Shaggy Dog, The (2006)

Family Rated PG

Walt Disney Pictures’ remake of its questionable 1959 “classic” features an alarming number of serious actors trying to keep a straight face: Danny Glover, Kristin Davis, Philip Baker Hall and Robert Downey Jr., the latter of whom delightfully, repeatedly fails. And then there is star Tim Allen as a family man who turns into a

Reign of Fire (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Aside from Matthew McConaughey – whose outlandish, post-apocalyptic dragon-slayer simultaneously invokes Gen. George Patton, Sir Lancelot and Mad Max – this is one dull creature feature. McConaughey goes for camp, but almost everyone else, including star Christian Bale, smothers his ironic sparks like a damp rag.

Down With Love (2003)

Romantic Comedy Rated PG-13

Nobody walks in Down With Love. They bop. An homage to the sex comedies of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, this is a frothy retro exercise that transports you back to 1962. Renee Zellweger plays the author of a book championing women in the workplace; Ewan McGregor is the magazine writer out to prove she

Monster House (2006)

Family Rated PG

This often beguiling piece of computer animation could nonetheless benefit from a gentler touch. The movie centers around a spooky house that literally eats children on Halloween, but it’s not the ingeniously animated house that the filmmakers overdose on. Instead, the throwaway details are where the picture feels too flippant, too coarse, too adult: a

Saw II (2005)

Horror Rated R

Like its predecessor, Saw II centers around a serial killer who spends so much time designing complicated torture devices with which to murder his victims that it’s a wonder he ever gets around to the actual killing. This time around, he has filled a booby-trapped house with a group of random people, including the teen

Hellboy (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

A great concept burdened by an unwieldy back story, the comic-book adaptation Hellboy feels like the ponderous prologue to a novel. Ron Perlman nearly saves the movie in the title role. A demon who has been raised by a kindly professor to battle the forces of evil, Hellboy conducts his missions with dripping sarcasm. Hellboy

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Luke Wilson, the straight man of the Wilson brothers, plays second banana once again, this time to Uma Thurman. In this scrambled spoof/romantic comedy/farce (the movie’s own secret identity is never truly revealed), Thurman plays G-Girl, a sort of female Superman and the temperamental girlfriend of Wilson’s Matt. When he tries to end things with

Space Cowboys (2000)

Drama Rated PG-13

Clint Eastwood directs himself, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as aging pilots with one last chance to travel to space. The geezer gags – charming at first – soon wear thin, and since the movie has nothing else on its mind, all we’re left with is a tired space-disaster flick.

Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Drama Rated NR

Hormonally imbalanced, Splendor in the Grass swoons from dreamy highs to tragic lows over the course of its 124 minutes. Watching the film is like spending a weekend with a lovesick teenager – it’s essentially a movie mood swing. Such was the acting style encouraged by director Elia Kazan, whose movies left the strict formality

Anger Management (2003)

Comedy Rated PG-13

At its best, this traditional Adam Sandler picture -meaning there’s plenty of sexual innuendo, comic violence and moments of absurdism – spoofs the contemporary need to pigeonhole people according to their perceived problems. Sandler plays a mild-mannered corporate lackey who gets mistakenly assigned to an unconventional anger therapist (Jack Nicholson, delightfully mugging his way through