ALONG CAME A SPIDER -- (Grade: D) Missing in action since 1997's Kiss the Girls, Morgan Freeman finally returns as Washington, D.C., police detective and psychologist Alex Cross. Surprisingly, Freeman's return is somewhat of a disappointment. In director Lee Tamahori's adaptation of author James Patterson's 1999 novel, Freeman's steely charisma is incapable of energizing what turns out to be a thrill-less thriller.After the daughter of a U.S. Senator is kidnapped from a posh private school, her kidnapper, Gary Soneji (Michael Wincott) contacts Cross and pulls him into the chase. FBI Agent Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter) turns out to be Cross' pretty girl Friday. The catch is for Cross and Flannigan to outwit Soneji in time to save the girl.

It's Tamahori who turns out to be the film's real villain. After an explosive beginning that pays homage to Vertigo, Tamahori never manages to build much suspense out of Patterson's tricks and double-crosses. In Along Came a Spider, the ultimate victim is Freeman's wasted performance. -- SR (Rated R.)

AN AMERICAN RHAPSODY -- (Grade: C) One expects writer/director Eve Gardos to smother the immigrant drama An American Rhapsody with a thick layer of sentimentality. American Rhapsody is her story after all, and people are frequently overly sweet when remembering their own life. All of which means that Gardos should have chosen another story to tell. Granted, her family's tale is fascinating. A Hungarian couple (Natassja Kinksi and Tony Goldwyn) are forced to leave behind their youngest daughter Suzanne during a late-night border crossing from Communist Hungary. Years later, after being reunited in 1950s Los Angeles, a now teen-age Suzanne (Scarlett Johannson) has grown resentful of her parents. More importantly, she wants to return to Hungary to visit the peasant couple who raised her like their own daughter. Kinski's performance is comprised of nothing more than the requisite tears and Eastern European accent. Johannson, so good as a different type of teen rebel in Ghost World, never believably captures Suzanne's anger. Only Goldwyn's restrained performance as Suzanne's sympathetic father brings American Rhapsody the credibility it needs to make an emotional impact. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS -- (Grade: D) An uninspired screenplay squashes the comic efforts of America's Sweethearts's top-notch ensemble. The actors are all earnest in their attempts to breathe some screwball life into director Joe Roth's show-biz comedy about feuding film stars. Unfortunately, America's Sweethearts gives its celebrity stars few opportunities to show just how funny they can be. As a result, America's Sweethearts turns out to be one of those high-profile disappointments that unexplainably wastes its talented cast.

Estranged husband-and-wife actors Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) are forced to fake reconciliation in order to promote their latest blockbuster movie at a Hollywood press junket. But the film's brightest spotlight falls on smiley Julia Roberts as Kiki Harrison, Gwen's sister and browbeaten personal manager. Without Roberts, America's Sweethearts would be a romantic-comedy without a trace of romance. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

AMERICAN OUTLAWS -- (Grade: C) The Hollywood machine revisits some cinematic classics from the 1980s. Meet the new Young Guns: American Outlaws.Replace the brat pack with a bunch of Boiler Room and Varsity Blues B-listers. Replace Billy the Kid with Jesse James. Replace Bon Jovi power ballads with Moby remixes. Otherwise it's the same movie.

The young, beefed-up, testosterone-junkies led by James (Colin Farrell) are fighting the vile railroad company who'd like to take their land. See, Jesse is a good outlaw. He helps the common folk. Or at least that's what the revisionist script would have you believe. It's all corny and hokey, but with a modicum of fun.

Playing America's most famous bandit is, ironically, Irish up-and-comer Farrell. Mainstream audiences don't yet know him, but they will. He seems to have a good time being the bad ass, but the movie never gives him enough slack. He's crazy one scene, stoic the next and lovelorn the next. It would have been nice to see a more complex character at the heart of this thing. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

AMERICAN PIE 2 -- (Grade: D) It's one year later in the life of lovable loser Jim (Jason Biggs) and his pack of buds, who've returned for a surprisingly lackluster sequel to 1999's American Pie. Despite the fact that they're now college freshmen, these guys are just as sexually obsessed as they were in high school. Jim is still a klutz in the bedroom, which ultimately drives the plot of American Pie 2, writer Adam Herz's hit-and-miss follow-up screenplay. In a clumsy attempt to reunite the entire American Pie cast, Pie 2 has Jim and his friends Oz (Chris Klein), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) and Stifler (Seann William Scott) share a beachfront house for a summer-long getaway. Past girlfriends (Tara Reid, Alyson Hannigan and Natasha Lyonne) are nearby. Oz's girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari) mostly reconnects by phone. Jim's priority is to remake himself into a lover-boy worthy of his high school dream girl, the curvy Czech exchange student Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth). Nadia is coming to the boys' beach house, and Jim wants to be ready.Herz and director James Rogers never manage to recapture the sweet-natured innocence and shameless gross-out humor that made the first Pie such a likable comedy. With Pie 2, the tangled sub-plots necessary for uniting the cast seem forced and clumsy. The youthful spirit and likable coming-of-age message from the first film are gone. More importantly, Pie 2's few funny gags -- involving masturbation, urination and a dorm room fiasco best described as coitus interruptus -- fail to sustain the film's haphazard storytelling. -- SR (Rated R.)

THE ANIMAL -- (Grade: D) Not-so-funny Rob Schneider bumbles and fumbles his way through another uninspired slapstick comedy. Schneider plays Marvin, a shaggy-haired loser who dreams of ditching his file clerk job at the small-town police department and becoming a real cop. After undergoing emergency surgery with animal transplants, Marvin uses his newfound "animal" abilities to become a super-cop. The slapstick question is whether Marvin will lose control of his beastly instincts. The Animal's lack of comic worth ultimately rests on Schneider's leading-man deficiencies. His Jerry Lewis-inspired shenanigans aside, Schneider's shaggy loser turns out to be nothing more than a Barney Fife wannabe. Schneider is enthusiastic. But The Animal would be more worthwhile if it could claim one ounce of cleverness. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN -- (Grade: B) John Madden (Shakespeare In Love) and co-producer Miramax Films team up once again for an effort that labors under its prestigious pretense. Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a painstakingly crafted attempt to appeal to Oscar voters. Its fine pedigree includes a respected director, an Oscar-winning star (Nicolas Cage) and a stunning, foreign beauty (Penelope Cruz) on the verge of making men take leave of their senses. The story mixes the romantic with the historic. More importantly, Captain Corelli's Mandolin never forgets to highlight its precious moments of humor and personal sacrifice. As the titular officer, Cage gets to indulge in robust flourishes as he woos Cruz during Italy's occupation of a Greek isle during World War II. His opera-loving soldier has a heart which cannot be hardened by his circumstances. No romantic war drama is complete without the third side of the triangle that must bear the burdens of loss. Christian Bale assumes this role, playing a Greek resistance fighter who is also Cruz's betrothed. Captain Corelli's Mandolin offers no surprises. Still, the actors deserve extra credit for making each of their character's motivations ring true. Beacause of these believable performances, Captain Corelli's Mandolin becomes a perfectly played piece that may leave audiences humming on their way out. -- ttc (Rated R.)

THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION-- (Grade: D) Insurance investigator CW Briggs is a typical Woody Allen character complete with nervous tics, stuttering speech and a frumpish appearance. Briggs is a self-declared Romeo, although you wouldn't guess that by the way Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), a company efficiency expert, bullies him. In Fitzgerald's eyes, Briggs is a male dinosaur. After a few minutes of watching The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, it's difficult not to disagree with her. In a 1940-set comedy that plays like a homage to old detective movies, Allen appears tired and incapable of generating any loud laughs. Briggs and Fitzgerald's love-hate relationship takes a screwball turn when a supper club magician, Voltan (David Ogden Stiers), chooses them to be part of his hypnotism act. Later, a string of burglaries has Briggs baffled. Coincidentally, the thefts begin immediately after Briggs and Fitzgerald were hypnotized by Voltan and his jade scorpion pendant.

Allen's jokey banter and redundant performance as Briggs is as outdated as a vaudeville routine. Hunt is painfully stiff as the object of Briggs' obsession.

Like many of Allen's films, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion looks beautiful. But a movie comedy, no matter how stunning its photography, is no good if it can't deliver sufficient laughs. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE DEEP END -- (Grade: C) An astonishing performance from Scottish actress Tilda Swinton is the best thing about directors/screenwriters Scott McGehee and David Siegel's overly slick melodrama. Swinton is completely believable as a conflicted mother who's pulled into a blackmail plot by her teen-age son's clandestine relationship with a shifty club owner. It's a difficult role that Swinton performs spectacularly. Dazzling photography emphasizes the film's lush Lake Tahoe setting. But The Deep End's best visual effect belongs to Swinton's anguished face. -- SR (Rated R.)

DR. DOLITTLE 2 -- (Grade: C) In this sequel from Steve Carr (Next Friday), Eddie Murphy, that master of multiple personalities, transforms himself into Bill Cosby. Over a decade ago, Eddie's raw brand of humor was deemed too harsh for young audiences by Cos himself. Now, older and wiser, Eddie speaks fluently with animals as well as children.

The film is nothing more than a sketchy collection of family sitcom moments. Dr. Dolittle 2 launches fart jokes and pop culture references with far less sophistication than Shrek or Sky Kids. One typically uninspired gag involves Dolittle receiving an offer he can't refuse from the animal kingdom's underworld leader, the Beaver. Unfortunately, since this isn't the Farrelly brothers or Keenen Ivory Wayans, there are no heads in the bed. -- ttc (Rated PG.)

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS -- (Grade: D) The paper I wrote in sixth grade on Abraham Lincoln, the one that I copied verbatim out of the encyclopedia, was less plagiaristic than The Fast and the Furious. Certainly, there are movie formulas. You come to expect that in Hollywood. But the blatant copying of an entire script is out of control. The Fast and the Furious is Point Break. Substitute surfing for street racing, bank-robbing for electronics heists and the Zen-like misunderstood gang leader played by Patrick Swayze for the Zen-like misunderstood gang leader played by Vin Diesel. Otherwise it's the same film.

Campy bad actor Paul Walker takes Keanu Reeves's role as the dreamy agent who infiltrates the underworld and then gets caught up in it. It's amazing how both actors' line readings manage to sound exactly the same.

Furious does have a few thrilling moments but you'll be too distracted, wondering why it all seems familiar, to really enjoy them. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

GHOSTS OF MARS -- (Grade: C) Filmmaker John Carpenter updates his 1976 thriller Assault on Precinct 13 by shifting its attacking mob tale to an isolated mining camp on the Red Planet. Ghosts of Mars is appropriately gory and old-fashioned in its pulpy storytelling. Ice Cube delivers plenty of comic-book gusto as a prison inmate forced to partner with Natasha Henstridge's tough-as-nails police lieutenant. Carpenter's fast-paced storytelling compensates for the numerous holes in the film's comic-book plot. Boosting an adequate amount of laughs and screams, Ghosts of Mars flaunts its exploitation label with pride. -- SR (Rated R.)

GHOST WORLD -- (Grade: A) If the nerdy record collector Seymour (Steve Buscemi) was the only character in the teen comedy Ghost World, the film would still be worth watching. But Seymour is just one of many colorful supporting characters in director Terry Zwigoff's smart teen comedy. Ghost World's comical heroes are 18-year-old best friends and recent high-school graduates, Enid (Thora Birch) and Becky (Scarlett Johansson). These bored and cynical girls will do anything to avoid the world around them. Brought to life by believable performances from Birch and Johansson, Enid and Becky are the most honest of recent teen-age characters found in films like crazy/beautiful, Save the Last Dance and American Pie 2.

Based on the underground comic by Daniel Clowes, Ghost World finds rich satire and heartfelt comedy in a story where nothing seems to happen. With a screenplay co-written by Clowes and Zwigoff, Ghost World focuses on the disappointments in the lives of its insecure and disconnected characters. Every word of dialogue in Zwigoff's talkative movie rings with emotional familiarity. There were times when I felt like Enid was staring at me from behind her clunky black glasses. The result is that Ghost World is the one film this year that made me feel an emotional connection. -- SR (Rated R.)

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH -- (Grade: A) John Cameron Mitchell's Off-Broadway hit finds new life on the big screen. Thankfully, its punky attitude, Rock soundtrack and sexual double entendres remain intact. A botched sex change operation forces young Hansel (Mitchell) to leave something behind in his Communist East Berlin home. What he's left with is an "angry inch" and the tenacity to form a Rock band after his American GI lover dumps him in a Kansas trailer park. Under a blonde wig and glittery makeup, Hedwig is truly reborn.

Like the rousing Moulin Rouge earlier this summer, Hedwig and the Angry Inch proves that Rock attitudes are capable of rejuvenating the movie musical. -- SR (Rated R.)

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK -- (Grade: C) It's official. These two pot-smoking, pop-culture referencing, potty-mouthed ne'er-do-wells cannot carry an entire film by themselves. What made Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (writer/director Kevin Smith) so interesting and fun in Smith's previous films was their scene-stealing brevity. Putting them in every scene of the new film, therefore, was a bad call. But Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back has some great moments. It's just no thanks to the titular pair. The supporting cast really puts the laughs in this film. Case in point: Jay and Silent Bob visiting the set of Good Will Hunting 2 is one of the funniest scenes in film this year. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck turn in two wonderful, self-mocking performances that steal the movie from the other brash duo for whom the film is titled. Don't delude yourself into thinking this movie is about anything though. In lieu of a plot, Smith just sends Jay and Silent Bob on a journey that gives him the excuse to stick his heroes (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher), his chums (Gus Vant Sant, Alanis Morissette) and his infatuations (Shannon Elizabeth, Eliza Dushku) into the mix. The result is a light romp with a bad mouth. -- RP (Rated R.)

JURASSIC PARK III -- (Grade: D) Director Joe Johnston's installment of Steven Spielberg's popular monster-dinosaur-movie franchise turns out to be the worst entry in the three-film series. Granted, Jurassic Park III does stretch its visual-effects resources by adding two more dinosaur villains to its arsenal. But as a full-fledged monster movie, Jurassic Park III offers few shocks. Its tale of renowned paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill from Jurassic Park) leading a bunch of clueless civilians (Téa Leoni, William H. Macy and Michael Jeter) off a second dinosaur-infested island is fairly redundant. When Grant sprints through the jungle, trying to escape from a rampaging T-Rex, Jurasic Park III repeats the same thrills seen in the first two movies. Jurassic Park III is thoroughly unoriginal, and that's the worst thing you can say about any movie sequel. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

KISS OF THE DRAGON -- (Grade: C) The key to a good fight movie is the ability to reinvent the fight. Throw plausibility out the window. You just need to be creative, finding a fresh take on a simple hand-to-hand action sequence.

Chris Nahon's Kiss of the Dragon manages several of these moments, including a wonderful scene where Liu Jian (Jet Li) flees from a few cops in a French police station, only to lock himself in a room full of karate trainees. If you find yourself giggling in the moment, that is a good thing.

The problem is, the movie doesn't rely on this fun-loving tone. It dabbles in melodrama at the expense of the action. Kiss of the Dragon can't decide if it wants to be a cool, art house martial arts film or a Hollywood, Jackie Chan-sellout action film. By not deciding, it ends up as mush. -- RP (Rated R.)

LEGALLY BLONDE -- (Grade: C) Legally Blonde is a nostalgic road trip back to the WASP comedies of the late 1980s. I'm just not sure if this is a cinematic flashback worth taking.

Director Robert Luketic's Legally Blonde comes complete with a breezy character, Elle (Reese Witherspoon), whose comic adventures are set to some band cloned from the genes of '80s pop stars Huey Lewis and the News and Katrina and the Waves.

Elle just wants to live the purely retro dream of marrying the perfect guy, even if he is dense and opportunistic in a greed-is-good kind of way. But Elle also has a wealth of good will and Cosmo girl style. Love the blonde, she seems to say. Don't hate her because she's beautiful and has a degree from Harvard Law School.

But if you're like me, you won't hate watching Elle's adventures, you'll just feel old. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

MADE -- (Grade: B) Swingers co-stars and real-life friends Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn reunite as a pair of Los Angeles pals who see an illegal errand for an elderly mobster (Peter Falk) as a last-ditch effort for improving their going-nowhere lives. Favreau also directed and co-wrote Made, so it's to his credit that the film possesses a matter-of-fact style and knowing sense for its everyday characters. Made unfolds its intimate story with the emotional credibility of a documentary. Everything about these two friends feels real. Then again, what else should we expect from the natural chemistry between real-life friends 0Favreau and Vaughn? If we're lucky, Favreau and Vaughn will work together as frequently as possible. Their playful banter and easygoing charisma is impossible to resist. -- SR (Rated R.)

MOULIN ROUGE -- (Grade: A) Right from the start, it's evident that Moulin Rouge sets out to push cinema's storytelling boundaries. For director Baz Luhrmann, Moulin Rouge is a triumphant reinterpretation of Golden Age Hollywood musicals. Lurhmann combines old-fashioned melodrama, operatic staging and a Pop-influenced soundtrack into a hip and frenetic package that's appealing to today's techno-influenced moviegoers. Moulin Rouge offers audiences a roller-coaster perspective of its colorful Parisian nightclub. The cameras never stop moving. Ewan McGregor, playing Christian, a young writer who has come to Paris to experience the bohemian revolution, captures the shyness and emotional clumsiness that's appropriate for a love-struck poet. As the film's whirling dervish in red curls, Nicole Kidman is equally sexy and funny as the vamping Satine. There's no doubt that her comic sass is the spark that keeps Moulin Rouge running at full speed. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE MUMMY RETURNS -- (Grade: D) Everybody runs in writer/director Stephen Sommers' silly update of Boris Karloff's archaeological villain. Adventurer Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) runs from giant bugs and mummified warriors. O'Connell's Egyptologist wife, Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), dodges a 3,000-year-old reincarnated royal (Patricia Velasquez). All of them run from a supernatural creepie called The Scorpion King (played by WWF Wrestling Champion Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). The Mummy Returns is one of those computer-generated blockbusters disinterested in taking the time to develop characters, build dramatic suspense or tell a substantial story. Sommers tosses out every computer-generated trick in a desperate attempt to compensate for his film's threadbare storytelling. Granted, some of the effects in The Mummy Returns are spectacular. But the best moment in The Mummy Returns arrives early in the movie. O'Connell and friends ride a speeding double-decker bus through the London streets in a desperate attempt to escape a pack of reanimated mummies. If the rest of The Mummy Returns only matched that early scene's intensity, Sommers could claim a film that's as entertaining as it is box-office friendly. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

OSMOSIS JONES -- (Grade: B) Stand-up comic Chris Rock uses his motor mouth to full comic effect in the clever live action/animation comedy from directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly. Rock forfeits his facial expressions and physical sass by supplying the voice of a cartoon white blood cell. As Osmosis Jones, a bumbling cop intent on capturing the vicious virus Thrax (voice of Laurence Fishburne), Rock gets the rare opportunity to play somebody who is decidedly less than cool. David Hyde Pierce supplies the voice of a cold tablet named Drix who pairs with Jones to fight the virus. At risk is the very future of the City of Frank (a flubbery Bill Murray), the junk-food junkie zoo employee whose body is home to Jones and his microcosmic pals. Osmosis Jones makes up for its lack of animation artistry by creating a clever world tucked inside Murray's pudgy body. For those people who question whether the Farrelly boys can tailor their gross-out gags for family audiences, Osmosis Jones answers that question with a resounding yes. -- SR (Rated PG.)

ORIGINAL SIN -- (Grade: D) Angelina Jolie's lips receive the lion's share of the spotlight in writer/director Michael Cristofer's less-than-steamy adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's Waltz Into Darkness. An inviting mouth is just part of Jolie's femme-fatale look. Her sharp features, sinewy curves and lush sensuality complete the package. Watching Jolie's vampy performance in Original Sin proves to me that the 26-year-old actress is better suited for adult dramas than action-adventure fluff like Tomb Raider. But Cristofer's meandering screenplay squashes Jolie's simmering performance as the mysterious mail-order bride who bamboozles Antonio Banderas' wealthy Cuban coffee exporter. Cristofer builds the suspense too slowly to grip one's attention. While Banderas and Jolie display plenty of bedroom action, Original Sin never achieves the level of excitement expected from an erotic thriller.

Banderas is too restrained as Jolie's lovelorn target. The same complaint can be directed at Original Sin itself. Instead of a sexy mystery, Cristofer has made a period drama closer in spirit to Masterpiece Theatre. For a movie that dangles Banderas and Jolie in the bedroom, Original Sin turns out to be an utter disappointment. -- SR (Rated R.)

THE OTHERS -- (Grade: B) Strange noises takes preference over spoken dialogue in a traditional English Gothic like The Others. Unseen people converse behind closed doors. A girl (Alakina Mann) and her younger brother (James Bentley) insist they've seen ghosts. The trick that keeps writer/director Alejandro Amenábar's psychological drama humming is guessing whether these ghosts are real or imagined.The children's irritable mother (Nicole Kidman) is not convinced by their supernatural stories. Still, it's not long before she realizes that something otherworldly is inhabiting their country house.

Amenábar walks in the footsteps of Henry James' 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw and its 1961 film adaptation The Innocents when it comes to the haunted house storytelling behind The Others. Its core mystery -- who are the Others? -- is somewhat of a movie cliché. But I'm hard-pressed to remember the last film that made me squirm in my seat as much as The Others. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

PLANET OF THE APES -- (Grade: D) Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake turns out to be one of those extravagant Hollywood movies that never should have been made in the first place. Because the original movie is so entertaining, it's inevitable that Burton's Apes would be a terrible letdown. As it stands, Apes is an action blockbuster that doesn't seem to know what to do or where to go.

Burton claims that his version of Planet of the Apes will stay close to the cynical spirit of Pierre Boulle's original novel, Monkey Planet. But none of Boulle's political commentary about ecology, colonialism and social justice is evident in Burton's Apes. Stripped of the racial metaphors found in Boulle's novel and the 1968 film, Burton's Apes is content to be a typical adventure movie. The last must-see blockbuster of the summer has turned out to be a familiar story lost amid a vast desert location and an army of gorilla extras. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE PRINCESS DIARIES -- (Grade: D) Young Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) is a real princess who just doesn't know about her birthright. Her grandmother, Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews) comes to set her straight and brings along the dutiful Joe (Hector Elizondo) to assist with Mia's grooming. The film even has a real-life young teen queen in co-star Mandy Moore, who plays a popular high schooler getting her comeuppance. I'm exposing myself to charges of redundancy by noting that The Princess Diaries is a rehashing of Pygmalion and not a very good one at that. Such negativity will only show my age. The young girls in the audience will love the movie. -- ttc (Rated G.)

RAT RACE -- (Grade: C) Director Jerry Zucker and writer Andy Breckman update Stanley Kramer's 1963 screwball epic It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World into a slapstick farce about a group of people in a race to Silver City, N.M., for a $2 million prize. Rat Race isn't an authorized remake of Kramer's Cinerama comedy. Still, the idea of a bunch of people running around wildly in pursuit of money is not a terribly original idea.Zucker does his best to keep the sight gags coming in Rat Race. Monty Python alum John Cleese enjoys the biggest laughs as the man behind the goofy scheme. The rest of the comic ensemble -- Cuba Gooding Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Rowan Atkinson and Jon Lovitz -- enjoy equal shares of comic hits and misses. That's often the case with these types of slapstick comedies: Without credible characters or a substantial story, Rat Race comes to pieces once its gags run out. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

RUSH HOUR 2 -- (Grade: C) Like all of Jackie Chan's movies, Rush Hour 2 has plenty of acrobatic kung fu, synchronized fighting and daredevil stunts. Punches are delivered with comic-book gusto. Kicks occur with childlike glee. The action is consistently outrageous. When the bathrobe-clad heroes confront the gang lord's thugs in a massage parlor, it's clear Rush Hour 2 is not to be taken too seriously.

But the disappointing truth is that Rush Hour 2 suffers from the same uninspired storytelling found in most of this summer's big-budget movies. In fact, Rush Hour 2 struggles just to connect its kung fu sequences in a believably dramatic manner. The movie slows every time Chan pauses to catch his breath and practice his English. Chan's gravity-defying stunts have a way of compensating for a film's dramatic shortcomings, but Rush Hour 2 never stops feeling like a movie that was made without a script. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE SCORE -- (Grade: D) A three-way dramatic punch of Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Edward Norton fails to breathe some much-needed life into director Frank Oz's pastiche of 1970s crime dramas. De Niro looks tired as the gentleman thief who promises his girlfriend (Angela Bassett) he'll retire after one last job. Norton is surprisingly one-dimensional as the egotistic hot-shot who partners with De Niro for the heist. Only Brando, as the heavyset mastermind behind the crime -- the theft of a priceless scepter from the Montreal Customs House --gives the film a charismatic jolt. Brando energizes The Score every time he appears on screen. If Brando wasn't confined by his supporting role status, The Score might have become the taut crime drama it aspires to be. Instead, it's an uninspired heist tale that we've seen countless times before. -- SR (Rated R.)

SEXY BEAST -- (Grade: A) The first image of Cockney gangster Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) is of the back of his shaven head. Tattoos adorn his muscular arms. A neatly trimmed goatee gives Logan's face a devilish air. Everything about him looks terrifying. It's unnerving how Kingsley captures Logan's animalistic behavior. Long after Sexy Beast has ended, you still feel the gaze of his piercing eyes. Director Jonathan Glazer's thrilling crime drama Sexy Beast literally leaps from the screen. Every image packs an emotional wallop. Like many heist movies, the bloodletting in Sexy Beast splatters frequently. But it's high-energy storytelling from writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto, paired with smartly drawn characters and unexpected moral center, that boost Sexy Beast above its pulp movie peers. -- SR (Rated R.)

SHREK -- (Grade: A) In directors Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson's Shrek, the role of the handsome prince is switched to something ugly and green. Everything about Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) screams, "Blech!" It's what one expects from a Scottish ogre. In the school of animated heroes, Shrek is intentionally unorthodox.The adventure starts when the laughable villain Lord Farquaad (voice of John Lithgow) sends Shrek and his unlikely friend, a talking donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy), to rescue Princess Fiona (voice of Cameron Diaz) to bring her back to be Farquaad's bride. Of course, Shrek doesn't realize Fiona is cursed with a magic spell.

Fractured or otherwise, Shrek is still a fairy tale at heart. That matters end "happily ever after" is a dramatic given. Shrek just happens to give the time-honored phrase a playful jab in the ribs. -- SR (Rated PG.)

SWORDFISH -- (Grade: D) As corrupt CIA agent Gabriel Shear, John Travolta begins the caper film Swordfish with a rambling monologue. "You know what the problem with Hollywood is?" Shear says, speaking matter-of-factly into the camera. "They make shit." The unintended irony is that Shear could be talking about his own awful movie.

At least Swordfish director Dominic Sena knows how to grab an audience's attention. Early in the film, a bank heist explosion, filmed from a whirling 360-degree, digitized vantage point, jolts Swordfish to life. It's an astounding effect. But soon afterwards, Swordfish becomes just another threadbare actioner filled with redundant pyrotechnics and car chases. -- SR (Rated R.)

TOMB RAIDER -- (Grade: B) Tomb Raider, starring bad girl Angelina Jolie, goes toe-to-toe with Raiders of the Lost Ark on all counts, except one. Whereas Tomb Raider is a blast to watch, full of envelope-pushing action and the strongest adventurer since Indy, it lacks heart. Mind you, it's still entertaining, but it seems like hollow entertainment.Nevertheless, Angelina Jolie helps make you forget any quibbles you might have with the film. On her chutzpah alone, Tomb Raider shines. She has the uncanny ability to be tough and sexy simultaneously. Tomb Raider nails Jolie's unique blend of erotic toughness. And while his script lacks depth, West manages to make a fine movie independent of its video game origins -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

personals | classifieds | cover | listings | humor | news | movies | music | arts & entertainment | dining | classifieds | mediakit | home