Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

How appropriate that a comedy about the alleged sport of dodge ball is as mean-spirited as this hilarious farce. As one character says, dodge ball is a game of “violence, exclusion and degradation.” Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller face off as opposing team leaders – Vaughn’s is made up of fitness misfits, Stiller’s of fitness

Hannibal (2001)

Horror Rated R

This sequel to The Silence of the Lambs is a disappointing comic spectacle, in which gruesome details (disembowelments, sauteed brains) are offset by lighthearted dialogue that turns one of the movies’ greatest villains into a ghastly gag. Anthony Hopkins returns as Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, but he’s more interested in delivering one-liners than scares. From

Factory Girl (2006)

Drama Rated R

“Sienna Miller shows impressive range in Factory Girl, but range isn’t necessarily what the part requires.

Norbit (2007)

Comedy Rated PG-13

As a black comic, Eddie Murphy has the cultural green light to traffic in black stereotypes, but Norbit is rife with so many that it makes you wish his creative license could be revoked. Norbit (Murphy) is a nerd who is married to a boorish Big Momma type (Murphy again). They live in a small

Missing, The (2003)

Drama Rated R

Director Ron Howard adds to his eclectic filmography with this mystical Western, in which a 19th-century single mother (Cate Blanchett) reluctantly teams up with a man from her past (Tommy Lee Jones) to retrieve her kidnapped daughter. Blanchett goes beyond the cliche of the hardy pioneer woman to create a fierce, survivalist heroine. Jones may

Hannibal Rising (2007)

Thriller Rated R

More than any of the previous installments in the Hannibal Lecter series, this prequel turns our ghoulish fascination with the character into a moral quandary. In explaining how Hannibal turned into a monster – it has something to do atrocities he witnesses as a boy during World War II – the movie gets us to

One Hour Photo (2002)

Thriller Rated R

A creepy conceit – that the photo developer (Robin Williams) at a supermarket is secretly obsessed with a family whose pictures he handles – is left unexploited in this disappointing independent feature. At first, writer-director Mark Romanek seems firmly in control of his material, laying out this paranoid fantasy with careful framing and bright colors.

National Treasure (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

This means to land somewhere between a kiddie flick and a PG-13 action extravaganza, yet I don’t remember similar efforts from my youth – say, Raiders of the Lost Ark – being quite so bland. A monotone Nicolas Cage plays an adventurer whose family has been hunting an ancient treasure for generations. Only the series

Original Sin (2001)

Thriller Rated R

Angelina Jolie has always tried too hard to maintain her sexy reputation (few other people with lips as big as hers feel the need to do so much pouting), but she manages to outdo herself here as a conniving seductress who targets a rich coffee grower (Antonio Banderas) in turn-of-the-century Cuba. Trying to sexualize every

Oliver Twist (2005)

Drama Rated PG-13

The question of why anyone would bother to make another film version of Oliver Twist is not answered by director Roman Polanski. This works just fine as one of those tony, well-mounted adaptations destined to be shown in high school English classes, yet whatever the reason for tackling the picture (some have pointed to the