question: Herbie: Fully Loaded is a decent kids movie that is pretty undemanding for adult viewers.

numbered reviews: 1. This Herbie is loaded all right. Unfortunately, it's with spare parts from dozens of other equally mediocre underdog sports films.
2. I personally did not hoot or chortle or chuckle or holler or wonder, not once.
3. It's a silly, fun, non-offensive, fluffball of a movie...
4. [Robinson's] fun permeates the entire film, and it's irresistibly infectious.
5. Fully Loaded adds up to little more than a cynical marriage of marketable commodities -- Lohan, NASCAR and the durably profitable Bug himself.
6. While Fully Loaded doesn't have much for grown-ups who think characters need dimensions or a good story requires an unexpected turn or two, it offers a nice pit stop of nostalgic memories.
7. As serviceable an introduction as any to the notion of a sentient set of wheels.
8. Five credited writers have managed to complete the script without a single surprise and with a couple of odd omissions.
9. But for all this pretense toward plot, really, Herbie's point is NASCAR and commercial tie-ins.
10. A paint-by-numbers script means that Herbie: Fully Loaded, despite its dying to please four-wheeled star, often comes up flat.


question: Both naughtier and campier than Ronald Searle's original post war series, this St. Trinian's leans on high jinks instead of performances or witty dialogue.

numbered reviews: 1. Rupert Everett also expertly mangles the plum role once inhabited by Alastair Sim.
2. Camp fun, and catnip for a demographic that British cinema doesn't often bother to please.
3. Ofsted inspectors can expect nightmares; everyone else will be mildly amused.
4. While unlikely to have anyone cheering in the stalls, St Trinian's is nowhere near the calamity it should have been, even if it comes within striking distance more than once.
5. Rowdy 12-year-old British girls might get some modicum of narcissistic pleasure from "St. Trinian's" (loosely based on Ronald Searle's WWII era cartoons), but no one else will.
6. Innocence is entirely absent from this extremely dubious addition to the big-screen adventures of Ronald Searle's cartoon creations.
7. Colin Firth's humiliation is a thing of wonder. His entire career on screen and stage is beautifully sent up before our eyes.
8. A monumentally naff film.
9. that 'jolly hockey sticks' vibe feels outmoded with the only efforts to update the concept being shorter skirts and push-up bras.
10. Heavy-handed at times and poorly plotted, but energetic and funny. A suitably undignified return to the screen for the notorious school and its out-of-control pupils.


question: After a string of subpar sequels, this bloody, action-packed reboot takes the Predator franchise back to its testosterone-fueled roots.

numbered reviews: 1. A solidly okay Saturday night effort, but unambitious considering the talent involved. Maybe Rodriguez should direct Predator Resurrection, but get a science fiction writer to script it.
2. This is the sequel that John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1987 original deserved, as director Nimrod Antal delivers enough hard core sci-fi, explosive action and monster mayhem to justify its belated arrival.
3. Some genre movies simply work out this way: Whatever their intentions or origins they percolate for about an hour. And then they sputter and hope that a promising first half will be enough to get by.
4. The dialogue is dumber than dirt, and the plot crumbles at the halfway mark, but the movie does what a loud summer blockbuster should, which is loudly bust blocks.
5. After the opening scene, there's not a shred of originality in this frantic sci-fi sequel.
6. Predators may not be the instant classic Predator was, but as an action-oriented Sci-fi thriller and an entertaining summer diversion, it fills the bill.
7. Antal is better with surprise than with suspense and as long as there's lots of action going on the film is good, old-fashioned Saturday afternoon fun ...
8. Predators mostly just suggests a bunch of grown-up men playing with toys and not bothering to invite the rest of us into their circle.
9. It has fun showing us that humans can, indeed, be the most dangerous game.
10. This is the kind of film you go to expecting gore and shocks; ultimately these two elements, along with the predators themselves, are sadly awol in this latest version.


question: Rousing, heartwarming, and squarely traditional, Secretariat offers exactly what you'd expect from an inspirational Disney drama -- no more, and no less.

numbered reviews:
1. Until the Sports Illustrated subscription runs out at the Walt Disney Studios offices, I expect audiences will continue to be privy to cookie-cutter yarns centered around notable achievements in the sports world.
2. An inspirational true story that oozes with so much inspiration, its overwhelming optimism becomes annoying and embarrassing.
3. Excitement mounts with every hoof beat in 'Secretariat,' a real crowd pleaser.
4. Like most Disney features, it is an inspirational event that will touch everyone.
5. A throwback to an era where Disney churned these things out by the dozen, you?ll cheer, you?ll laugh, and wish you?d brought a hanky. There is, however, no photo finish.
6. A weak mediocrity that inspires no strong feelings one way or the other.
7. The horse racing in the film is wonderful. It was shown from the horse's perspective...but I'm not sure the Oscar buzz is appropriate here.
8. It's not about a horse, it's jockey, or it's trainer. It's about a horse owner. Instead of honoring the greatest race horse ever, they try to find an underdog story with Diane Lane's help.
9. Strictly a movie for those who bet chalk.
10. Secretariat rides to the Winner's Circle.