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This is old-fashioned, assembly-line moviemaking without the old panache.

Gere and Roberts do good work, but this feelgood fantasy is laced with some preposterous messages about love, success and money.

It's a very glib, shallow movie, but it keeps you moving around enough that you could actually have a good time.

It's got a cold, shiny cash register right where its heart should be.

Shameless in its use of mental retardation as a gimmick, a prop and a plot device.

There's a word for this vulgar family-therapy movie: retarded.

The film's oily overdefinition of various class and cultural categories is strident enough to betray a condescending attitude toward the audience.

Like most flicks conceived as marketing vehicles, it's hollow at the core.

Gimmicks replace characterization at every turn.

Only some of the characterizations exhibit subtlety, though most of the performances have considerable charm.

Thanks to a perfectly blended ensemble led by Hector Elizondo, in his best screen role to date, Tortilla Soup is a warm-blooded winner with equal emphasis placed on taste buds and heartstrings.

Despite the comedy's reliance on drug humor, first-time director Jesse Dylan is actually less interested in getting high than in seeing how low he can go.

Maintains a consistent level of a swaggering, semi-anarchic silliness reminiscent of '70s youth-skewing comedies.

Dillon does a good job in his fullest, least narcissistic characterization to date.

The performances compensate, with Dillon turning in a light and touching portrait of confused ambitions.

It unfortunately has an unfinished quality, and plays very much like a good first draft for a much better movie than the one on view.

Together, these characters discover the ideas of faith and fellowship as the film congratulates itself on its noble instincts.

That this failed is largely down to the stilted, clichd dialogue of the screenplay; fans of the wittier novel by Meg Cabot may well be disappointed.

A light, uneven Pygmalion story that may win young girls over with its wish fulfilment theme and teen movie staples, but does not live up to the expectations created by the cast and director.