Chuck Wilson

While it can't have been easy to find action points for a drama about vocabulary drills, Atchison comes up with a steady stream of plot-propelling business, including Akeelah's flair for jump rope, a skill that serves her beautifully in a clinch moment.

While Driving Lessons' writer-director, Jeremy Brock, sticks to the all-too-familiar template of such tales, he's given Walters her best role since "Educating Rita." Hamming it up with the precision of a master, she makes this somewhat plodding film a pleasure, as does young Grint.

A mindless muddle.

The all-Polynesian cast, many of whom developed this material as part of a theater troupe called "The Naked Samoans," bring so much energy and glee to the telling that one can only smile and hope they all profit wildly from the American remake that's reportedly in the works.

To their credit, screenwriter Dianne Houston and director Liz Friedlander (both making their feature debuts) go relatively easy on the urban-life clichés and instead stick tight to dance class.

LaPaglia is a fine actor, but not even he can redeem such bathos.

First-time screenwriter James C. Strouse (in whose hometown the film was shot) provides so few clues to the source of Jim's malaise, or that of his entire sad-sack family, that the movie remains rudderless and not the least bit believable.

With the supremely gifted Rudd as his point man, Peretz is often ruthless in depicting Americans abroad as deluded cretins; by film’s end, however, he finds their optimism useful for re-firing the defeated hearts of his characters, even the hope-leery French ones.

This low-budget horror comedy arrives via a lively trailer and a witty print ad, yet the film itself never quite takes off.

A sappy love story wherein nary a gun or action sequence is seen after the first 10 minutes.

A spirited re-creation of the series that once ruled Saturday mornings.

The women are terrific -- they know a thing or two about modulating pathos -- and watching them is a pleasure, even if the lines they're speaking sound like those of a world-worried, first-time playwright.

Creepy enough at first, this relatively gore-free film gradually becomes a stifling talk-fest in which superb actors drone on for so long about the nature of belief that one longs for a juror to spew a little pea soup.

Actress Amy Smart (Crank) has a knack for bringing a spark to mediocre movies, which she does again in this amiably dull dance drama.

There are funny moments -- a cameo from Debbie Reynolds, an Evita sing-along -- but the film grows progressively more dispirited.

The film moves in fits and starts, and is way too long, but it may prove memorable, if only for the sweet, marvelously inventive performance of Kevin James.

Running Scared is decently acted and divertingly brutal, but it's also a giant step backward for its maker.

Yes, this is another faux rock documentary, but one so dramatically and visually textured that it reinvents that decidedly worn genre.

Most of the animated sequences, capably mixed with live action, leave a bad aftertaste, particularly when the ultimate fate of one beaten and battered human bystander after another is left callously unresolved. In other words, parents beware.

The movie is a funereally paced downer.

Director Chuck Russell ("The Mask") and screenwriter Thomas Rickman don't need new agents -- they need backup careers.

This crazily ambitious film is saddled with a musical score that's often jarringly jolly and a screenplay so busy jumping from platoon to platoon that no single story ever takes hold. Yet, all is not lost. The photography and period detailing are excellent, and Taub, who displays real feeling for the innocent bystanders of war, finds the occasional small, surprising moment.

Perry has great casting instincts, and in Elba and Union he's matched two gifted, equally gorgeous actors, both of whom seem ready to make sparks fly. If only their director would let them.

Scenically beautiful, rhythmically uneven comedy.

Mostly, Shafer and co-writer Gregory Hinton lack a strong-minded viewpoint, or a sense of humor, about a world in which the DJ has the power to unify, if only for a night, men of godlike beauty and the mortals who worship them.

Audiences will probably be miles ahead of the plot, but may not mind, since the cast bring a committed, lived-in quality to their performances.

Surely the only thing more excruciating than being trapped in a car with a bratty child is having to sit through a road-trip movie that features two of them.

Beautifully acted film remains deeply intelligent and always fascinating.