Chris Kaltenbach

Analyze That is no surprise, and pleasant is about the most you can say for it.

De Niro and Stiller combine to bring on laughs you don't have to feel guilty about.

The Reader is ponderously self-important and smugly Socratic, brimming with unfinished sentences and pregnant pauses; if a single character would only say what he thinks, the movie would be over in 30 minutes

This depressing look at love isn't quite worth enduring.

True, John Ford and John Wayne did this stuff a lot better back in the day, but they're not around anymore. John Singleton is, and it's nice to see someone caring enough to keep the tradition alive.

Black and white has never looked more stark.

What it does have is the laughs.

The film's action doesn't disappoint; if anything, it ups the adrenaline ante considerably.

Blethyn's performance belongs in another movie, not this bipolar comedy-drama.

Imagine a Three Stooges short with a feel-good ending, and you get the idea.

Catwoman is a mess, there's really no other way to describe it... It doesn't work as high art, and it's too ponderous to be truly high camp. As a fashion shoot for the pin-up crowd, however, it's the cat's meow.

Scratch will make even the uninitiated believe in the joy and propulsive power of hip-hop.

Barrymore gives a performance that's nuanced, assured and captivating.

There's a wonderfully funny and relentlessly cute 45-minute cartoon within The Powerpuff Girls Movie; unfortunately, it's padded out with almost as much filler.

A chilling reminder of the precipice the world stands on nowadays, from a man who looked over the edge more than once.

Doing a sequel to "The Mask" without Jim Carrey sounds like a really bad idea. As Son of the Mask proves, it is.

Based on Palindromes, it's easy to see what Solondz is railing against but almost impossible to tell what he's railing for.

It's considerably flawed. It has a middle that's padded, a look that could use a few more light bulbs, a protagonist who never earns our sympathy, and an audio mix that leans much too heavily on the bass, often making it impossible to understand what's being said.

A movie of unforced nobility and quiet pleasures, Butterfly works on all sorts of levels.

It ain't art. But as a cinematic house of horrors, it more than fills the bill.

There's an awful lot of kinetic energy to Chopper, and the violence is portrayed as graphically as imaginable.

It's a thrill ride not to be missed.

Blues Brothers 2000 doesn't tell much of a story, but it makes for one smokin' concert. [06 Feb 1998]

Cinema has once again proven its ability to incorporate every other mass-media art form. Director Zack Snyder and his computer wizards have made the best example yet of the movie-as-comic-book.

Stars Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno give Jet Lag everything they've got. Too bad the movie doesn't better reward their effort.

Conventional wisdom has it that the best Star Trek movies are the even-numbered ones. Nemesis may keep that streak alive, but barely.

Even a full week after seeing it, I'm still influenced enough by the film's many enchantments not to be overly concerned with its flaws.

Blue Crush is such a blast to look at, it seems a shame to talk about its formulaic plot, cliched dialogue and absolute predictability.

Winchester '73 has a little bit of everything, including a central conflict straight out of the Old Testament, and Mann's highly visual direction -- dialogue is sparse, and the movie looks gorgeous, filmed largely on location in Arizona -- shows that John Ford and Howard Hawks weren't the only directors able to translate their love of the Old West and its mythical figures to film. [05 Jun 2003]

Fits squarely into the "exciting" category; it's a white-knuckler of the first order.

It's all done with such good heart, and Stiles is so perfectly appealing as one of cinema's most grounded Cinderellas.

Yes, the characters in Clerks II hardly qualify as role models, but they can be blisteringly funny in an in-your-face, to-heck-with-taste way.

Unlike Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," Lopez seems a little too comfortable in her new duds, which prevents the audience from rooting for her with passion, rather than just appreciation.

The pleasures of Ocean's Thirteen are so slight as to be eminently forgettable. Most of the "twists" in the plot are of the ho-hum variety; it's not that one sees them coming, but that they don't amount to much when they show up.

The real attraction is watching all these guys and gals on the train, so young, so dedicated to their music, so unconcerned about almost everything else.

The latest failed Hollywood attempt to make a movie from a video game.

A terrifically engrossing war film in which not a single shot is fired, a movie about shaping events rather than being shaped by them.

There's comfort in seeing actors we know doing what we've come to expect them to do. But more important, the film surrounds them with supporting characters who are less familiar to us, who act in ways we don't expect.

The result is a highly critical and impossible-to-dismiss examination of the administration's rush to war that is sure to move both sides of the political spectrum to apoplexy.

All the young talent in Hollywood is not enough to energize a movie that takes forever to get nowhere.

A low-level hoot.

Not everyone is going to appreciate the politics of Barbershop, but you've got to admire it for having a political view at all.

A misfire in almost every direction.

The Punisher punishes. That's what he does, and that's all this movie does.

If you expect anything more substantive from a movie - characters of more than one dimension, storylines that at the least play new riffs on old themes, plot developments that flow from the narrative - you'd best look elsewhere.

The Wild suffers from a breakneck pace that seems to exist only so that director Steve Williams can earn his nickname of "Spaz."

Two of the most insistently unlikable movie creations to afflict audiences in some time, a pair of self-obsessed anti-romanticists who spend some two decades doing stupid things at each other's behest. They also whine a lot.

What makes RV work are some genuinely funny bits (one of which is not an overlong sequence in which Bob has trouble emptying the R.V.'s toilet) that should ring especially true to any parent forced to cajole a recalcitrant child into having a good time.

The story is without an original thought, the characters little more than caricatures (unappealing ones, at that) and the filmmaking so uninspired that it's hard to imagine anyone embracing it with anything more than a shrug and a wonder why they didn't wait to catch it on TV.

A frequently hilarious exercise in one sex desperately trying to figure out the other.

A working-class drama that has its heart in the right place but undercuts itself by stacking the deck, letting its main character off too lightly and being overly impressed with its own profundity.

A film made by people with more heart than skill.

The sad truth is that the film squanders almost all of its inspiration in the first 20 minutes or so.

Well-paced, scathingly funny satire of the fashion industry and its eminently lampoonable pomposity.

A pastiche of sadistic horror-movie cliches with minor traces of wit but major overflows of perversity.

Rififi, with its stark visuals, dark humor and constrained performances, earned Dassin the Best Director nod at the Cannes Film Festival and a secure place in film history.

Forgive me for being underwhelmed.

Cheerful and unpretentious.

Instead of a sweeping epic, this adaptation of a novel by Elizabeth Bowen is much quieter, a work perhaps too understated and stereotypical for its own good.

Spending more time with Downey's character would have benefited this movie no end.

A bravura, resonant performance by Nicolas Cage, combined with some hard questions raised about American responsibility for the worldwide glut of firearms, make the film close to a must-see, if not a must-love.

It is, at once, among the most riveting and hard-to-watch documentaries of recent years.

All three actresses are appealing, but Fisher, proving her scene-stealing turn in Wedding Crashers was no fluke, shines brightest.

17 Again errs not only by covering such well-trod ground, but also by doing so through a main character - played by a game but ill-served Zac Efron - who's about as dense as they come.

Standard-bore action stuff, in which a macho stud superstar blows away lots of bad guys while struggling to make the world a better place.

Watching this movie, with Diane Keaton cast as the ne plus ultra of irritating, overbearing mothers, is roughly the equivalent of listening to fingernails on a chalkboard for nearly two hours.

This is a movie that earns its suspense and validates its emotions, especially its examination of the bond between mother and child.

How much adorable can one person take?

Misfires on nearly every possible level.

It's relentlessly dumb and relentlessly humorous, and those aren't the adverbs it was after.

Playing a perpetual victim like Victor (Walken) might be easy, but making audiences want to watch him for 97 minutes isn't.

Signs of fatigue are all over the film itself.

The movie is so determinedly lightweight that it floats above the fray, stopping only for the occasional mild chuckle.

The whole movie is too predictable, its conflicts either forced or simplistic.

A good film that, with a little extra care, could have been great.

It would be nice to say that Bruce is hilarious, rather than merely (and fitfully) funny; certainly, the premise suggests laughs more consistent and outlandish than are present here.

This movie doesn't play; it just lies there, waiting to be kicked around by anyone unfortunate enough to have shelled out good money to see it.

A derivative little tale with enough good intentions to recommend it, but not enough substance to embrace it.

Hannibal isn't art. But for filmgoers with a taste for the absurd and a tolerance for the blackest of black humor, it's one heck of a thrill ride.

It's a documentary about acknowledging genius, about just desserts, about artistic muses that refuse to give up. It's about great camaraderie and great music.

Nicholson is terrific here, in a role that demands he act, rather than just be Jack.

Thanks to a combination of fluid camerawork and careful pacing, the Belgian writer-directors have produced a compelling narrative that sounds, if not a cautionary note, a worried one.

With Diary of the Dead, Romero goes back to the beginning, only this time the amateurish look is calculated and the resulting film far less effective - if only because a handful of filmmakers have beaten him to the punch.

At least "White Chicks" had a point behind the humor.

The scenes between Dengler and Duane, between a force of nature and a force of reason, are the real heart of the film.

Sttrictly movie-of-the-week stuff. And not very good stuff, at that.

Misfires by constantly tossing out liberal feel-goodisms.

Its effects don't linger long enough to seriously detract from the raunchy good time had by all.

There's plenty to like about Adrenaline Drive, including the appealing, sympathetic performances of its two young stars and the tongue-in-cheek humor that pervades the film.

Vanya's journey to find his mom is not easy or picturesque or heartwarming. But it's also never without hope.

This is Mitchell's show, and his performance lives up to his triple billing as writer, director and star.

Proves that marionettes can be as foul-mouthed and profane as their cartoon counterparts, but not nearly as clever.

An insightful, clear-headed look at relations within a Chinese-American family.

There's a funny premise at the core of Are We Done Yet? Too bad the movie doesn't do much with it.

Steadily, stealthily, The Eye works its way into your psyche, playing with your mind and always keeping a surprise or two up its sleeve.

If John Witherspoon is among the funniest men in America, as many of his fellow comics say, why is he so painful to watch here?

If the movie were as funny as it is well-meaning, this would be one for the ages.

The best thing about Black Knight is when it finally says goodnight.

While it displays its share of quirky charm, off-kilter characters and outlandish situations, this is really the first film where you can feel the Coens straining to keep up with themselves.

The Wicker Man is too loony to be a drama, too earnest to be a comedy, too predictable to be a horror film.

Swimming is perceptive and, ultimately, embraceable. Like the adolescent it so lovingly depicts, this is a movie you want only the best for.

There's no character to root for in this movie, no potential triumphs or resounding failures, just the sense of people going through the motions because they can't bother to think of anything better to do. And that's not a lot to hang your moviegoing hat on.

A souped-up roadster of a film, a relentless action flick that looks great and moves with more grace and speed than seems possible.

What makes the film work better than its nearly unbearable cuteness suggests is the casting of Christopher Walken as the son; the movie has yet to be invented that Walken can't improve simply by showing up.

Has its heart in the right place, and could have been an insightful rumination on corporate shortsightedness and mid-life obsolescence. Instead, it's another one of those Hollywood films whose feel for the workingman's life seems to come exclusively from other movies.

Surprisingly funny, a deep-down-good-hearted take on that oldest of comedy conventions, the ill-prepared rube caught up in a situation that somehow never gets the best of him.

The beauty, vibrancy and complexity of Indian culture is on addictive display in Monsoon Wedding. If only there were more to the film.

It forces you to fill in the blanks, then refuses to judge whether you're right or wrong. It's almost like the audience writes its own script, and everybody appreciates his or her own work.

Heartstrings are pulled mercilessly in Dreamer.

For all Quek's insistence that she was seeking to ennoble women by helping them gain control over their sexuality, Lewis' film shows that all Quek really wanted was be famous.

Delivers an unexpected sweetness.

The heartbreak comes not from watching her fail, but from realizing how easy it would be for her to succeed. If only she knew better how to try.

The actors here are uniformly excellent, and the story has a definite lightweight charm.

The emotions seem genuine enough, even if Sandler is not a talented-enough actor to always pull them all off.

Dawn of the Dead may depict the end of the world as we know it, but rarely has watching doom proved such a kick.

A withering condemnation of a culture where greed is a virtue, a culture that you don't have to feel guilty for laughing at.

Laura's histrionics sometimes seem forced, and Hines has to struggle to be the heel the screenplay sometimes asks him to be.

It's a startling physical transformation, as Noland goes from flabby desk jockey to lean, mean fishing machine. But even more remarkable is the mental transformation Hanks effects.

In a cinematic landscape where truly original ideas are rarer than floating food, recklessness like this deserves to be appreciated. Not understood, but appreciated.

Too bad director Scott Hicks and screenwriter Carol Fuchs didn't look more closely at their source material, a 2001 German film called Mostly Martha. That film used the same basic premise but injected real conflict into the mix, in ways sexual, culinary, even ethnic. That film tried to do something, even while it was entertaining us.

There's a dollop of charm and a deluge of formula in Sleepover.

Moves along with great speed and verve, and it's got just enough of a sci-fi sheen to make things interesting, if not provocative. Philosophers and true believers may be disappointed, but for movie fans, I, Robot mostly delivers the goods.

Prime serves as yet another showcase for Streep; to prove how expertly she plays a Jewish mother with a Ph.D. in psychology, just imagine Barbra Streisand in the role -- you'd have a farce only a step above slapstick. With Streep, you get a smartly observant comedy that never overplays its hand.

Electric as Elektra, Jennifer Garner does a high-powered, blade-thrusting star turn as Marvel Comics' ninja-inspired superheroine, bringing such unbridled energy and sexuality to her performance, one barely notices the movie itself.

There's pleasure to be had in a film that suggests teen life can be hard without necessarily being tragic.

The result is a passionate, enthralling film that isn't afraid to take chances - even if it sometimes should be.

Unwisely bills itself as a comedy.

A hopeless pastiche of timeworn plotlines, hackneyed dialogue and stultifying direction; to call it amateurish is a slap in the face to amateurs everywhere.

The people are just a little too calculatedly quirky in Off the Map, an otherwise engaging comedy.

The movie finally comes to life when Liu turns up.

Movie lite, a clueless, formulaic paint-by-numbers comedy.

The movie includes a few good one-liners, but that's really all it is -- a forum for putdowns and sassy dialogues.

The most amazing fact about Supercross is that it took three people to write it. Two chimpanzees with a typewriter could have done just as good a job.

A feel-good us-against-them tale that panders mercilessly to its audience, yet displays a few moments of honest humor.

It's deliciously warped, deceptively smart and undeniably funny. Isn't that enough?

Especially discomfiting is the stream of kids in peril.

All the characters are writ in broad strokes, making it impossible to sympathize with, much less relate to, anyone.

There's a self-loathing at the center of Friends with Money that makes it a tad unpalatable, as well as a sameness, a dependence on cliche, that makes it seem trite.

For the most part, it's uninspired, not much to look at and laugh-free.

Must be among the most blatantly manipulative movies ever made. It's cold, calculated and treats its audience like its robotic central character.

Reaches the highest comic heights when the show itself starts.

Watching a Pokemon movie is like drowning in a sea of cute.

There's enough kinetic energy in Jumper to light a thousand houses. Unfortunately, there's no one home in any of them.

As shallow and manipulative a movie as any that come to mind.

This is a movie that falls short only because it insists on grabbing for so much.

Glitter does no one any favors.

Johnny English never builds any momentum, and Atkinson simply isn't a good enough actor to mine continued laughs from repetitive material.

Don't go expecting a good time to be had. But by all means, go to revel in a movie that, for about two-thirds of its length, is Mamet at the top of his game -- intelligent, tightly crafted, densely layered.

Doesn't really go anywhere or amount to anything - a fatal flaw in a time-travel movie designed not only to keep you guessing, but to build genuine suspense as well.

A listless, disjointed collegiate opposites-attract comedy.

It does offer that most pleasant and valuable of viewing experiences: A message movie in which story and character come first.

The film stays true to its characters and keeps the laughs coming in what may be the closest thing in spirit to the old Warner Bros. Looney Tunes to hit the screen in years. And when it comes to animation designed primarily for laughs, praise doesn't come any higher than that.

Wilson, who has never made the film in which he convincingly played sincere, turns out to be a wise choice to play John Grogan.

The weirdly exhilarating thing about Wicker Park is the reckless abandon with which it embraces the convenience of coincidence, and then the extreme measures it takes to reassure the audience that it's not a movie about coincidence at all.

Celebrates heroes without turning them into saints.

Akin to being force-fed sugary confections from a bottomless bowl. At first the idea seems just grand, but after a while, all you want to do is scream, "Enough!"

It's every bit as thrilling and engrossing as the best spy thriller or cop flick.

The biggest problem with Jersey Girl may not be exactly its fault; what is up there on the screen is cute and funny and heartfelt, even if it is unflinchingly formulaic.

The Saddest Music In the World may not be for all tastes, but maybe it should be.

The mystery is, how the filmmakers still managed to come up with a movie that will satisfy almost no one.

Has an unerring capacity for going soft whenever a hard edge is called for.

It's impossible not to be exhilarated by the energy and determination that infuses every frame.

A thoughtful, engaging film.

It's plenty thrilling, and it appeals to the flag-waving patriot in all of us.

When the film is not focused on Wilson, it's really not focused at all. This is a comedy ever holding itself in check, filled with plot threads and asides that seem as though they should be funny but almost always fall short of the mark.

Too bad it shortchanges the music and fails to provide much evidence for Wilson's appeal.

Silly stuff, made all the more regrettable by the apparent skill with which the movie was made everywhere but in the screenplay department. The sheer lunkheadedness of Sebastian Gutierrez's script is impossible to ignore.

Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are so good in Something's Gotta Give, it's a shame writer-director Nancy Meyers couldn't rein herself in a little more.

Wedding Crashers is unashamedly profane and, for its first two acts, very funny, a classic guilty pleasure that revels in its basest elements.

A non-stop cinematic funhouse impossible to resist.

There's no clear plot, no memorable villains, no real logic. But there sure is action.

Unless you think "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was the height of genius, there's little reason to sit though another version.

I'm Not Scared presents an interesting picture of youthful innocence challenged, but not a truthful one

Meet the Fockers? Avoid them would be a better suggestion.