for the gander , some of which occasionally amuses but none of which
amounts to much of a story .
ozpetek offers an aids subtext , skims over the realities of gay sex , and prese
nts yet another tired old vision of the gay community as an all-inclusive world
where uptight , middle class bores like antonia can feel good about themselves .
a dopey movie clothed in excess layers of hipness .
the sweetest thing is expressly for idiots who don't care what kind of sewage th
ey shovel into their mental gullets to simulate sustenance .
sinks so low in a poorly played game of absurd plot twists , idiotic court maneu
vers and stupid characters that even freeman can't save it .
i realized that no matter how fantastic reign of fire looked , its story was mak
ing no sense at all .
it made me realize that we really haven't had a good cheesy b-movie playing in t
heaters since . . . well . . . since last week's reign of fire .
some movies were made for the big screen , some for the small screen , and some
, like ballistic : ecks vs . sever , were made for the palm screen .
sc2 is an autopilot hollywood concoction lacking in imagination and authentic ch
ristmas spirit , yet it's geared toward an audience full of masters of both .
after all the big build-up , the payoff for the audience , as well as the charac
ters , is messy , murky , unsatisfying .
seems content to dog-paddle in the mediocre end of the pool , and it's a sad , s
ick sight .
it's refreshing that someone understands the need for the bad boy ; diesel , wit
h his brawny frame and cool , composed delivery , fits the bill perfectly .
if all of eight legged freaks was as entertaining as the final hour , i would ha
ve no problem giving it an unqualified recommendation .
suffers from a flat script and a low budget .
there are deeply religious and spiritual people in this world who would argue th
at entering a church , synagogue or temple doesn't mean you have to check your b
rain at the door . the same should go for movie theaters .
seemingly a vehicle to showcase the canadian's inane ramblings , stealing harvar
d is a smorgasbord of soliloquies about nothing delivered by the former mr . dre
w barrymore .
the film tries to touch on spousal abuse but veers off course and becomes just a
nother revenge film .
as it stands it's an opera movie for the buffs .
la cinta comienza intentando ser un drama , rpidamente se transforma en una comed
ia y termina por ser una parodia absolutamente predecible
this franchise has not spawned a single good film . the crap continues .
if only it were , well , funnier .
its inescapable absurdities are tantamount to insulting the intelligence of anyo
ne who hasn't been living under a rock ( since sept . 11 ) .
high drama , disney-style - a wing and a prayer and a hunky has-been pursuing hi
s castle in the sky .
like its script , which nurses plot holes gaping enough to pilot an entire olymp
ic swim team through , the characters in swimfan seem motivated by nothing short
of dull , brain-deadening hangover .
one big blustery movie where nothing really happens . when it comes out on video
, then it's the perfect cure for insomnia .
like a comedian who starts off promisingly but then proceeds to flop , comedian
runs out of steam after a half hour .
the pairing does sound promising in theory . . . but their lack of chemistry mak
es eddie murphy and robert deniro in showtime look like old , familiar vaudevill
e partners .
director chris eyre is going through the paces again with his usual high melodra
matic style of filmmaking .
as it stands , there's some fine sex onscreen , and some tense arguing , but not
a whole lot more .
i could just feel the screenwriter at every moment 'tap , tap , tap , tap , tapp
ing away' on this screenplay .
the picture doesn't know it's a comedy .
a stupid , derivative horror film that substitutes extreme gore for suspense .
the rollerball sequences feel sanitised and stagey .
roman polanski directs the pianist like a surgeon mends a broken heart ; very me
ticulously but without any passion .
nothing more than a run-of-the-mill action flick .
lan yu is certainly a serviceable melodrama , but it doesn't even try for the gr
eatness that happy together shoots for ( and misses ) .
this is an action movie with an action icon who's been all but decommissioned .
even if it is generally amusing from time to time , i spy has all the same probl
ems the majority of action comedies have .
much like robin williams , death to smoochy has already reached its expiration d
ate .
an annoying orgy of excess and exploitation that has no point and goes nowhere .
a tired , unnecessary retread . . . a stale copy of a picture that wasn't all th
at great to begin with .
an often unfunny romp .
a worthy idea , but the uninspired scripts , acting and direction never rise abo
ve the level of an after-school tv special .
twenty years later , reggio still knows how to make a point with poetic imagery
, but his ability to startle has been stifled by the very prevalence of the fast
-forward technology that he so stringently takes to task .
it bites hard .
ear-splitting exercise in formula crash-and-bash action .
we have an actor who is great fun to watch performing in a film that is only mil
dly diverting .
despite hoffman's best efforts , wilson remains a silent , lumpish cipher ; his
encounters reveal nothing about who he is or who he was before .
there's a thin line between likably old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy , and the coun
t of monte cristo . . . never quite settles on either side .
the emotional overload of female angst irreparably drags the film down .
schaefer's . . . determination to inject farcical raunch . . . drowns out the pr
omise of the romantic angle .
like showgirls and glitter , the most entertaining moments here are unintentiona
l .
while some of the camera work is interesting , the film's mid-to-low budget is b
etrayed by the surprisingly shoddy makeup work .
the origin story is well told , and the characters will not disappoint anyone wh
o values the original comic books . it's in the action scenes that things fall a
part .
impostor is a step down for director gary fleder .
seagal , who looks more like danny aiello these days , mumbles his way through t
he movie .
the movie is a negligible work of manipulation , an exploitation piece doing its
usual worst to guilt-trip parents .
lacks dramatic punch and depth .
there are moments of real pleasure to be found in sara sugarman's whimsical come
dy very annie-mary but not enough to sustain the film .
i can analyze this movie in three words : thumbs friggin' down .
sadly , 'garth' hasn't progressed as nicely as 'wayne . '
make like the title and dodge this one .
this is not one of the movies you'd want to watch if you only had a week to live
.
the first hour is tedious though ford and neeson capably hold our interest , but
its just not a thrilling movie .
here's a case of two actors who do everything humanly possible to create charact
ers who are sweet and believable , and are defeated by a screenplay that forces
them into bizarre , implausible behavior .
it's obvious [je-gyu is] trying for poetry ; what he gets instead has all the ly
ricism of a limerick scrawled in a public restroom .
sweet home alabama is one dumb movie , but its stupidity is so relentlessly harm
less that it almost wins you over in the end .
[green is] the comedy equivalent of saddam hussein , and i'm just about ready to
go to the u . n . and ask permission for a preemptive strike .
no amount of good acting is enough to save oleander's uninspired story .
a vile , incoherent mess . . . a scummy ripoff of david cronenberg's brilliant '
videodrome . '
murphy and wilson actually make a pretty good team . . . but the project surroun
ding them is distressingly rote .
despite its raucous intent , xxx is as conventional as a nike ad and as rebellio
us as spring break .
think the lion king redone for horses , with fewer deliberate laughs , more inad
vertent ones and stunningly trite songs by bryan adams , the world's most generi
c rock star .
it is one more celluloid testimonial to the cruelties experienced by southern bl
acks as distilled through a caucasian perspective .
it's tough being a black man in america , especially when the man has taken away
 your car , your work-hours and denied you health insurance .
a small fortune in salaries and stunt cars might have been saved if the director
, tom dey , had spliced together bits and pieces of midnight run and 48 hours (
and , for that matter , shrek ) .
an amateurish , quasi-improvised acting exercise shot on ugly digital video .
the holes in this film remain agape -- holes punched through by an inconsistent
, meandering , and sometimes dry plot .
would benigni's italian pinocchio have been any easier to sit through than this
hastily dubbed disaster ?
unofficially , national lampoon's van wilder is son of animal house . officially
, it is twice as bestial but half as funny .
this is a fragmented film , once a good idea that was followed by the bad idea t
o turn it into a movie .
mindless yet impressively lean spinoff of last summer's bloated effects fest the
mummy returns .
halfway through the movie , the humor dwindles . it's replaced by some dramatic
scenes that are jarring and deeply out of place in what could have ( and probabl
y should have ) been a lighthearted comedy .
will be far more interesting to the soderbergh faithful than it will be to the c
asual moviegoer who might be lured in by julia roberts . . .
authentic , and at times endearing , humorous , spooky , educational , but at ot
her times as bland as a block of snow .
[a] mess .
control-alt-delete simone as quickly as possible
follows the original film virtually scene for scene and yet manages to bleed it
almost completely dry of humor , verve and fun .
the filmmaker ascends , literally , to the olympus of the art world , but he wou
ld have done well to end this flawed , dazzling series with the raising of somet
hing other than his own cremaster .
the screenplay comes across , rather unintentionally , as hip-hop scooby-doo .
has lost some of the dramatic conviction that underlies the best of comedies . .
.
vaguely interesting , but it's just too too much .
. . . no charm , no laughs , no fun , no reason to watch .
a generic family comedy unlikely to be appreciated by anyone outside the under-1
0 set .
kung pow seems like some futile concoction that was developed hastily after oede
kerk and his fellow moviemakers got through crashing a college keg party .
kurys seems intimidated by both her subject matter and the period trappings of t
his debut venture into the heritage business .
the film virtually chokes on its own self-consciousness .
a manipulative feminist empowerment tale thinly posing as a serious drama about
spousal abuse .
everything in maid in manhattan is exceedingly pleasant , designed not to offend
. it goes down easy , leaving virtually no aftertaste .
a profoundly stupid affair , populating its hackneyed and meanspirited storyline
with cardboard characters and performers who value cash above credibility .
. . . pays tribute to heroes the way julia roberts hands out awards--with phony
humility barely camouflaging grotesque narcissism .
time stands still in more ways that one in clockstoppers , a sci-fi thriller as
lazy as it is interminable .
as a director , eastwood is off his game -- there's no real sense of suspense ,
and none of the plot 'surprises' are really surprising .
eccentric enough to stave off doldrums , caruso's self-conscious debut is also e
minently forgettable .
to work , love stories require the full emotional involvement and support of a v
iewer . that is made almost impossible by events that set the plot in motion .
although barbershop boasts some of today's hottest and hippest acts from the wor
ld of television , music and stand-up comedy , this movie strangely enough has t
he outdated swagger of a shameless 70s blaxploitation shuck-and-jive sitcom .
a puzzle whose pieces do not fit . some are fascinating and others are not , and
in the end , it is almost a good movie .
would that greengrass had gone a tad less for grit and a lot more for intelligib
ility .
the good is very , very good . . . the rest runs from mildly unimpressive to des
pairingly awful .
'butterfingered' is the word for the big-fisted direction of jez butterworth , w
ho manages to blast even the smallest sensitivities from the romance with his cl
amorous approach .
be forewarned , if you're depressed about anything before watching this film , y
ou may just end up trying to drown yourself in a lake afterwards .
a terrible adaptation of a play that only ever walked the delicate tightrope bet
ween farcical and loathsome . in the wrong hands , i . e . peploe's , it's simpl
y unbearable
an inexperienced director , mehta has much to learn .
a limp eddie murphy vehicle that even he seems embarrassed to be part of .
dramatically lackluster .
so muddled , repetitive and ragged that it says far less about the horrifying hi
storical reality than about the filmmaker's characteristic style .
a gushy episode of " m * a * s * h " only this time from an asian perspective .
" looking for leonard " just seems to kinda sit in neutral , hoping for a stiff
wind to blow it uphill or something .
nothing more than four or five mild chuckles surrounded by 86 minutes of overly-
familiar and poorly-constructed comedy .
definitely in the guilty pleasure b-movie category , reign of fire is so incredi
bly inane that it is laughingly enjoyable .
good-looking but relentlessly lowbrow outing plays like clueless does south fork
.
entertaining enough , but nothing new
. . . one resurrection too many .
this is a film about the irksome , tiresome nature of complacency that remains u
tterly satisfied to remain the same throughout . even as the hero of the story r
ediscovers his passion in life , the mood remains oddly detached .
demeo is not without talent ; he just needs better material .
in spite of featuring a script credited to no fewer than five writers , apparent
ly nobody here bothered to check it twice .
no one involved , save dash , shows the slightest aptitude for acting , and the
script , credited to director abdul malik abbott and ernest 'tron' anderson , se
ems entirely improvised .
initially gripping , eventually cloying pow drama .
a timid , soggy near miss .
works better in the conception than it does in the execution . . . winds up seem
ing just a little too clever .
to the vast majority of more casual filmgoers , it will probably be a talky bore
.
observant intelligence constantly vies with pretension -- and sometimes plain wa
cky implausibility -- throughout maelstrom .
this version of h . g . wells' time machine was directed by h . g . wells' great
-grandson . they should have found orson welles' great-grandson .
shunji iwai's all about lily chou chou is a beautifully shot , but ultimately fl
awed film about growing up in japan .
with more character development this might have been an eerie thriller ; with be
tter payoffs , it could have been a thinking man's monster movie .
thriller directorial debut for traffic scribe gaghan has all the right parts , b
ut the pieces don't quite fit together .
. . . would be a total loss if not for two supporting performances taking place
at the movie's edges .
there's not a single jump-in-your-seat moment and believe it or not , jason actu
ally takes a backseat in his own film to special effects .
goldbacher draws on an elegant visual sense and a talent for easy , seductive pa
cing . . . but she and writing partner laurence coriat don't manage an equally a
ssured narrative coinage .
though harris is affecting at times , he cannot overcome the sense that pumpkin
is a mere plot pawn for two directors with far less endearing disabilities .
the documentary is much too conventional -- lots of boring talking heads , etc .
-- to do the subject matter justice .
the movie itself appears to be running on hypertime in reverse as the truly funn
y bits get further and further apart .
this is not a jackie chan movie . it's just a movie that happens to have jackie
chan in it . and that makes all the difference .
far too clever by half , howard's film is really a series of strung-together mom
ents , with all the spaces in between filled with fantasies , daydreams , memori
es and one fantastic visual trope after another .
the problem with movies about angels is they have a tendency to slip into hokum
. a rumor of angels doesn't just slip -- it avalanches into forced fuzziness .
no big whoop , nothing new to see , zero thrills , too many flashbacks and a cho
ppy ending make for a bad film .
i don't think this movie loves women at all .
shankman . . . and screenwriter karen janszen bungle their way through the narra
tive as if it were a series of bible parables and not an actual story .
a negligible british comedy .
fails to convince the audience that these brats will ever be anything more than
losers .
stay away . far away .
slack and uninspired , and peopled mainly by characters so unsympathetic that yo
u're left with a sour taste in your mouth .
skip this turd and pick your nose instead because you're sure to get more out of
the latter experience .
what can one say about a balding 50-year-old actor playing an innocent boy carve
d from a log ?
trailer trash cinema so uncool the only thing missing is the " gadzooks ! "
her film is like a beautiful food entre that isn't heated properly , so that it e
nds up a bit cold and relatively flavorless .
like the world of his film , hartley created a monster but didn't know how to ha
ndle it .
no new plot conceptions or environmental changes , just different bodies for sha
rp objects to rip through .
needs more impressionistic cinematography and exhilarating point-of-view shots a
nd fewer slow-motion 'grandeur' shots and quick-cut edits that often detract fro
m the athleticism .
in the end , there isn't much to it .
a waste of fearless purity in the acting craft .
the film is ultimately about as inspiring as a hallmark card .
anyone not into high-tech splatterfests is advised to take the warning literally
, and log on to something more user-friendly .
disreputable doings and exquisite trappings are dampened by a lackluster script
and substandard performances .
you could easily mistake it for a sketchy work-in-progress that was inexplicably
rushed to the megaplexes before its time .
directors harry gantz and joe gantz have chosen a fascinating subject matter , b
ut the couples exposing themselves aren't all that interesting .
yet another entry in the sentimental oh-those-wacky-brits genre that was ushered
in by the full monty and is still straining to produce another smash hit .
for those for whom the name woody allen was once a guarantee of something fresh
, sometimes funny , and usually genuinely worthwhile , hollywood ending is a dep
ressing experience
femme fatale offers nothing more than a bait-and-switch that is beyond playing f
air with the audience . are we dealing with dreams , visions or being told what
actually happened as if it were the third ending of clue ?
it could have been something special , but two things drag it down to mediocrity
 -- director clare peploe's misunderstanding of marivaux's rhythms , and mira so
rvino's limitations as a classical actress .
fluffy neo-noir hiding behind cutesy film references .
imagine susan sontag falling in love with howard stern .
like being trapped inside a huge video game , where exciting , inane images keep
popping past your head and the same illogical things keep happening over and ov
er again .
should have been worth cheering as a breakthrough but is devoid of wit and humor
.
the best thing about the movie is its personable , amusing cast .
these guys seem great to knock back a beer with but they're simply not funny per
formers .
everything was as superficial as the forced new jersey lowbrow accent uma had .
o timo esforo do diretor acaba sendo frustrado pelo roteiro , que , depois de leva
r um bom tempo para colocar a trama em andamento , perde-se de vez a partir do i
nstante em que os estranhos acontecimentos so explicados .
director david fincher and writer david koepp can't sustain it .
finally coming down off of miramax's deep shelves after a couple of aborted atte
mpts , waking up in reno makes a strong case for letting sleeping dogs lie .
a movie that feels like the pilot episode of a new teen-targeted action tv serie
s .
one of the most highly-praised disappointments i've had the misfortune to watch
in quite some time .
the animation and backdrops are lush and inventive , yet return to neverland nev
er manages to take us to that elusive , lovely place where we suspend our disbel
ief .
director shekhar kapur and screenwriters michael schiffer and hossein amini have
tried hard to modernize and reconceptualize things , but the barriers finally p
rove to be too great .
strong filmmaking requires a clear sense of purpose , and in that oh-so-importan
t category , the four feathers comes up short .
the thought of watching this film with an audience full of teenagers fixating on
its body humour and reinforcement of stereotypes ( of which they'll get plenty
) fills me with revulsion .
devolves into the derivative , leaning on badly-rendered cgi effects .
anyone who gets chills from movies with giant plot holes will find plenty to sha
ke and shiver about in 'the ring . '
a grand fart coming from a director beginning to resemble someone's crazy french
grandfather .
the script is a disaster , with cloying messages and irksome characters .
both overstuffed and undernourished . . . the film can't be called a solid succe
ss , although there's plenty of evidence here to indicate clooney might have bet
ter luck next time .
plods along , minus the twisted humor and eye-popping visuals that have made mii
ke . . . a cult hero .
hollywood has taken quite a nosedive from alfred hitchcock's imaginative flight
to shyamalan's self-important summer fluff .
the film's maudlin focus on the young woman's infirmity and her naive dreams pla
y like the worst kind of hollywood heart-string plucking .
a pretentious mess .
predictably soulless techno-tripe .
i firmly believe that a good video game movie is going to show up soon . i also
believe that resident evil is not it .
it has the air of a surprisingly juvenile lark , a pop-influenced prank whose ch
arms are immediately apparent and wear thin with repetition .
the plot meanders from gripping to plodding and back .
this is cruel , misanthropic stuff with only weak claims to surrealism and black
comedy .
no amount of nostalgia for carvey's glory days can disguise the fact that the ne
w film is a lame kiddie flick and that carvey's considerable talents are wasted
in it .
best described as i know what you did last winter .
[taylor] takes us on a ride that's consistently surprising , easy to watch -- bu
t , oh , so dumb .
it's difficult for a longtime admirer of his work to not be swept up in invincib
le and overlook its drawbacks .
lazily directed by charles stone iii . . . from a leaden script by matthew cirul
nick and novelist thulani davis .
though jones and snipes are enthralling , the movie bogs down in rhetoric and cl
ich .
the most remarkable ( and frustrating ) thing about world traveler , which opens
today in manhattan , is that its protagonist , after being an object of intense
scrutiny for 104 minutes , remains a complete blank .
an artsploitation movie with too much exploitation and too little art .
the pacing is often way off and there are too many bona fide groaners among too
few laughs .
with lines that feel like long soliloquies -- even as they are being framed in c
onversation -- max is static , stilted .
barely manages for but a few seconds over its seemingly eternal running time to
pique your interest , your imagination , your empathy or anything , really , sav
e your disgust and your indifference .
writer/director burr steers emphasizes the q in quirky , with mixed results .
one senses in world traveler and in his earlier film that freundlich bears a gri
evous but obscure complaint against fathers , and circles it obsessively , witho
ut making contact .
in between the icy stunts , the actors spout hilarious dialogue about following
your dream and 'just letting the mountain tell you what to do . '
the obligatory break-ups and hook-ups don't seem to have much emotional impact o
n the characters .
make no mistake , ivans xtc . is a mess .
hypnotically dull , relentlessly downbeat , laughably predictable wail pitched t
o the cadence of a depressed fifteen-year-old's suicidal poetry .
the concept is a hoot . the trailer is a riot . the movie is a dud .
it's a boring movie about a boring man , made watchable by a bravura performance
from a consummate actor incapable of being boring .
because the intelligence level of the characters must be low , very low , very v
ery low , for the masquerade to work , the movie contains no wit , only labored
gags .
it's hard to imagine another director ever making his wife look so bad in a majo
r movie .
some stunning visuals -- and some staggeringly boring cinema .
these characters become wearisome .
a hit- and-miss affair , consistently amusing but not as outrageous or funny as
cho may have intended or as imaginative as one might have hoped .
this may be the first cartoon ever to look as if it were being shown on the proj
ection television screen of a sports bar .
kim ki-deok seems to have in mind an ( emotionally at least ) adolescent audienc
e demanding regular shocks and bouts of barely defensible sexual violence to kee
p it interested .
a sterling film - a cross between boys don't cry , deliverance , and ode to bill
y joe - lies somewhere in the story of matthew shepard , but that film is yet to
be made .
after sitting through this sloppy , made-for-movie comedy special , it makes me
wonder if lawrence hates criticism so much that he refuses to evaluate his own w
ork .
contrived pastiche of caper clichs .
many shallower movies these days seem too long , but this one is egregiously sho
rt .
just a kiss wants desperately to come off as a fanciful film about the typical p
roblems of average people . but it is set in a world that is very , very far fro
m the one most of us inhabit .
the most ill-conceived animated comedy since the 1991 dog rover dangerfield .
like shave ice without the topping , this cinematic snow cone is as innocuous as
it is flavorless .
despite its sincere acting , signs is just another unoriginal run of the mill sc
i-fi film with a flimsy ending and lots of hype .
yet another movie which presumes that high school social groups are at war , let
alone conscious of each other's existence .
loud , chaotic and largely unfunny .
i can't remember the last time i saw an audience laugh so much during a movie ,
but there's only one problem it's supposed to be a drama .
qualities that were once amusing are becoming irritating .
well , jason's gone to manhattan and hell , i guess a space station in the year
2455 can be crossed off the list of ideas for the inevitable future sequels ( he
y , don't shoot the messenger ) .
donovan . . . squanders his main asset , jackie chan , and fumbles the vital act
ion sequences .
there is no psychology here , and no real narrative logic -- just a series of ca
refully choreographed atrocities , which become strangely impersonal and abstrac
t .
bread , my sweet has so many flaws it would be easy for critics to shred it . it
may even fall into the category of films you love to hate . i admit it , i hate
to like it .
frida is certainly no disaster , but neither is it the kahlo movie frida fans ha
ve been looking for .
leaks treacle from every pore .
the characters are so generic and the plot so bland that even as rogue cia assas
sins working for chris cooper's agency boss close in on the resourceful amnesiac
, we don't feel much for damon/bourne or his predicament .
kapur weighs down the tale with bogus profundities .
while we want macdowell's character to retrieve her husband , we have to ask whe
ther her personal odyssey trumps the carnage that claims so many lives around he
r .
blue crush is as predictable as the tides . . . . the movie feels stitched toget
her from stock situations and characters from other movies .
if you enjoy being rewarded by a script that assumes you aren't very bright , th
en blood work is for you .
trouble every day is a success in some sense , but it's hard to like a film so c
old and dead .
the film's stagecrafts are intimate and therefore bolder than the otherwise calc
ulated artifice that defines and overwhelms the film's production design .
a well-intentioned effort that's still too burdened by the actor's offbeat sensi
bilities for the earnest emotional core to emerge with any degree of accessibili
ty .
a family-friendly fantasy that ends up doing very little with its imaginative pr
emise .
a plodding look at the french revolution through the eyes of aristocrats .
tom shadyac has learned a bit more craft since directing adams , but he still li
ngers over every point until the slowest viewer grasps it .
unspools like a highbrow , low-key , 102-minute infomercial , blending entrepren
eurial zeal with the testimony of satisfied customers .
a fast-paced , glitzy but extremely silly piece .
any reasonably creative eighth-grader could have written a more credible script
, though with the same number of continuity errors .
. . . while the humor aspects of 'jason x' were far more entertaining than i ha
d expected , everything else about the film tanks .
your taste for jonah - a veggie tales movie may well depend on your threshold fo
r pop manifestations of the holy spirit .
like an afterschool special with costumes by gianni versace , mad love looks bet
ter than it feels .
while certain cues , like the happy music , suggest that this movie is supposed
to warm our hearts , jeong-hyang lee's film is just as likely to blacken that or
gan with cold vengefulness .
the script , the gags , the characters are all direct-to-video stuff , and that'
s where this film should have remained .
a thriller without thrills and a mystery devoid of urgent questions .
a collage of clichs and a dim echo of allusions to other films .
the film is hampered by its predictable plot and paper-thin supporting character
s .
arty gay film .
jonah is only so-so . . . the addition of a biblical message will either improve
the film for you , or it will lessen it .
an excruciating demonstration of the unsalvageability of a movie saddled with an
amateurish screenplay .
how many more times will indie filmmakers subject us to boring , self-important
stories of how horrible we are to ourselves and each other ?
there are some laughs in this movie , but williams' anarchy gets tiresome , the
satire is weak .
as steamy as last week's pork dumplings .
incoherence reigns .
the somber pacing and lack of dramatic fireworks make green dragon seem more lik
e medicine than entertainment .
the filmmakers needed more emphasis on the storytelling and less on the glamorou
s machine that thrusts the audience into a future they won't much care about .
another wholly unnecessary addition to the growing , moldering pile of , well ,
extreme stunt pictures .
this strenuously unfunny showtime deserves the hook .
the whole thing's fairly lame , making it par for the course for disney sequels
.
its solemn pretension prevents us from sharing the awe in which it holds itself .
. . . the good and different idea [of middle-aged romance] is not handled well
and , except for the fine star performances , there is little else to recommend
" never again . "
if disney's cinderella proved that 'a dream is a wish your heart makes , ' then
cinderella ii proves that a nightmare is a wish a studio's wallet makes .
features nonsensical and laughable plotting , wooden performances , ineptly dire
cted action sequences and some of the worst dialogue in recent memory .
with rare birds , as with the shipping news before it , an attempt is made to tr
ansplant a hollywood star into newfoundland's wild soil -- and the rock once aga
in resists the intrusion .
nothing about this movie works .
if the idea of the white man arriving on foreign shores to show wary natives the
true light is abhorrent to you , the simplistic heaven will quite likely be mor
e like hell .
a spooky yarn of demonic doings on the high seas that works better the less the
brain is engaged .
none of birthday girl's calculated events take us by surprise . . .
are monsters born , or made ?
lisa rinzler's cinematography may be lovely , but love liza's tale itself virtua
lly collapses into an inhalant blackout , maintaining consciousness just long en
ough to achieve callow pretension .
the narrator and the other characters try to convince us that acting transfigure
s esther , but she's never seen speaking on stage ; one feels cheated , and esth
er seems to remain an unchanged dullard .
it's exactly the kind of movie toback's detractors always accuse him of making .
with the dog days of august upon us , think of this dog of a movie as the cinema
tic equivalent of high humidity .
less about shakespeare than the spawn of fools who saw quentin tarantino's handf
ul of raucous gangster films and branched out into their own pseudo-witty copyca
t interpretations .
the film is like sitting in a downtown caf , overhearing a bunch of typical late-
twenty-somethings natter on about nothing , and desperately wishing you could ch
ange tables .
this rather unfocused , all-over-the-map movie would be a lot better if it pared
down its plots and characters to a few rather than dozens . . . or if it were s
ubtler . . . or if it had a sense of humor .
takes a clunky tv-movie approach to detailing a chapter in the life of the celeb
rated irish playwright , poet and drinker .
not only does the thoroughly formulaic film represent totally exemplify middle-o
f-the-road mainstream , it also represents glossy hollywood at its laziest .
a shame that stealing harvard is too busy getting in its own way to be anything
but frustrating , boring , and forgettable .
nearly every attempt at humor here is doa .
collapses under its own meager weight .
this is mild-mannered , been-there material given a pedestrian spin by a directo
r who needed a touch of the flamboyant , the outrageous .
if you adored the full monty so resoundingly that you're dying to see the same o
ld thing in a tired old setting , then this should keep you reasonably entertain
ed .
technically and artistically inept .
those who are only mildly curious , i fear , will be put to sleep or bewildered
by the artsy and often pointless visuals .
though tom shadyac's film kicks off spookily enough , around the halfway mark it
takes an abrupt turn into glucose sentimentality and laughable contrivance .
a long , dull procession of despair , set to cello music culled from a minimalis
t funeral .
call me a cold-hearted curmudgeon for not being able to enjoy a mindless action
movie , but i believe a movie can be mindless without being the peak of all thin
gs insipid .
death might be a release .
'[hopkins]doesn't so much phone in his performance as fax it . no , even that's
too committed . he gets his secretary to fax it . "
sodden and glum , even in those moments where it's supposed to feel funny and li
ght .
priggish , lethargically paced parable of renewal .
a beautifully shot but dull and ankle-deep 'epic . '
even with its $50-million us budget , pinocchio never quite achieves the feel of
a fanciful motion picture .
this is a third-person story now , told by hollywood , and much more ordinary fo
r it .
the filmmakers know how to please the eye , but it is not always the prettiest p
ictures that tell the best story .
written , flatly , by david kendall and directed , barely , by there's something
about mary co-writer ed decter .
the characters are interesting and the relationship between yosuke and saeko is
worth watching as it develops , but there's not enough to the story to fill two
hours .
very well made , but doesn't generate a lot of tension .
like being invited to a classy dinner soiree and not knowing anyone . you leave
the same way you came -- a few tasty morsels under your belt , but no new friend
s .
it's depressing to see how far herzog has fallen .
the question hanging over the time machine is not , as the main character sugges
ts , 'what if ? ' but rather , 'how can you charge money for this ? '
millions of dollars heaped upon a project of such vast proportions need to reap
more rewards than spiffy bluescreen technique and stylish weaponry .
" freaky friday , " it's not .
perhaps a better celebration of these unfairly dismissed heroes would be a film
that isn't this painfully forced , false and fabricated .
although no pastry is violated , this nasty comedy pokes fun at the same easy ta
rgets as other rowdy raunch-fests -- farts , boobs , unmentionables -- without m
uch success .
in this film , aussie david caesar channels the not-quite-dead career of guy rit
chie .
maybe you'll be lucky , and there'll be a power outage during your screening so
you can get your money back .
the characterizations and dialogue lack depth or complexity , with the ironic ex
ception of scooter .
this film was made by and for those folks who collect the serial killer cards an
d are fascinated by the mere suggestion of serial killers . for the rest of us ,
sitting through dahmer's two hours amounts to little more than punishment .
narc can only remind us of brilliant crime dramas without becoming one itself .
somewhere inside the mess that is world traveler , there is a mediocre movie try
ing to get out .
a tedious parable about honesty and good sportsmanship .
its strengths and weaknesses play off each other virtually to a stand-off , with
the unfortunate trump card being the dreary mid-section of the film .
an artful yet depressing film that makes a melodramatic mountain out of the mole
hill of a missing bike .
the movie's ultimate point -- that everyone should be themselves -- is trite , b
ut the screenwriter and director michel gondry restate it to the point of ridicu
lousness .
a glossy knock-off of a b-movie revenge flick .
. . . expands the horizons of boredom to the point of collapse , turning into a
black hole of dullness , from which no interesting concept can escape .
it's just plain boring .
sad nonsense , this . but not without cheesy fun factor .
one of those decades-spanning historical epics that strives to be intimate and s
ocially encompassing but fails to do justice to either effort in three hours of
screen time .
really dumb but occasionally really funny .
the movie wavers between hallmark card sentimentality and goofy , life-affirming
moments straight out of a cellular phone commercial .
a half-assed film .
the director's many dodges and turns add up to little more than a screenful of g
amesmanship that's low on both suspense and payoff .
while the transgressive trappings ( especially the frank sex scenes ) ensure tha
t the film is never dull , rodrigues's beast-within metaphor is ultimately rathe
r silly and overwrought , making the ambiguous ending seem goofy rather than pro
vocative .
the satire is unfocused , while the story goes nowhere .
they threw loads of money at an idea that should've been so much more even if it
was only made for teenage boys and wrestling fans .
it's mired in a shabby script that piles layer upon layer of action man clich ato
p wooden dialogue and a shifting tone that falls far short of the peculiarly mor
al amorality of [woo's] best work .
reyes' directorial debut has good things to offer , but ultimately it's undone b
y a sloppy script
if you're over 25 , have an iq over 90 , and have a driver's license , you shoul
d be able to find better entertainment .
the darker elements of misogyny and unprovoked violence suffocate the illuminati
on created by the two daughters and the sparse instances of humor meant to shine
through the gloomy film noir veil .
. . . the picture's cleverness is ironically muted by the very people who are i
ntended to make it shine .
never does " lilo & stitch " reach the emotion or timelessness of disney's great
past , or even that of more recent successes such as " mulan " or " tarzan . "
one of those so-so films that could have been much better .
crossroads feels like a teenybopper ed wood film , replete with the pubescent sc
andalous innuendo and the high-strung but flaccid drama .
fails to satisfactorily exploit its gender politics , genre thrills or inherent
humor .
interview with the assassin is structured less as a documentary and more as a fo
und relic , and as such the film has a difficult time shaking its blair witch pr
oject real-time roots .
cacoyannis' vision is far less mature , interpreting the play as a call for pity
and sympathy for anachronistic phantasms haunting the imagined glory of their o
wn pasts .
it has more in common with a fireworks display than a movie , which normally is
expected to have characters and a storyline .
it appears to have been made by people to whom the idea of narrative logic or co
hesion is an entirely foreign concept .
less a heartfelt appeal for the handicapped than a nice belgian waffle .
it's not helpful to listen to extremist name-calling , regardless of whether you
think kissinger was a calculating fiend or just a slippery self-promoter .
abandon spends 90 minutes trying figure out whether or not some cocky pseudo-int
ellectual kid has intentionally left college or was killed . the only problem is
that , by the end , no one in the audience or the film seems to really care .
no such thing is sort of a minimalist beauty and the beast , but in this case th
e beast should definitely get top billing . robert john burke as the monster hor
ns in and steals the show .
due to stodgy , soap opera-ish dialogue , the rest of the cast comes across as s
tick figures reading lines from a teleprompter .
[t]he film is never sure to make a clear point even if it seeks to rely on an am
biguous presentation .
while it may not add up to the sum of its parts , holofcener's film offers just
enough insight to keep it from being simpleminded , and the ensemble cast is eng
aging enough to keep you from shifting in your chair too often .
an overwrought taiwanese soaper about three people and their mixed-up relationsh
ip .
nobody seems to have cared much about any aspect of it , from its cheesy screenp
lay to the grayish quality of its lighting to its last-minute , haphazard theatr
ical release .
a thoroughly awful movie--dumb , narratively chaotic , visually sloppy . . . a w
eird amalgam of 'the thing' and a geriatric 'scream . '
. . . another example of how sandler is losing his touch .
nothing sticks , really , except a lingering creepiness one feels from being dra
gged through a sad , sordid universe of guns , drugs , avarice and damaged dream
s .
what goes on for the 110 minutes of " panic room " is a battle of witlessness be
tween a not-so-bright mother and daughter and an even less capable trio of crimi
nals .
the plot's contrivances are uncomfortably strained .
guilty of the worst sin of attributable to a movie like this : it's not scary in
the slightest .
schnieder bounces around with limp wrists , wearing tight tummy tops and hip hug
gers , twirling his hair on his finger and assuming that's enough to sustain lau
ghs . . .
its simplicity puts an exclamation point on the fact that this isn't something t
o be taken seriously , but it also wrecks any chance of the movie rising above s
imilar fare .
by the final whistle you're convinced that this mean machine was a decent tv out
ing that just doesn't have big screen magic .
to say that this vapid vehicle is downright doltish and uneventful is just as ob
vious as telling a country skunk that he has severe body odor .
a film of empty , fetishistic violence in which murder is casual and fun .
pretend it's a werewolf itself by avoiding eye contact and walking slowly away .
it's fun , but it's a real howler .
some fine acting , but ultimately a movie with no reason for being .
it's difficult to feel anything much while watching this movie , beyond mild dis
turbance or detached pleasure at the acting .
a waterlogged version of 'fatal attraction' for the teeny-bopper set . . . a sad
, soggy potboiler that wastes the talents of its attractive young leads .
it tells its story in a flat manner and leaves you with the impression that you
should have gotten more out of it than you did .
sweet gentle jesus , did the screenwriters just do a cut-and-paste of every bad
action-movie line in history ?
it's not the worst comedy of the year , but it certainly won't win any honors .
this is for the most part a useless movie , even with a great director at the he
lm .
a loud , witless mess that has none of the charm and little of the intrigue from
the tv series .
even on its own ludicrous terms , the sum of all fears generates little narrativ
e momentum , and invites unflattering comparisons to other installments in the r
yan series .
though it inspires some ( out-of-field ) creative thought , the film is -- to it
s own detriment -- much more a cinematic collage than a polemical tract .
as predictable as the outcome of a globetrotters-generals game , juwanna mann is
even more ludicrous than you'd expect from the guy-in-a-dress genre , and a per
sonal low for everyone involved .
sinks into the usual cafeteria goulash of fart jokes , masturbation jokes , and
racist japanese jokes .
where tom green stages his gags as assaults on america's knee-jerk moral sanctim
ony , jackass lacks aspirations of social upheaval .
more of an intriguing curiosity than a gripping thriller .
the april 2002 instalment of the american war for independence , complete with l
oads of cgi and bushels of violence , but not a drop of human blood .
contains all the substance of a twinkie -- easy to swallow , but scarcely nouris
hing .
return to neverland manages to straddle the line between another classic for the
company and just another run-of-the-mill disney sequel intended for the home vi
deo market .
rarely does a film so graceless and devoid of merit as this one come along .
it's a thin notion , repetitively stretched out to feature length , awash in sel
f-consciously flashy camera effects , droning house music and flat , flat dialog
ue .
on a certain base level , blue crush delivers what it promises , just not well e
nough to recommend it .
the colorful masseur wastes its time on mood rather than riding with the inheren
t absurdity of ganesh's rise up the social ladder .
. . . an incredibly heavy-handed , manipulative dud that feels all too familiar
.
wimps out by going for that pg-13 rating , so the more graphic violence is mostl
y off-screen and the sexuality is muted .
trapped presents a frightening and compelling 'what if ? ' scenario that will gi
ve most parents pause . . . . then , something terrible happens .
madonna has made herself over so often now , there's apparently nothing left to
work with , sort of like michael jackson's nose .
never having seen the first two films in the series , i can't compare friday aft
er next to them , but nothing would change the fact that what we have here is a
load of clams left in the broiling sun for a good three days .
the story is lacking any real emotional impact , and the plot is both contrived
and cliched .
a depraved , incoherent , instantly disposable piece of hackery .
it's a bad action movie because there's no rooting interest and the spectacle is
grotesque and boring .
[soderbergh] tends to place most of the psychological and philosophical material
in italics rather than trust an audience's intelligence , and he creates an ove
rall sense of brusqueness .
handsome and sincere but slightly awkward in its combination of entertainment an
d evangelical boosterism .
so aggressively cheery that pollyana would reach for a barf bag .
scooby-doo doesn't know if it wants to be a retro-refitting exercise in campy re
call for older fans or a silly , nickelodeon-esque kiddie flick .
russell lacks the visual panache , the comic touch , and perhaps the budget of s
ommers's title-bout features .
highly uneven and inconsistent . . . margarita happy hour kinda resembles the el
cheapo margaritas served within .
very stupid and annoying .
the sum of all fears pretends to be a serious exploration of nuclear terrorism ,
but it's really nothing more than warmed-over cold war paranoia .
a listless and desultory affair .
represents the depths to which the girls-behaving-badly film has fallen .
how inept is serving sara ? it makes even elizabeth hurley seem graceless and ug
ly .
jam-packed with literally bruising jokes . every five minutes or so , someone ge
ts clocked .
wins my vote for 'the 2002 enemy of cinema' award .
any chekhov is better than no chekhov , but it would be a shame if this was your
introduction to one of the greatest plays of the last 100 years .
helmer hudlin tries to make a hip comedy , but his dependence on slapstick defea
ts the possibility of creating a more darkly edged tome .
lazy , miserable and smug . this is one of the biggest disappointments of the ye
ar .
formula 51 has dulled your senses faster and deeper than any recreational drug o
n the market .
every visual joke is milked , every set-up obvious and lengthy , every punchline
predictable . there's no energy .
apparently writer-director attal thought he need only cast himself and his movie
-star wife sitting around in their drawers to justify a film .
after the setup , the air leaks out of the movie , flattening its momentum with
about an hour to go .
this is a poster movie , a mediocre tribute to films like them !
at three hours and with very little story or character development , there is pl
enty of room for editing , and a much shorter cut surely would have resulted in
a smoother , more focused narrative without sacrificing any of the cultural intr
igue .
a bit too derivative to stand on its own as the psychological thriller it purpor
ts to be .
a crude teen-oriented variation on a theme that the playwright craig lucas explo
red with infinitely more grace and eloquence in his prelude to a kiss .
the film's darker moments become smoothed over by an overwhelming need to tender
inspirational tidings , especially in the last few cloying moments .
if you recognize zeus ( the dog from snatch ) it will make you wish you were at
home watching that movie instead of in the theater watching this one .
abysmally pathetic
this is the kind of movie that you only need to watch for about thirty seconds b
efore you say to yourself , 'ah , yes , here we have a bad , bad , bad movie . '
shanghai ghetto should be applauded for finding a new angle on a tireless story
, but you might want to think twice before booking passage .
plays like a checklist of everything rob reiner and his cast were sending up .
there's too much forced drama in this wildly uneven movie , about a young man's
battle with his inescapable past and uncertain future in a very shapable but lar
gely unfulfilling present .
it's at once laughable and compulsively watchable , in its committed dumbness .
all the sensuality , all the eroticism of a good vampire tale has been , pardon
the pun , sucked out and replaced by goth goofiness .
a cross between blow and boyz n the hood , this movie strives to be more , but d
oesn't quite get there . good performances keep it from being a total rehash .
the screenplay is hugely overwritten , with tons and tons of dialogue -- most of
it given to children .
troll the cult section of your local video store for the real deal .
at times , the movie looks genuinely pretty . your nightmares , on the other han
d , will be anything but . not even felinni would know what to make of this ital
ian freakshow .
elmo touts his drug as being 51 times stronger than coke . if you're looking for
a tale of brits behaving badly , watch snatch again . it's 51 times better than
this .
it's difficult to conceive of anyone who has reached puberty actually finding th
e characters in slackers or their antics amusing , let alone funny .
despite its promising cast of characters , big trouble remains a loosely tied se
ries of vignettes which only prove that 'zany' doesn't necessarily mean 'funny .
'
both shrill and soporific , and because everything is repeated five or six times
, it can seem tiresomely simpleminded .
does not go far enough in its humor or stock ideas to stand out as particularly
memorable or even all that funny .
neither revelatory nor truly edgy--merely crassly flamboyant and comedically lab
ored .
just about everyone involved here seems to be coasting . there are a few modest
laughs , but certainly no thrills .
fails so fundamentally on every conventional level that it achieves some kind of
goofy grandeur .
there's a persistent theatrical sentiment and a woozy quality to the manner of t
he storytelling , which undercuts the devastatingly telling impact of utter loss
personified in the film's simple title .
while howard's appreciation of brown and his writing is clearly well-meaning and
sincere , the movie would be impossible to sit through were it not for the supp
orting cast .
a preposterous , prurient whodunit .
go , girls , right down the reality drain .
boasting some of the most poorly staged and lit action in memory , impostor is a
s close as you can get to an imitation movie .
can be classified as one of those 'alternate reality' movies . . . except that i
t would have worked so much better dealing in only one reality .
predictable and cloying , though brown sugar is so earnest in its yearning for t
he days before rap went nihilistic that it summons more spirit and bite than you
r average formulaic romantic quadrangle .
. . . unlikable , uninteresting , unfunny , and completely , utterly inept .
the film is so busy making reference to other films and trying to be other films
that it fails to have a heart , mind or humor of its own .
an imponderably stilted and self-consciously arty movie .
muddled , melodramatic paranormal romance is an all-time low for kevin costner .
too clumsy in key moments . . . to make a big splash .
just a bunch of good actors flailing around in a caper that's neither original n
or terribly funny .
`matrix'-style massacres erupt throughout . . . but the movie has a tougher time
balancing its violence with kafka-inspired philosophy .
at least it's a fairly impressive debut from the director , charles stone iii .
it all unfolds predictably , and the adventures that happen along the way seem r
epetitive and designed to fill time , providing no real sense of suspense .
wanker goths are on the loose ! run for your lives !
why would anyone cast the magnificent jackie chan in a movie full of stunt doubl
es and special effects ?
a grating , emaciated flick .
unambitious writing emerges in the movie , using a plot that could have come fro
m an animated-movie screenwriting textbook .
presents a good case while failing to provide a reason for us to care beyond the
very basic dictums of human decency .
we have poignancy jostling against farce , thoughtful dialogue elbowed aside by
one-liners , and a visual style that incorporates rotoscope animation for no app
arent reason except , maybe , that it looks neat .
. . . unbearably lame .
according to the script , grant and bullock's characters are made for each other
. but you'd never guess that from the performances .
the animation merely serves up a predictable , maudlin story that swipes heavily
from bambi and the lion king , yet lacks the emotional resonance of either of t
hose movies .
ararat feels like a book report
steve oedekerk is , alas , no woody allen .
a lot like the imaginary sport it projects onto the screen -- loud , violent and
mindless .
an amalgam of the fugitive , blade runner , and total recall , only without much
energy or tension .
the acting is amateurish , the cinematography is atrocious , the direction is cl
umsy , the writing is insipid and the violence is at once luridly graphic and la
ughably unconvincing .
shows that jackie chan is getting older , and that's something i would rather li
ve in denial about
with miscast leads , banal dialogue and an absurdly overblown climax , killing m
e softly belongs firmly in the so-bad-it's-good camp .
alas , the black-and-white archival footage of their act showcases pretty medioc
re shtick .
the slapstick is labored , and the bigger setpieces flat .
this is the kind of movie where people who have never picked a lock do so easily
after a few tries and become expert fighters after a few weeks .
the problem with the mayhem in formula 51 is not that it's offensive , but that
it's boring .
much of the digitally altered footage appears jagged , as if filmed directly fro
m a television monitor , while the extensive use of stock footage quickly become
s a tiresome clich .
the film never rises above a conventional , two dimension tale
mark wahlberg . . . may look classy in a '60s-homage pokepie hat , but as a char
acter he's dry , dry , dry .
told in scattered fashion , the movie only intermittently lives up to the storie
s and faces and music of the men who are its subject .
the irony is that this film's cast is uniformly superb ; their performances coul
d have -- should have -- been allowed to stand on their own .
now i can see why people thought i was too hard on " the mothman prophecies " .
if ever a concept came handed down from the movie gods on a silver platter , thi
s is it . if ever such a dependable concept was botched in execution , this is i
t .
with an unusual protagonist ( a kilt-wearing jackson ) and subject matter , the
improbable " formula 51 " is somewhat entertaining , but it could have been much
stronger .
sandra bullock's best dramatic performance to date ( is ) almost enough to lift
( this ) thrill-kill cat-and-mouser . . . above its paint-by-numbers plot .
a feel-good movie that doesn't give you enough to feel good about .
adolescents will be adequately served by the movie's sophomoric blend of shenani
gans and slapstick , although the more lascivious-minded might be disappointed i
n the relative modesty of a movie that sports a 'topless tutorial service . '
this mistaken-identity picture is so film-culture referential that the final pro
duct is a ghost .
the picture emerges as a surprisingly anemic disappointment .
de niro cries . you'll cry for your money back .
slap me , i saw this movie .
[the kid's] just too bratty for sympathy , and as the film grows to its finale ,
 his little changes ring hollow .
behind the glitz , hollywood is sordid and disgusting . quelle surprise !
scherfig , who has had a successful career in tv , tackles more than she can han
dle .
just consider what new best friend does not have , beginning with the minor omis
sion of a screenplay .
oscar caliber cast doesn't live up to material
the problems of the people in love in the time of money are hardly specific to t
heir era . they just have problems , which are neither original nor are presente
d in convincing way .
carrying this wafer-thin movie on his nimble shoulders , chan wades through putr
id writing , direction and timing with a smile that says , 'if i stay positive ,
maybe i can channel one of my greatest pictures , drunken master . '
so putrid it is not worth the price of the match that should be used to burn eve
ry print of the film .
in the end , the movie bogs down in insignificance , saying nothing about kenned
y's assassination and revealing nothing about the pathology it pretends to inves
tigate .
starts out ballsy and stylish but fails to keep it up and settles into clichs .
sometimes makes less sense than the bruckheimeresque american action flicks it e
mulates .
one of those films where the characters inhabit that special annex of hell where
adults behave like kids , children behave like adults and everyone screams at t
he top of their lungs no matter what the situation .
there's only one way to kill michael myers for good : stop buying tickets to the
se movies .
bland but harmless .
'rare birds' tries to force its quirkiness upon the audience .
the movie is about as humorous as watching your favorite pet get buried alive .
resident evil is what comes from taking john carpenter's ghosts of mars and elim
inating the beheadings . in other words , about as bad a film you're likely to s
ee all year .
five screenwriters are credited with the clich-laden screenplay ; it seems as if
each watered down the version of the one before .
the whole thing comes off like a particularly amateurish episode of bewitched th
at takes place during spring break .
well made but uninvolving , bloodwork isn't a terrible movie , just a stultifyin
gly obvious one -- an unrewarding collar for a murder mystery .
so we got ten little indians meets friday the 13th by way of clean and sober , f
ilmed on the set of carpenter's the thing and loaded with actors you're most lik
ely to find on the next inevitable incarnation of the love boat .
the movie's blatant derivativeness is one reason it's so lackluster .
la de salma es una versin de frida superficial , preciosista y sin ningn contenido
.
kids don't mind crappy movies as much as adults , provided there's lots of cute
animals and clumsy people . 'snow dogs' has both .
it's almost as if it's an elaborate dare more than a full-blooded film .
wobbly senegalese updating of " carmen " which is best for the stunning star tur
n by djeinaba diop gai
it's the humanizing stuff that will probably sink the film for anyone who doesn'
t think about percentages all day long .
ken russell would love this . in one scene , we get a stab at soccer hooliganism
, a double-barreled rip-off of quentin tarantino's climactic shootout and meat
loaf explodes .
bella is the picture of health with boundless energy until a few days before she
dies . this is absolutely and completely ridiculous and an insult to every fami
ly whose mother has suffered through the horrible pains of a death by cancer .
the premise of " abandon " holds promise , . . . but its delivery is a complete
mess .
what could have been a pointed little chiller about the frightening seductivenes
s of new technology loses faith in its own viability and succumbs to joyless spe
cial-effects excess .
a little too ponderous to work as shallow entertainment , not remotely incisive
enough to qualify as drama , monsoon wedding serves mostly to whet one's appetit
e for the bollywood films .
unless bob crane is someone of particular interest to you , this film's impressi
ve performances and adept direction aren't likely to leave a lasting impression
.
the rock has a great presence but one battle after another is not the same as on
e battle followed by killer cgi effects .
the bottom line with nemesis is the same as it has been with all the films in th
e series : fans will undoubtedly enjoy it , and the uncommitted needn't waste th
eir time on it .
the lousy john q all but spits out denzel washington's fine performance in the t
itle role .
the whole thing feels like a ruse , a tactic to cover up the fact that the pictu
re is constructed around a core of flimsy -- or , worse yet , nonexistent -- ide
as .
what a stiflingly unfunny and unoriginal mess this is !
the film is so packed with subplots involving the various silbersteins that it f
eels more like the pilot episode of a tv series than a feature film .
opera on film is never satisfactory . the art demands live viewing . the innate
theatrics that provide its thrills and extreme emotions lose their luster when f
lattened onscreen .
despite all the closed-door hanky-panky , the film is essentially juiceless .
it is parochial , accessible to a chosen few , standoffish to everyone else , an
d smugly suggests a superior moral tone is more important than filmmaking skill
the sweetest thing leaves an awful sour taste .
it's lost the politics and the social observation and become just another situat
ion romance about a couple of saps stuck in an inarticulate screenplay .
terminally bland , painfully slow and needlessly confusing . . . the movie , sho
t on digital videotape rather than film , is frequently indecipherable .
as dumb and cheesy as they may be , the cartoons look almost shakespearean -- bo
th in depth and breadth -- after watching this digital-effects-heavy , supposed
family-friendly comedy .
aloof and lacks any real raw emotion , which is fatal for a film that relies on
personal relationships .
a low-rent retread of the alien pictures .
serviceable at best , slightly less than serviceable at worst .
its initial excitement settles into a warmed over pastiche .
a big meal of cliches that the talented cast generally chokes on .
the story has little wit and no surprises .
the merchant-ivory team continues to systematically destroy everything we hold d
ear about cinema , only now it's begun to split up so that it can do even more d
amage .
what should have been a cutting hollywood satire is instead about as fresh as la
st week's issue of variety .
hey everybody , wanna watch a movie in which a guy dressed as a children's party
clown gets violently gang-raped ? i didn't think so .
a little more intensity and a little less charm would have saved this film a wor
ld of hurt .
dense and enigmatic . . . elusive . . . stagy and stilted
[t]his slop doesn't even have potential as a cult film , as it's too loud to sho
ut insults at the screen .
the movie's plot is almost entirely witless and inane , carrying every gag two o
r three times beyond its limit to sustain a laugh .
. . . may work as an addictive guilty pleasure but the material never overcomes
its questionable satirical ambivalence . this scarlet's letter is a . . . as in
aimless , arduous , and arbitrary .
plays like a glossy melodrama that occasionally verges on camp .
the central character isn't complex enough to hold our interest .
a modestly comic , modestly action-oriented world war ii adventure that , in ter
ms of authenticity , is one of those films that requires the enemy to never shoo
t straight .
a puppy dog so desperate for attention it nearly breaks its little neck trying t
o perform entertaining tricks .
just about all of the film is confusing on one level or another , making ararat
far more demanding than it needs to be .
a little less extreme than in the past , with longer exposition sequences betwee
n them , and with fewer gags to break the tedium .
there's a heavy stench of 'been there , done that' hanging over the film . it's
everything you'd expect -- but nothing more .
the biggest problem with satin rouge is lilia herself . she's a cipher , played
by an actress who smiles and frowns but doesn't reveal an inner life .
a quaint , romanticized rendering .
what with the incessant lounge music playing in the film's background , you may
mistake love liza for an adam sandler chanukah song .
the movie's heavy-handed screenplay navigates a fast fade into pomposity and pre
tentiousness .
a potentially good comic premise and excellent cast are terribly wasted .
woody allen used to ridicule movies like hollywood ending . now he makes them .
she's not yet an actress , not quite a singer . . .
not a bad premise , but the execution is lackluster at best .
been there done that .
there is only so much baked cardboard i need to chew .
a movie like the guys is why film criticism can be considered work .
schnitzler's film has a great hook , some clever bits and well-drawn , if standa
rd issue , characters , but is still only partly satisfying .
even if it made its original release date last fall , it would've reeked of a be
en-there , done-that sameness .
only two-fifths of a satisfying movie experience .
a loud , ugly , irritating movie without any of its satirical salvos hitting a d
iscernible target .
[l]ame and unnecessary .
a movie version of a paint-by-numbers picture . we can tell what it is supposed
to be , but can't really call it a work of art .
it's a brilliant , honest performance by nicholson , but the film is an agonizin
g bore except when the fantastic kathy bates turns up . bravado kathy !
. . . liotta is put in an impossible spot because his character's deceptions ul
timately undo him and the believability of the entire scenario . too bad .
you can thank me for this . i saw juwanna mann so you don't have to .
unfunny and lacking any sense of commitment to or affection for its characters ,
the reginald hudlin comedy relies on toilet humor , ethnic slurs .
basically , it's pretty but dumb .
this romantic/comedy asks the question how much souvlaki can you take before ind
igestion sets in .
squandering his opportunity to make absurdist observations , burns gets caught u
p in the rush of slapstick thoroughfare .
there's a neat twist , subtly rendered , that could have wrapped things up at 80
minutes , but kang tacks on three or four more endings .
reeboir varies between a sweet smile and an angry bark , while said attempts to
wear down possible pupils through repetition . it has no affect on the kurds , b
ut it wore me down .
the actors improvise and scream their way around this movie directionless , lack
ing any of the rollicking dark humor so necessary to make this kind of idea work
on screen .
co-writer/director jonathan parker's attempts to fashion a brazil-like , hyper-r
eal satire fall dreadfully short .
if this silly little cartoon can inspire a few kids not to grow up to be greedy
bastards , more power to it .
a superfluous sequel . . . plagued by that old familiar feeling of 'let's get th
is thing over with' : everyone has shown up at the appointed time and place , bu
t visible enthusiasm is mighty hard to find .
if there's a heaven for bad movies , deuces wild is on its way .
comes off like a bad imitation of the bard .
what's missing in murder by numbers is any real psychological grounding for the
teens' deviant behaviour . being latently gay and liking to read are hardly enou
gh .
an uninspired preachy and clichd war film .
horrendously amateurish filmmaking that is plainly dull and visually ugly when i
t isn't incomprehensible .
a movie that harps on media-constructed 'issues' like whether compromise is the
death of self this orgasm [won't be an] exceedingly memorable one for most people
.
slackers' jokey approach to college education is disappointingly simplistic -- t
he film's biggest problem -- and there are no unforgettably stupid stunts or upr
oariously rude lines of dialogue to remember it by .
if festival in cannes nails hard- boiled hollywood argot with a bracingly nasty
accuracy , much about the film , including some of its casting , is frustratingl
y unconvincing .
the movie is too impressed with its own solemn insights to work up much entertai
nment value .
i haven't seen such self-amused trash since freddy got fingered .
little more than a well-mounted history lesson .
rob schneider's infantile cross-dressing routines fill the hot chick , the lates
t gimmick from this unimaginative comedian .
a horrible , 99-minute stink bomb .
the film is weighed down by supporting characters who are either too goodly , wi
se and knowing or downright comically evil .
her fans walked out muttering words like " horrible " and " terrible , " but had
so much fun dissing the film that they didn't mind the ticket cost . in this ca
se zero .
the film is so bad it doesn't improve upon the experience of staring at a blank
screen .
sheridan's take on the author's schoolboy memoir . . . is a rather toothless tak
e on a hard young life .
it jumps around with little logic or continuity , presenting backstage bytes of
information that never amount to a satisfying complete picture of this particula
r , anciently demanding mtier .
how i killed my father is one of those art house films that makes you feel like
you're watching an iceberg melt -- only it never melts .
when it comes to the battle of hollywood vs . woo , it looks like woo's a p . o
. w .
there are a few chuckles , but not a single gag sequence that really scores , an
d the stars seem to be in two different movies .
the chateau has one very funny joke and a few other decent ones , but all it amo
unts to is a mildly funny , sometimes tedious , ultimately insignificant film .
it's dull , spiritless , silly and monotonous : an ultra-loud blast of pointless
mayhem , going nowhere fast .
the mushy finale turns john q into a movie-of-the-week tearjerker .
content merely to lionize its title character and exploit his anger - all for ea
sy sanctimony , formulaic thrills and a ham-fisted sermon on the need for nation
al health insurance .
the movie turns out to be [assayas'] homage to the gallic 'tradition of quality
, ' in all its fusty squareness .
its message has merit and , in the hands of a brutally honest individual like pr
ophet jack , might have made a point or two regarding life .
[seems] even more uselessly redundant and shamelessly money-grubbing than most t
hird-rate horror sequels .
it's hard to imagine that even very small children will be impressed by this tir
ed retread .
neither as scary-funny as tremors nor demented-funny as starship troopers , the
movie isn't tough to take as long as you've paid a matinee price .
if swimfan does catch on , it may be because teens are looking for something to
make them laugh .
what might've been an exhilarating exploration of an odd love triangle becomes a
sprawl of uncoordinated vectors .
the master of disguise may have made a great saturday night live sketch , but a
great movie it is not .
it's quite an achievement to set and shoot a movie at the cannes film festival a
nd yet fail to capture its visual appeal or its atmosphere .
boll uses a lot of quick cutting and blurry step-printing to goose things up , b
ut dopey dialogue and sometimes inadequate performances kill the effect .
it's always disappointing when a documentary fails to live up to -- or offer any
new insight into -- its chosen topic . unfortunately , that's precisely what ar
thur dong's family fundamentals does .
has the marks of a septuagenarian ; it's a crusty treatment of a clever gimmick
.
like a medium-grade network sitcom--mostly inoffensive , fitfully amusing , but
ultimately so weightless that a decent draft in the auditorium might blow it off
the screen .
something must have been lost in the translation .
becomes the last thing you would expect from a film with this title or indeed fr
om any plympton film : boring .
in the end , the film feels homogenized and a bit contrived , as if we're lookin
g back at a tattered and ugly past with rose-tinted glasses .
chan's stunts are limited and so embellished by editing that there's really not
much of a sense of action or even action-comedy .
rock's stand-up magic wanes . hopkins , squarely fills the screen . action - mec
hanical .
" the tuxedo " should have been the vehicle for chan that " the mask " was for
jim carrey . alas , it's the man that makes the clothes .
for casual moviegoers who stumble into rules expecting a slice of american pie h
ijinks starring the kid from dawson's creek , they'll probably run out screaming
.
the biggest problem i have ( other than the very sluggish pace ) is we never rea
lly see her esther blossom as an actress , even though her talent is supposed to
be growing .
what puzzles me is the lack of emphasis on music in britney spears' first movie
.
plot , characters , drama , emotions , ideas -- all are irrelevant to the experi
ence of seeing the scorpion king .
city by the sea is a gritty police thriller with all the dysfunctional family dy
namics one could wish for . but how it washed out despite all of that is the pro
ject's prime mystery .
whatever the movie's sentimental , hypocritical lessons about sexism , its true
colors come out in various wet t-shirt and shower scenes .
as a hybrid teen thriller and murder mystery , murder by numbers fits the profil
e too closely .
there ain't a lot more painful than an unfunny movie that thinks it's hilarious
.
i enjoyed the movie in a superficial way , while never sure what its purpose was
.
what a pity . . . that the material is so second-rate .
doesn't deliver a great story , nor is the action as gripping as in past seagal
films .
the kind of film that leaves you scratching your head in amazement over the fact
that so many talented people could participate in such an ill-advised and poorl
y executed idea .
nicks refuses to let slackers be seen as just another teen movie , which means h
e can be forgiven for frequently pandering to fans of the gross-out comedy .
nothing about the film -- with the possible exception of elizabeth hurley's brea
sts -- is authentic .
amid the clich and foreshadowing , cage manages a degree of casual realism . . .
that is routinely dynamited by blethyn .
mostly , shafer and co-writer gregory hinton lack a strong-minded viewpoint , or
a sense of humor .
no cliche escapes the perfervid treatment of gang warfare called ces wild .
eddie murphy and owen wilson have a cute partnership in i spy , but the movie ar
ound them is so often nearly nothing that their charm doesn't do a load of good
.
strictly a 'guy's film' in the worst sense of the expression .
there's some good material in their story about a retail clerk wanting more out
of life , but the movie too often spins its wheels with familiar situations and
repetitive scenes .
it's a lot to ask people to sit still for two hours and change watching such a c
haracter , especially when rendered in as flat and impassive a manner as phoenix
's .
there's something fishy about a seasonal holiday kids' movie . . . that derives
its moment of most convincing emotional gravity from a scene where santa gives g
ifts to grownups .
we're left with a story that tries to grab us , only to keep letting go at all t
he wrong moments .
like many such biographical melodramas , it suffers from the awkwardness that re
sults from adhering to the messiness of true stories .
there is nothing redeeming about this movie .
the film has [its] moments , but they are few and far between .
a dreary indulgence .
i was trying to decide what annoyed me most about god is great . . . i'm not , a
nd then i realized that i just didn't care .
derailed by bad writing and possibly also by some of that extensive post-product
ion reworking to aim the film at young males in the throes of their first full f
lush of testosterone .
deserves high marks for political courage but barely gets by on its artistic mer
its .
. . . comes alive only when it switches gears to the sentimental .
brosnan's finest non-bondish performance yet fails to overcome the film's manipu
lative sentimentality and annoying stereotypes .
a film that will be best appreciated by those willing to endure its extremely la
nguorous rhythms , waiting for happiness is ultimately thoughtful without having
much dramatic impact .
to me , it sounds like a cruel deception carried out by men of marginal intellig
ence , with reactionary ideas about women and a total lack of empathy .
tsai may be ploughing the same furrow once too often .
flashy gadgets and whirling fight sequences may look cool , but they can't distr
act from the flawed support structure holding equilibrium up .
zigzag might have been richer and more observant if it were less densely plotted
.
[a] crushing disappointment .
how can such a cold movie claim to express warmth and longing ? in truth , it ha
s all the heart of a porno flick ( but none of the sheer lust ) .
nicks and steinberg match their own creations for pure venality -- that's giving
it the old college try .
episode ii-- attack of the clones is a technological exercise that lacks juice a
nd delight .
the problem with all of this : it's not really funny .
[denis'] bare-bones narrative more closely resembles an outline for a '70s explo
itation picture than the finished product .
wanders all over the map thematically and stylistically , and borrows heavily fr
om lynch , jeunet , and von trier while failing to find a spark of its own .
viewing this underdramatized but overstated film is like watching a transcript o
f a therapy session brought to humdrum life by some freudian puppet .
overall tomfoolery like this is a matter of taste .
the mantra behind the project seems to have been 'it's just a kids' flick . ' tr
anslation : 'we don't need to try very hard . '
in all the annals of the movies , few films have been this odd , inexplicable an
d unpleasant .
it takes a really long , slow and dreary time to dope out what tuck everlasting
is about . so here it is : it's about a family of sour immortals .
an essentially awkward version of the lightweight female empowerment picture we'
ve been watching for decades
the author's devotees will probably find it fascinating ; others may find it baf
fling .
writer-director walter hill and co-writer david giler try to create characters o
ut of the obvious cliches , but wind up using them as punching bags .
there's a scientific law to be discerned here that producers would be well to he
ed : mediocre movies start to drag as soon as the action speeds up ; when the ex
plosions start , they fall to pieces .
a cockeyed shot all the way .
lush and beautifully photographed ( somebody suggested the stills might make a n
ice coffee table book ) , but ultimately you'll leave the theater wondering why
these people mattered .
unfortunately , one hour photo lives down to its title . thanks largely to willi
ams , all the interesting developments are processed in 60 minutes -- the rest i
s just an overexposed waste of film .
cold , sterile and lacking any color or warmth .
the film is undone by anachronistic quick edits and occasional jarring glimpses
of a modern theater audience watching the events unfold .
seems like someone going through the motions .
for a film about explosions and death and spies , " ballistic : ecks vs . sever
" seems as safe as a children's film . well , in some of those , the mother deer
even dies .
wallace gets a bit heavy handed with his message at times , and has a visual fla
ir that waxes poetic far too much for our taste .
impostor doesn't do much with its template , despite a remarkably strong cast .
wraps itself in the guise of a dark and quirky comedy , but it isn't as quirky a
s it thinks it is and its comedy is generally mean-spirited .
choppy , overlong documentary about 'the lifestyle . '
one sloughs one's way through the mire of this alleged psychological thriller in
search of purpose or even a plot .
a film which presses familiar herzog tropes into the service of a limpid and con
ventional historical fiction , when really what we demand of the director is to
be mesmerised .
it's a fanboy 'what if ? ' brought to life on the big screen .
the story itself is actually quite vapid .
it's a hellish , numbing experience to watch , and it doesn't offer any insights
that haven't been thoroughly debated in the media already , back in the dahmer
heyday of the mid-'90s .
wait for pay per view or rental but don't dismiss barbershop out of hand .
a few zingers aside , the writing is indifferent , and jordan brady's direction
is prosaic .
each scene drags , underscoring the obvious , and sentiment is slathered on top
.
would've been nice if the screenwriters had trusted audiences to understand a co
mplex story , and left off the film's predictable denouement . then nadia's birt
hday might not have been such a bad day after all .
one of those staggeringly well-produced , joylessly extravagant pictures that ke
ep whooshing you from one visual marvel to the next , hastily , emptily .
nair just doesn't have the necessary self-control to guide a loose , poorly stru
ctured film through the pitfalls of incoherence and redundancy .
enthusiastically taking up the current teen movie concern with bodily functions
, walt becker's film pushes all the demographically appropriate comic buttons .
it's the funniest american comedy since graffiti bridge .
that neither protagonist has a distinguishable condition hardly matters because
both are just actory concoctions , defined by childlike dimness and a handful of
quirks .
what starts off as a possible argentine american beauty reeks like a room stacke
d with pungent flowers .
the project's filmmakers forgot to include anything even halfway scary as they p
oorly rejigger fatal attraction into a high school setting .
in old-fashioned screenwriting parlance , ms . shreve's novel proved too difficu
lt a text to 'lick , ' despite the efforts of a first-rate cast .
solondz may well be the only one laughing at his own joke
stitch is a bad mannered , ugly and destructive little * * * * . no cute factor
here . not that i mind ugly ; the problem is he has no character , loveable or ot
herwise .
deep down , i realized the harsh reality of my situation : i would leave the the
ater with a lower i . q . than when i had entered .
a really funny fifteen-minute short stretched beyond its limits to fill an almos
t feature-length film .
aside from the fact that the film idiotically uses the website feardotcom . com
or the improperly hammy performance from poor stephen rea , the film gets added
disdain for the fact that it is nearly impossible to look at or understand .
it is bad , but certainly not without merit as entertainment .
for its 100 minutes running time , you'll wait in vain for a movie to happen .
a work that lacks both a purpose and a strong pulse .
a faster paced family flick . upper teens may get cynical . smaller numbered kid
lets will enjoy .
while this film has an 'a' list cast and some strong supporting players , the ta
le -- like its central figure , vivi -- is just a little bit hard to love .
it's a road-trip drama with too many wrong turns .
most fish stories are a little peculiar , but this is one that should be thrown
back in the river .
it's all gratuitous before long , as if schwentke were fulfilling a gross-out qu
ota for an anticipated audience demographic instead of shaping the material to f
it the story .
" i blame all men for war , " [the warden's daughter] tells her father . the mo
vie is about as deep as that sentiment .
it's fitfully funny but never really takes off .
i've seen some bad singer-turned actors , but lil bow wow takes the cake .
by halfway through this picture i was beginning to hate it , and , of course , f
eeling guilty for it . . . . then , miracle of miracles , the movie does a flip-
flop .
for all the complications , it's all surprisingly predictable .
it's been 20 years since 48 hrs . made eddie murphy a movie star and the man has
n't aged a day . but his showboating wise-cracker stock persona sure is getting
old .
if deuces wild had been tweaked up a notch it would have become a camp adventure
, one of those movies that's so bad it starts to become good . but it wasn't .
for a film about action , ultimate x is the gabbiest giant-screen movie ever , b
ogging down in a barrage of hype .
. . . a low rate annie featuring some kid who can't act , only echoes of jordan
, and weirdo actor crispin glover screwing things up old school .
it might not be 1970s animation , but everything else about it is straight from
the saturday morning cartoons a retread story , bad writing , and the same old s
illiness .
the picture seems uncertain whether it wants to be an acidic all-male all about
eve or a lush , swooning melodrama in the intermezzo strain .
tends to plod .
a nearly 21/2 hours , the film is way too indulgent .
gorgeous to look at but insufferably tedious and turgid . . . a curiously constr
icted epic .
it looks much more like a cartoon in the end than the simpsons ever has .
with a tighter editorial process and firmer direction this material could work ,
especially since the actresses in the lead roles are all more than competent ,
but as is , personal velocity seems to be idling in neutral .
doesn't really add up to much .
it's better suited for the history or biography channel , but there's no arguing
the tone of the movie - it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and questions on yo
ur mind .
an entertainment so in love with its overinflated mythology that it no longer re
cognizes the needs of moviegoers for real characters and compelling plots .
a prolonged extrusion of psychopathic pulp .
borrows from other movies like it in the most ordinary and obvious fashion .
it's surprisingly bland despite the heavy doses of weird performances and direct
ion .
a chilly , remote , emotionally distant piece . . . so dull that its tagline sho
uld be : 'in space , no one can hear you snore . '
the characters seem one-dimensional , and the film is superficial and will proba
bly be of interest primarily to its target audience .
sorvino makes the princess seem smug and cartoonish , and the film only really c
omes alive when poor hermocrates and leontine pathetically compare notes about t
heir budding amours .
it's like a drive-by . you can drive right by it without noticing anything speci
al , save for a few comic turns , intended and otherwise .
everything -- even life on an aircraft carrier -- is sentimentalized .
this would-be 'james bond for the extreme generation' pic is one big , dumb acti
on movie . stress 'dumb . '
the movie has generic virtues , and despite a lot of involved talent , seems don
e by the numbers .
when your subject is illusion versus reality , shouldn't the reality seem at lea
st passably real ?
it's a terrible movie in every regard , and utterly painful to watch .
this is rote spookiness , with nary an original idea ( or role , or edit , or sc
ore , or anything , really ) in sight , and the whole of the proceedings beg the
question 'why ? '
a fan film that for the uninitiated plays better on video with the sound turned
down .
too infuriatingly quirky and taken with its own style .
there's a whole heap of nothing at the core of this slight coming-of-age/coming-
out tale .
as much as i laughed throughout the movie , i cannot mount a cogent defense of t
he film as entertainment , or even performance art , although the movie does lea
ve you marveling at these guys' superhuman capacity to withstand pain .
the type of dumbed-down exercise in stereotypes that gives the [teen comedy] gen
re a bad name .
distinctly sub-par . . . more likely to drown a viewer in boredom than to send a
ny shivers down his spine .
plays like a bad blend of an overripe episode of tv's dawson's creek and a recyc
led and dumbed-down version of love story .
unless you come in to the film with a skateboard under your arm , you're going t
o feel like you weren't invited to the party .
when the casting call for this movie went out , it must have read 'seeking anyon
e with acting ambition but no sense of pride or shame . '
just isn't as weird as it ought to be .
a " home alone " film that is staged like " rosemary's baby , " but is not as we
ll-conceived as either of those films .
[siegel] and co-writers lisa bazadona and grace woodard have relied too much on
convention in creating the characters who surround frankie .
no film could possibly be more contemptuous of the single female population .
`hey arnold ! ' has some visual wit . . . but little imagination elsewhere .
they're going through the motions , but the zip is gone .
a sluggish pace and lack of genuine narrative hem the movie in every bit as much
as life hems in the spirits of these young women .
a low-budget affair , tadpole was shot on digital video , and the images often l
ook smeary and blurry , to the point of distraction . then again , in a better m
ovie , you might not have noticed .
it's mindless junk like this that makes you appreciate original romantic comedie
s like punch-drunk love .
the movie is like a year late for tapping into our reality tv obsession , and ev
en tardier for exploiting the novelty of the " webcast . "
tale will be all too familiar for anyone who's seen george roy hill's 1973 film
, " the sting . "
gets the look and the period trappings right , but it otherwise drowns in a sea
of visual and verbal clichs .
it's hard to quibble with a flick boasting this many genuine cackles , but notor
ious c . h . o . still feels like a promising work-in-progress .
anyone who wants to start writing screenplays can just follow the same blueprint
from hundreds of other films , sell it to the highest bidder and walk away with
out anyone truly knowing your identity .
a major waste . . . generic .
the problem with the bread , my sweet is that it's far too sentimental .
a late-night cable sexploitation romp masquerading as a thriller about the ruthl
ess social order that governs college cliques .
falls short in explaining the music and its roots .
never inspires more than an interested detachment .
what might have emerged as hilarious lunacy in the hands of woody allen or mel b
rooks ( at least during their '70s heyday ) comes across as lame and sophomoric
in this debut indie feature .
despite slick production values and director roger michell's tick-tock pacing ,
the final effect is like having two guys yelling in your face for two hours .
pretty much sucks , but has a funny moment or two .
they do a good job of painting this family dynamic for the audience but they tri
ed to squeeze too many elements into the film .
a supernatural mystery that doesn't know whether it wants to be a suspenseful ho
rror movie or a weepy melodrama . it ends up being neither , and fails at both e
ndeavors .
two badly interlocked stories drowned by all too clever complexity .
it is so earnest , so overwrought and so wildly implausible that it begs to be p
arodied .
these are textbook lives of quiet desperation .
swimfan , like fatal attraction , eventually goes overboard with a loony melodra
matic denouement in which a high school swimming pool substitutes for a bathtub
.
claims to sort the bad guys from the good , which is its essential problem .
purposefully shocking in its eroticized gore , if unintentionally dull in its la
ck of poetic frissons .
feels like pieces a bunch of other , better movies slapped together .
almost everything about the film is unsettling , from the preposterous hairpiece
worn by lai's villainous father to the endless action sequences .
writer-director randall wallace has bitten off more than he or anyone else could
chew , and his movie veers like a drunken driver through heavy traffic .
it follows the blair witch formula for an hour , in which we're told something c
reepy and vague is in the works , and then it goes awry in the final 30 minutes
.
one can't shake the feeling that crossroads is nothing more than an hour-and-a-h
alf-long commercial for britney's latest album .
phoned-in business as usual .
there's an epic here , but you have to put it together yourself .
what little atmosphere is generated by the shadowy lighting , macabre sets , and
 endless rain is offset by the sheer ugliness of everything else .
director-chef gabriele muccino keeps it fast -- zippy , comin' at ya -- as if fe
aring that his film is molto superficiale .
tartakovsky's team has some freakish powers of visual charm , but the five write
rs slip into the modern rut of narrative banality .
the most horrific movie experience i've had since " can't stop the music . " it
may as well be called " jar-jar binks : the movie . " it's that painful .
god is great , the movie's not .
like a three-ring circus , there are side stories aplenty -- none of them memora
ble .
when in doubt , the film ratchets up the stirring soundtrack , throws in a fish-
out-of-water gag and lets the cliched dialogue rip . or else a doggie winks .
a 'girls gone wild' video for the boho art-house crowd , the burning sensation i
sn't a definitive counter-cultural document -- its makers aren't removed and inq
uisitive enough for that .
as original and insightful as last week's episode of behind the music .
plays like john le carr with a couple of burnt-out cylinders .
you may be galled that you've wasted nearly two hours of your own precious life
with this silly little puddle of a movie .
it's neither as sappy as big daddy nor as anarchic as happy gilmore or the water
boy , but it has its moments .
despite the surface attractions -- conrad l . hall's cinematography will likely
be nominated for an oscar next year -- there's something impressive and yet lack
ing about everything .
a smug and convoluted action-comedy that doesn't allow an earnest moment to pass
without reminding audiences that it's only a movie .
[crystal and de niro] manage to squeeze out some good laughs but not enough to m
ake this silly con job sing .
worthless , from its pseudo-rock-video opening to the idiocy of its last frames
.
the christ allegory doesn't work because there is no foundation for it
go for la salle's performance , and make do as best you can with a stuttering sc
ript .
it's hard to care about a film that proposes as epic tragedy the plight of a cal
low rich boy who is forced to choose between his beautiful , self-satisfied 22-y
ear-old girlfriend and an equally beautiful , self-satisfied 18-year-old mistres
s .
tries too hard to be funny in a way that's too loud , too goofy and too short of
an attention span .
i didn't find much fascination in the swinging . what they're doing is a matter
of plumbing arrangements and mind games , of no erotic or sensuous charge . but
that they are doing it is thought-provoking .
the acting is just fine , but there's not enough substance here to sustain inter
est for the full 90 minutes , especially with the weak payoff .
after collateral damage , you might imagine that most every aggrieved father cli
ch has been unturned . but no .
ultimately the , yes , snail-like pacing and lack of thematic resonance make the
film more silly than scary , like some sort of martha stewart decorating progra
m run amok .
releasing a film with the word 'dog' in its title in january lends itself to eas
y jokes and insults , and snow dogs deserves every single one of them .
tedious norwegian offering which somehow snagged an oscar nomination .
it was a dark and stormy night . . .
a dark-as-pitch comedy that frequently veers into corny sentimentality , probabl
y would not improve much after a therapeutic zap of shock treatment .
this sort of cute and cloying material is far from zhang's forte and it shows .
bray is completely at sea ; with nothing but a savage garden music video on his
resume , he has no clue about making a movie .
freundlich's made [crudup] a suburban architect , and a cipher .
a huge disappointment coming , as it does , from filmmakers and performers of th
is calibre
though it pretends to expose the life of male hustlers , it's exploitive without
being insightful .
aimed squarely at the least demanding of demographic groups : very small childre
n who will be delighted simply to spend more time with familiar cartoon characte
rs .
what starts off as a satisfying kids flck becomes increasingly implausible as it
races through contrived plot points .
exhibits the shallow sensationalism characteristic of soap opera . . . more sala
cious telenovela than serious drama .
seagal is painfully foolish in trying to hold onto what's left of his passe' cho
psocky glory .
even with harris's strong effort , the script gives him little to effectively pr
obe lear's soul-stripping breakdown .
the story is bogus and its characters tissue-thin .
whereas the extremely competent hitman films such as pulp fiction and get shorty
resonate a sardonic verve to their caustic purpose for existing , who is cletis
tout ? is an inexpressible and drab wannabe looking for that exact niche .
while american adobo has its heart ( and its palate ) in the right place , its b
rain is a little scattered -- ditsy , even .
. . . a confusing drudgery .
imagine a film that begins as a seven rip-off , only to switch to a mix of the s
hining , the thing , and any naked teenagers horror flick from the 1980s .
most of the dialogue made me want to pack raw dough in my ears .
costner's warm-milk persona is just as ill-fitting as shadyac's perfunctory dire
cting chops , and some of the more overtly silly dialogue would sink laurence ol
ivier .
it's coherent , well shot , and tartly acted , but it wears you down like a dinn
er guest showing off his doctorate .
directed by kevin bray , whose crisp framing , edgy camera work , and wholesale
ineptitude with acting , tone and pace very obviously mark him as a video helmer
making his feature debut .
turns a potentially interesting idea into an excruciating film school experience
that plays better only for the film's publicists or for people who take as many
drugs as the film's characters
robin williams departs from his fun friendly demeanor in exchange for a darker u
nnerving role .
high crimes is a cinematic misdemeanor , a routine crime thriller remarkable onl
y for its lack of logic and misuse of two fine actors , morgan freeman and ashle
y judd .
set in a 1986 harlem that doesn't look much like anywhere in new york .
the chocolate factory without charlie .
long on twinkly-eyed close-ups and short on shame .
hip-hop rarely comes alive as its own fire-breathing entity in this picture .
a well-crafted letdown .
a dull , somnambulant exercise in pretension whose pervasive quiet is broken by
frequent outbursts of violence and noise .
deserving of its critical backlash and more .
boring and meandering .
neither a rousing success nor a blinding embarrassment . still , it just sits th
ere like a side dish no one ordered .
the sum of all fears is remarkably fuddled about motives and context , which dra
ins it of the dramatic substance that would shake us in our boots ( or cinema se
ats ) .
the movie spends more time with schneider than with newcomer mcadams , even thou
gh her performance is more interesting ( and funnier ) than his .
this low-rent -- and even lower-wit -- rip-off of the farrelly brothers' oeuvre
gets way too mushy -- and in a relatively short amount of time .
it recycles every clich about gays in what is essentially an extended soap opera
.
i'm all for the mentally challenged getting their fair shot in the movie busines
s , but surely it doesn't have to be as a collection of keening and self-mutilat
ing sideshow geeks .
may offend viewers not amused by the sick sense of humor .
many of benjamins' elements feel like they've been patched in from an episode of
miami vice .
it aimlessly and unsuccessfully attempts to fuse at least three dull plots into
one good one .
most folks with a real stake in the american sexual landscape will find it eithe
r moderately amusing or just plain irrelevant .
if you're not fans of the adventues of steve and terri , you should avoid this l
ike the dreaded king brown snake . personally , i'd rather watch them on the ani
mal planet .
cherish is a dud -- a romantic comedy that's not the least bit romantic and only
mildly funny .
feels as if the inmates have actually taken over the asylum .
all of the filmmakers' calculations can't rescue brown sugar from the curse of b
landness .
the movie's gloomy atmosphere is fascinating , though , even if the movie itself
doesn't stand a ghost of a chance .
. . . post-september 11 , " the sum of all fears " seems more tacky and reprehe
nsible , manipulating our collective fear without bestowing the subject with the
intelligence or sincerity it unequivocally deserves .
the exclamation point seems to be the only bit of glee you'll find in this drear
y mess .
no matter how you slice it , mark wahlberg and thandie newton are not hepburn an
d grant , two cinematic icons with chemistry galore .
godard's ode to tackling life's wonderment is a rambling and incoherent manifest
o about the vagueness of topical excess . . . in praise of love remains a ponder
ous and pretentious endeavor that's unfocused and tediously exasperating .
humorless , self-conscious art drivel , made without a glimmer of intelligence o
r invention .
the movie's progression into rambling incoherence gives new meaning to the phras
e 'fatal script error . '
solondz may be convinced that he has something significant to say , but he isn't
talking a talk that appeals to me .
more tiring than anything .
nelson's intentions are good , but the end result does no justice to the story i
tself . it's horribly depressing and not very well done .
. . . the efforts of its star , kline , to lend some dignity to a dumb story ar
e for naught .
a good-natured ensemble comedy that tries hard to make the most of a bumper cast
, but never quite gets off the ground .
isn't it a bit early in his career for director barry sonnenfeld to do a homage
to himself ? and it's a lousy one at that .
overly long and worshipful bio-doc .
i'll go out on a limb . it isn't quite one of the worst movies of the year . it'
s just merely very bad .
writer-director ritchie reduces wertmuller's social mores and politics to tireso
me jargon .
about amy's cuteness , amy's career success ( she's a best-selling writer of sel
f-help books who can't help herself ) , and amy's neuroses when it comes to men
.
everything about girls can't swim , even its passages of sensitive observation ,
feels secondhand , familiar -- and not in a good way .
feels aimless for much of its running time , until late in the film when a tidal
wave of plot arrives , leaving questions in its wake .
less than fresh .
in my own very humble opinion , in praise of love lacks even the most fragmented
charms i have found in almost all of his previous works .
the script is too mainstream and the psychology too textbook to intrigue .
muddled , simplistic and more than a little pretentious .
meandering and glacially paced , and often just plain dull .
a disaster of a drama , saved only by its winged assailants .
a road trip that will get you thinking , 'are we there yet ? '
director elie chouraqui , who co-wrote the script , catches the chaotic horror o
f war , but why bother if you're going to subjugate truth to the tear-jerking de
mands of soap opera ?
dong never pushes for insights beyond the superficial tensions of the dynamic he
's dissecting , and the film settles too easily along the contours of expectatio
n .
if there was any doubt that peter o'fallon didn't have an original bone in his b
ody , a rumor of angels should dispel it .
an occasionally interesting but mostly repetitive look at a slice of countercult
ure that might be best forgotten .
what could have been right at home as a nifty plot line in steven soderbergh's t
raffic fails to arrive at any satisfying destination .
the movie is like scorsese's mean streets redone by someone who ignored it in fa
vor of old 'juvenile delinquent' paperbacks with titles like leather warriors an
d switchblade sexpot .
this pathetic junk is barely an hour long . nevertheless , it still seems endles
s .
it isn't that stealing harvard is a horrible movie if only it were that grand a fa
ilure ! it's just that it's so not-at-all-good . and i expect much more from a t
alent as outstanding as director bruce mcculloch .
dolman confines himself to shtick and sentimentality -- the one bald and the oth
er sloppy .
is it possible for a documentary to be utterly entranced by its subject and stil
l show virtually no understanding of it ?
it's supposed to be a romantic comedy - it suffers from too much norma rae and n
ot enough pretty woman .
the leads are so unmemorable , despite several attempts at lengthy dialogue scen
es , that one eventually resents having to inhale this gutter romancer's secondh
and material .
the script ? please .
staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to be madcap farce .
not that any of us should be complaining when a film clocks in around 90 minutes
these days , but the plotting here leaves a lot to be desired .
brainy , artistic and muted , almost to the point of suffocation .
plays like the old disease-of-the-week small-screen melodramas .
like life on the island , the movie grows boring despite the scenery .
the truth about charlie is that it's a brazenly misguided project .
caso voc sinta necessidade de sair da sala antes do trmino da projeo , no se preocupe
: ningum lhe enviar penas simbolizando covardia .
displays the potential for a better movie than what bailly manages to deliver
so exaggerated and broad that it comes off as annoying rather than charming .
an awkward hybrid of genres that just doesn't work .
the latest vapid actor's exercise to appropriate the structure of arthur schnitz
ler's reigen .
snipes is both a snore and utter tripe .
ritchie's film is easier to swallow than wertmuller's polemical allegory , but i
t's self-defeatingly decorous .
chalk it up as the worst kind of hubristic folly .
it's the kind of under-inspired , overblown enterprise that gives hollywood sequ
els a bad name .
rosenthal ( halloween ii ) seems to have forgotten everything he ever knew about
generating suspense .
even murphy's expert comic timing and famed charisma can't rescue this effort .
rodriguez . . . was unable to reproduce the special spark between the characters
that made the first film such a delight .
a sleek advert for youthful anomie that never quite equals the sum of its preten
sions .
some body smacks of exhibitionism more than it does cathartic truth telling .
this isn't a terrible film by any means , but it's also far from being a realize
d work .
apparently , romantic comedy with a fresh point of view just doesn't figure in t
he present hollywood program .
a lame comedy .
depressingly thin and exhaustingly contrived . only masochistic moviegoers need
apply .
a movie that's held captive by mediocrity . not bad , but not all that good . ba
con keeps things interesting , but don't go out of your way to pay full price .
what's next ? rob schneider , dana carvey and sarah michelle gellar in the phila
delphia story ? david spade as citizen kane ?
can't seem to get anywhere near the story's center .
the problem , amazingly enough , is the screenplay .
it's a frankenstein-monster of a film that doesn't know what it wants to be .
upper west sidey exercise in narcissism and self-congratulation disguised as a t
ribute .
on its icy face , the new film is a subzero version of monsters , inc . , withou
t the latter's imagination , visual charm or texture .
i can't say this enough : this movie is about an adult male dressed in pink jamm
ies .
it's a mindless action flick with a twist -- far better suited to video-viewing
than the multiplex .
after a while , the only way for a reasonably intelligent person to get through
the country bears is to ponder how a whole segment of pop-music history has been
allowed to get wet , fuzzy and sticky .
we get light showers of emotion a couple of times , but then -- strangely -- the
se wane to an inconsistent and ultimately unsatisfying drizzle .
summer's far too fleeting to squander on offal like this .
the film is grossly contradictory in conveying its social message , if indeed th
ere is one .
often lingers just as long on the irrelevant as on the engaging , which graduall
y turns what time is it there ? into how long is this movie ?
too bad kramer couldn't make a guest appearance to liven things up .
deuces wild is an encyclopedia of cliches that shoplifts shamelessly from farewe
ll-to-innocence movies like the wanderers and a bronx tale without cribbing any
of their intelligence .
it's a barely tolerable slog over well-trod ground .
epps has neither the charisma nor the natural affability that has made tucker a
star .
it's sweet . . . but just a little bit too precious at the start and a little to
o familiar at the end .
a dull , dumb and derivative horror film .
an awkwardly contrived exercise in magic realism .
demme gets a lot of flavor and spice into his charade remake , but he can't disg
uise that he's spiffing up leftovers that aren't so substantial or fresh .
this is a heartfelt story . . . it just isn't a very involving one .
these self-styled athletes have banged their brains into the ground so frequentl
y and furiously , their capacity to explain themselves has gone the same way as
their natural instinct for self-preservation .
the fact that the 'best part' of the movie comes from a 60-second homage to one
of demme's good films doesn't bode well for the rest of it .
richard pryor mined his personal horrors and came up with a treasure chest of ma
terial , but lawrence gives us mostly fool's gold .
the band performances featured in drumline are red hot . . . [but] from a mere s
tory point of view , the film's ice cold .
. . . built on the premise that middle-class arkansas consists of monster truck
-loving good ol' boys and peroxide blond honeys whose worldly knowledge comes fr
om tv reruns and supermarket tabloids .
a laughable -- or rather , unlaughable -- excuse for a film .
the sequel is everything the original was not : contrived , overblown and tie-in
ready .
like a grinning jack o' lantern , its apparent glee is derived from a lobotomy ,
having had all its vital essence scooped out and discarded .
a sentimental hybrid that could benefit from the spice of specificity .
. . . familiar and predictable , and 4/5ths of it might as well have come from
a xerox machine rather than ( writer-director ) franc . reyes' word processor .
give shapiro , goldman , and bolado credit for good intentions , but there's not
hing here that they couldn't have done in half an hour .
it's so devoid of joy and energy it makes even jason x . . . look positively sha
kesperean by comparison .
a little objectivity could have gone a long way .
one of the worst films of 2002 .
i believe silberling had the best intentions here , but he just doesn't have the
restraint to fully realize them .
plays like an unbalanced mixture of graphic combat footage and almost saccharine
domestic interludes that are pure hollywood .
mctiernan's remake may be lighter on its feet -- the sober-minded original was a
s graceful as a tap-dancing rhino -- but it is just as boring and as obvious .
high crimes carries almost no organic intrigue as a government/ marine/legal mys
tery , and that's because the movie serves up all of that stuff , nearly sublimi
nally , as the old-hat province of male intrigue .
this movie is about the worst thing chan has done in the united states .
the explosion essentially ruined -- or , rather , overpowered -- the fiction of
the movie for me .
this ludicrous film is predictable at every turn .
an incredibly irritating comedy about thoroughly vacuous people . . . manages to
embody the worst excesses of nouvelle vague without any of its sense of fun or
energy .
the film desperately sinks further and further into comedy futility .
instead of a balanced film that explains the zeitgeist that is the x games , we
get a cinematic postcard that's superficial and unrealized .
the crassness of this reactionary thriller is matched only by the ridiculousness
of its premise .
i wish it would have just gone more over-the-top instead of trying to have it bo
th ways .
the superior plotline isn't quite enough to drag along the dead ( water ) weight
of the other .
the film doesn't really care about the thousands of americans who die hideously
, it cares about how ryan meets his future wife and makes his start at the cia .
adrift , bentley and hudson stare and sniffle , respectively , as ledger attempt
s , in vain , to prove that movie-star intensity can overcome bad hair design .
after an hour and a half of wondering -- sometimes amusedly , sometimes impatien
tly -- just what this strenuously unconventional movie is supposed to be , you d
iscover that the answer is as conventional as can be .
'linklater fans , or pretentious types who want to appear avant-garde will suck
up to this project . . . '
a woefully dull , redundant concept that bears more than a whiff of exploitation
, despite iwai's vaunted empathy .
screenwriter chris ver weil's directing debut is good-natured and never dull , b
ut its virtues are small and easily overshadowed by its predictability .
if you really want to understand what this story is really all about , you're fa
r better served by the source material .
it's mildly sentimental , unabashedly consumerist . . . studiously inoffensive a
nd completely disposable .
like its title character , esther kahn is unusual but unfortunately also irritat
ing .
the star who helped give a spark to " chasing amy " and " changing lanes " falls
flat as thinking man cia agent jack ryan in this summer's new action film , " t
he sum of all fears . "
a summary of the plot doesn't quite do justice to the awfulness of the movie , f
or that comes through all too painfully in the execution .
every conceivable mistake a director could make in filming opera has been perpet
rated here .
snoots will no doubt rally to its cause , trotting out threadbare standbys like
'masterpiece' and 'triumph' and all that malarkey , but rarely does an establish
ed filmmaker so ardently waste viewers' time with a gobbler like this .
[the film's] taste for " shock humor " will wear thin on all but those weaned on
the comedy of tom green and the farrelly brothers .
any enjoyment will be hinge from a personal threshold of watching sad but endear
ing characters do extremely unconventional things .
if legendary shlockmeister ed wood had ever made a movie about a vampire , it pr
obably would look a lot like this alarming production , adapted from anne rice's
novel the vampire chronicles .
hardly a nuanced portrait of a young woman's breakdown , the film nevertheless w
orks up a few scares .
interminably bleak , to say nothing of boring .
things really get weird , though not particularly scary : the movie is all porte
nt and no content .
it's difficult to discern if this is a crazy work of disturbed genius or merely
90 minutes of post-adolescent electra rebellion .
bogs down badly as we absorb jia's moody , bad-boy behavior which he portrays hi
mself in a one-note performance .
the camera whirls ! the camera twirls ! oh , look at that clever angle ! wow , a
jump cut !
demme finally succeeds in diminishing his stature from oscar-winning master to l
owly studio hack .
the action scenes have all the suspense of a 20-car pileup , while the plot hole
s are big enough for a train car to drive through -- if kaos hadn't blown them a
ll up .
it almost feels as if the movie is more interested in entertaining itself than i
n amusing us .
it puts washington , as honest working man john q . archibald , on a pedestal ,
then keeps lifting the pedestal higher .
ultimately , the film amounts to being lectured to by tech-geeks , if you're up
for that sort of thing .
far more enjoyable than its predecessor .
[gayton's script] telegraphs every discovery and layers on the gloss of convenie
nce .
full frontal , which opens today nationwide , could almost be classified as a mo
vie-industry satire , but it lacks the generous inclusiveness that is the genre'
s definitive , if disingenuous , feature .
a ragbag of cliches .
this rough trade punch-and-judy act didn't play well then and it plays worse now
.
a reality-snubbing hodgepodge .
the three leads produce adequate performances , but what's missing from this mat
erial is any depth of feeling .
it's possible that something hip and transgressive was being attempted here that
stubbornly refused to gel , but the result is more puzzling than unsettling .
this painfully unfunny farce traffics in tired stereotypes and encumbers itself
with complications . . . that have no bearing on the story .
short and sweet , but also more than anything else slight tadpole pulls back from
the consequences of its own actions and revelations .
has its moments , but it's pretty far from a treasure .
what more can be expected from a college comedy that's target audience hasn't gr
aduated from junior high school ?
collateral damage offers formula payback and the big payoff , but the explosions
tend to simply hit their marks , pyro-correctly .
the plan to make enough into an inspiring tale of survival wrapped in the heart-p
ounding suspense of a stylish psychological thriller' has flopped as surely as a
souffl gone wrong .
instead of letting the laughs come as they may , lawrence unleashes his trademar
k misogyny -- er , comedy -- like a human volcano or an overflowing septic tank
, take your pick .
you know that ten bucks you'd spend on a ticket ? just send it to cranky . we do
n't get paid enough to sit through crap like this .
an even more predictable , cliche-ridden endeavor than its predecessor .
the whole thing plays like a tired tyco ad .
the film doesn't show enough of the creative process or even of what was created
for the non-fan to figure out what makes wilco a big deal .
the soupy end result has the odd distinction of being playful without being fun
, too .
no , i don't know why steven seagal is considered a star , nor why he keeps bein
g cast in action films when none of them are ever any good or make any money .
even by the intentionally low standards of frat-boy humor , sorority boys is a b
owser .
one well-timed explosion in a movie can be a knockout , but a hundred of them ca
n be numbing . proof of this is ballistic : ecks vs . sever .
halfway through , however , having sucked dry the undead action flick formula ,
blade ii mutates into a gross-out monster movie with effects that are more silly
than scary .
weighted down with slow , uninvolving storytelling and flat acting .
we can't accuse kung pow for misfiring , since it is exactly what it wants to be
: an atrociously , mind-numbingly , indescribably bad movie . unfortunately , w
e'd prefer a simple misfire .
there isn't one moment in the film that surprises or delights .
'wouldn't it be nice if all guys got a taste of what it's like on the other side
of the bra ? '
the movie is essentially a series of fleetingly interesting actors' moments .
most of the information has already appeared in one forum or another and , no ma
tter how broomfield dresses it up , it tends to speculation , conspiracy theorie
s or , at best , circumstantial evidence .
this movie , a certain scene in particular , brought me uncomfortably close to l
osing my lunch .
the secrets of time travel will have been discovered , indulged in and rejected
as boring before i see this piece of crap again .
smug , artificial , ill-constructed and fatally overlong . . . it never finds a
consistent tone and lacks bite , degenerating into a pious , preachy soap opera
.
chelsea walls is a case of too many chefs fussing over too weak a recipe .
every joke is repeated at least four times . every joke is repeated at least fou
r times . every joke is repeated at least--annoying , isn't it ?
comes across as a fairly weak retooling .
the lousy lead performances . . . keep the movie from ever reaching the comic he
ights it obviously desired .
its and pieces of the hot chick are so hilarious , and schneider's performance i
s so fine , it's a real shame that so much of the movie -- again , as in the ani
mal -- is a slapdash mess .
[creates] the worst kind of mythologizing , the kind that sacrifices real herois
m and abject suffering for melodrama .
the movie resolutely avoids all the comic possibilities of its situation , and b
ecomes one more dumb high school comedy about sex gags and prom dates .
earnest and heartfelt but undernourished and plodding .
a sugar-coated rocky whose valuable messages are forgotten 10 minutes after the
last trombone honks .
romanek keeps adding flourishes -- artsy fantasy sequences -- that simply feel w
rong . they cheapen the overall effect .
has all the complexity and realistic human behavior of an episode of general hos
pital .
an acceptable way to pass a little over an hour with moviegoers ages 8-10 , but
it's unlikely to inspire anything more than a visit to mcdonald's , let alone so
me savvy street activism .
[allen's] been making piffle for a long while , and hollywood ending may be his
way of saying that piffle is all that the airhead movie business deserves from h
im right now .
an exercise in cynicism every bit as ugly as the shabby digital photography and
muddy sound .
mildly amusing .
not good enough to pass for a litmus test of the generation gap and not bad enou
gh to repulse any generation of its fans .
the movie is silly beyond comprehension , and even if it weren't silly , it woul
d still be beyond comprehension .
watchable up until the point where the situations and the dialogue spin hopeless
ly out of control -- that is to say , when carol kane appears on the screen .
the scriptwriters are no less a menace to society than the film's characters .
fairly run-of-the-mill .
merchant hasn't directed this movie so much as produced it -- like sausage .
the film has a nearly terminal case of the cutes , and it's neither as funny nor
as charming as it thinks it is .
more a gunfest than a rock concert .
it's a frightful vanity film that , no doubt , pays off what debt miramax felt t
hey owed to benigni .
a muddy psychological thriller rife with miscalculations . it makes me say the o
bvious : abandon all hope of a good movie ye who enter here .
mildly entertaining .
it's not original enough .
a listless sci-fi comedy in which eddie murphy deploys two guises and elaborate
futuristic sets to no particularly memorable effect .
terrible .
little more than a super-sized infomercial for the cable-sports channel and its
summer x games .
degenerates into hogwash .
a generic bloodbath that often becomes laughably unbearable when it isn't merely
offensive .
julie davis is the kathie lee gifford of film directors , sadly proving once aga
in ego doesn't always go hand in hand with talent .
an unholy mess , driven by the pathetic idea that if you shoot something on crum
my-looking videotape , it must be labelled 'hip' , 'innovative' and 'realistic'
.
the story's pathetic and the gags are puerile .
. curiously , super troopers suffers because it doesn't have enough vices to me
rit its 103-minute length .
so bland and utterly forgettable that it might as well have been titled generic
jennifer lopez romantic comedy .
i was sent a copyof this film to review on dvd . for free . i still want my mone
y back .
it plods along methodically , somehow under the assumption that its " dead wife
communicating from beyond the grave " framework is even remotely new or interest
ing .
it's hard to believe that a relationship like holly and marina's could survive t
he hothouse emotions of teendom , and its longevity gets more inexplicable as th
e characterizations turn more crassly reductive .
all too familiar . . . basically the sort of cautionary tale that was old when '
angels with dirty faces' appeared in 1938 .
passable enough for a shoot-out in the o . k . court house of life type of flick
. strictly middle of the road .
although purportedly a study in modern alienation , it's really little more than
a particularly slanted , gay s/m fantasy , enervating and deadeningly drawn-out
.
after the first 10 minutes , which is worth seeing , the movie sinks into an aby
ss of clichs , depression and bad alternative music .
no one can doubt the filmmakers' motives , but the guys still feels counterprodu
ctive .
a very slow , uneventful ride around a pretty tattered old carousel .
with little visible talent and no energy , colin hanks is in bad need of major a
cting lessons and maybe a little coffee .
" feardotcom " has the makings of an interesting meditation on the ethereal nat
ure of the internet and the otherworldly energies it could channel , but it simp
ly becomes a routine shocker .
a meatballs for the bare-midriff generation .
well-meaning to a fault , antwone fisher manages the dubious feat of turning one
man's triumph of will into everyman's romance comedy .
seemingly disgusted with the lazy material and the finished product's unshapely
look , director fisher stevens inexplicably dips key moments from the film in wa
king life water colors .
formula 51 promises a new kind of high but delivers the same old bad trip .
everything that was right about blade is wrong in its sequel .
a few energetic stunt sequences briefly enliven the film , but the wheezing terr
orist subplot hasn't the stamina for the 100-minute running time , and the prota
gonists' bohemian boorishness mars the spirit of good clean fun .
the film was produced by jerry bruckheimer and directed by joel schumacher , and
reflects the worst of their shallow styles : wildly overproduced , inadequately
motivated every step of the way and demographically targeted to please every on
e ( and no one ) .
disney again ransacks its archives for a quick-buck sequel .
coarse , cliched and clunky , this trifling romantic comedy in which opposites
attract for no better reason than that the screenplay demands it squanders the c
harms of stars hugh grant and sandra bullock .
anyone who suffers through this film deserves , at the very least , a big box of
consolation candy .
how much you are moved by the emotional tumult of [franois and michle's] relations
hip depends a lot on how interesting and likable you find them .
they presume their audience won't sit still for a sociology lesson , however ent
ertainingly presented , so they trot out the conventional science-fiction elemen
ts of bug-eyed monsters and futuristic women in skimpy clothes .
collapses after 30 minutes into a slap-happy series of adolescent violence .
the following things are not at all entertaining : the bad sound , the lack of c
limax and , worst of all , watching seinfeld ( who is also one of the film's pro
ducers ) do everything he can to look like a good guy .
attal's hang-ups surrounding infidelity are so old-fashioned and , dare i say ,
outdated , it's a wonder that he couldn't have brought something fresher to the
proceedings simply by accident .
obvious , obnoxious and didactic burlesque .
the most surprising thing about this film is that they are actually releasing it
into theaters .
michele is a such a brainless flibbertigibbet that it's hard to take her spiritu
al quest at all seriously .
ultimately , clarity matters , both in breaking codes and making movies . enigma
lacks it .
potty-mouthed enough for pg-13 , yet not as hilariously raunchy as south park ,
this strangely schizo cartoon seems suited neither to kids or adults .
. . . has its moments , but ultimately , its curmudgeon doesn't quite make the
cut of being placed on any list of favorites .
a distinctly minor effort that will be seen to better advantage on cable , espec
ially considering its barely feature-length running time of one hour .
most of the movie is so deadly dull that watching the proverbial paint dry would
 be a welcome improvement .
in the end , tuck everlasting falls victim to that everlasting conundrum experie
nced by every human who ever lived : too much to do , too little time to do it i
n .
rather less than the sum of its underventilated pre-fils confrontations .
mckay shows crushingly little curiosity about , or is ill-equipped to examine ,
the interior lives of the characters in his film , much less incorporate them in
to his narrative .
plays like a series of vignettes -- clips of a film that are still looking for a
common through-line .
new yorkers always seem to find the oddest places to dwell . . .
amid the shock and curiosity factors , the film is just a corny examination of a
young actress trying to find her way .
yes , spirited away is a triumph of imagination , but it's also a failure of sto
rytelling .
a characteristically engorged and sloppy coming-of-age movie .
a somewhat disappointing and meandering saga .
whenever you think you've seen the end of the movie , we cut to a new scene , wh
ich also appears to be the end . but , no , we get another scene , and then anot
her . you begin to long for the end credits as the desert does for rain .
an empty , ugly exercise in druggy trance-noir and trumped-up street credibility
.
the screenplay , co-written by director imogen kimmel , lacks the wit necessary
to fully exploit the comic elements of the premise , making the proceedings more
bizarre than actually amusing .
the milieu is wholly unconvincing . . . and the histrionics reach a truly annoyi
ng pitch .
unfunny comedy with a lot of static set ups , not much camera movement , and mos
t of the scenes take place indoors in formal settings with motionless characters
.
each story is built on a potentially interesting idea , but the first two are ru
ined by amateurish writing and acting , while the third feels limited by its sho
rt running time .
except for paymer as the boss who ultimately expresses empathy for bartleby's pa
in , the performances are so stylized as to be drained of human emotion .
will no doubt delight plympton's legion of fans ; others may find 80 minutes of
these shenanigans exhausting .
the laughs are as rare as snake foo yung .
for a film that celebrates radical , nonconformist values , what to do in case o
f fire ? lazily and glumly settles into a most traditional , reserved kind of fi
lmmaking .
knockaround guys plays like a student film by two guys who desperately want to b
e quentin tarantino when they grow up . but they lack their idol's energy and pa
ssion for detail .
mattei so completely loses himself to the film's circular structure to ever offe
r any insightful discourse on , well , love in the time of money .
it briefly flirts with player masochism , but the point of real interest - audien
ce sadism -- is evaded completely .
holland lets things peter out midway , but it's notably better acted -- and far
less crass - than some other recent efforts in the burgeoning genre of films abo
ut black urban professionals .
for every articulate player , such as skateboarder tony hawk or bmx rider mat ho
ffman , are about a half dozen young turks angling to see how many times they ca
n work the words " radical " or " suck " into a sentence .
there's not a fresh idea at the core of this tale .
an impenetrable and insufferable ball of pseudo-philosophic twaddle .
it's unfortunate that wallace , who wrote gibson's braveheart as well as the rec
ent pearl harbor , has such an irrepressible passion for sappy situations and di
alogue .
i liked the movie , but i know i would have liked it more if it had just gone th
at one step further . i'm left slightly disappointed that it didn't .
dreary tale of middle-class angst
for a movie about the power of poetry and passion , there is precious little of
either .
[jackson and bledel] seem to have been picked not for their acting chops , but f
or their looks and appeal to the pre-teen crowd .
lillard and cardellini earn their scooby snacks , but not anyone else .
like schindler's list , the grey zone attempts to be grandiloquent , but ends up
merely pretentious -- in a grisly sort of way .
an unremittingly ugly movie to look at , listen to , and think about , it is qui
te possibly the sturdiest example yet of why the dv revolution has cheapened the
artistry of making a film .
[screenwriter] pimental took the farrelly brothers comedy and feminized it , but
it is a rather poor imitation .
it's kind of sad that so many people put so much time and energy into this turke
y .
friday after next is a lot more bluster than bite .
its juxtaposition of overwrought existentialism and stomach-churning gore will h
ave you forever on the verge of either cracking up or throwing up .
a decidedly mixed bag .
meandering and confusing .
there are cheesy backdrops , ridiculous action sequences , and many tired jokes
about men in heels .
ice cube isn't quite out of ripe screwball ideas , but friday after next spreads
them pretty thin .
not everything in the film works , including its somewhat convenient ending .
the characters , cast in impossibly contrived situations , are totally estranged
from reality .
everything else about high crimes is , like the military system of justice it po
rtrays , tiresomely regimented .
just dreadful . i don't blame eddie murphy but shouldn't owen wilson know a movi
e must have a story and a script ?
sweet home alabama certainly won't be remembered as one of [witherspoon's] bette
r films .
hard as this may be to believe , here on earth , a surprisingly similar teen dra
ma , was a better film .
this is just lazy writing . even kids deserve better .
the pretensions -- and disposable story -- sink the movie . and diesel isn't the
actor to save it .
bravo reveals the true intent of her film by carefully selecting interview subje
cts who will construct a portrait of castro so predominantly charitable it can o
nly be seen as propaganda .
. . . a preachy parable stylized with a touch of john woo bullet ballet .
frank capra played this story straight . but the 2002 film doesn't really believ
e in it , and breaks the mood with absurdly inappropriate 'comedy' scenes .
how about starting with a more original story instead of just slapping extreme h
umor and gross-out gags on top of the same old crap ?
the problem is that for the most part , the film is deadly dull .
handled correctly , wilde's play is a masterpiece of elegant wit and artifice .
here , alas , it collapses like an overcooked souffl .
" sorority boys " was funnier , and that movie was pretty bad .
a bizarre piece of work , with premise and dialogue at the level of kids' televi
sion and plot threads as morose as teen pregnancy , rape and suspected murder
paul bettany is good at being the ultra-violent gangster wannabe , but the movie
is certainly not number 1 .
it's a gag that's worn a bit thin over the years , though don't ask still finds
a few chuckles .
an uplifting drama . . . what antwone fisher isn't , however , is original .
often likable , but just as often it's meandering , low on energy , and too eage
r to be quirky at moments when a little old-fashioned storytelling would come in
 handy .
certain to be distasteful to children and adults alike , eight crazy nights is a
total misfire .
elaborate special effects take centre screen , so that the human story is pushed
to one side .
showtime isn't particularly assaultive , but it can still make you feel that you
never want to see another car chase , explosion or gunfight again .
all the characters are clinically depressed and have abandoned their slim hopes
and dreams .
this tuxedo . . . should have been sent back to the tailor for some major altera
tions .
i have no problem with " difficult " movies , or movies that ask the audience to
meet them halfway and connect the dots instead of having things all spelled out
. but first , you have to give the audience a reason to <b>want</b> to put for
that effort , and " i
been there , done that . . . a thousand times already , and better .
what's most offensive isn't the waste of a good cast , but the film's denial of
sincere grief and mourning in favor of bogus spiritualism .
sunk by way too much indulgence of scene-chewing , teeth-gnashing actorliness .
fans of plympton's shorts may marginally enjoy the film , but it is doubtful thi
s listless feature will win him any new viewers .
barrels along at the start before becoming mired in sentimentality .
none of this sounds promising and , indeed , the first half of sorority boys is
as appalling as any 'comedy' to ever spill from a projector's lens .
the kind of movie that leaves vague impressions and a nasty aftertaste but littl
e clear memory of its operational mechanics .
'punch-drunk love is so convinced of its own brilliance that , if it were a pers
on , you'd want to smash its face in . '
at once overly old-fashioned in its sudsy plotting and heavy-handed in its effor
t to modernize it with encomia to diversity and tolerance .
the trashy teen-sleaze equivalent of showgirls .
while the production details are lavish , film has little insight into the histo
rical period and its artists , particularly in how sand developed a notorious re
putation .
a crass and insulting homage to great films like some like it hot and the john w
ayne classics .
what's the most positive thing that can be said about the new rob schneider vehi
cle ? well , it's not as pathetic as the animal .
with all the sympathy , empathy and pity fogging up the screen . . . his secret
life enters the land of unintentional melodrama and tiresome love triangles .
the problematic characters and overly convenient plot twists foul up shum's good
intentions .
what 'blade runner' would've looked like as a low-budget series on a uhf channel
.
doesn't add up to much .
has all the values of a straight-to-video movie , but because it has a bigger-na
me cast , it gets a full theatrical release .
with its lackadaisical plotting and mindless action , all about the benjamins ev
okes the bottom tier of blaxploitation flicks from the 1970s .
it never quite makes it to the boiling point , but manages to sustain a good sim
mer for most of its running time .
loud , silly , stupid and pointless .
mandel holland's direction is uninspired , and his scripting unsurprising , but
the performances by phifer and black are ultimately winning . you'll find yourse
lf wishing that you and they were in another movie .
a yawn-provoking little farm melodrama .
did no one on the set have a sense of humor , or did they not have the nerve to
speak up ?
crummy
seriously , rent the disney version .
as david letterman and the onion have proven , the worst of tragedies can be fer
tile sources of humor , but lawrence has only a fleeting grasp of how to develop
them .
like its parade of predecessors , this halloween is a gory slash-fest . it can't
escape its past , and it doesn't want to .
" abandon " will leave you wanting to abandon the theater .
problem is , we have no idea what in creation is going on .
a live-action cartoon , a fast-moving and cheerfully simplistic 88 minutes of ex
aggerated action put together with the preteen boy in mind .
a loquacious and dreary piece of business .
what the audience feels is exhaustion , from watching a movie that is dark ( dar
k green , to be exact ) , sour , bloody and mean .
director hoffman , his writer and kline's agent should serve detention
dodgy mixture of cutesy romance , dark satire and murder mystery .
meticulously mounted , exasperatingly well-behaved film , which ticks off kahlo'
s lifetime milestones with the dutiful precision of a tax accountant .
time of favor could have given audiences the time of day by concentrating on the
elements of a revealing alienation among a culture of people who sadly are at h
ostile odds with one another through recklessness and retaliation .
i'm not sure which will take longer to heal : the welt on johnny knoxville's sto
mach from a riot-control projectile or my own tortured psyche .
while serving sara does have a long way to go before it reaches the level of cru
dity in the latest austin powers extravaganza , there's nothing here to match th
at movie's intermittent moments of inspiration .
i'm not sure which is worse : the poor acting by the ensemble cast , the flat di
alogue by vincent r . nebrida or the gutless direction by laurice guillen .
the only reason you should see this movie is if you have a case of masochism and
an hour and a half to blow .
whatever about warning kids about the dangers of ouija boards , someone should d
ispense the same advice to film directors .
as with so many merchandised-to-the-max movies of this type , more time appears
to have gone into recruiting the right bands for the playlist and the costuming
of the stars than into the script , which has a handful of smart jokes and not m
uch else .
the irwins' scenes are fascinating ; the movie as a whole is cheap junk and an i
nsult to their death-defying efforts .
if routine action and jokes like this are your cup of tea , then pay your $8 and
get ready for the big shear . this is one baaaaaaaaad movie .
a man leaving the screening said the film was better than saving private ryan .
he may have meant the internet short saving ryan's privates . but windtalkers do
esn't beat that one , either .
may puzzle his most ardent fans .
starts as a tart little lemon drop of a movie and ends up as a bitter pill .
we never feel anything for these characters , and as a result the film is basica
lly just a curiosity .
those unfamiliar with mormon traditions may find the singles ward occasionally b
ewildering .
ritchie may not have a novel thought in his head , but he knows how to pose mado
nna .
the story , touching though it is , does not quite have enough emotional resonan
ce or variety of incident to sustain a feature , and even at 85 minutes it feels
a bit long .
feels like the work of an artist who is simply tired -- of fighting the same fig
hts , of putting the weight of the world on his shoulders , of playing with narr
ative form .
while you have to admit it's semi-amusing to watch robert deniro belt out " when
you're a jet , you're a jet all the way , " it's equally distasteful to watch h
im sing the lyrics to " tonight . "
an opportunity missed .
the whole mess boils down to a transparently hypocritical work that feels as tho
ugh it's trying to set the women's liberation movement back 20 years .
' . . . the cast portrays their cartoon counterparts well . . . but quite frankl
y , scoob and shag don't eat enough during the film . '
more of the same old garbage hollywood has been trying to pass off as acceptable
teen entertainment for some time now .
tv skit-com material fervently deposited on the big screen .
[johnnie to and wai ka fai are] sure to find an enthusiastic audience among amer
ican action-adventure buffs , but the film's interests may be too narrow to attr
act crossover viewers .
if there was ever a movie where the upbeat ending feels like a copout , this is
the one .
it's as sorry a mess as its director's diabolical debut , mad cows .
any attempts at nuance given by the capable cast is drowned out by director jon
purdy's sledgehammer sap .
its audacious ambitions sabotaged by pomposity , steven soderbergh's space opera
emerges as a numbingly dull experience .
despite some strong performances , never rises above the level of a telanovela .
this is a picture that maik , the firebrand turned savvy ad man , would be envio
us of : it hijacks the heat of revolution and turns it into a sales tool .
feels slight , as if it were an extended short , albeit one made by the smartest
kids in class .
unspeakable , of course , barely begins to describe the plot and its complicatio
ns . vulgar is too optimistic a title .
the actors pull out all the stops in nearly every scene , but to diminishing eff
ect . the characters never change .
if the last man were the last movie left on earth , there would be a toss-up bet
ween presiding over the end of cinema as we know it and another night of delight
ful hand shadows .
welles groupie/scholar peter bogdanovich took a long time to do it , but he's fi
nally provided his own broadside at publishing giant william randolph hearst .
makes the same mistake as the music industry it criticizes , becoming so slick a
nd watered-down it almost loses what made you love it in the first place .
even as i valiantly struggled to remain interested , or at least conscious , i c
ould feel my eyelids . . . getting . . . very . . . heavy . . .
a bad movie that happened to good actors .
wishy-washy .
boasts eye-catching art direction but has a forcefully quirky tone that quickly
wears out its limited welcome .
screenwriter dan schneider and director shawn levy substitute volume and primary
colors for humor and bite .
oversexed , at times overwrought comedy/drama that offers little insight into th
e experience of being forty , female and single .
that such a horrible movie could have sprung from such a great one is one of the
year's worst cinematic tragedies .
it all starts to smack of a hallmark hall of fame , with a few four letter words
thrown in that are generally not heard on television .
rarely has a film's title served such dire warning .
if you saw benigni's pinocchio at a public park , you'd grab your kids and run a
nd then probably call the police .
the animation is competent , and some of the gags are quite funny , but jonah .
. . never shakes the oppressive , morally superior good-for-you quality that alm
ost automatically accompanies didactic entertainment .
the pace of the film is very slow ( for obvious reasons ) and that too becomes o
ff-putting .
mr . wollter and ms . seldhal give strong and convincing performances , but neit
her reaches into the deepest recesses of the character to unearth the quaking es
sence of passion , grief and fear .
shafer's feature doesn't offer much in terms of plot or acting .
in his role of observer of the scene , lawrence sounds whiny and defensive , as
if his life-altering experiences made him bitter and less mature .
[t]he ideas of revolution #9 are more compelling than the execution
the film didn't convince me that calvin jr . 's barbershop represents some sort
of beacon of hope in the middle of chicago's south side .
what happens when something goes bump in the night and nobody cares ?
despite some comic sparks , welcome to collinwood never catches fire .
director george hickenlooper has had some success with documentaries , but here
his sense of story and his juvenile camera movements smack of a film school unde
rgrad , and his maudlin ending might not have gotten him into film school in the
first place .
shows moments of promise but ultimately succumbs to cliches and pat storytelling
.
even accepting this in the right frame of mind can only provide it with so much
leniency .
some body is a shaky , uncertain film that nevertheless touches a few raw nerves
.
all the small moments and flashbacks don't add up to much more than trite observ
ations on the human condition .
[a] stale retread of the '53 original .
one thing's for sure if george romero had directed this movie , it wouldn't have t
aken the protagonists a full hour to determine that in order to kill a zombie yo
u must shoot it in the head .
for dance completists only .
one of the worst movies of the year .
spreads itself too thin , leaving these actors , as well as the members of the c
ommune , short of profound characterizations
it wouldn't matter so much that this arrogant richard pryor wannabe's routine is
offensive , puerile and unimaginatively foul-mouthed if it was at least funny .
the locale . . . remains far more interesting than the story at hand .
yo , it's the days of our lives meets electric boogaloo .
inconsequential road-and-buddy pic .
i liked the original short story but this movie , even at an hour and twenty-som
e minutes , it's too long and it goes nowhere .
this little film is so slovenly done , so primitive in technique , that it can't
really be called animation .
makes 98 minutes feel like three hours .
hawke's film , a boring , pretentious waste of nearly two hours , doesn't tell y
ou anything except that the chelsea hotel today is populated by whiny , pathetic
, starving and untalented artistes .
aspires to the cracked lunacy of the adventures of buckaroo banzai , but thanks
to an astonishingly witless script ends up more like the adventures of ford fair
lane .
real-life strongman ahola lacks the charisma and ability to carry the film on hi
s admittedly broad shoulders .
the title , alone , should scare any sane person away .
low comedy doesn't come much lower .
appropriately cynical social commentary aside , #9 never quite ignites .
it's crap on a leash--far too polite to scale the lunatic heights of joe dante's
similarly styled gremlins .
one of the most depressing movie-going experiences i can think of is to sit thro
ugh about 90 minutes of a so-called 'comedy' and not laugh once .
this is the kind of movie where the big scene is a man shot out of a cannon into
a vat of ice cream .
let's face it -- there aren't many reasons anyone would want to see crossroads i
f they're not big fans of teen pop kitten britney spears .
a loud , brash and mainly unfunny high school comedy .
an exceptionally dreary and overwrought bit of work , every bit as imperious as
katzenberg's the prince of egypt from 1998 .
insufferably naive .
the movie is so resolutely cobbled together out of older movies that it even use
s a totally unnecessary prologue , just because it seems obligatory .
the movie's vision of a white american zealously spreading a puritanical brand o
f christianity to south seas islanders is one only a true believer could relish
.
maid in manhattan proves that it's easier to change the sheets than to change ha
ckneyed concepts when it comes to dreaming up romantic comedies .
a fairly harmless but ultimately lifeless feature-length afterschool special .
i can't remember the last time i saw a movie where i wanted so badly for the pro
tagonist to fail .
ill-considered , unholy hokum .
amazingly lame .
. . . the whole thing succeeded only in making me groggy .
like most of jaglom's films , some of it is honestly affecting , but more of it
seems contrived and secondhand .
one long , numbing action sequence made up mostly of routine stuff yuen has give
n us before .
forgettable , if good-hearted , movie .
the film's most improbable feat ? it didn't go straight to video .
. . . about as exciting to watch as two last-place basketball teams playing one
another on the final day of the season .
the chateau . . . is less concerned with cultural and political issues than doti
ng on its eccentric characters .
cruel and inhuman cinematic punishment . . . simultaneously degrades its charact
ers , its stars and its audience .
it's not too fast and not too slow . it's not too racy and it's not too offensiv
e . it's not too much of anything .
the great pity is that those responsible didn't cut their losses and ours and re
title it the adventures of direct-to-video nash , and send it to its proper home
.
about as original as a gangster sweating bullets while worrying about a contract
on his life .
an empty shell of an epic rather than the real deal .
we could have expected a little more human being , and a little less product .
instead of using george and lucy's most obvious differences to ignite sparks , l
awrence desperately looks elsewhere , seizing on george's haplessness and lucy's
personality tics .
whether quitting will prove absorbing to american audiences is debatable .
becomes a bit of a mishmash : a tearjerker that doesn't and a thriller that won'
t .
family togetherness takes a back seat to inter-family rivalry and workplace ambi
tion&#133 ; whole subplots have no explanation or even plot relevance .
grant isn't cary and bullock isn't katherine .
like a fish that's lived too long , austin powers in goldmember has some unneces
sary parts and is kinda wrong in places .
two tedious acts light on great scares and a good surprise ending .
shyamalan should stop trying to please his mom .
the entire movie is in need of a scented bath .
i'm sorry to say that this should seal the deal - arnold is not , nor will he be
, back .
the story of trouble every day . . . is so sketchy it amounts to little more tha
n preliminary notes for a science-fiction horror film , and the movie's fragment
ary narrative style makes piecing the story together frustrating difficult .
a movie to forget
for all of its insights into the dream world of teen life , and its electronic e
xpression through cyber culture , the film gives no quarter to anyone seeking to
pull a cohesive story out of its 2 1/2-hour running time .
enough is not a bad movie , just mediocre . the performances are so overstated ,
the effect comes off as self-parody .
it looks good , but it is essentially empty .
the film never finds its tone and several scenes run too long .
the idea is more interesting than the screenplay , which lags badly in the middl
e and lurches between not-very-funny comedy , unconvincing dramatics and some la
st-minute action strongly reminiscent of run lola run .
van wilder has a built-in audience , but only among those who are drying out fro
m spring break and are still unconcerned about what they ingest .
a complete waste of time .
it's hard to believe that something so short could be so flabby .
do we really need another film that praises female self-sacrifice ?
the major problem with windtalkers is that the bulk of the movie centers on the
wrong character .
tennessee williams by way of oprah's book club .
so verbally flatfooted and so emotionally predictable or bland that it plays lik
e the standard made-for-tv movie .
the entire point of a shaggy dog story , of course , is that it goes nowhere , a
nd this is classic nowheresville in every sense .
stale and clichd to a fault .
this film is too busy hitting all of its assigned marks to take on any life of i
ts own .
watching junk like this induces a kind of abstract guilt , as if you were paying
dues for good books unread , fine music never heard .
the script feels as if it started to explore the obvious voyeuristic potential o
f 'hypertime' but then backed off when the producers saw the grosses for spy kid
s .
starts off witty and sophisticated and you want to love it -- but filmmaker yvan
attal quickly writes himself into a corner .
some like it hot on the hardwood proves once again that a man in drag is not in
and of himself funny .
unfortunately , contrived plotting , stereotyped characters and woo's over-the-t
op instincts as a director undermine the moral dilemma at the movie's heart .
witless and utterly pointless .
when 'science fiction' takes advantage of the fact that its intended audience ha
sn't yet had much science , it does a disservice to the audience and to the genr
e .
show me the mugging .
represents something very close to the nadir of the thriller/horror genre .
visually sumptuous but intellectually stultifying .
as a feature-length film , it wears out its welcome as tryingly as the title cha
racter .
a guilty pleasure at best , and not worth seeing unless you want to laugh at it
.
a sleep-inducing thriller with a single twist that everyone except the character
s in it can see coming a mile away .
with a " spy kids " sequel opening next week , why bother with a contemptible im
itator starring a " snl " has-been acting like an 8-year-old channeling roberto
benigni ?
it's just rather leaden and dull .
lacks the visual flair and bouncing bravado that characterizes better hip-hop cl
ips and is content to recycle images and characters that were already tired 10 y
ears ago .
'pocas ideas interesantes , un final pseudo mstico que no corresponde al tono gen
eral del filme y que deja una sensacin de inconformidad que hace pensar ms de una
vez si vale la pena ir a la taquilla y reclamar el precio del boleto . '
statham employs an accent that i think is supposed to be an attempt at hardass a
merican but sometimes just lapses into unhidden british .
instead of trying to bust some blondes , [diggs] should be probing why a guy wit
h his talent ended up in a movie this bad .
initial strangeness inexorably gives way to rote sentimentality and mystical ten
derness becomes narrative expedience .
de ayala is required to supply too much of the energy in a film that is , overal
l , far too staid for its subject matter .
dismally dull sci-fi comedy .
there's surely something wrong with a comedy where the only belly laughs come fr
om the selection of outtakes tacked onto the end credits .
when one hears harry shearer is going to make his debut as a film director , one
would hope for the best
the leads we are given here are simply too bland to be interesting .
[toback's] fondness for fancy split-screen , stuttering editing and pompous refe
rences to wittgenstein and kirkegaard . . . blends uneasily with the titillating
material .
adam sandler's 8 crazy nights is 75 wasted minutes of sandler as the voice-over
hero in columbia pictures' perverse idea of an animated holiday movie .
essentially " fatal attraction " remade for viewers who were in diapers when the
original was released in 1987 . . . . this story gets sillier , not scarier , a
s it goes along . . .
even a hardened voyeur would require the patience of job to get through this int
erminable , shapeless documentary about the swinging subculture .
the film's hero is a bore and his innocence soon becomes a questionable kind of
inexcusable dumb innocence .
a singularly off-putting romantic comedy .
this is an exercise not in biography but in hero worship .
it all comes down to whether you can tolerate leon barlow . i can't .
in the spirit of the season , i assign one bright shining star to roberto benign
i's pinocchio -- but i guarantee that no wise men will be following after it .
check your brain and your secret agent decoder ring at the door because you don'
t want to think too much about what's going on . the movie does has some enterta
inment value - how much depends on how well you like chris rock .
a movie that seems motivated more by a desire to match mortarboards with dead po
ets society and good will hunting than by its own story .
a culture clash comedy only half as clever as it thinks it is .
the logic of it all will be greek to anyone not predisposed to the movie's rude
and crude humor .
as self-aware movies go , who is cletis tout ? is clever enough , though thin wr
iting proves its undoing .
starts out strongly before quickly losing its focus , point and purpose in a mes
s of mixed messages , over-blown drama and bruce willis with a scar .
. . . a fascinating curiosity piece -- fascinating , that is , for about ten mi
nutes . after that it becomes long and tedious like a classroom play in a colleg
e history course .
director jay russell weighs down his capricious fairy-tale with heavy sentiment
and lightweight meaning .
there are many things that solid acting can do for a movie , but crafting someth
ing promising from a mediocre screenplay is not one of them .
its screenplay serves as auto-critique , and its clumsiness as its own most damn
ing censure .
at times , it actually hurts to watch .
nemesis suffers from a paunchy midsection , several plodding action sequences an
d a wickedly undramatic central theme .
the jokes are telegraphed so far in advance they must have been lost in the mail
.
[tries] to parody a genre that's already a joke in the united states . the movie
is the equivalent of french hip-hop , which also seems to play on a 10-year del
ay .
a beyond-lame satire , teddy bears' picnic ranks among the most pitiful directin
g debuts by an esteemed writer-actor .
long before it's over , you'll be thinking of 51 ways to leave this loser .
i've never seen ( a remake ) do anything as stomach-turning as the way adam sand
ler's new movie rapes , pillages and incinerates frank capra's classic . . .
hollywood's answer to an air ball .
and people make fun of me for liking showgirls</> .
such a wildly uneven hit-and-miss enterprise , you can't help suspecting that it
was improvised on a day-to-day basis during production .
a weird little movie that's amusing enough while you watch it , offering fine ac
ting moments and pungent insights into modern l . a . 's show-biz and media subc
ultures . but it doesn't leave you with much .
i'm convinced i could keep a family of five blind , crippled , amish people aliv
e in this situation better than these british soldiers do at keeping themselves
kicking .
like mike is a slight and uninventive movie : like the exalted michael jordan re
ferred to in the title , many can aspire but none can equal .
there is nothing funny in this every-joke-has- been-told-a- thousand-times- befo
re movie .
always destined to be measured against anthony asquith's acclaimed 1952 screen a
daptation .
this is standard crime drama fare . . . instantly forgettable and thoroughly dul
l .
there's some outrageously creative action in the transporter . . . [b]ut by the
time frank parachutes down onto a moving truck , it's just another cartoon with
an unstoppable superman .
one of those based-on-truth stories that persuades you , with every scene , that
it could never really have happened this way .
from its nauseating spinning credits sequence to a very talented but underutiliz
ed supporting cast , bartleby squanders as much as it gives out .
yet another genre exercise , gangster no . 1 is as generic as its title .
despite the holes in the story and the somewhat predictable plot , moments of th
e movie caused me to jump in my chair . . .
there's an admirable rigor to jimmy's relentless anger , and to the script's ref
usal of a happy ending , but as those monologues stretch on and on , you realize
there's no place for this story to go but down .
once again , the intelligence of gay audiences has been grossly underestimated ,
and a meaty plot and well-developed characters have been sacrificed for skin an
d flash that barely fizzle .
a lightweight , uneven action comedy that freely mingles french , japanese and h
ollywood cultures .
[a] slummer .
such a fine idea for a film , and such a stultifying , lifeless execution .
[allen's] best works understand why snobbery is a better satiric target than mid
dle-america diversions could ever be .
this overlong infomercial , due out on video before month's end , is tepid and t
edious .
an ambitious , guilt-suffused melodrama crippled by poor casting .
rarely has sex on screen been so aggressively anti-erotic .
a dull , inconsistent , dishonest female bonding picture .
so much about the film is loopy and ludicrous . . . that it could have been a ho
ot in a bad-movie way if the laborious pacing and endless exposition had been ti
ghtened .
a disappointment for a movie that should have been the ultimate imax trip .
does little to elaborate the conceit of setting this blood-soaked tragedy of mur
derous ambition in the era of richard nixon .
this sade is hardly a perverse , dangerous libertine and agitator -- which would
have made for better drama . he's just a sad aristocrat in tattered finery , an
d the film seems as deflated as he does .
the film's needlessly opaque intro takes its doe-eyed crudup out of pre-9/11 new
york and onto a cross-country road trip of the homeric kind .
it's as if a bored cage spent the duration of the film's shooting schedule waiti
ng to scream : " got aids yet ? "
in a strange way , egoyan has done too much . he's worked too hard on this movie
.
the film has the thrown-together feel of a summer-camp talent show : hastily wri
tten , underrehearsed , arbitrarily plotted and filled with crude humor and vulg
ar innuendo .
the last three narcissists left on earth compete for each others' affections .
a clash between the artificial structure of the story and the more contemporary
, naturalistic tone of the film . . .
[a] poorly executed comedy .
the movie's messages are quite admirable , but the story is just too clichd and t
oo often strains credulity .
what we have here isn't a disaster , exactly , but a very handsomely produced le
t-down .
the script was reportedly rewritten a dozen times -- either 11 times too many or
else too few .
a shoddy male hip hop fantasy filled with guns , expensive cars , lots of naked
women and rocawear clothing .
to the filmmakers , ivan is a prince of a fellow , but he comes across as shallo
w and glib though not mean-spirited , and there's no indication that he's been r
esponsible for putting together any movies of particular value or merit .
this is a movie filled with unlikable , spiteful idiots ; whether or not their f
riendship is salvaged makes no difference in the least .
it's as if allen , at 66 , has stopped challenging himself .
scotland , pa is entirely too straight-faced to transcend its clever concept .
a movie that the less charitable might describe as a castrated cross between hig
hlander and lolita .
not only does leblanc make one spectacularly ugly-looking broad , but he appears
miserable throughout as he swaggers through his scenes .
there's little to recommend snow dogs , unless one considers cliched dialogue an
d perverse escapism a source of high hilarity .
it's deep-sixed by a compulsion to catalog every bodily fluids gag in there's so
mething about mary and devise a parallel clone-gag .
the film rehashes several old themes and is capped with pointless extremes -- it
's insanely violent and very graphic .
sorority boys , which is as bad at it is cruel , takes every potential laugh and
stiletto-stomps the life out of it .
here the love scenes all end in someone screaming . maybe there's a metaphor her
e , but figuring it out wouldn't make trouble every day any better .
this is the first film i've ever seen that had no obvious directing involved .
fans of so-bad-they're-good cinema may find some fun in this jumbled mess .
weiss and speck never make a convincing case for the relevance of these two 20th
-century footnotes .
sheridan is painfully bad , a fourth-rate jim carrey who doesn't understand the
difference between dumb fun and just plain dumb .
presents nothing special and , until the final act , nothing overtly disagreeabl
e .
the most excruciating 86 minutes one might sit through this summer that do not i
nvolve a dentist drill .
was that movie nothing more than a tepid exercise in trotting out a formula that
worked five years ago but has since lost its fizz ?
it goes on for too long and bogs down in a surfeit of characters and unnecessary
subplots .
it's absolutely amazing how first-time director kevin donovan managed to find so
mething new to add to the canon of chan . make chan's action sequences boring .
you . . . get a sense of good intentions derailed by a failure to seek and strik
e just the right tone .
'in this poor remake of such a well loved classic , parker exposes the limitatio
ns of his skill and the basic flaws in his vision . '
it's the movie equivalent of a sweaty old guy in a rain coat shopping for cheap
porn .
the film's final hour , where nearly all the previous unseen material resides ,
is unconvincing soap opera that tornatore was right to cut .
the movie does such an excellent job of critiquing itself at every faltering hal
f-step of its development that criticizing feels more like commiserating .
i found it slow , predictable and not very amusing .
director yu seems far more interested in gross-out humor than in showing us well
-thought stunts or a car chase that we haven't seen 10 , 000 times .
viewers will need all the luck they can muster just figuring out who's who in th
is pretentious mess .
a pint-sized 'goodfellas' designed to appeal to the younger set , it's not a ver
y good movie in any objective sense , but it does mostly hold one's interest .
get out your pooper-scoopers .
while the material is slight , the movie is better than you might think .
it's definitely not made for kids or their parents , for that matter , and i thi
nk even fans of sandler's comic taste may find it uninteresting .
sheridan seems terrified of the book's irreverent energy , and scotches most of
its lan , humor , bile , and irony .
more busy than exciting , more frantic than involving , more chaotic than entert
aining .
there are more shots of children smiling for the camera than typical documentary
footage which hurts the overall impact of the film . it's makes a better travel
ogue than movie .
. . . really horrible drek .
it's as if solondz had two ideas for two movies , couldn't really figure out how
to flesh either out , so he just slopped em together here .
the fourth in a series that i'll bet most parents had thought --hoped ! -- was a
fad that had long since vanished .
it's a long way from orwell's dark , intelligent warning cry [1984] to the empty
stud knockabout of equilibrium , and what once was conviction is now affectatio
n .
its premise is smart , but the execution is pretty weary .
the holiday message of the 37-minute santa vs . the snowman leaves a lot to be d
esired .
more precious than perspicacious
if you saw it on tv , you'd probably turn it off , convinced that you had alread
y seen that movie .
[t]he script isn't up to the level of the direction , nor are the uneven perform
ances by the cast members , who seem bound and determined to duplicate bela lugo
si's now-cliched vampire accent .
if this is cinema , i pledge allegiance to cagney and lacey .
enigma looks great , has solid acting and a neat premise . yet why it fails is a
riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma .
most of the characters come off as pantomimesque sterotypes .
starts promisingly but disintegrates into a dreary , humorless soap opera .
while there's likely very little crossover appeal to those without much interest
in the elizabethans ( as well as rank frustration from those in the know about
rubbo's dumbed-down tactics ) , much ado about something is an amicable endeavor
.
it's actually too sincere -- the crime movie equivalent of a chick flick .
most of the film feels conceived and shot on the fly -- like between lunch break
s for shearer's radio show and his simpson voice-overs .
perry's good and his is an interesting character , but " serving sara " hasn't m
uch more to serve than silly fluff . nor is it a romantic comedy .
culkin turns his character into what is basically an anti-harry potter -- right
down to the gryffindor scarf .
memorable for a peculiar malaise that renders its tension flaccid and , by exten
sion , its surprises limp and its resolutions ritual .
it's a documentary that says that the alternate sexuality meant to set you free
may require so much relationship maintenance that celibacy can start looking goo
d .
in the not-too-distant future , movies like ghost ship will be used as analgesic
balm for overstimulated minds . right now , they're merely signposts marking th
e slow , lingering death of imagination .
an intriguing near-miss .
the movie's biggest shocks come from seeing former nymphette juliette lewis play
ing a salt-of-the-earth mommy named minnie and watching slim travel incognito in
a ridiculous wig no respectable halloween costume shop would ever try to sell .
like most movies about the pitfalls of bad behavior . . . circuit gets drawn int
o the party .
it appears as if even the filmmakers didn't know what kind of movie they were ma
king .
beneath the uncanny , inevitable and seemingly shrewd facade of movie-biz farce
. . . lies a plot cobbled together from largely flat and uncreative moments .
snipes relies too much on a scorchingly plotted dramatic scenario for its own go
od .
piccoli's performance is amazing , yes , but the symbols of loss and denial and
life-at-arm's-length in the film seem irritatingly transparent .
starts out mediocre , spirals downward , and thuds to the bottom of the pool wit
h an utterly incompetent conclusion .
nicolas cage isn't the first actor to lead a group of talented friends astray ,
and this movie won't create a ruffle in what is already an erratic career .
it lacks the compassion , good-natured humor and the level of insight that made
[eyre's] first film something of a sleeper success .
the result is good gossip , entertainingly delivered , yet with a distinctly mus
ty odour , its expiry date long gone .
a sustained fest of self-congratulation between actor and director that leaves s
cant place for the viewer .
all analyze that proves is that there is really only one movie's worth of decent
gags to be gleaned from the premise .
green ruins every single scene he's in , and the film , while it's not completel
y wreaked , is seriously compromised by that .
there's not a comedic moment in this romantic comedy .
the story is predictable , the jokes are typical sandler fare , and the romance
with ryder is puzzling .
wallace directs with such patronising reverence , it turns the stomach .
resurrection has the dubious distinction of being a really bad imitation of the
really bad blair witch project .
poor ben bratt couldn't find stardom if mapquest emailed him point-to-point driv
ing directions .
pretend like your sat scores are below 120 and you might not notice the flaws .
unlike trey parker , sandler doesn't understand that the idea of exploiting mole
station for laughs is funny , not actually exploiting it yourself .
a fake street drama that keeps telling you things instead of showing them .
an empty , purposeless exercise .
earnest and tentative even when it aims to shock .
haneke's script ( from elfriede jelinek's novel ) is contrived , unmotivated , a
nd psychologically unpersuasive , with an inconclusive ending .
a sometimes incisive and sensitive portrait that is undercut by its awkward stru
cture and a final veering toward melodrama .
those 24-and-unders looking for their own caddyshack to adopt as a generational
signpost may have to keep on looking .
a distinctly mixed bag , the occasional bursts of sharp writing alternating with
lots of sloppiness and the obligatory moments of sentimental ooze .
what begins brightly gets bogged down over 140 minutes .
ultimately , jane learns her place as a girl , softens up and loses some of the
intensity that made her an interesting character to begin with .
ah-nuld's action hero days might be over .
it's clear why deuces wild , which was shot two years ago , has been gathering d
ust on mgm's shelf .
feels like nothing quite so much as a middle-aged moviemaker's attempt to surrou
nd himself with beautiful , half-naked women .
when the precise nature of matthew's predicament finally comes into sharp focus
, the revelation fails to justify the build-up .
this picture is murder by numbers , and as easy to be bored by as your abc's , d
espite a few whopping shootouts .
hilarious musical comedy though stymied by accents thick as mud .
if you are into splatter movies , then you will probably have a reasonably good
time with the salton sea .
a dull , simple-minded and stereotypical tale of drugs , death and mind-numbing
indifference on the inner-city streets .
the feature-length stretch . . . strains the show's concept .
this slender plot feels especially thin stretched over the nearly 80-minute runn
ing time .
a film that will probably please people already fascinated by behan but leave ev
eryone else yawning with admiration .
davis the performer is plenty fetching enough , but she needs to shake up the mi
x , and work in something that doesn't feel like a half-baked stand-up routine .
the densest distillation of roberts' movies ever made .
ultimately , the film never recovers from the clumsy clich of the ugly american a
broad , and the too-frosty exterior ms . paltrow employs to authenticate her bri
tish persona is another liability .
a handsome but unfulfilling suspense drama more suited to a quiet evening on pbs
than a night out at an amc .
tom green and an ivy league college should never appear together on a marquee ,
especially when the payoff is an unschooled comedy like stealing harvard , which
fails to keep 80 minutes from seeming like 800 .
( it ) highlights not so much the crime lord's messianic bent , but spacey's .
master of disguise runs for only 71 minutes and feels like three hours .
a reworking of die hard and cliffhanger but it's nowhere near as exciting as eit
her .
suffers from unlikable characters and a self-conscious sense of its own quirky h
ipness .
a film without surprise geared toward maximum comfort and familiarity .
fessenden continues to do interesting work , and it would be nice to see what he
could make with a decent budget . but the problem with wendigo , for all its ef
fective moments , isn't really one of resources .
spirit is a visual treat , and it takes chances that are bold by studio standard
s , but it lacks a strong narrative .
it stars schticky chris rock and stolid anthony hopkins , who seem barely in the
same movie . their contrast is neither dramatic nor comic -- it's just a weird
fizzle .
this is a children's film in the truest sense . it's packed with adventure and a
worthwhile environmental message , so it's great for the kids . parents , on th
e other hand , will be ahead of the plot at all times , and there isn't enough c
lever innuendo to fil
the niftiest trick perpetrated by the importance of being earnest is the alchemi
cal transmogrification of wilde into austen--and a hollywood-ized austen at that
.
tykwer's surface flash isn't just a poor fit with kieslowski's lyrical pessimism
; it completely contradicts everything kieslowski's work aspired to , including
the condition of art .
ice age is the first computer-generated feature cartoon to feel like other movie
s , and that makes for some glacial pacing early on .
too slick and manufactured to claim street credibility .
cherry orchard is badly edited , often awkwardly directed and suffers from the a
ddition of a wholly unnecessary pre-credit sequence designed to give some of the
characters a 'back story . '
what ensues are much blood-splattering , mass drug-induced bowel evacuations , a
nd none-too-funny commentary on the cultural distinctions between americans and
brits .
a dark comedy that goes for sick and demented humor simply to do so . the movie
is without intent .
visually exciting sci-fi film which suffers from a lackluster screenplay .
while hollywood ending has its share of belly laughs ( including a knockout of a
closing line ) , the movie winds up feeling like a great missed opportunity .
if the full monty was a freshman fluke , lucky break is [cattaneo] sophomore slu
mp .
sandra bullock and hugh grant make a great team , but this predictable romantic
comedy should get a pink slip .
allegiance to chekhov , which director michael cacoyannis displays with somber e
arnestness in the new adaptation of the cherry orchard , is a particularly vexin
g handicap .
you expect more from director michael apted ( enigma ) and screenwriter nicholas
kazan ( reversal of fortune ) than this cliche pileup .
the first mistake , i suspect , is casting shatner as a legendary professor and
kunis as a brilliant college student--where's pauly shore as the rocket scientis
t ?
the dramatic scenes are frequently unintentionally funny , and the action sequen
ces -- clearly the main event -- are surprisingly uninvolving .
replacing john carpenter's stylish tracking shots is degraded , handheld blair w
itch video-cam footage . of all the halloween's , this is the most visually unap
pealing .
it has the requisite faux-urban vibe and hotter-two-years-ago rap and r&b names
and references .
despite its dry wit and compassion , the film suffers from a philosophical empti
ness and maddeningly sedate pacing .
. . . feels as if ( there's ) a choke leash around your neck so director nick c
assavetes can give it a good , hard yank whenever he wants you to feel something
.
attal pushes too hard to make this a comedy or serious drama . he seems to want
both , but succeeds in making neither .
i could have used my two hours better watching being john malkovich again .
it's not a bad plot ; but , unfortunately , the movie is nowhere near as refined
as all the classic dramas it borrows from .
flat , misguided comedy .
girlfriends are bad , wives are worse and babies are the kiss of death in this b
itter italian comedy .
the only young people who possibly will enjoy it are infants . . . who might be
distracted by the movie's quick movements and sounds .
the film boasts at least a few good ideas and features some decent performances
, but the result is disappointing .
no such thing breaks no new ground and treads old turf like a hippopotamus balle
rina .
unfortunately , neither sendak nor the directors are particularly engaging or ar
ticulate .
a wishy-washy melodramatic movie that shows us plenty of sturm und drung , but e
xplains its characters' decisions only unsatisfactorily .
bang ! zoom ! it's actually pretty funny , but in all the wrong places .
lurid and less than lucid work .
a wannabe comedy of manners about a brainy prep-school kid with a mrs . robinson
complex founders on its own preciousness -- and squanders its beautiful women .
at a brief 42 minutes , we need more x and less blab .
if anything , see it for karen black , who camps up a storm as a fringe feminist
conspiracy theorist named dirty dick .
this 90-minute dud could pass for mike tyson's e ! true hollywood story .
this is surely one of the most frantic , virulent and foul-natured christmas sea
son pics ever delivered by a hollywood studio .
once the expectation of laughter has been quashed by whatever obscenity is at ha
nd , even the funniest idea isn't funny .
a porn film without the sex scenes .
the connected stories of breitbart and hanussen are actually fascinating , but t
he filmmaking in invincible is such that the movie does not do them justice .
a depressingly retrograde , 'post-feminist' romantic comedy that takes an astoni
shingly condescending attitude toward women .
return to never land is much more p . c . than the original version ( no more ra
cist portraits of indians , for instance ) , but the excitement is missing .
by the end , you just don't care whether that cold-hearted snake petrovich ( tha
t would be reno ) gets his comeuppance . just bring on the battle bots , please
!
while it's all quite tasteful to look at , the attention process tends to do a l
ittle fleeing of its own .
broder's screenplay is shallow , offensive and redundant , with pitifully few re
al laughs .
yes they can swim , the title is merely anne-sophie birot's off-handed way of sa
ying girls find adolescence difficult to wade through .
don michael paul uses quick-cuts , ( very ) large shadows and wide-angle shots t
aken from a distance to hide the liberal use of a body double ( for seagal ) .
slow , silly and unintentionally hilarious .
the sweetest thing leaves a bitter taste .
in a big corner office in hell , satan is throwing up his hands in surrender , i
s firing his r&d people , and has decided he will just screen the master of disg
uise 24/7 .
for something as splendid-looking as this particular film , the viewer expects s
omething special but instead gets [sci-fi] rehash .
a thriller without a lot of thrills .
this stuck pig of a movie flails limply between bizarre comedy and pallid horror
.
ah , the travails of metropolitan life ! alas , another breathless movie about s
ame !
in moonlight mile , no one gets shut out of the hug cycle .
though uniformly well acted , especially by young ballesta and galan ( a first-t
ime actor ) , writer/director achero manas's film is schematic and obvious .
done in mostly by a weak script that can't support the epic treatment .
despite its visual virtuosity , 'naqoyqatsi' is banal in its message and the cho
ice of material to convey it .
slap her - she's not funny ! no french people were harmed during the making of t
his movie , but they were insulted and the audience was put through torture for
an hour and a half .
though its rather routine script is loaded with familiar situations , the movie
has a cinematic fluidity and sense of intelligence that makes it work more than
it probably should .
" one look at a girl in tight pants and big tits and you turn stupid ? " um . .
isn't that the basis for the entire plot ?
" not really as bad as you might think ! "
strident and inelegant in its 'message-movie' posturing .
one regards reign of fire with awe . what a vast enterprise has been marshaled i
n the service of such a minute idea .
it has the right approach and the right opening premise , but it lacks the zest
and it goes for a plot twist instead of trusting the material .
its impressive images of crematorium chimney fires and stacks of dead bodies are
undermined by the movie's presentation , which is way too stagy .
seeing as the film lacks momentum and its position remains mostly undeterminable
, the director's experiment is a successful one .
the plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish .
i suspect this is the kind of production that would have been funnier if the dir
ector had released the outtakes theatrically and used the film as a bonus featur
e on the dvd .
an unfortunate title for a film that has nothing endearing about it .
ninety minutes of viva castro ! can be as tiresome as 9 seconds of jesse helms'
anti- castro rhetoric , which are included
comes off as a long , laborious whine , the bellyaching of a paranoid and unlika
ble man .
it just goes to show , an intelligent person isn't necessarily an admirable stor
yteller .
in a 102-minute film , aaliyah gets at most 20 minutes of screen time . . . . mo
st viewers will wish there had been more of the " queen " and less of the " damn
ed . "
hopelessly inane , humorless and under-inspired .
kapur fails to give his audience a single character worth rooting for ( or worth
rooting against , for that matter ) .
it reduces the complexities to bromides and slogans and it gets so preachy-keen
and so tub-thumpingly loud it makes you feel like a chump just for sitting throu
gh it .
none of this has the suavity or classical familiarity of bond , but much of it i
s good for a laugh . the problem with " xxx " is that its own action isn't very
effective .
a great script brought down by lousy direction . same guy with both hats . big m
istake .
a mediocre exercise in target demographics , unaware that it's the butt of its o
wn joke .
director kevin bray excels in breaking glass and marking off the " miami vice "
checklist of power boats , latin music and dog tracks . he doesn't , however , d
eliver nearly enough of the show's trademark style and flash .
in gleefully , thumpingly hyperbolic terms , it covers just about every cliche i
n the compendium about crass , jaded movie types and the phony baloney movie biz
.
the spalding gray equivalent of a teen gross-out comedy .
perhaps even the slc high command found writer-director mitch davis's wall of ki
tsch hard going .
according to wendigo , 'nature' loves the members of the upper class almost as m
uch as they love themselves .
an encouraging effort from mccrudden
the romance between the leads isn't as compelling or as believable as it should
be .
if i could have looked into my future and saw how bad this movie was , i would g
o back and choose to skip it . fortunately , you still have that option .
supposedly authentic account of a historical event that's far too tragic to meri
t such superficial treatment .
adroit but finally a trifle flat , mad love doesn't galvanize its outrage the wa
y , say , jane campion might have done , but at least it possesses some .
to blandly go where we went 8 movies ago . . .
a slow-moving police-procedural thriller that takes its title all too literally
.
this u-boat doesn't have a captain .
with nary a glimmer of self-knowledge , [crane] becomes more specimen than chara
cter -- and auto focus remains a chilly , clinical lab report .
this one aims for the toilet and scores a direct hit .
dull , a road-trip movie that's surprisingly short of both adventure and song .
i walked away not really know who " they " were , what " they " looked like . wh
y " they " were here and what " they " wanted and quite honestly , i didn't care
.
predictably melodramatic .
after several scenes of this tacky nonsense , you'll be wistful for the testoste
rone-charged wizardry of jerry bruckheimer productions , especially because half
past dead is like the rock on a wal-mart budget .
a relatively effective little potboiler until its absurd , contrived , overblown
, and entirely implausible finale .
the country bears wastes an exceptionally good idea . but the movie that doesn't
really deliver for country music fans or for family audiences
adults will certainly want to spend their time in the theater thinking up grocer
y lists and ways to tell their kids how not to act like pinocchio . as for child
ren , they won't enjoy the movie at all .
. . . you can be forgiven for realizing that you've spent the past 20 minutes l
ooking at your watch and waiting for frida to just die already .
too bad writer-director adam rifkin situates it all in a plot as musty as one of
the golden eagle's carpets .
it's lazy for a movie to avoid solving one problem by trying to distract us with
the solution to another .
the movie is genial but never inspired , and little about it will stay with you
.
the movie obviously seeks to re-create the excitement of such '50s flicks as jul
es verne's '20 , 000 leagues under the sea' and the george pal version of h . g
. wells' 'the time machine . ' but its storytelling prowess and special effects
are both listless .
despite the opulent lushness of every scene , the characters never seem to match
the power of their surroundings .
even after 90 minutes of playing opposite each other bullock and grant still loo
k ill at ease sharing the same scene . what should have been a painless time-kil
ler becomes instead a grating endurance test .
a bland , obnoxious 88-minute infomercial for universal studios and its ancillar
y products .
. . little action , almost no suspense or believable tension , one-dimensional
characters up the wazoo and sets that can only be described as sci-fi generic .
the movie strains to stay on the light , comic side of the issue , despite the d
ifficulty of doing so when dealing with the destruction of property and , potent
ially , of life itself .
the master of disguise is awful . it's pauly shore awful . don't say you weren't
warned .
disappointing in comparison to other recent war movies or any other john woo flick
for that matter .
the entire movie is filled with deja vu moments .
'opening up' the play more has partly closed it down .
what [frei] gives us . . . is a man who uses the damage of war -- far more often
than the warfare itself -- to create the kind of art shots that fill gallery sh
ows .
an ugly , revolting movie .
the film is way too full of itself ; it's stuffy and pretentious in a give-me-an
-oscar kind of way .
the movie is concocted and carried out by folks worthy of scorn , and the nicest
thing i can say is that i can't remember a single name responsible for it .
watching " ending " is too often like looking over the outdated clothes and plas
tic knickknacks at your neighbor's garage sale . you can't believe anyone would
really buy this stuff .
certainly beautiful to look at , but its not very informative about its titular
character and no more challenging than your average television biopic .
it desperately wants to be a wacky , screwball comedy , but the most screwy thin
g here is how so many talented people were convinced to waste their time .
the skills of a calculus major at m . i . t . are required to balance all the fo
rmulaic equations in the long-winded heist comedy who is cletis tout ?
from the choppy editing to the annoying score to 'special effects' by way of rep
lacing objects in a character's hands below the camera line , " besotted " is mi
sbegotten
my advice is to skip the film and pick up the soundtrack .
a film that presents an interesting , even sexy premise then ruins itself with t
oo many contrivances and goofy situations .
filled with low-brow humor , gratuitous violence and a disturbing disregard for
life .
directed in a flashy , empty sub-music video style by a director so self-possess
ed he actually adds a period to his first name
the 70-year-old godard has become , to judge from in praise of love , the sort o
f bitter old crank who sits behind his light meter and harangues the supposed in
justices of the artistic world-at-large without doing all that much to correct t
hem .
an unsophisticated sci-fi drama that takes itself all too seriously .
solondz is without doubt an artist of uncompromising vision , but that vision is
beginning to feel , if not morally bankrupt , at least terribly monotonous .
harvard man is a semi-throwback , a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimenta
lity .
supposedly based upon real , or at least soberly reported incidents , the film e
nds with a large human tragedy . alas , getting there is not even half the inter
est .
while hoffman's performance is great , the subject matter goes nowhere .
the smash 'em-up , crash 'em-up , shoot 'em-up ending comes out of nowhere subst
ituting mayhem for suspense .
deuces wild treads heavily into romeo and juliet/west side story territory , whe
re it plainly has no business going .
hart's war seems to want to be a character study , but apparently can't quite de
cide which character .
theological matters aside , the movie is so clumsily sentimental and ineptly dir
ected it may leave you speaking in tongues .
this latest installment of the horror film franchise that is apparently as invul
nerable as its trademark villain has arrived for an incongruous summer playoff ,
demonstrating yet again that the era of the intelligent , well-made b movie is
long gone .
novak contemplates a heartland so overwhelmed by its lack of purpose that it see
ks excitement in manufactured high drama .
been there , done that , liked it much better the first time around - when it wa
s called the professional .
the film is all over the place , really . it dabbles all around , never gaining
much momentum .
the beautiful , unusual music is this film's chief draw , but its dreaminess may
lull you to sleep .
the action quickly sinks into by-the-numbers territory .
forages for audience sympathy like a temperamental child begging for attention ,
giving audiences no reason to truly care for its decrepit freaks beyond the pro
mise of a reprieve from their incessant whining .
when [reno] lets her radical flag fly , taking angry potshots at george w . bush
, henry kissinger , larry king , et al . , reno devolves into a laugh-free lect
ure .
such a premise is ripe for all manner of lunacy , but kaufman and gondry rarely
seem sure of where it should go .
burns' fifth beer-soaked film feels in almost every possible way -- from the wri
ting and direction to the soggy performances -- tossed off .
'es en verdad una pena que mandoki est realizando cintas tan malas desde hace algn
tiempo , pues talento tiene , pero quin sabe dnde lo tiene escondido . '
while this one gets off with a good natured warning , future lizard endeavors wi
ll need to adhere more closely to the laws of laughter
another boorish movie from the i-heard-a-joke- at-a-frat-party school of screenw
riting .
too much of the movie feels contrived , as if the filmmakers were worried the st
ory wouldn't work without all those gimmicks .
it's hard to understand why anyone in his right mind would even think to make th
e attraction a movie . and it's harder still to believe that anyone in his right
mind would want to see the it .
the ethos of the chelsea hotel may shape hawke's artistic aspirations , but he h
asn't yet coordinated his own dv poetry with the beat he hears in his soul .
the sight of the name bruce willis brings to mind images of a violent battlefiel
d action picture , but the film has a lot more on its mind--maybe too much .
why sit through a crummy , wannabe-hip crime comedy that refers incessantly to o
ld movies , when you could just rent those movies instead , let alone seek out a
respectable new one ?
the obnoxious special effects , the obligatory outbursts of flatulence and the i
ncessant , so-five-minutes-ago pop music on the soundtrack overwhelm what is lef
t of the scruffy , dopey old hanna-barbera charm .
exploring value choices is a worthwhile topic for a film -- but here the choices
are as contrived and artificial as kerrigan's platinum-blonde hair .
the movie's downfall is to substitute plot for personality . it doesn't really k
now or care about the characters , and uses them as markers for a series of preo
rdained events .
all mood and no movie .
press the delete key .
simone is not a bad film . it just doesn't have anything really interesting to s
ay .
once he starts learning to compromise with reality enough to become comparativel
y sane and healthy , the film becomes predictably conventional .
. . . hopefully it'll be at the dollar theatres by the time christmas rolls aro
und . wait to see it then .
there's no disguising this as one of the worst films of the summer . or for the
year , for that matter .
lacks the spirit of the previous two , and makes all those jokes about hos and e
ven more unmentionable subjects seem like mere splashing around in the muck .
this hastily mounted production exists only to capitalize on hopkins' inclinatio
n to play hannibal lecter again , even though harris has no immediate inclinatio
n to provide a fourth book .
death to smoochy tells a moldy-oldie , not-nearly -as-nasty -as-it- thinks-it-is
joke . over and over again .
the threat implied in the title pokmon 4ever is terrifying like locusts in a hord
e these things will keep coming .
the film never gets over its own investment in conventional arrangements , in te
rms of love , age , gender , race , and class .
to call this film a lump of coal would only be to flatter it .
entertainment more disposable than hanna-barbera's half-hour cartoons ever were
.
the film falls short on tension , eloquence , spiritual challenge -- things that
have made the original new testament stories so compelling for 20 centuries .
by the end of it all i sort of loved the people onscreen , even though i could n
ot stand them . perhaps the film should be seen as a conversation starter . it's
not an easy one to review .
at best this is a film for the under-7 crowd . but it would be better to wait fo
r the video . and a very rainy day .
the whole talking-animal thing is grisly .
never again , while nothing special , is pleasant , diverting and modest -- defi
nitely a step in the right direction .
wouldn't it be funny if a bunch of allied soldiers went undercover as women in a
german factory during world war ii ? um , no . but here's a movie about it anyw
ay .
has not so much been written as assembled , frankenstein-like , out of other , m
arginally better shoot-em-ups .
the punch lines that miss , unfortunately , outnumber the hits by three-to-one .
but death to smoochy keeps firing until the bitter end .
mushes the college-friends genre ( the big chill ) together with the contrivance
s and overwrought emotion of soap operas .
showtime's starry cast could be both an asset and a detriment . those who trek t
o the 'plex predisposed to like it probably will enjoy themselves . but ticket-b
uyers with great expectations will wind up as glum as mr . de niro .
a determined , ennui-hobbled slog that really doesn't have much to say beyond th
e news flash that loneliness can make people act weird .
too daft by half . . . but supremely good natured .
fails in making this character understandable , in getting under her skin , in e
xploring motivation . . . well before the end , the film grows as dull as its ch
aracters , about whose fate it is hard to care .
it's a shame that the storyline and its underlying themes . . . finally seem so
impersonal or even shallow .
woody , what happened ?
juliette binoche's sand is vivacious , but it's hard to sense that powerhouse of
19th-century prose behind her childlike smile .
it's supposed to be post-feminist breezy but ends up as tedious as the chatter o
f parrots raised on oprah .
you can tell almost immediately that welcome to collinwood isn't going to jell .
throughout all the tumult , a question comes to mind : so why is this so boring
?
cattaneo reworks the formula that made the full monty a smashing success . . . b
ut neglects to add the magic that made it all work .
routine and rather silly .
a rip-off twice removed , modeled after [seagal's] earlier copycat under siege ,
sometimes referred to as die hard on a boat .
totally overwrought , deeply biased , and wholly designed to make you feel guilt
y about ignoring what the filmmakers clearly believe are the greatest musicians
of all time .
you can practically hear george orwell turning over .
behan's memoir is great material for a film -- rowdy , brawny and lyrical in the
best irish sense -- but sheridan has settled for a lugubrious romance .
while holm is terrific as both men and hjejle quite appealing , the film fails t
o make the most out of the intriguing premise .
lazy filmmaking , with the director taking a hands-off approach when he should h
ave shaped the story to show us why it's compelling .
if it were any more of a turkey , it would gobble in dolby digital stereo . if n
othing else , " rollerball " 2002 may go down in cinema history as the only movi
e ever in which the rest of the cast was outshined by ll cool j .
a movie that falls victim to frazzled wackiness and frayed satire .
how do you make a movie with depth about a man who lacked any ? on the evidence
before us , the answer is clear : not easily and , in the end , not well enough
.
the film's trailer also looked like crap , so crap is what i was expecting .
more trifle than triumph .
the movie is almost completely lacking in suspense , surprise and consistent emo
tional conviction .
festers in just such a dungpile that you'd swear you were watching monkeys fling
ing their feces at you .
lyne's latest , the erotic thriller unfaithful , further demonstrates just how f
ar his storytelling skills have eroded .
it sounds like another clever if pointless excursion into the abyss , and that's
more or less how it plays out .
rumor , a muddled drama about coming to terms with death , feels impersonal , al
most generic .
report card : doesn't live up to the exalted tagline - there's definite room for
improvement . doesn't deserve a passing grade ( even on a curve ) .
the pacing is deadly , the narration helps little and naipaul , a juicy writer ,
is negated .
as his circle of friends keeps getting smaller one of the characters in long tim
e dead says 'i'm telling you , this is f * * * ed' . maybe he was reading the mi
nds of the audience .
. . . if it had been only half-an-hour long or a tv special , the humor would h
ave been fast and furious-- at ninety minutes , it drags .
bean drops the ball too many times . . . hoping the nifty premise will create en
ough interest to make up for an unfocused screenplay .
a well-acted , but one-note film .
blood work is laughable in the solemnity with which it tries to pump life into o
verworked elements from eastwood's dirty harry period .
the movie is too amateurishly square to make the most of its own ironic implicat
ions .
[lee] treats his audience the same way that jim brown treats his women -- as dum
b , credulous , unassuming , subordinate subjects . and lee seems just as expect
ant of an adoring , wide-smiling reception .
there's not one decent performance from the cast and not one clever line of dial
ogue .
one of the worst movies of the year . . . . watching it was painful .
a era do gelo diverte , mas no convence . um passatempo descompromissado e s .
no amount of burning , blasting , stabbing , and shooting can hide a weak script
.
it's an odd show , pregnant with moods , stillborn except as a harsh conceptual
exercise .
nearly all the fundamentals you take for granted in most films are mishandled he
re .
the armenian genocide deserves a more engaged and honest treatment .
earnest yet curiously tepid and choppy recycling in which predictability is the
only winner .
ultimately this is a frustrating patchwork : an uneasy marriage of louis begley'
s source novel ( about schmidt ) and an old payne screenplay .
the exploitative , clumsily staged violence overshadows everything , including m
ost of the actors .
we started to wonder if some unpaid intern had just typed 'chris rock , ' 'antho
ny hopkins' and 'terrorists' into some univac-like script machine .
even when crush departs from the 4w formula . . . it feels like a glossy rehash
.
more likely to have you scratching your head than hiding under your seat .
bears is even worse than i imagined a movie ever could be .
when you find yourself rooting for the monsters in a horror movie , you know the
picture is in trouble .
this is very much of a mixed bag , with enough negatives to outweigh the positiv
es .
marinated in clichs and mawkish dialogue .
whether it's the worst movie of 2002 , i can't say for sure : memories of roller
ball have faded , and i skipped country bears . but this new jangle of noise , m
ayhem and stupidity must be a serious contender for the title .
[a] boldly stroked , luridly coloured , uni-dimensional nonsense machine that st
rokes the eyeballs while it evaporates like so much crypt mist in the brain .
not once in the rush to save the day did i become very involved in the proceedin
gs ; to me , it was just a matter of 'eh . '
rollerball is as bad as you think , and worse than you can imagine .
the first question to ask about bad company is why anthony hopkins is in it . we
assume he had a bad run in the market or a costly divorce , because there is no
earthly reason other than money why this distinguished actor would stoop so low
.
not exaggerated enough to be a parody of gross-out flicks , college flicks , or
even flicks in general . it merely indulges in the worst elements of all of them
.
shame on writer/director vicente aranda for making a florid biopic about mad que
ens , obsessive relationships , and rampant adultery so dull .
suffers from a decided lack of creative storytelling .
violent , vulgar and forgettably entertaining .
nothing happens , and it happens to flat characters .
with a completely predictable plot , you'll swear that you've seen it all before
, even if you've never come within a mile of the longest yard .
remember back when thrillers actually thrilled ? when the twist endings were act
ually surprising ? when the violence actually shocked ? when the heroes were act
ually under 40 ? sadly , as blood work proves , that was a long , long time ago
.
blue crush has all the trappings of an energetic , extreme-sports adventure , bu
t ends up more of a creaky " pretty woman " retread , with the emphasis on self-
empowering schmaltz and big-wave surfing that gives pic its title an afterthough
t .
this movie plays like an extended dialogue exercise in retard 101 .
what we get in feardotcom is more like something from a bad clive barker movie .
in other words , it's badder than bad .
if they broke out into elaborate choreography , singing and finger snapping it m
ight have held my attention , but as it stands i kept looking for the last exit
from brooklyn .
a sloppy slapstick throwback to long gone bottom-of-the-bill fare like the ghost
and mr . chicken .
a small independent film suffering from a severe case of hollywood-itis .
where the film falters is in its tone .
the story alone could force you to scratch a hole in your head .
ultimately , sarah's dedication to finding her husband seems more psychotic than
romantic , and nothing in the movie makes a convincing case that one woman's br
oken heart outweighs all the loss we witness .
it's supposed to be a humorous , all-too-human look at how hope can breed a cert
ain kind of madness -- and strength -- but it never quite adds up .
feels more like a rejected x-files episode than a credible account of a puzzling
real-life happening .
some motion pictures portray ultimate passion ; others create ultimate thrills .
men in black ii achieves ultimate insignificance -- it's the sci-fi comedy spec
tacle as whiffle-ball epic .
an enigmatic film that's too clever for its own good , it's a conundrum not wort
h solving .
a zombie movie in every sense of the word--mindless , lifeless , meandering , lo
ud , painful , obnoxious .
rashomon-for-dipsticks tale .
a film that clearly means to preach exclusively to the converted .
it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a mormon family mo
vie , and a sappy , preachy one at that .
definitely a crowd-pleaser , but then , so was the roman colosseum .
certainly not a good movie , but it wasn't horrible either .
although it starts off so bad that you feel like running out screaming , it even
tually works its way up to merely bad rather than painfully awful .
the result is so tame that even slightly wised-up kids would quickly change the
channel .
it appears to have been modeled on the worst revenge-of-the-nerds clichs the film
makers could dredge up .
nothing but an episode of smackdown ! in period costume and with a bigger budget
.
it takes you somewhere you're not likely to have seen before , but beneath the e
xotic surface ( and exotic dancing ) it's surprisingly old-fashioned .
while the story is better-focused than the incomprehensible anne rice novel it's
based upon , queen of the damned is a pointless , meandering celebration of the
goth-vampire , tortured woe-is-me lifestyle .
it should be interesting , it should be poignant , it turns out to be affected a
nd boring .
a good-looking but ultimately pointless political thriller with plenty of action
and almost no substance .
a tired , predictable , bordering on offensive , waste of time , money and cellu
loid .
if hill isn't quite his generation's don siegel ( or robert aldrich ) , it's bec
ause there's no discernible feeling beneath the chest hair ; it's all bluster an
d clich .
stealing harvard will dip into your wallet , swipe 90 minutes of your time , and
offer you precisely this in recompense : a few early laughs scattered around a
plot as thin as it is repetitious .
this is an insultingly inept and artificial examination of grief and its impacts
upon the relationships of the survivors .
does anyone much think the central story of brendan behan is that he was a bisex
ual sweetheart before he took to drink ?
`martin lawrence live' is so self-pitying , i almost expected there to be a coll
ection taken for the comedian at the end of the show .
the dialogue is cumbersome , the simpering soundtrack and editing more so .
never decides whether it wants to be a black comedy , drama , melodrama or some
combination of the three .
it has become apparent that the franchise's best years are long past .
does what should seem impossible : it makes serial killer jeffrey dahmer boring
.
don't hate el crimen del padre amaro because it's anti-catholic . hate it becaus
e it's lousy .
. . . better described as a ghost story gone badly awry .
like a bad improvisation exercise , the superficially written characters ramble
on tediously about their lives , loves and the art they're struggling to create
.
the filmmakers are playing to the big boys in new york and l . a . to that end ,
they mock the kind of folks they don't understand , ones they figure the power-
lunchers don't care to understand , either .
competently directed but terminally cute drama .
the big finish is a bit like getting all excited about a chocolate eclair and th
en biting into it and finding the filling missing .
not just unlikable . disturbing . disgusting . without any redeeming value whats
oever .
this thing is virtually unwatchable .
those eternally devoted to the insanity of black will have an intermittently goo
d time . feel free to go get popcorn whenever he's not onscreen .
the self-serious equilibrium makes its point too well ; a movie , like life , is
n't much fun without the highs and lows .
the work of an exhausted , desiccated talent who can't get out of his own way .
the main characters are simply named the husband , the wife and the kidnapper ,
emphasizing the disappointingly generic nature of the entire effort .
in terms of execution this movie is careless and unfocused .
swims in mediocrity , sticking its head up for a breath of fresh air now and the
n .
the only type of lives this glossy comedy-drama resembles are ones in formulaic
mainstream movies .
the characters . . . are paper-thin , and their personalities undergo radical ch
anges when it suits the script .
a sha-na-na sketch punctuated with graphic violence .
the trouble is , its filmmakers run out of clever ideas and visual gags about ha
lfway through .
spy-vs . -spy action flick with antonio banderas and lucy liu never comes togeth
er .
a so-so , made-for-tv something posing as a real movie .
the only upside to all of this unpleasantness is , given its labor day weekend u
pload , feardotcom should log a minimal number of hits .
whether this is art imitating life or life imitating art , it's an unhappy situa
tion all around .
an uneasy mix of run-of-the-mill raunchy humor and seemingly sincere personal re
flection .
a formula family tearjerker told with a heavy irish brogue . . . accentuating ,
rather than muting , the plot's saccharine thrust .
this is sandler running on empty , repeating what he's already done way too ofte
n .
this is as lax and limp a comedy as i've seen in a while , a meander through wor
n-out material .
time literally stops on a dime in the tries-so-hard-to-be-cool " clockstoppers ,
" but that doesn't mean it still won't feel like the longest 90 minutes of your
movie-going life .
the sort of picture in which , whenever one of the characters has some serious s
oul searching to do , they go to a picture-perfect beach during sunset .
aptly named , this shimmering , beautifully costumed and filmed production doesn
't work for me .
a preposterously melodramatic paean to gang-member teens in brooklyn circa 1958
.
has none of the crackle of " fatal attraction " , " 9 weeks " , or even " indece
nt proposal " , and feels more like lyne's stolid remake of " lolita " .
everything its title implies , a standard-issue crime drama spat out from the ti
nseltown assembly line .
an extraordinarily silly thriller .
a rehash of every gangster movie from the past decade .
gaping plot holes sink this 'sub'-standard thriller and drag audience enthusiasm
to crush depth .
talkiness isn't necessarily bad , but the dialogue frequently misses the mark .
the beautiful images and solemn words cannot disguise the slack complacency of [
godard's] vision , any more than the gorgeous piano and strings on the soundtrac
k can drown out the tinny self-righteousness of his voice .
the stunt work is top-notch ; the dialogue and drama often food-spittingly funny
.
the movie isn't painfully bad , something to be 'fully experienced' ; it's just
tediously bad , something to be fully forgotten .
charly comes off as emotionally manipulative and sadly imitative of innumerable
past love story derisions .
what a great shame that such a talented director as chen kaige has chosen to mak
e his english-language debut with a film so poorly plotted and scripted .
no amount of good intentions is able to overcome the triviality of the story .
the film . . . presents classic moral-condundrum drama : what would you have don
e to survive ? the problem with the film is whether these ambitions , laudable i
n themselves , justify a theatrical simulation of the death camp of auschwitz ii
-birkenau .
. . . for all its social and political potential , state property doesn't end u
p being very inspiring or insightful .
a film really has to be exceptional to justify a three hour running time , and t
his isn't .
little more than a stylish exercise in revisionism whose point . . . is no doubt
true , but serves as a rather thin moral to such a knowing fable .
the nonstop artifice ultimately proves tiresome , with the surface histrionics f
ailing to compensate for the paper-thin characterizations and facile situations
.
this is a monumental achievement in practically every facet of inept filmmaking
: joyless , idiotic , annoying , heavy-handed , visually atrocious , and often d
ownright creepy .
this off-putting french romantic comedy is sure to test severely the indulgence
of fans of amlie .
overburdened with complicated plotting and banal dialogue
ensemble movies , like soap operas , depend on empathy . if there ain't none , y
ou have a problem .
the master of disguise falls under the category of 'should have been a sketch on
saturday night live . '
yet another self-consciously overwritten story about a rag-tag bunch of would-be
characters that team up for a can't-miss heist -- only to have it all go wrong
.
koepp's screenplay isn't nearly surprising or clever enough to sustain a reasona
ble degree of suspense on its own .
is it really an advantage to invest such subtlety and warmth in an animatronic b
ear when the humans are acting like puppets ?
more successful at relating history than in creating an emotionally complex , dr
amatically satisfying heroine
clumsy , obvious , preposterous , the movie will likely set the cause of woman w
arriors back decades .
it's hard to pity the 'plain' girl who becomes a ravishing waif after applying a
smear of lip-gloss . rather , pity anyone who sees this mishmash .
a banal , virulently unpleasant excuse for a romantic comedy .
the drama discloses almost nothing .
a minor-league soccer remake of the longest yard .
belongs in the too-hot-for-tv direct-to-video/dvd category , and this is why i h
ave given it a one-star rating .
as earnest as a community-college advertisement , american chai is enough to mak
e you put away the guitar , sell the amp , and apply to medical school .
a dim-witted and lazy spin-off of the animal planet documentary series , crocodi
le hunter is entertainment opportunism at its most glaring .
there is more than one joke about putting the toilet seat down . and that should
tell you everything you need to know about all the queen's men .
even fans of ismail merchant's work , i suspect , would have a hard time sitting
through this one .
it's really just another silly hollywood action film , one among a multitude of
simple-minded , yahoo-ing death shows .
it's not a particularly good film , but neither is it a monsterous one .
the world needs more filmmakers with passionate enthusiasms like martin scorsese
. but it doesn't need gangs of new york .
enchanted with low-life tragedy and liberally seasoned with emotional outbursts
. . . what is sorely missing , however , is the edge of wild , lunatic invention
that we associate with cage's best acting .
harry potter and the chamber of secrets is deja vu all over again , and while th
at is a cliche , nothing could be more appropriate . it's likely that whatever y
ou thought of the first production -- pro or con -- you'll likely think of this
one .
sade achieves the near-impossible : it turns the marquis de sade into a dullard
.
[lin chung's] voice is rather unexceptional , even irritating ( at least to this
western ear ) , making it awfully hard to buy the impetus for the complicated l
ove triangle that develops between the three central characters .
one of the most plain , unimaginative romantic comedies i've ever seen .
though there's a clarity of purpose and even-handedness to the film's direction
, the drama feels rigged and sluggish .
unfortunately , the experience of actually watching the movie is less compelling
than the circumstances of its making .
unless there are zoning ordinances to protect your community from the dullest sc
ience fiction , impostor is opening today at a theater near you .
it should be doing a lot of things , but doesn't .
chen films the resolutely downbeat smokers only with every indulgent , indie tri
ck in the book .
. . . a rather bland affair .
far-fetched premise , convoluted plot , and thematic mumbo jumbo about destiny a
nd redemptive love .
the movie tries to be ethereal , but ends up seeming goofy .
i was hoping that it would be sleazy and fun , but it was neither .
harris is supposed to be the star of the story , but comes across as pretty dull
and wooden .
soulless and -- even more damning -- virtually joyless , xxx achieves near virtu
osity in its crapulence .
a boring masquerade ball where normally good actors , even kingsley , are made t
o look bad .
all the queen's men is a throwback war movie that fails on so many levels , it s
hould pay reparations to viewers .
the filmmakers keep pushing the jokes at the expense of character until things f
all apart .
rather than real figures , elling and kjell bjarne become symbolic characters wh
ose actions are supposed to relate something about the naf's encounter with the w
orld .
mariah carey gives us another peek at some of the magic we saw in glitter here i
n wisegirls .
it's all arty and jazzy and people sit and stare and turn away from one another
instead of talking and it's all about the silences and if you're into that , hav
e at it .
i suspect that you'll be as bored watching morvern callar as the characters are
in it . if you go , pack your knitting needles .
the lead actors share no chemistry or engaging charisma . we don't even like the
ir characters .
some writer dude , i think his name was , uh , michael zaidan , was supposed to
have like written the screenplay or something , but , dude , the only thing that
i ever saw that was written down were the zeroes on my paycheck .
the movie doesn't generate a lot of energy . it is dark , brooding and slow , an
d takes its central idea way too seriously .
this feature is about as necessary as a hole in the head
the cinematic equivalent of patronizing a bar favored by pretentious , untalente
d artistes who enjoy moaning about their cruel fate .
spectators will indeed sit open-mouthed before the screen , not screaming but ya
wning .
it feels like very light errol morris , focusing on eccentricity but failing , u
ltimately , to make something bigger out of its scrapbook of oddballs .
a period story about a catholic boy who tries to help a jewish friend get into h
eaven by sending the audience straight to hell .
the premise itself is just sooooo tired . pair that with really poor comedic wri
ting . . . and you've got a huge mess .
proves a lovely trifle that , unfortunately , is a little too in love with its o
wn cuteness .
did we really need a remake of " charade ? "
some movies can get by without being funny simply by structuring the scenes as i
f they were jokes : a setup , delivery and payoff . stealing harvard can't even
do that much . each scene immediately succumbs to gravity and plummets to earth
.
the only fun part of the movie is playing the obvious game . you try to guess th
e order in which the kids in the house will be gored .
i spied with my little eye . . . a mediocre collection of cookie-cutter action s
cenes and occasionally inspired dialogue bits
entertains not so much because of its music or comic antics , but through the pe
rverse pleasure of watching disney scrape the bottom of its own cracker barrel .
the satire is just too easy to be genuinely satisfying .
bearable . barely .
less funny than it should be and less funny than it thinks it is .
an " o bruin , where art thou ? " -style cross-country adventure . . . it has sp
oradic bursts of liveliness , some so-so slapstick and a few ear-pleasing songs
on its soundtrack .
a feeble tootsie knockoff .
an awful movie that will only satisfy the most emotionally malleable of filmgoer
s .
the story is far-flung , illogical , and plain stupid .
the very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost ar
bitrary .
an allegory concerning the chronically mixed signals african american profession
als get about overachieving could be intriguing , but the supernatural trappings
only obscure the message .
a very familiar tale , one that's been told by countless filmmakers about italia
n- , chinese- , irish- , latin- , indian- , russian- and other hyphenate america
n young men struggling to balance conflicting cultural messages .
one key problem with these ardently christian storylines is that there is never
any question of how things will turn out .
essentially , the film is weak on detail and strong on personality
a relentless , bombastic and ultimately empty world war ii action flick .
[hell is] looking down at your watch and realizing serving sara isn't even halfw
ay through .
too long , and larded with exposition , this somber cop drama ultimately feels a
s flat as the scruffy sands of its titular community .
leaves viewers out in the cold and undermines some phenomenal performances .
. . . a ho-hum affair , always watchable yet hardly memorable .
swiftly deteriorates into a terribly obvious melodrama and rough-hewn vanity pro
ject for lead actress andie macdowell .
the histrionic muse still eludes madonna and , playing a charmless witch , she i
s merely a charmless witch .
you have no affinity for most of the characters . nothing about them is attracti
ve . what they see in each other also is difficult to fathom .
diaz , applegate , blair and posey are suitably kooky which should appeal to wom
en and they strip down often enough to keep men alert , if not amused .
a technically well-made suspenser . . . but its abrupt drop in iq points as it r
aces to the finish line proves simply too discouraging to let slide .
an inept , tedious spoof of '70s kung fu pictures , it contains almost enough ch
uckles for a three-minute sketch , and no more .
it's a mystery how the movie could be released in this condition .
absolutely ( and unintentionally ) terrifying .
eckstraordinarily lame and severely boring .
eight legged freaks falls flat as a spoof .
no matter how much he runs around and acts like a doofus , accepting a 50-year-o
ld in the role is creepy in a michael jackson sort of way .
you'll just have your head in your hands wondering why lee's character didn't ju
st go to a bank manager and save everyone the misery .
'dragonfly' dwells on crossing-over mumbo jumbo , manipulative sentimentality ,
and sappy dialogue .
in his determination to lighten the heavy subject matter , silberling also , to
a certain extent , trivializes the movie with too many nervous gags and pratfall
s .
blade ii has a brilliant director and charismatic star , but it suffers from ram
pant vampire devaluation .
veers uncomfortably close to pro-serb propaganda .
staggeringly dreadful romance .
movies like high crimes flog the dead horse of surprise as if it were an obligat
ion . how about surprising us by trying something new ?
final verdict : you've seen it all before .
throwing in everything except someone pulling the pin from a grenade with his te
eth , windtalkers seems to have ransacked every old world war ii movie for overl
y familiar material .
if a few good men told us that we " can't handle the truth " than high crimes po
etically states at one point in this movie that we " don't care about the truth
. "
further sad evidence that tom tykwer , director of the resonant and sense-spinni
ng run lola run , has turned out to be a one-trick pony -- a maker of softheaded
metaphysical claptrap .
you'll trudge out of the theater feeling as though you rode the zipper after eat
ing a corn dog and an extra-large cotton candy .
the movie is a little tired ; maybe the original inspiration has run its course
.
this will go on so long as there are moviegoers anxious to see strange young guy
s doing strange guy things .
a full-frontal attack on audience patience .
any intellectual arguments being made about the nature of god are framed in a dr
ama so clumsy , there is a real danger less sophisticated audiences will mistake
it for an endorsement of the very things that bean abhors .
it's a big idea , but the film itself is small and shriveled .
debut effort by " project greenlight " winner is sappy and amateurish .
one gets the impression the creators of don't ask don't tell laughed a hell of a
lot at their own jokes . too bad none of it is funny .
the cast has a high time , but de broca has little enthusiasm for such antique p
ulp .
the film , like jimmy's routines , could use a few good laughs .
the film has too many spots where it's on slippery footing , but is acceptable e
ntertainment for the entire family and one that's especially fit for the kiddies
.
purports to be a hollywood satire but winds up as the kind of film that should b
e the target of something deeper and more engaging . oh , and more entertaining
, too .
. . . in the pile of useless actioners from mtv schmucks who don't know how to
tell a story for more than four minutes .
though it was made with careful attention to detail and is well-acted by james s
pader and maggie gyllenhaal , i felt disrespected .
well-made but mush-hearted .
humor in i spy is so anemic .
the film is strictly routine .
a real snooze .
skillful as he is , mr . shyamalan is undone by his pretensions .
while the new film is much more eye-catching than its blood-drenched stephen nor
rington-directed predecessor , the new script by the returning david s . goyer i
s much sillier .
in addition to sporting one of the worst titles in recent cinematic history , ba
llistic : ecks vs . sever also features terrible , banal dialogue ; convenient ,
hole-ridden plotting ; superficial characters and a rather dull , unimaginative
car chase .
it shares the first two films' loose-jointed structure , but laugh-out-loud bits
are few and far between .
the santa clause 2 is a barely adequate babysitter for older kids , but i've got
to give it thumbs down .
you cannot guess why the cast and crew didn't sign a pact to burn the negative a
nd the script and pretend the whole thing never existed .
barney throws away the goodwill the first half of his movie generates by orchest
rating a finale that is impenetrable and dull .
if you're really renting this you're not interested in discretion in your entert
ainment choices , you're interested in anne geddes , john grisham , and thomas k
incaid .
we get the comedy we settle for .
the uneven movie does have its charms and its funny moments but not quite enough
of them .
two hours of sepia-tinted heavy metal images and surround sound effects of peopl
e moaning .
a word of advice to the makers of the singles ward : celebrity cameos do not aut
omatically equal laughs . and neither do cliches , no matter how 'inside' they a
re .
the campy results make mel brooks' borscht belt schtick look sophisticated .
its appeal will probably limited to lds church members and undemanding armchair
tourists .
the hanukkah spirit seems fried in pork .
cherish would've worked a lot better had it been a short film .
manipulative claptrap , a period-piece movie-of-the-week , plain old blarney . .
. take your pick . all three descriptions suit evelyn , a besotted and obvious
drama that tells us nothing new .
hey arnold ! is now stretched to barely feature length , with a little more atte
ntion paid to the animation . still , the updated dickensian sensibility of writ
er craig bartlett's story is appealing .
true to its title , it traps audiences in a series of relentlessly nasty situati
ons that we would pay a considerable ransom not to be looking at .
doesn't come close to justifying the hype that surrounded its debut at the sunda
nce film festival two years ago .
the plot is paper-thin and the characters aren't interesting enough to watch the
m go about their daily activities for two whole hours .
kaufman's script is never especially clever and often is rather pretentious .
the film didn't move me one way or the other , but it was an honest effort and i
f you want to see a flick about telemarketers this one will due .
queen of the damned is too long with too little going on .
it collapses when mr . taylor tries to shift the tone to a thriller's rush .
any film that doesn't even in passing mention political prisoners , poverty and
the boat loads of people who try to escape the country is less a documentary and
more propaganda by way of a valentine sealed with a kiss .
. . . blade ii is still top-heavy with blazing guns , cheatfully filmed martial
arts , disintegrating bloodsucker computer effects and jagged camera moves that
serve no other purpose than to call attention to themselves .
the rules of attraction gets us too drunk on the party favors to sober us up wit
h the transparent attempts at moralizing .
though there are many tense scenes in trapped , they prove more distressing than
suspenseful .
in this film we at least see a study in contrasts ; the wide range of one actor
, and the limited range of a comedian .
feels strangely hollow at its emotional core .
no surprises .
you have once again entered the bizarre realm where director adrian lyne holds s
way , where all relationships are simultaneously broadly metaphorical , oddly ab
stract , and excruciatingly literal .
the high-concept scenario soon proves preposterous , the acting is robotically i
talicized , and truth-in-advertising hounds take note : there's very little hust
ling on view .
this director's cut -- which adds 51 minutes -- takes a great film and turns it
into a mundane soap opera .
characterisation has been sacrificed for the sake of spectacle .
the venezuelans say things like " si , pretty much " and " por favor , go home "
when talking to americans . that's muy loco , but no more ridiculous than most
of the rest of " dragonfly . "
it's a movie that ends with truckzilla , for cryin' out loud . if that doesn't c
lue you in that something's horribly wrong , nothing will .
director tom shadyac and star kevin costner glumly mishandle the story's promisi
ng premise of a physician who needs to heal himself .
it's difficult to imagine that a more confused , less interesting and more slopp
ily made film could possibly come down the road in 2002 .
like the tuck family themselves , this movie just goes on and on and on and on
as pedestrian as they come .
a film that plays things so nice 'n safe as to often play like a milquetoast mov
ie of the week blown up for the big screen .
it's a feel-bad ending for a depressing story that throws a bunch of hot-button
items in the viewer's face and asks to be seen as hip , winking social commentar
y .
put it somewhere between sling blade and south of heaven , west of hell in the p
antheon of billy bob's body of work .
more intellectually scary than dramatically involving .
an inconsequential , barely there bit of piffle .
the abiding impression , despite the mild hallucinogenic buzz , is of overwhelmi
ng waste -- the acres of haute couture can't quite conceal that there's nothing
resembling a spine here .
as saccharine as it is disposable .
you come away thinking not only that kate isn't very bright , but that she hasn'
t been worth caring about and that maybe she , janine and molly -- an all-woman
dysfunctional family -- deserve one another .
the metaphors are provocative , but too often , the viewer is left puzzled by th
e mechanics of the delivery .
very much a home video , and so devoid of artifice and purpose that it appears n
ot to have been edited at all .
too much power , not enough puff .
the attempt to build up a pressure cooker of horrified awe emerges from the simp
le fact that the movie has virtually nothing to show .
it's provocative stuff , but the speculative effort is hampered by taylor's cart
oonish performance and the film's ill-considered notion that hitler's destiny wa
s shaped by the most random of chances .
a cellophane-pop remake of the punk classic ladies and gentlemen , the fabulous
stains . . . crossroads is never much worse than bland or better than inconseque
ntial .
muddled , trashy and incompetent
for this sort of thing to work , we need agile performers , but the proficient ,
dull sorvino has no light touch , and rodan is out of his league .
narc is all menace and atmosphere .
though excessively tiresome , the uncertainty principle , as verbally pretentiou
s as the title may be , has its handful of redeeming features , as long as you d
iscount its ability to bore .
despite juliet stevenon's attempt to bring cohesion to pamela's emotional roller
coaster life , it is not enough to give the film the substance it so desperatel
y needs .
it's tough to be startled when you're almost dozing .
his [nelson's] screenplay needs some serious re-working to show more of the dile
mma , rather than have his characters stage shouting matches about it .
it's so downbeat and nearly humorless that it becomes a chore to sit through --
despite some first-rate performances by its lead .
a terrible movie that some people will nevertheless find moving .
there are many definitions of 'time waster' but this movie must surely be one of
them .
as it stands , crocodile hunter has the hurried , badly cobbled look of the 1959
godzilla , which combined scenes of a japanese monster flick with canned shots
of raymond burr commenting on the monster's path of destruction .
the thing looks like a made-for-home-video quickie .
enigma is well-made , but it's just too dry and too placid .