Bobby Jones was a great man and a great golfer. He deserves a better movie than this one, as clumsy as its title.

Jones may be the greatest golfer who ever lived. He’s the only one to win all four of golf’s top titles in the same year. And he was an extraordinary man. He overcame physical problems and family pressures. He graduated from two colleges and received a master’s degree and a law degree. And Jones refused to be paid for playing golf and turned down millions of dollars in endorsements and awards. He liked to point out that the word “amateur” comes from the Latin word for love. He played for love of the game.

And clearly, this movie was made for love of the game and for love of Jones, but it tells us rather than showing us, and then tells us again, and it takes a very long time doing it, too. Like the game it depicts, it moves very, very slowly. There are lots of long, long, loving shots of the sun-dappled greens, slow-mo swings and swelling strings, glimpses of golden light accompanied by hooting panpipes, and quotes from Kipling, Will Rogers, Tennyson, and then Kipling again. I know it’s a long movie, but really, we can remember it from the first time.

We meet Jones as a sickly child, growing up next door to a golf course, imitating the swings of the men who play and attracting the attention of the Scottish golf pro. He enters his first big tournament as a teenager. A skeptical journalist becomes an awestruck fan. Cue the swelling strings again.

Jones has a temper. When a shot goes bad, he swears and throws his club. “There are some emotions that can’t be endured with a golf club in your hands.” His grandfather, Robert Jones Senior, disapproves of his playing golf. His mother wants him to study literature. Later on, his wife wants him to spend more time with the family. He keeps getting sick. But he will not give up until he has won the grand slam of the four top titles.

The movie is nice to look at, and Jeremy Northam as the dissolute but resolute Walter Hagan adds some flavor to the story. But the other performances are as flat as the dialogue.

Parents should know that the movie has strong language for a PG and a child uses four-letter words. Jones’ swearing is an issue in the story and ultimately he learns not to do it any more. There are some brief mild sexual references (a character is teased that she “doesn’t pet,” a man is said to have broken “all eleven” of the ten commandments and refers to debauchery). Characters drink and smoke, sometimes to excess. The portrayal of minorities is consistent with the era, but may be seen as insensitive by today’s standards. (No mention is made of Jones’ Augusta Golf Club’s famous battles to keep women from becoming members.)

Families who see this movie should talk about the comment by one character that “money is going to ruin sports.” Was he right? They should all read Kipling’s classic poem If, still fine advice about growing up for boys or girls. And they should talk about the question asked of Jones at the end of the movie, “What are you going to do for yourself?” What did he do for himself, and why?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Legend of Bagger Vance, with actors playing Jones and Hagan. Other golf movies include Pat and Mike and Caddyshack. Jones himself appeared in some short films demonstrating his stroke and they are available on video.

Could it BE any more atrocious?

This stupifyingly appalling mess of a movie takes the definition of “not funny” to a new low. The gravitational pull of its massive lack of humor is so strong that if you listen carefully you may be able to hear it sucking comedy out of actual funny movies right this minute.

Scardy-cat dentist Oz (Matthew Perry), retired hit-man Jimmy (Bruce Willis), former dental receptionist and wanna-be hitperson Jill (Amanda Peet), now married to Jimmy, and former wife of Jimmy Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge), now married to Oz, are all back for this sequel to The Whole Nine Yards. But someone forgot to invite a screenwriter. There is no story. There are no jokes. All we get is Oz slamming into walls, failed attempts at hitman humor and a lot of anticipation with no pay-off whatsoever.

Kevin Pollack provides a couple of bright moments as bad-guy Lazlo, father of the bad guy killed off in the last movie (also played by Pollack). But the rest of the movie is nothing but the teeth-rattling thud of one failed joke after another. The dialogue is terrible. The physical humor is almost painfully bad. The plot (Lazlo wants to kill Jimmy; Jimmy wants Lazlo’s money) is muddled and incoherent. Perhaps the most painful is the movie’s timing, which in overly optimistic fashion leaves moments for audience laughter that never comes, so there are excruciating sags in momentum after every would-be quip and pratfall.

With Almost Heroes and Serving Sara, Matthew Perry has now appeared in what could someday be a triple feature at the legendary Hell’s Multiplex theater in Esquire’s Dubious Achievement awards.

Parents should know that the movie is violent for a PG-13, with characters who are hired assassins. There is fighting and gunplay and characters are shot and killed. Some of this is intended to be humorous. Characters use strong language and drink, including getting drunk. This is also intended to be humorous. Characters use strong language. There are sexual references and situations, including off-screen sex vividly portrayed through sound and two naked men waking up in bed together wondering what happened. This is also intended to be humorous. It isn’t. Boy, it isn’t.

Families who see this movie should talk about why it is such an awful failure.

Families who might be interested in this movie will enjoy the better (R-rated) original as well as better films with Bruce Willis, including Die Hard and The Sixth Sense. And until Perry makes a good movie, they should stick to watching him on Friends.

We don’t ask for much from explosion and chase movies, just some cool explosions and chases, plus some attitude, a couple of lines of snappy dialogue, an interesting bad guy, and a plot that doesn’t get in the way. This movie fails in every category.

It’s always a bad sign when a movie can’t make up its mind what its title is and so goes with two. And it’s an even worse sign when both titles are as dumb as these.

Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu play Ecks and Sever, two brilliant agents who start out on opposite sides and then end up on the same side. There is some assassination device and a kidnapped child and a wife who was supposed to be dead but may still be alive. But mostly, the movie is about shooting and hitting, an endless barrage of bullets and bazookas to a point that is way past mindless fun and on the brink of being pornographic. The dialogue is not quite up to the level of awards-show cue cards, and the score is generic, bass-heavy techno-punk.

“Ballistic” is more video game than movie, though video games have more interesting characters. There is not much dialogue, and what there is is unforgivably dumb. Ecks sees Sever’s warehouse-sized collection of weapons and asks where she got it. She responds, “Some women buy shoes.” In addition to the pretentious fake-clever dialogue, we have pretentious fake-tough and even fake-meaningful dialogue that is even harder to sit through. And there are also endless shots of Lucy Liu shooting huge guns in slow motion, with her hair artistically flowing, plus even more of the usual magically bullet-proof characters who constantly run into gunfire without getting hit but manage to hit the other side every time they fire. It even has the unfathomably stupid cliché of the adversaries stopping in mid-battle to drop all of their hardware on the ground so that they can have a “fair fight.”

Parents should know that the movie has constant graphic violence and brief strong language. The only real strength of the movie is its portrayal of minorities and women as strong, smart, brave, loyal, and honest.

Families who see this movie should talk about the choices people must make when they are faced with enemies who do not follow the rules. How do you fight them without becoming bad guys yourself? Can someone be an agent without putting his or her family at risk?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy better films like “The Transporter.”