I tried. I mean I really tried to like Disney's newest animated venture, "Chicken Little," directed by Mark Dindal ("The Little Mermaid," "Oliver & Company"), but the humor was so forced (and lacking) that the whole enterprise smacked of pure desperation.

As if they were trying just a bit too hard.

And while the computer animation is really well done, the recent releases of "The Corpse Bride" and "Wallace & Grommit" remind one just how artistic and craft-worthy the old ways of stop-action and claymation really are.read more

Flightplan is a lot like Panic Room, only that there is a lot more room to panic on a double decker aircraft. Like her previous hit, Panic Room, Jodie Foster again plays a mother who has to use her courage and intelligence to defend her daughter against men who hold all the cards.

The only difference here is that she does not know who her enemies are until the end of the movie. Foster is Kyle Pratt, a jet propulsion engineer who has been working in Germany to help design the very airplane she is now taking to cross the Atlantic. Kyle, who is travelling with her six year old daughter Julia ( Marlene Lawston ) is taking her husbands body back to the US for burial.Kyle and her daughter fall asleep soon after takeoff but when she wakes up a few hours later, Julia is nowhere to be found.read more

If you're wondering whether "Jarhead" is a message movie, you'll find your answer in a line from the film. When the Marines in his sniper unit begin discussing the reason behind America's involvement in Desert Storm, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) says, "To hell with politics. We're here now." That sentiment sums up what "Jarhead" the movie is all about. To hell with politics, arguments over whether or not America should have been involved in protecting Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi troops, and other concerns over the justification of sending Americans to fight in Desert Storm.

"Jarhead" is a character-driven story about what happened to a specific group of men during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and how they adjusted to life in the desert sands of Kuwait - politics be damned. read more

'Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story" was inspired by a true story, they've gone and spelled it out for you right in the title. This is annoying to newspaper editors and the poor slob whose job it is to change the theater marquee, but a studio has to work with what it has, even if this family crowd-pleaser about a horse, a girl, and her dad didn't include the latter two in reality. There was a horse, Mariah's Storm, who came back from a crippling 1993 leg injury to win a number of 1995 Kentucky races. This so moved writer-director John Gatins that he has wrapped a fictional saga of intergenerational bonding and triumph around it. ''Dreamer: Vaguely Suggested by an Actual Horse" doesn't cut it, though. read more

Add one more to the list of unnecessary horror remakes with this fog-bound resurrection of "The Fog." While the original was no masterpiece, it displayed an inventive B-movie sensibility and director John Carpenter's trademark visual style. While this version strives unsuccessfully for deeper meanings in its retelling of the terrorization of a small coastal town by a killer fog, it lacks the scares necessary to satisfy its target audience. Opened Friday without being screened for critics, it looks to burn off quickly on its way to video stores. read more