Jackie Chan Can't Save Spy Next Door

Action flick less than the sum of its all-star parts

(NEWSER) - Sylvester Stallone directed and co-stars, alongside a Magnificent Seven-style roster of action-film legends—Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, and Jason Statham—but critics have some issues with The Expendables.

• James Verniere (and a friend), Boston Herald : "Hulk like Expendables. It SMASH. Guns go BANG-BANG. Things go BOOM. Fire EVERYWHERE. Cars crash and make even MORE FIRE. HA-HA-HA. Hulk no like Rourke, though. Rourke NUTS."

Not everybody's sold on the new action thriller Salt

(NEWSER) - If you rely on critics for your movie-viewing choices, just flip a coin on Angelina Jolie's new save-the-world thriller, Salt. They're about evenly split:

• Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle : "When exploited properly—as Salt does, keeping her human and vulnerable, so that the character's amazing ability and ingenuity continue to surprise—this thing that Jolie does is, well, very cool. Making us believe in the woman who can do anything, and I mean anything, is Jolie's distinct contribution to today's cinema."
• Wesley Morris, Boston Globe : "Salt appears to have been assembled in the same food processor as most mainstream action films. So much of its fights and chases share a generic sameness both in their sloppy construction and where they’re situated."

Cruise is at his manic best in spy thriller

(NEWSER) - Lighthearted spy thriller Knight and Day is an entertaining, if not especially memorable, summer movie, say critics. How much you'll like it, they say, depends very much on how much you like Tom Cruise, who plays a crackpot CIA agent.

• Knight and Day "is hardly a perfect film, not even close, but it is the most entertaining made-for-adults studio movie of the summer, writes Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles Times . "One of the reasons it works at all is the great skill and commitment Cruise brings to the starring role."

Will Smith's son, Jaden, impresses critics; Jackie Chan, too

(NEWSER) - The Karate Kid remake starring Jackie Chan and Will Smith's son, Jaden, is getting mostly decent reviews:

• Mike Russell, Oregonian : Sometimes, "formulaic" works. It's "charming, thoughtfully paced and even a bit emotionally involving, with what might be a movie-star turn by a movie star's son."
• Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer : Chan gives "a subdued performance of surprising grace," while Jaden "is suitably prickly as the forlorn tween terrified of an unknown country and an unknown language."

Did you love 'Showgirls'? The critics didn't.

(NEWSER) - Admit it: You’re having a ball reading the absolutely scathing Sex and the City 2 reviews . So is Andrew O'Hehir, and to celebrate, he recalls 10 of the worst-reviewed recent films, on Salon :

1. Battlefield Earth: One critic predicted this L. Ron Hubbard sci-fi adaptation would be “hailed as the worst of its kind ever made;” another said it “may well turn out to be the worst movie of this century.”
2. Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat: It inspired quite a few critics to pan it, Seuss-style; example: “Really, it’s true:/The Cat in the Hat/Is a piece of dog doo.”