THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST A misguided, almost unendurable frenzy of explicit violence intended to inspire exaltation but that ultimately leads to revulsion.
TWISTED Stinks so exquisitely that theaters should be required to hand out nostril clamps.
EUROTRIP Vapid young American backpackers encounter virtually every played-out European stereotype in the book in this contemptible clunker.
WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT The film, like the sleepy Maine hamlet where it’s set, certainly has pastoral charm, but there just isn’t much going on. Nice place to visit, but you won’t want to spend two hours there.
AGAINST THE ROPES Ryan and Epps both hang tough and deliver despite being saddled with some weak dialogue and a story that loses focus midway through.
CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN There’s no mistaking what this ridiculously predictable fairy tale is about: Promoting Lindsay Lohan’s pop music career. 50 FIRST DATES The film see-saws between laugh-out-loud-funny and downright stupid, ultimately hopping aboard the Hokey Express, with direct service to Cornball.
THE DREAMERS Flawed, yet undeniably provocative. Even when he’s missing the mark, Bertolucci’s incomparable perception of the human condition is inspirational.
THE FOG OF WAR Errol Morris may be our greatest living docu-mentarian, and his virtuosity is on full display in this examination of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara MIRACLE Twenty-four years after broadcaster Al Michaels famously posed the question, this film elicits another emphatic answer from a nation that finds itself in crisis once again: Yes, we still believe in miracles.
THE PERFECT SCORE A morality play that doesn’t play very well at all, due to bad pacing, lame dialogue and a half-baked plot held loosely together by a series of preposterously opportune circumstances.
WIN A DATE WITH TAD HAMILTON! Forty years ago, this film would have been a hit. Today, it misses.
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT A no-thrills thriller that gets sillier as it lists toward a wholly preposterous finale.
MONSTER Serves as a grim reminder of humanity’s very real and limitless capacity for evil. Charlize Theron delivers a career-defining performance.
BIG FISH If you’re willing to lose yourself for a few hours in a surrealist fish story, well, it’s hard to imagine anything better than what Burton has conceived here.
HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG Manages to be compelling despite a host of implausibilities thanks to the lead actors, both of whom bring such conviction to their roles that what transpires almost seems feasible.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 5, 2004. Read the original PDF.