Perfect Storm, The (2000)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

A major disappointment, this dramatization of a real-life 1991 boating tragedy plays like a high-brow version of Speed 2: Cruise Control. Whereas that movie was just an excuse to crash a cruise ship into a harbor, this film twiddles its dramatic thumbs until we finally get to those much-advertised killer waves. From nautical specialist Wolfgang

Ex, The (2007)

Comedy Rated PG-13

“…stars two television actors who have done far, far better work on the small screen. Who needs a movie career if it looks like this?

Prime (2005)

Romantic Comedy Rated PG-13

Prime has the distinct feel of a favor. This wafer-thin romantic comedy offers nothing to distinguish itself except for the fact that Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman grace its cast. As the Jewish therapist to Thurman’s recently divorced New Yorker, Streep is more than willing to embrace her comic side, especially when her character discovers

Salon, The (2007)

Comedy Rated PG-13

"What felt like joyful camaraderie in Barbershop comes across here as nasty bickering."

D.E.B.S. (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

The same flat joke gets endlessly repeated throughout D.E.B.S, which centers around an elite, girls’ spy school for high schoolers: every cliched James Bond moment is undercut by discussions involving fashion or boyfriends. The amped-up sexuality – schoolgirl skirts, a lesbian subplot – makes the tone decidedly adult, yet the movie itself is purely adolescent.

Delta Farce (2007)

Comedy Rated PG-13

“By the time Larry starts to wonder if his team has ‘mixed up our longitudes and our latitudes, our stalactites and our stalagmites,’ I think I could hear my brain cells screaming in agony.

Eight Below (2006)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

Penguins occasionally appear in this Disney adventure set in Antarctica, but if the intent was to conjure up warm associations with March of the Penguins, which came out a bit earlier, the strategy backfires. After being mesmerized by the struggles of actual antarctic creatures, why would kids want to settle for this faux animal drama,

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)

Drama Rated PG-13

An ungainly book adaptation, the kind whose awkward scene transitions and clunky story lines are in dire need of chapter headings. Flashes of the film suggest there’s a good story here, about the reconciliation of a New York City playwright (Sandra Bullock) and her boozing, Southern belle of a mother (Ellen Burstyn), but the filmmakers

Family Man, The (2000)

Drama Rated PG-13

This reworking of It’s a Wonderful Life, in which a Ferrari-driving bachelor (Nicolas Cage) gets to experience how much more fulfilling his life would have been if he’d started a family with his college sweetheart (Tea Leoni), has some respect for the minivan world. Unfortunately, the few moments of truth – particularly Leoni as a

Girl Next Door, The (2004)

Drama Rated R

Among the many absurdities of The Girl Next Door – this is, after all, about a porn star (Elisha Cuthbert) who moves into a high-schooler’s neighborhood – perhaps the most absurd is the film’s serious tone. This wants to be a touching romance, when the status of dumb teen sex comedy would be a lofty