Author:   Justin Souther

The Story: A famous Hollywood dog ends up getting lost when a stunt goes wrong, and decides to use his unique talents to help a local fire department. The Lowdown: As kids' movies go, it will entertain your young one; but for everyone else, it's a movie severely lacking in just about every other conceivable…

The Story: Two rival figure skaters, who had both been banned from the sport, discover a loophole that allows them to skate competitively once again, but as the sport's first male pairs team. The Lowdown: Have you seen Anchorman? How about Talladega Nights? Then you've seen this movie.

The Story: A down-on-his-luck former swimmer starts a swim team at an inner-city rec center. The Lowdown: Yet another inspiring, well intentioned sports flick that occasionally works due to a strong central performance by Terence Howard.

The Story: Early '90s pop-culture icons the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles make their return to the big screen, this time as computer-generated cartoons. The Lowdown: A surprisingly entertaining animated film that eventually just gets repetitive and suffers from a distinct feeling of "been there, done that."

The Story: A husband, bored with his marriage, has his loyalty to his wife and family tested when he meets an old friend's ex. The Lowdown: An uneven comedy that gets points simply for being a film that's actually made for adults.

The Story: Four middle-class, middle-aged family men decide to take a cross-country road trip aboard their motorcycles, but trouble arises when they run into a gang of real bikers. The Lowdown: Pretty much what you might expect from a movie featuring John Travolta, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence: a collection of recycled sitcom humor and…

The Story: A former astronaut-in-training, who had to give up his dreams of traveling to outer space after the death of his father, decides to build a rocket of his own in order to follow his vision. The Lowdown: Old-fashioned to a fault, The Astronaut Farmer works more than it doesn’t as a simple little…

The Story: Based on the popular Comedy Central TV series, the members of the Reno Sheriff's Department travel to Miami for a police convention, but end up taking over the city's law enforcement responsibilities after a biological attack. The Lowdown: Strictly for fans of the show, though even they might have a difficult time finding…

The Story: The true story of Robert Hanssen, supposedly the worst traitor in the history of the United States, and the FBI’s attempts at bringing him to justice. The Lowdown: A decent movie that is highlighted by Chris Cooper’s excellent performance, but ultimately marred by utterly lackluster execution on every other front.

The Story: Based on Katherine Paterson's children's novel, the movie Bridge to Terabithia follows two outcast preteens as they attempt to adjust to the pains of growing up by escaping into an imaginary fantasy world. The Lowdown: A pleasant, well-intentioned family film that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do.

The Story: A young girl living in 1850s Appalachia attempts to find help from a Sin Eater in order to gain redemption for her past mistakes. Instead, she uncovers secrets that have been haunting her community. The Lowdown: A cheap, boring, poorly acted mess that is just all-around bad filmmaking.

The Story: Following a loose, insignificant plotline surrounding four orphans, Epic Movie is an attempt at satirizing so-called "epic" movies, which, by this movie's definition, is anything that happens to be popular. The Lowdown: Bad in every conceivable sense of the word, this film manages the holy trinity of all terrible comedies: It's boring, obvious…

I’m convinced that there is a good movie — a fast-paced, tense crime drama rife with social commentary that examines the consequences behind the glamorization of violence and crime — buried somewhere underneath the mess that is Alpha Dog. The only problem is that director Nick Cassavettes didn’t make that movie. Instead, he made this […]

I suppose if the cliched, uplifting sports drama had a little cousin, it would be the cliched, uplifting dance drama. The latest entry is Stomp the Yard, or as I like to call it You Got Served the Last Step Up Footloose Dirty Flashdance 2: Electric Boogaloo (or Y.G.S.L.S.U.F.D.F.2.E.B for short). Actually, the best description […]

Computers have given us many modern day conveniences — from the Internet to calculator watches — for which I for one am pleased. But technology has also given us one nuisance that we may never rid ourselves of: the unbearably horrible animated movie. Sure, computer animation is cheaper and faster and, in some cases, better […]

Every so often, you come across a movie so downright terrible, so mind-numbingly dim-witted, that you leave the theater feeling physically exhausted. Code Name: The Cleaner is exactly one of those movies. It’s a film so densely packed with horribleness that it almost seemingly collapses upon itself into a black hole of suckitude from which […]

As the sixth film in a rather uninspired series, Rocky Balboa has every reason to be a catastrophe. Sixty-year-old Sylvester Stallone attempts once more to be an action star in a film that he both wrote and directed. When you take into account the other films in which he’s done at least one of those […]

I’ll start off by answering the obvious question: Yes, the word “happiness” in the title is misspelled on purpose. However, this is surprisingly not the most interesting thing in a film that could have easily been generic pap. While the film itself is excruciatingly predictable (I bet you can’t guess if the odds are overcome […]

If I were 10 years old, I would have honestly enjoyed — maybe even loved — Unaccompanied Minors. However, since 10 came and went awhile ago, the best I can say about this movie is that there are certainly worse options when it comes to family entertainment this holiday season. Sure, it’s basically Home Alone […]

Apparently the folks at National Lampoon decided that the world needed yet another wild sex romp set in the halls of academia, and therefore brought us Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj. No, Ryan Reynolds’ Van Wilder never makes an appearance (I suppose the same man who wore a fat suit in Just Friends […]

Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny tells the fictional story of the creation of Jack Black’s real-life band, the aforementioned Tenacious D (which consists of Black and co-star Kyle Gass (Elf), both on guitar). If you’ve heard Tenacious D before and didn’t find it funny or necessarily good, or find Jack Black’s usual screen persona […]