Kazaam (1996)

The movie is decidedly old-fashioned, aiming to send kids and their parents out of the theater feeling good about themselves.

As for Shaquille O'Neal, given his own three wishes the next time, he should go for a script, a director and an interesting character.

Is Kazaam racist? In effect, yes. But it'sracism linked to bad marketing: You can't really mix a black-pride rap film with a revamped version of "Free Willie" and expect them to magically jibe.

It takes the movie all of 15 minutes to descend into sub-Spielbergian banalities about poor Max's search for his absentee dad.

The odd truth is that the film's novice star is better than the material.