Connie Ogle

What sets it slightly apart is a willingness to deal with a potentially tricky subject -- race -- in the context of light-hearted fluff.

This noisy, formulaic film turns out to be immediately forgettable, except for the parts that are so ridiculous they leave you shaking your head in wonder hours later.

Comes off curiously flat.

Sweet, amusing little film.

Everything in Drumline engages, from its likable cast to its breathtaking finale. Only the most jaded viewers won't be cheering by the end.

For a low-brow, psycho-on-the-loose-in-paradise thriller, A Perfect Getaway is surprisingly entertaining.

A breath of fresh air in this musty spring movie season.

Shakespeare's rich language does not fit soundly inside every mouth.

The film's opening credits are terrific, and the first 10 or 15 minutes -- in which Ford and Arthur speedily load up on beer at the local pub -- are absorbing and funny. It's such a promising start that it's doubly deflating to realize that once they land on Zaphod's spaceship, the humor vaporizes.

Dear Frankie is a small movie with a big soul and no easy formula for the happiness of its big-hearted characters.

Wright's film is visually stimulating to be sure, but he never loses sight of the raw human emotions that make Anna Karenina a classic.

Turns out to be a lot less tiresome than it sounds, aided by a wonderfully appealing cast and a strong message.

Chéri never fulfills its emotional promise.

This is a film about depression, though, and it comes awfully close to trivializing its subject by suggesting that all Craig needed, really, was a cute girl to like him back.

Green Zone is just an excuse for director Paul Greengrass to haul out his jittery hand-held camera as Miller and Co. sprint through the streets and buildings of Baghdad in pursuit of one villain or another.

Doesn't feel quite so lengthy as its predecessor. And while it still falls short of becoming the classic fans so badly want it to be, the film is livelier and better overall than "The Sorcerer's Stone."

Feels more like a lecture you've already heard than a galvanizing call to action.

The only thing missing from this winsome, madcap throwback set in London on the eve of World War II is an actual Brit in the title role.

The film is weighted down by a dour sensibility at odds with the book's insouciant charm.

These Fitzgeralds are loud, selfish and often maddening, but they're a loving group, and you wouldn't mind spending more time with them.

Ends up as colorless as Reeves' first Superman suit.

You might not think it would be easy to make a dull film about love, war and a bisexual threesome, but Head in the Clouds manages this task efficiently.

And still 42 persists in entertaining you, even when you’re cringing, because the real story is so compelling.

It's almost impossible not to respond emotionally to this fascinating, sobering and all-too-brief exploration of the politicized religious right and its hopes, dreams and power.

Begin Again manages to be romantic and cynical about the music industry, which Carney touches on but never allows to take center stage.

Screenwriter Shawn Slovo -- whose white parents were anti-apartheid activists in South Africa -- ends his finely tuned screenplay on a note not of violence and anger but of forgiveness. It's a breathtaking coda that reminds us of that undeniable human beauty: the ability to survive, to fight for right -- and then move peacefully on.

Fans of period drama will find things to like about The Duchess; it's not as ludicrous as "The Other Boleyn Girl," for instance, and it's not overly long or ponderous.

The uneven Goldmember seems to take a big step toward the extremely juvenile, with more scatological and fewer sex jokes