Chris Kaltenbach

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

Anderson sees her subject as little more than a game-show contestant. One suspects the real Evelyn Ryan deserved far better.

If Kill Bill Vol. 1 was bloody exhilarating, Vol. 2 is bloody great. And, as a bonus, not nearly so bloody.

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

While Bresson's insistence on juxtaposing brute force with sublime grace isn't subtle, it is effective.

Looming large over all this is Jackson, who glowers and growls and acts the hero better than any actor out there.

Partially financed by the liberal Move On.org, speaks most eloquently when it lets Fox News do the talking.

Veggie Tales is one amusing salad.

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.

The whole cast is good. It's too bad all that good work isn't in service to a better, or certainly more original, script.

There's a ton of joy in The Legend of 1900 -- but it's laid on so thick that one ends up more numbed than stirred, overcome by one too many Hallmark moments.

The end result is more a lecture than a film; audiences may come away understanding what went on, but for most, the emotional connection will be lacking.

Caan is so good as a man who watches helplessly as everything he's worked for crumbles around him, that he steals the picture from both Wahlberg and Phoenix, the ostensible stars.

Garry Marshall, old pro that he is, couldn't be more endearing as the grandfather, struggling gamely to make things right.

The movie's already peaked, even before the opening credits.

Good intentions are no substitute for good filmmaking, and Spy Kids 3D is nothing more than a retread in flashier clothing.

The best thing about 13 Going on 30 is that an ever-game Jennifer Garner is cheerfully convincing as a 13-year-old in a 30-year-old body. The worst thing is the feeling we've seen this movie before, done better.

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

Soars on the strength of strong acting and a script that stubbornly refuses to go all sappy and preachy.

Madagascar doesn't do much, except make you laugh. All hail such a minimalist approach.

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 thrill ride not to be missed.

The film marks Braff as a talent to watch, blessed with the sort of natural, everyman appeal that audiences eat up.

It's mindless, which is rarely true of French cinema, dull, which is rarely true of Hong Kong films, and portentous, which shouldn't be true of any film about a man-eating dog.

How much adorable can one person take?

Baseball, Boston and Drew Barrymore. Certainly sounds like a winning combination.

A Dirty Shame is certainly dirty, and maybe it's even a shame. But this is the John Waters we've come to know and cherish, and that alone is cause to celebrate.

Unabashedly sentimental and just as unabashedly cliched.