Jack and Jill

AP PHOTO/SONY-COLUMBIA PICTURES, TRACY BENNETT
Adam Sandler portrays both Jill, left, and Jack in a scene from "Jack & Jill."

Why, Al Pacino, why?

I know it's been a while since you were truly great on the big screen, but have you really fallen this far?

Is this the best we can get today from Michael Corleone, Serpico, Tony Montana?

Did you owe Adam Sandler money? Does he have embarrassing, incriminating photos of you?

Please, give me something. Help me make some sense out of your involvement in the cinematic atrocity that is "Jack and Jill," a movie not content simply to be horrifically awful; it seems intent on retroactively tarnishing your entire career.

Tower Heist

AP PHOTO/UNIVERSAL PICTURES, DAVID LEE
Ben Stiller, left, and Eddie Murphy are shown in a scene from "Tower Heist."

"Tower Heist" feels like it got a green light based on the timeliness of its premise alone.

Because once you look past that, aside from Eddie Murphy's best comedic performance in many years, there is nothing there.

The movie clearly aims to be a more relevant "Ocean's Eleven," but the scenario—a high-powered Wall Street trader (Alan Alda) is arrested on fraud charges, inspiring a group of employees of the luxury high-rise where he lives to plan a robbery of his condo to pay back him back for losing their pensions—is too grim for the kind of breezy fun that came from knocking off a Vegas casino.

And remember that Steven Soderbergh directed the heck out of "Ocean's Eleven," giving it a jaunty rhythm that carried it through some of the contrivances and plot holes. "Tower Heist" has Brett Ratner at the controls, he of the "Rush Hour" series and the much-maligned "X-Men: The Last Stand."