Andy Klein

What Malick has fashioned here is less a conventional narrative than an impressionistic mosaic of our common, yet varied experience of life and death, as focused and clarified through the relentless lens of war.

The repetitious structure begins to grow wearing about two-thirds through, but the conclusion has an emotional wallop that justifies the wait.

Bigger, Longer & Uncut delivers: It's never less than funny, and at its best, it's truly hysterical.

It's a fast, entertaining ride.

It is a moving and solidly entertaining comedy/drama that should bolster director and co-writer Juan José Campanella's reputation in the United States.

It's hard not to warm to a film that features William Shatner (playing himself) looking at De Niro's character and complaining about what a lousy actor he is.

Solidly entertaining little film.

The film's demands may be too perplexing.

If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."

It's funny and exciting on enough levels that adults are likely to enjoy it just as much as the rug rats.

For most people, four hours pushes the outer comfort limits for theatrical viewing. My Voyage to Italy is well worth the time, but bringing along a thermos of espresso isn't a bad idea either.

Dominik's stylistic choices are savvy, but what really makes the movie work is Bana's extraordinary performance as Chopper.

In short, the film is emotional, perhaps even sentimental, but it strenuously avoids the sort of blatant manipulation that marks cheap sentimentality.

The efficiency of his (Donaldson) direction renders the movie somewhat characterless, like a top-rank made-for-TV production.

It's a strange, entertaining little film that derives its weird tension from a blend of comic and serious tones.

Rea hits just the right balance of sympathy and self-interest.

As satisfying as much of the film is, there are a few missteps, large and small, that may require indulgence on the part of viewers.

For all of the heroine's shockingly "modern" lifestyle choices, the thrust of the film is remarkably old-fashioned. It embraces the notion that you can have only a single great love in a lifetime...and that's if you're lucky.

Allen produces a lovable, relaxed--although not uproarious--comedy.

A political film in the form of a thriller, rather than a garden-variety potboiler gleefully helping itself to stock political tropes from the genre's grab bag.

Eureka is, quite extraordinarily, never dull.

O'Connor as Fanny is irresistibly appealing.

Those with an interest in new or singular sorts of film experiences will find What Time Is It There? well worth the time.

It’s Del Toro who really gets to strut his stuff with a subtle, ambiguous, and riveting performance. In a field of top-notch actors, he’s the one whom you remember days later.

But by the end the audience, along with Clayton, has been jerked around so many times that it's almost too exhausting...By then, it's almost impossible to care.

This is quintessential "family entertainment."

In the end, the performances and the basic strength of the premise make Shadow of the Vampire a relatively diverting ninety minutes. But there is the inescapable feeling that it is a shadow of the great film it might have been.

It's hard to know just how much to trust Titanic Town.

Filled with sharp observations and interesting, often subtle, bits of visual trickery, much of it evoking the technique of Douglas Sirk's American domestic melodramas. Still, the very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.

The texture is reminiscent of last year's "Suzhou River," but the basic material isn't as rich.

Generally engaging.

Handily in a league with its predecessor...as good a follow-up as one can imagine, given the built-in difficulties of sequels.

What's most disappointing is the almost utter lack of humor -- In the mindless action sweepstakes, however, there's still enough here to place The Transporter above big-bang gibberish like XXX.

While the movie tries to make the connection between the rough but sensitive lad we see on screen and the notorious carouser of later years, there's little here to suggest whatever torment led Behan to drunkenness and an absurdly early death at 41.

Worth watching.

Pretty hysterical.

Despite the few good performances, this Hamlet is not a keeper.

Its greatest flaw is the casting of Miller ("Trainspotting," "Hackers"), who continues to have virtually no screen presence...For all that, Plunkett & Macleane is fun.

Kay doesn't seem to know the meaning of moderation.

Will probably please hard-core action fans who have become inured to plot idiocies, but it remains a terrible waste of talent.

By the end, we simply have no idea what he (Lee) feels or what the film is really about. And we are too worn out to care.

Lee's pace is slow enough to try viewers' patience.

While it's crucial to preserve and make available every bit of available footage of such an earth-shattering event, it must be said that Rosenbaum's film manages to become slack and uninvolving after a while.

Hu has crafted a charming and modest movie.

It's unlikely that anyone will walk away unmoved.

Ninety percent of this thriller is absolutely terrific; but the 10 percent that fails is so troubling that it threatens to undermine all that is wonderful in the rest.

Festival in Cannes is an amused indictment of Jaglom's own profession; he doesn't seem to be making excuses for anybody's compromised (or even downright immoral) behavior here.

Abandon all hopes of common sense, and enter the theater with high expectations for visceral entertainment. You won't be disappointed.

Nowhere near as bad as distributor New Line seems to think.

Cube is essentially a glossy, beautifully designed 90-minute Twilight Zone episode.

Star Jeremy Renner seems shorter than Dahmer, but is otherwise a look-alike and gives a convincingly intense and weird performance. Bruce Davison (as Papa Dahmer) and the rest of the cast also do nice work.

It doesn't have enough power in the first place to make a strong claim on our attentions.

Two minor drawbacks: Onscreen IDs of speakers are sometimes omitted. And Kissinger's crimes seem almost paltry in comparison to current American policies.

Doesn't show us much of anything we haven't seen better already.

Nobody can convey more while doing nothing than Thornton. And while his minimalist style is appropriate for the ironically named Levity, what is conveyed never quite generates the emotional charge of "Monster's Ball."

Harrelson is enjoyable as always, and the rest of the cast delivers, but the film is too warm, fuzzy, predictable, and by the numbers to be anything more than a pleasant diversion that will vanish from your mind by the time you leave the multiplex.

In the end, it's all just too damned much. It's more exhausting than edifying.

May display an energetic and promising talent, but it is also uncomfortably close to being a 105-minute music video, with all the problems that suggests.

So uplifting, it's almost...gross.

It's refreshing and unusual to see clever strategy trumping ritual honor in a film of this genre, even if one of the tricks seems gratuitously brutal.

The ludicrous casting of Hoffman is just the fatal bit of kindling on this Joan's fire.

It's nothing more than a very long movie about someone, literally and metaphorically, having to get back up on a horse.

The cold distance that LaBute brings to the material keeps the viewer at arms' length.

Condensing, paring and shorthanding the story elements can be daunting, and, despite the efforts of Kasdan and Goldman, two masters at wrangling unwieldy source material into shape, there is some awkwardness and confusion in the result.

What Ichaso does do is take us on a dizzying, constantly moving ride through an exciting decade in the blossoming of "Nuyorican" culture with its most flamboyant figure as our focus.

Jones seems to have trouble keeping up with the large amount of action he's required to participate in. And Del Toro seems ill-cast and ill-used.

While the humor is recognizably Plympton, he has actually bothered to construct a real story this time, and the joke sequences are shorter and better integrated. The visual style is also richer and "better drawn" than before.

Enjoyable, if utterly stupid, upscale entry in the old Amityville Horror genre -- that is, a horror film allegedly based on spooky and inexplicable real-life events.

The various talents on display aren't enough to overcome the sheer blandness of the material.

Silva is a polished and sophisticated director who brings a surprisingly light touch to much of this apparently fact-based story.

It's pretty good fun, once it gets going, but still makes some of the same mistakes that have plagued other Hollywood films that interpolate the concepts of Hong Kong action.

It's perfectly effective, though only rarely inspired.

Toback has taken a distinctly '60s-ish personal experience and done his best to transplant it into the current, vastly different, cultural milieu. Harvard Man is a semi-throwback, a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimentality.

After a few very funny early sequences, tricked up with grotesque, surreal editing and camerawork, the movie gets bogged down a bit during the first third.

Schnitzler's film has a great hook, some clever bits and well-drawn, if standard issue, characters, but is still only partly satisfying. The problem may very well be one of cultural translation.

Belongs somewhere in the low middle of Altman's output -- not up to "Cookie's Fortune," but way better than, say, "Beyond Therapy," which remains his worst film by some margin.

Unfocused. We feel cut adrift amid the various plot threads. This is exacerbated by some murky exposition. Characters, events, and the passage of time are not always clearly established.

It's always risky to characterize a new film as "unique," but Tuvalu, the debut feature from German director Veit Helmer, has as good a shot as any at claiming that label.

While Brother may be the perfect introduction for Kitano newcomers, longtime fans may find it superfluous and even a step down from the likes of Hana-Bi (1997) and Sonatine (1993).

This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.

An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.

It more or less makes sense and it's not dull -- more than can be said for many similar attempts.

It just doesn¹t get very good until halfway through, in large part because the usually excellent Walston is miscast.

Just barely diverting, even at under 80 minutes -- a TV episode inflated past its natural length.

The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.

Brosnan proved his worth last time around; but, sad to say, the rest of Tomorrow Never Dies lacks the wit and inventiveness of GoldenEye, let alone of Goldfinger.

Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.

The film is often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American "hosts" and their "guests," but its effect is diluted by slow pacing and lengthiness.

At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.

Instead of gags, we’re treated to endless observations about love, commitment, romance, parental responsibilities, and other well-trod subjects. None of this is particularly insightful or interesting.

Despite the generally likable characters and the abundance of clever ideas, Lustig mucks it all up with her "trick" editing.

Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.

On the up side, there are some genuinely funny jokes, and Oedekerk has been wise enough to keep the running time down to 82 minutes, including the eight-minute closing credit sequence (which is worth staying through its entirety). But Kung Pow! is no "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"

The muddiness of the basic concept and the thinness of its execution eventually defeat even Witherspoon's talents.

Fact is, there is nothing feloniously awful about the whole thing, but the laughs are tepid and too infrequent.

The redeeming features of All Over the Guy are the consistently engaging performances and some genuinely funny dialogue.

The only genuine surprises on hand are the few moments when the film defies the expectations that have been programmed into our collective neurons by the past 25 years of horror movies.

Thankfully, the final, long action set piece, which owes a debt to "The Manchurian Candidate" among others, is free of such problems. Shiri manages to go out on its most exciting sequence. There are worse ways to go.