Cody Clark

It's a gleefully unfettered gross-a-thon first --also second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth -- and a movie perhaps seventh.

This wildly imaginative thriller is a futuristic head trip you most definitely want to take.

Bird's movie neither panders to children nor sneers at them, and it beautifully, lucidly captures the giddy adventurousness of childhood.

What sells Shrek is ultimately the full-bodied personality of its characters.

High drama this ain't. And yet, anyone looking for a hearty banquet of gymnastic, kung-fu tomfoolery won't walk away hungry.

Given a decent script, they might make a fun summer movie. Given the script for Shanghai Noon, they've come up with a middling Old West oater that falls flat at least as often as it finds the funny bone.

Rises instantly above its genre merely by taking the time to develop its characters and scenario.

A bully good romp, and it thumbs its nose at the bloated blockbusters towering over it at the multiplexes by ending the moment it arrives at its raucous, richly deserved climax.

It's funny. Really funny.

It's Norton's movie, really, and he shines both as cocky Jack and as cerebral-palsied Brian.

"Trek"-heads will laugh hardest, but there are plenty of yuks for the uninitiated as well.

This joyous romp is no mere new groove, it's a live wire -- 110 volts of pure holiday cheer.

The story is a pleasant one despite its pointed righteousness.

To paraphrase the movie's too-knowing tag line: It's not very funny. But when the lights go out -- it's still not very funny.

Combining a seething physicality with enough weary nobility and tightly checked rage for a dozen wronged heroes, (Crowe) provides the movie's vital center of gravity without looming over his co-stars.

So packed with knowingly dreadful puns, wily sight gags, and self-referential cheek that it's impossible not to be charmed.

Almost nothing happens for most of the movie.

The best kind of summer blockbuster -- the kind that makes you immediately crave a sequel.

Moviegoers of any (or no) religious persuasion can share in the simple satisfaction of his tense, well-spun murder mystery.

The real revelation, however, is Keanu Reeves. His character is something of a caricature — a violent, white-trash wife-beater — but Reeves' portrayal is joltingly authentic.

The execution is crisp and the fundamentals are solid. Like its protagonist, Finding Forrester got game.

Even if the antic futility of attempting to get an entire shtetl to pull together in the face of genocide is your idea of a day at the races, don't laugh too hard -- the out-of-nowhere ending will make you choke on every chuckle.

A teenage movie that trusts its audience -- it sounds crazy, but it's actually quite beautiful.

As though fatalistically compelled, all three leads self-destruct: Li is as flat, colorless, and stiff as a panel of Sheetrock, Karyo plays his every syllable in overdrive, and Fonda seems trapped in the midst of a failed screen test for Pretty Woman II.

If you're desperate for a James Bond fix, skip the movie and blow your 007 bucks on a copy of the soundtrack.

Without full-bodied characters to play, Smith and Damon are left to get by on their native charm -- something both have in considerable quantity, thankfully.

It's a larky hoot in its best moments, and it has a refreshingly unforced sense of fun that buoys the scenes that are straight out of Lame Movie Laffs 101.

If Parker had aimed more at capturing the author's unique voice, and worried less about getting the details right, his movie might have been extraordinary as well.