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 | Dumb and Dumberest Brennan and Dale are losers. What else can you say about a pair of unemployed forty-somethings who live with their parents and waste their days watching reruns of "Cops"? They are infantile, irresponsible and seemingly incapable of any emotion besides anger. And their pet peeves include…well, pretty much everything.More |  | Mulder & Scully’s (Somewhat) Excellent Adventure Even in the estimation of its most ardent followers, "The X-Files" has rarely been a model of consistency, if only because creator Chris Carter’s vision is so audaciously complex that it sometimes collapses beneath the weight of its own ambition. At its best, it is lurid, cerebral pulp fiction that deftly combines elements of Carter’s religious faith with his predilection for paranormal fantasy and maddeningly intricate conspiracy theories. In its lesser moments, it is convoluted and unfocused, undone by its myriad twists and needlessly baffling turns.More |  | Troma Trashes Fast Food Nation with Kentucky Fried Musical It’s been 22 years since Troma Entertainment last made a big-screen splash with [b]Class of Nuke ’Em High,[/b] a typically stomach-turning satire about small-town teens growing up, but not old, in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. Since then, infamous auteur Lloyd Kaufman’s fiercely independent studio has floundered with a series of mostly straight-to-DVD releases, including seminal titles like [b]Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy[/b] and [b]Killer Condom[/b].More |  | Lust, No Caution Catherine Breillat, the French director of [b]Fat Girl[/b] and a celebrated provocateur, has acknowledged that her films tend to be preoccupied with female sexuality and its power to sway the hearts and minds of men. Her latest, the luscious, early-19th-century drama [b]The Last Mistress[/b], is no exception.More |  | Send in the Clown Even if [b]The Dark Knight[/b] didn’t represent Heath Ledger’s swan song, it would mark a high point in the young actor’s brief but illustrious career. Ledger’s accent has sometimes sounded geographically challenged when he’s been asked to abandon his native Australian, but here he reinvents himself entirely, trading in his authoritative baritone for a wispy nasal snarl worthy of a sadistic jester. Unlike Jack Nicholson, who turned the Joker into a diabolical ham, Ledger plays Batman’s most iconic foil as a demented sociopath whose very existence seems a mockery of civilized society.More |  | Close Encounters of the Third-Rate Kind Eddie Murphy can do better than this. Having rebounded from the critical and commercial failures of [b]I Spy[/b] and [b]The Adventures of Pluto Nash[/b] with a timely return to the [b]Shrek[/b] franchise and an Oscar-nominated role as a fading R&B singer in 2006’s [b]Dreamgirls[/b], the dynamic comedian can still electrify when he feels like it. The only problem, it seems, is that Murphy doesn’t feel like it often.More |  | Beasts of Burden Life is never easy for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense’s human minions. Saddled with the already daunting task of keeping tabs on the government’s worst-kept secret -- a hulking, cigar-chomping demon known as Hellboy (Ron Perlman) -- they seem hopelessly ill-equipped to defend themselves against the beasts that go bump in the night.More |  | A Vulgar Display of Violence [b]Wanted[/b] is a blazing gun show masquerading as a parable about self-empowerment, or something like that. It cries out for the workers of the world to unite and improve their lot by becoming savage mercenaries, and even proposes an unorthodox health plan: candle-wax baths for trainees, who must endure a series of sadistic beatings before they’re allowed to administer them.More |  | A Lackluster Take on Marvel’s Green Monster If French director Louis Leterrier’s goal in rebooting the [b]Hulk[/b] saga for the big screen was to distance Marvel’s franchise from Ang Lee’s brooding 2003 deconstruction of the not-so-jolly green giant, you’d have to consider [b]The Incredible Hulk[/b] a rousing success: While Lee incurred the wrath of comic-book disciples with his thoughtful character study, Leterrier and screenwriter Zak Penn dispense with the angst and focus on the smash. The result is a movie that eschews dialogue (or anything resembling an idea, for that matter) in favor of hyper-violent mayhem and unconvincing CGI.More |  | Life With the Thrill Kill Cult [b]The Strangers[/b] is allegedly based on actual events, but even if that were true -- and rest assured, it isn’t -- one might reasonably wonder whether this vile cat-and-mouse exercise has anything to offer beyond the dubious thrill of watching helpless prey suffer.More |
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