Carrie Rickey

This sparrow's flight lifts the heart.

A seven-word review: Very good performances. Much too much weather.

While this charmer about a canine James Bond does not pack the emotional punch of "WALL-E," it's frisky fun to see the white shepherd get a new leash on life.

Shakespearean but overlong, The Dark Knight is two hours of heady, involving action that devolves into a mind-numbing 32-minute epilogue.

This is a quiet, meticulously plotted chamber piece, not the booming, lightning-paced orchestral affair we know as the contemporary action film in the Age of Ludlum.

Swing Vote is messy and its targets are relatively safe. But its aim is true. And Costner's performance hits the bull's-eye.

For the first 100 minutes of his 117-minute film Spielberg holds the audience in a grip of fear. When Ray and Rachel take refuge in the storm cellar of a survivalist (a miscast Tim Robbins), the director's grip relaxes only a bit, but the film never recovers from this excursion into the Gothic.

Callan McAuliffe, a handsome Australian youth, looks right as the perma-press Bryce.

Stronger on character than on story, the film version of Janet Fitch's best-seller is shaped and propelled by the astonishing performance of Alison Lohman.

A scabrously funny look at the cutthroat game of statecraft.

Develops microclimates of mood without fully developing the same shadings of character.

Unlike Gondry's previous features, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine, Science lacks the sturdy armature of a Charlie Kaufman screenplay to support its eccentricities. The flood of delight in the film's first 90 minutes slowed to a trickle and, finally, a drip.

Haggis' earnest and eloquent film about the impact of the war in Iraq on U.S. soldiers, and by extension, their nation, is human-scaled. And as deep and harrowed as Jones' crevassed face.

Parental Guidance is an engaging comedy that bridges multiple generation gaps, making it that rare movie that grandparents, their kids, and their kids can enjoy.

Between the earnest boy, his playful mammal, the film from actor-turned-director Charles Martin Smith is a winning family entertainment.

On a Paris rooftop about an hour into this 2-hour film, the tone shifts and the atmosphere lightens into giddy farce.

For a film about suicides, Wristcutters: A Love Story is strangely life-affirming. This film about slackers stuck in limbo between life and death is upbeat in an offbeat way.

Cluttered as it is colorful, Robots is a visual delight.

While at times the improvisational dialogue sounds like audio filler, the three leads are poignant and perceptive.

A story with a beginning and end but without a middle. Two slices of bread without the sandwich meat, I wrote in my notes.

Overall, Matchstick Men, which is based on the novel by Eric Garcia, is more memorable for Lohman's naturalistic acting and Scott's mannerist direction than it is for its O. Henry surprise.

Steamy and sexy with a smack of sadism, the movie is a throwback to old-school Hollywood action/romance.

The film is suffused with the generous, nonjudgmental spirit of Uncle Tomas, whose live-and-let-live attitude warms like the sun and who helps Magdalena and Carlos make the safe passage from adolescence to maturity.

Though African Cats is G-rated, scenes of animals chowing down on other animals are not for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach. I don't think it's suitable for those under 6, and they should be prepared for real animal behavior. But it's deeply involving and primally moving.

Paradoxically, the closer Mendes gets to his characters, the more remote Perdition becomes. One wishes that his film had as much heart as it does art.

A ridiculously entertaining romp based on the graphic novels of Bryan Lee O'Malley and directed, with mash-up mastery, by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead).

For the most part, the film's musical numbers are dynamic, propelling the story forward. The same cannot be said about Peter Barsocchini's colorless screenplay.

Probably better than anyone else working today, Donaldson knows how to knit a thriller. Each time you think this taut yarn is about to unravel, that's when he pulls the wool over your eyes.