But for Superman, the long search for his place in the universe ends back at the Kent farm, among the only family he has ever known. His destiny lies in Metropolis, where one look in Lois's eyes tells him that this place, among the flawed but ultimately good people of Earth, is his true home. And with Lex's plan coming to fruition mere hours after his return, the world will never need Superman more than it does now.

Seeing that big red �S� on the big screen again is an exciting experience. Welcome home Superman. We missed you.

A generally thrilling entertainment that's not quite the grand slam you want it to be.

When it was all over, something was missing. Oh, yeah. The fun.

Brandon Routh has no problem filling out the Superman suit, but he can't quite fill the shoes.

Compared to Reeves, Routh is a total lightweight.

Like many superhero movies, Superman Returns relies on special effects to create the swooshing sense of exuberance that should also be a part of the storytelling."

It's terribly cast, poorly conceived, extremely light on action, features a romance that is not remotely romantic.

I would still recommend it, especially to the new generation of kids that haven't seen the original movie...

The world needs him, all right, and it should welcome his Return.

Welcome back, Man of Steel, you've been gone far too long.


House of Wax

In this remake of the classic 1953 Andre de Toth film that starred Vincent Price, horrors abound in a creepy wax museum. A group of road-tripping Florida teenagers stop to camp near a small town where an abandoned wax museum draws their curiosity. Upon exploring the scary cobwebbed space, they find that the figures are not only eerily lifelike, but that the entire museum--floor to ceiling--is actually made of wax.

There's more to good filmmaking than buying the rights to a classic title.

Not a classic by any means, but satisfactory in the basics of the genre. Should make horror fans quite content.

The film lacks horror and originality and the acting is as horrible as you might expect.

Hilton is the cinematic equivalent of a stray dog, an untrained extra that accidentally wandered into the shot and quickly began making love to the camera. I have to admit it: it�s more enjoyable than I thought to watch Paris die.

While the end is predictable, the order that the kids are picked off is not. It might feel new to viewers who haven't seen many of the 'classic' 80s slasher flicks.

House of Wax is not a good movie but it is an efficient one, and will deliver most of what anyone could reasonably expect, assuming it would be unreasonable to expect very much.

That said, the show isn�t as awful as I had anticipated.


King Kong

Set in the 1930s, this is the story of a young and beautiful actress Ann Darrow from the world of vaudeville who finds herself lost in depression-era New York and her luck changes when she meets an over-ambitious filmmaker Carl Denham who brings her on an exploratory expedition to a remote island where she finds compassion and the true meaning of humanity with an ape Kong. The beauty and the beast finally meet their fate back in the city of New York where the filmmaker takes and displays the ape in quest of his fame by commercial exploitation which ultimately leads to catastrophe for everyone including a playwright Jack Driscoll who falls in love with Ann and plays an unlikely hero by trying to save her from Kong and her destiny.

Too many stories... lead to a running time that is out of proportion for what is, despite its cost and celebrity cast, a B-monster movie.

Peter Jackson may have lost weight, but he hasn't lost his gluttony. There is no excuse for the 3 hour and 7 minute running time of King Kong. Hollywood needs an enema, and Peter Jackson needs an editor.

It starts too slowly and suffers from weak dialogue and less-than-epic acting.

Silly, pointless and obscenely overproduced.

Like Black's craven filmmaker, Jackson swells into a madman impresario, so hell-bent on topping himself that he doesn't know when to cut and run.

... a technical achievement that lacks the soul of something really good.

It's as if Jackson got so excited about his creatures he forgot about his characters.

Jackson's love and nostalgia for his beast is what kills the movie.

Jackson's competent remake is certainly worth a look, but it's ultimately too long and too much.

Seriously, dude - every movie doesn't need to be as long as a stupid NFL game.


The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Based on a true story. A Catholic Priest (Tom Wilkinson) is on trial for homicidal negligence after performing a failed exorcism on Emily Rose, devout college girl (Jennifer Carpenter) now dead from assorted wounds and malnutrition. Laura Linney plays Erin Bruner, the priest�s defense lawyer, and Campbell Scott plays the chief prosecutor, who argues persuasively that Emily was likely suffering from psychotic epilepsy and could have been saved with hospitalization and medicine. The demonic possession unfolds in a series of spine-tingling flashbacks and as it does so, the initially doubtful Erin is visited by evil forces and her own soul seems to be at stake. More than a criminal negligence case, the trial becomes about the importance of recognizing the limits of rationality and the possibility of a world beyond the visible.

A transparent rip-off of The Exorcist

It's just another in the string of sub par exorcism movies which followed 1973's never-rivaled �The Exorcist�, gussied up with an A-list cast and dishonest marketing, which would have you believe that it's a horror film, instead of a courtroom drama, which it does neither particularly well.

As horror, it's only mildly chilling as a courtroom drama we can see better any night on Law and Order.

It is, essentially, a flat courtroom movie that has been spiced up with a few scenes of demonic possession

This alleged battle for the soul of mankind is in reality more of sidewalk scuffle between a pair of legal eagles.

The courtroom shenanigans drain the suspense from Emily's story and, frankly, they're not very convincing

The Exorcism of Emily Rose delivers some creepy moments but only after endless scenes of courtroom wrangling.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose must be the dullest exorcist movie ever made, turning instead into a dry courtroom drama.


Flightplan

Recently widowed Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) boards an airplane to escort her dead husband's body from Berlin to New York. Kyle brings her young daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) on the plane with her, and they fly on a craft that was designed by the grieving widow during her tragic tenure in Berlin. But after a short in-flight nap, Kyle awakes to find Julia has disappeared. Her frantic search leads nowhere, and it seems no one on the plane can remember Kyle's daughter boarding the plane. An air marshal named Carson (Peter Sarsgaard) and the pilot of the plane, Captain Rich (Sean Bean), methodically ask Kyle some questions to determine where Julia could be, but she fails to produce any concrete evidence, not even a boarding pass. At this point, Kyle begins to doubt her own sanity,

Well worth seeing for the first 45 minutes to an hour, but unfortunately the third act goes down in flames.

If the film had met the expectations so well laid down by the advertising campaign, we would have a top-notch thriller on our hands.

Flight plan is another one of those thrillers with a clever setup that, once all the cards are laid out and the plan is revealed in full, completely collapses.

Although it's certainly watchable and has some striking moments, Flight plan is ultimately a middling effort that lacks dramatic pay-off.

Foster's character in Flight plan is incredibly one-note, and it really wears on you after a bit.

We identify not with Jodie Foster, but with the 423 other passengers whose trip has been loused up by this hysterical woman.

Just another thriller with too much plot.

Unfortunately, the best part of 'Flight plan' is the airplane, which exists only on film.


Rumor Has It

With the romantic comedy RUMOR HAS IT, director Rob Reiner (WHEN HARRY MET SALLY) attempts the tricky task of creating a film based on an already celebrated classic, 1967�s THE GRADUATE. Starring Dustin Hoffman and based on a novel by Charlie Webb, the original film revolved around the love triangle between a recent college-graduate, his girlfriend, and her famously seductive mother. Here, Reiner casts a chain-smoking Shirley MacLaine as the supposed real-life inspiration for Mrs. Robinson, and Jennifer Aniston as her granddaughter. Set for the most part within the gossipy community of Pasadena, California, the film follows Sarah Huttinger (Aniston) and her fianc� (Mark Ruffalo) as they travel home for her perky sister�s (Mena Suvari) wedding. Having nothing in common with her family, Sarah is intrigued upon learning that she may actually be the secret love child of her deceased mother and Beau Borroughs (Kevin Costner), the man whose affairs with both Sarah�s mother and grandmother supposedly inspired Charlie Webb, a classmate and friend of Beau, to write THE GRADUATE. From here, Sarah seeks out Beau, interested in him as a father-like figure and possibly more.

An intermittently funny but totally confused film

It serves as a sad reminder about just how much Reiner's filmmaking skills have eroded in the past decade or so.

It's not funny or lighthearted enough to play as a romantic comedy and it's too shallow to succeed as character-driven drama.

Aniston hasn't had a great 2005.

While there are high points here and there this is not a great movie, but it's a surprisingly likable comedy that misfires thanks to a storyline that is far too complicated.

Buried deep inside this misbegotten comedy is the glimmer of an idea.

I suppose it sounded like a good idea at the time.

This is not a terrible movie. I've certainly seen a lot worse this year. It just could have been so much better


Open Water

Based on a true story, follows a young couple, Daniel and Susan, who are on an island holiday. Upon arrival at their hotel, it becomes clear that Daniel and Susan's relationship is under strain from their workaholic lifestyles, and they need a vacation even more than they realized. The next morning, the loving and rested couple, certified scuba divers, board a local dive boat for an underwater tour of the reef. The boat is crowded with other vacationers, and due to a series of innocent miscommunications and a distracted crew, the couple is, after only 40 minutes or so underwater, accidentally left behind. What follows is the story of their ordeal: cold, alone and miles from land, the couple is adrift in shark-infested waters.

This minimalist thriller evokes is terrifying on a purely primal level, but it is ultimately too under-dramatized to provoke anything more intense than squirming discomfort it also features some pretty bad storytelling and thin characterizations.

As terrifying as anything you're likely to see this year, but not in the manner you might expect.

Many will find it excruciatingly suspenseful. I, on the other hand, was on the side of sharks.

Open Water is a very simple film, but an effective one nevertheless.

There are long stretches where the film, much like its characters, simply drifts aimlessly.

I longed for something -- anything -- unexpected to occur. What I wouldn't have given for Wilson, the Cast Away volleyball, to float past with his bloody 'face' print grinning at the pair!

What's fascinating is the extra step the movie takes to show how the couple is too shiftless and wrongheaded even to try and survive.

It's perhaps the most boring thriller you will ever see that generates more actual tension than nine out of 10 Hollywood thrillers

This example of minimalist stunt filmmaking doesn't add up to much, but the filmmakers deserve credit for their diabolically simple, inexpensive and effective premise.

A fantastic gimmick - too bad nobody ever bothered to develop it into an actual, like, movie.


Fantastic Four

Scientist Dr. Reed Richards lifelong dream is close to being realized. He is spearheading a trip to outer space, to the center of a cosmic storm. There he hopes to unlock the secrets of the human genetic codes for the benefit of all humanity.

Reed's crew for the mission includes his best friend, astronaut Ben Grimm; Sue Storm, Von Doom's director of genetic research and Reed's ex-girlfriend; and Sue's hot-headed younger brother, pilot Johnny Storm. With benefactor Von Doom in tow, the four set off for the exploration of a lifetime.

The mission is uneventful � until Reed discovers a miscalculation of the speed of the approaching storm. Within minutes, the event threshold is upon them. The space station is engulfed by turbulent clouds of cosmic radiation which genetically transforms the crew. Their DNA is irrevocably altered�and so is their future.

Back on earth, the effects of the exposure are quickly revealed.

Together, they turn tragedy into triumph and catastrophe into coalition, using their unique and formidable powers to thwart the evil plans of their now steely-eyed, iron-fisted nemesis Dr. Doom and to protect the citizens of New York City.

Ten years in the making, and this is all we get? An over inflated B-movie

Tim Story was clearly the wrong man for this job.

A fairly dull movie about depressed superheroes trying to become unsuper is as boring as it sounds -- hardly the cinematic treatment Marvel's first family deserves.

Nowhere near as fantastic as it should be. It's poorly acted, written and directed.

Real fans of the comics will probably be turned off.

The biggest problem (among many) is that Fantastic Four is as boring as it is hopelessly silly.

Fantastic Four was No. 1 at the box office because of a good old-fashioned advertising campaign.

If you want to see how members of a family that's fraught with discord and dysfunction learn about teamwork and the nature of kin -- and dispatch bad guys in the process -- rent The Incredibles.

Fantastic Four, for all of its super effects and glossy finish, is a Fantastic Bore.