question: Eagle Eye is a preposterously plotted thriller that borrows heavily from other superior films.

numbered reviews: 1. As the film drags on, there are several nauseatingly dogmatic moments that make you feel like you're trapped in some kind of uber-liberal rally.
2. In Eagle Eye, we're meant to fear our GPS.
3. Eagle Eye isn't awful, just trite ... it suffers from the same problem most high concept films have; it's all smoke, but no fire.
4. A warning about the threat in our own backyard -- but as often is the case with Hollywood blockbusters, the warning comes across more like fear-mongering than constructive social criticism. Personally, I prefer my cinema sans mongering.
5. Everything's chopped up into those woozy, bite-size snippets of flashing lights and spinning tires, thrown into a blender and then regurgitated on screen.
6. The trouble with Shia? He's no Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, or Cary Grant. And as for Caruso, well, Brian De Palma can rest easy.
7. ...one could certainly do far worse as far as movies of this ilk go.
8. Eagle Eye is a totally derivative, unoriginal techno-thriller, cribbing scenes and ideas from better films. ... But it's also thoroughly entertaining.
9. So colossally ridiculous (and transparently derivative) that willing suspension of disbelief is a fool's errand. [Blu-ray]
10. This is nobody's idea of an intelligent political thriller (or satire), but it is an orgy for the senses.


question: It's pure formula, but thanks to its breezy pace and a pair of charming performances from Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, Knight and Day offers some agreeably middle-of-the-road summer action.

numbered reviews: 1. The exciting "Knight And Day" is a blast that stays in Cruise control.
2. Entertaining enough but utterly ridiculous.
3. Knight and Day works due to the charms of Diaz and Cruise, and it figures out how to exaggerate action without making the audience feel insulted.
4. Player or pawn? That is the key question in this delicious action thriller that finds the perfect balance between comedy and taking itself seriously enough to be real
5. One of the biggest mysteries of Knight and Day is figuring out who exactly the film is primarily for
6. Knight and Day ends up chasing itself around in circles, going nowhere, doing nothing, hoping to coast on charm and goodwill.
7. Is this the Knight to save the Summer movie season?
8. The Tom Cruise action persona is in full swing and given a good roasting in the entertaining Knight and Day.
9. Half-aware it's an action flick while trying to breezily amuse, and half-alert to its comic potential while roaring off on a chase or shoot-out, it staggers along. Knight and Day's potential vanishes in the haze of a mundane situation-comedy.
10. delivers plenty of bang, but with a much-appreciated wink


question: With miscast leads and unoriginal, uninspired dialogue, The Last Legion pales in comparison to the recent cinematic epics it invokes.

numbered reviews: 1. Trust me, it's worth the price of admission to see Colin Firth, an actor of such steely emotional reserve, play butch for two hours in a Mike Brady perm.
2. We can only hope that the title of this misbegotten swords-and-sandals adventure is prophetic.
3. While the swashbuckling content is engaging enough on a popcorn level, the attempts at any sort of epic heft fall way short of the mark.
4. not compelling, not mythic, and not exciting
5. 'The Last Legion' is a wonderful adventure/fantasy with great characters portrayed by actors who know how to grab our attention.
6. I will at least smile as I recall its harmless idiocy, in much the same way that one smiles at retarded people one passes on the street.
7. This movie, for all its quasi-realism, is never as inspiring, interesting, or disturbing as the stories to which it points.
8. To say that this is amateurish would be to elevate it to a level of professionalism it does not achieve.
9. Firth is horribly miscast. I'll buy him as a romantic lead or the main character in a drama, but he's almost laughable as an action hero.
10. The many faults of The Last Legion give way to guilt-free popcorn thrills.


question: Some filmgoers may be surprised by the Farrellys' defense of traditional domestic values in Hall Pass -- unfortunately, they'll probably also be dismayed by the absence of laughs.

numbered reviews:
1. The simple jokes ... work best here, and the screenplay struggles as the pair completely loses focus on their goal.
2. It's a comedy that's chosen to build itself on some pretty heavy issues, issues which it's all for addressing with some pretty horrible ideas about the way relationships work.
3. Haphazardly conceived, phlegmatically paced, lazily filmed and punctuated with gratuitous moments of sexual and scatological slapstick..
4. An occasionally funny comedy with slow stretches that has directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly returning to their trademark gross-out humor.
5. Why do the Farrellys huff and puff and hem and haw and meander through a full third of the picture before the premise even clicks into low gear? At least the answer isn't long in coming: They don't have clue one where to go with it.
6. Avoid Hall Pass at all costs.
7. Like the middle-aged dads in this flaccid fiasco, "Hall Pass" is a decade behind the curve of what's happening.
8. A problem with "Hall Pass," I think, is that both Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis are affable, and the movie wants us to like them.
9. Ever catch yourself thinking, "Man, I wish beer commercials lasted just 104 minutes longer"?
10. ... feels like a major step in the right direction for the Farrellys